War Traps New Yorkers

BEIRUT — And here’s another story, this time for the _New York Post_ on trapped New Yorkers in Beirut.

BEIRUT – Zeina Sayegh escaped the Lebanese civil war in 1975 when she was 2 years old. Now she’s caught in a new war on her first visit back to her parents’ homeland since 2000.
The 32-year-old Manhattan resident, who is CEO of Fauchon, a French gourmet-food company, and her mother and aunt have been trapped in the mountains above Beirut since Wednesday, when Israel began its ferocious attacks.
“We arrived the day before all this happened,” she said. “Since we’ve been here, I’ve been preoccupied with getting us out.”

There is a real sense of panic here among people. The foreigners and young people who have never experienced war are freaked out. And the Lebanese who lived through the civil war and remember it well are freaked out. I seem to be the only one walking around, noting the closed stores and subdued traffic and thinking, “hm, compared to Baghdad, this isn’t so bad.”
I think I was in Iraq too long.
The Israelis have been holding their fire (relatively speaking) today but there’s a rumor going round that once the foreign nationals are evacuated, they will really open up. That may be true, but we’ll see. I still think we’re going to see a ground invasion, but I think it will be limited to the southern part of the country.