A low rumble in my stomach broke into my daydream as a waft of spices and seafood drifted enticingly by me. I felt as though I hadn’t eaten in days. I looked back through the window and spotted the waitress, resting casually near what appeared to be the kitchen door. She had been immersed in a book but as though she had a sixth sense, she caught my gaze within seconds of it falling on her. She smiled knowingly and approached my table.
“Hungry?”
“Oh, yes! Do you have a menu?”
“Not here. But I’ll tell you what’s being made fresh today.”
“Oh heaven.” I thought to myself and smiled back at her, enthusiastically awaiting her description of dinner.

The story starts out as simple as that. The two writers, who are switching places every week, went from there. We learn about Yasmina, Prof. Youssef's former student and the waitress at Sea Breeze, and Yazan, the nonchalant chef, all to the backdrop of Tartous' marvelous sea side, and Abu Fares‘ and Mariyah's exquisite writing.

When Yasmina was introducing herself my eyes were distracted by the other woman. With delicate fingers, she picked a small hot fish by the tail, dipped it slightly in a bowl of sauce, brought it close to her lips, blew on it to cool it down then swallowed it all, head, bones and tail like a true gourmet. She closed her eyes and swam in her own pool of ecstasy. Then… then with her other hand, she pulled at a lock of hair which went astray in front of her face and shepherded it to join the others behind her ear. It was precisely the way she pulled at her hair that made me utterly defenseless.

We are at Part 16 at the moment, but be sure to catch it from the beginning.

The campaign has not officially begun yet, and all the responses were to the mere declaration of such campaign. It was first published on Mohammed's blog with the following objectives:

While a number of bloggers have stated their support for the campaign and their intention to share their ideas about the issue when the campaign starts next week, the initiative has also prompted a series of harsh responses from other bloggers.

Abu Fares responded quickly to what he called the “latest bigoted outcry” by saying “Live and Let Live“:

What are they to do with all these non-conformists? Leave it to these religious tartuffes and they are likely to replace us with a bunch of brainwashed zealots, ardent celibates, devout cretins, faithful crusaders, pious robots and godly agitators who will teach those who are left of us how to live. What to do and what not to say. How to look down and how not to laugh. Why we die and why we should lead austere lives all the way to the grave.

Thanks but no thanks. The fanatics, the fomenters, the hypocrites, the bigots, the knaves gave me no choice but to defend a Syria of multiplicity and to protect my own freedom of choice.

Mr. Blonde in his blog also criticized the language of the statement and the declared objectives of the campaign:

On the other side, Jabs from Arabian Camel gives his own views on why this is a “necessary debate”:

Religion regulates our lives, it reminds us of what is right and what is wrong and what is healthy in a society and what will corrupt society therefore religion maintains the integrity of a society. In most religions, especially in Islam, the society as a whole is always more important than the individual but that does not take away the rights of the individual. When an individual is seen to be practicing something that will lead to a corruption of society they are punished, and the punishment varies today from one Islamic country to another, from being fined to capital punishment as is the case in Iran. However in Islam and the Islamic law, the Sharia’ah, a person accusing someone of homosexuality (or any other crime punishable under Sharia’ah) is not something easy to go on about. In order for a person to be accused of homosexuality there needs to be four witnesses that can bear witness that the person accused has committed sodomy, in the case that one fails to be a legitimate witness all four witnesses are punished.

And finally, Dubai Jazz, mentions a study about a pair of “gay” penguins, and provides us with his own analysis, in a rather witty way:

Roy and Silo are gay bastards. They are having a same-sex affair without our consent. We should probably seek to either destroy them or straighten up their behaviour. I am not sure how do we do that though? as homo-sapiens we are capable of inflicting our desires on our fellow humans. But it's ironic, isn't it? I mean the leaders of Moral Legions would always cite animals as the ultimate proof of the deviatory essence of homosexuality, they'd say “if it's natural, then why animals don't do it?”. I am not sure how would they react to findings of such study as above, they'd probably write it off as a Zionist/Crusaders conspiracy, or they'd call it a test from the higher powers to see whose faith would wither at the sight of fornicating birds, and whose faith will hold. Or maybe they'd brand it as optical illusion.

We will keep you updated as the campaign kicks off next week, stay tuned!

Ruba is a half-Syrian half-Palestnian blogger based in Syria. Her father is a respected academic from Gaza. In a very emotional and personal post, she shares with us some of her memories from her visits to the Strip:

Next morning, we went back home, to find shrapnel, bullets, hand grenades… the house was a mess, the windows were shattered, everything inside was burnt. Neighbors gathered around dad, they were screaming details of what had happened the night before… they told him a helicopter flew over at night, several masked soldiers went down on hanging ladders and worked their machine guns, leaving holes in the wall… they threw hand grenades inside, creating havoc and panic around the neighborhood.

My dad, being a freedom fighter who feared God only, wanted to send a message that said: I am not afraid (apparently he was used to this kind of stuff).

He brought in new furniture, put up new windows, and once the house was kind of livable, my brother and I were kept inside as a sign of defiance. We were locked up inside the only room that didn’t breathe smoke, guarded by my many male cousins for a month.

While Rime Allaf shares with us her way of trying to get through the day knowing that somewhere in Gaza someone is being killed at every other moment:

Since Israel began its latest, most barbaric and savage attack yet, since the bombs started falling on the prisoners of Gaza and slaughtering children in the hundreds, in the most minimal gesture of solidarity I can demonstrate, I have been wearing my Palestinian scarf on top of my coat, and I have made my own Gaza badge to wear on television interviews. (More on that soon.) Most English-language media, nearly indistinguishable from Israel, would call this defiance.

And then she calls for the real change:

I herewith call:

For Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to become head of the Arab League;

For Arab leaders and their supporting cliques to be exiled in Gaza after Palestinians get back their homeland;

For the Quartet (all officials, ministers and presidents included) to spend an eternity in some refugee camp kissing Tony Blair while Israel exercises its right to defend itself;

For Barack Obama to imagine playing golf in Jabaliya as his children attend an UNWRA school while Israel “retaliates”; and

For all Israeli war criminals to skip The Hague tribunal and to go straight to hell.

The IDF launched on Saturday, December 27, 2008, Operation Cast Lead, in response to local Qassam rockets being fired from Gaza. An intensive bombing of the Gaza strip that resulted (in its first 12 hours) in 230 dead and more than 700 wounded.

The news about Egypt's blessings for the campaign and its reported disinformation of Hamas helped make the words on the blogs even more bitter.

Qunfuz relays his feelings about what's happening on the eastern Mediterranean:

In other circumstances it might seem strange that a population on the Mediterranean coast is being besieged and starved without a murmur from the rest of the world. But this is Gaza, Palestine, and the victims suffer alone. Reports say Mubarak had given his assent to a ‘limited blow’ before today’s blood; he’s been keeping the Egyptian border with Gaza sealed, keeping the ugly oppressed in their cage very effectively since they briefly broke out last January. Tony Blair – who should be in prison but is instead poncing about in Ramallah and Jerusalem ­– has been winking to Israeli journalists about necessary change in Gaza. No response to today’s crime is likely in Lebanon, or Jordan, or Egypt. The peoples of Europe and America are, by and large, silent.

Jabs from Arabian Camel puts things into context and summarizes the last few months that lead to what happened yesterday:

I am sure everyone has heard about the 225 people that have been massacred in the latest Zionist aggression on the Palestinian people. This is just unbelievable, and the anger cannot be described, the anger not from what the Zionists have done, but from the silence of the Arab and Islamic nations towards this massacre and from those betraying governments, especially that of Egypt whose president (the fascist dictator) sold an entire nation, their cause and their future in order to keep his damn seat under his fat butt.

Anger from the blogosphere is being equally directed at the collective Arab decision makers. At their incompetence and utter inaction. Kinan Jarjous from Jar of Juice says:

Earlier they were listing every single leader I have heard of condemning the assault on Gaza that left 225 dead (as of this writing), and an urgent Arab Summit is to be called.

Till when is condemnation a sufficient “action”?

The latest campaign comes a few weeks before another campaign, that of the Parliamentary elections of Israel. In 1996's elections there was the Grapes of Wrath, in 2001, there was the Second Intifada. Could it be that these lives are just another campaigning effort for Israeli politicians. The irony of it all did not escape Sasa's post:

140 DEAD, 200 injured and Tzipi Livni surges ahead in the polls.

More coverage:
Maysaloon posts photos from Gaza, titled: Gaza Massacre.
Dubai Jazz write about safety, and the utter lack of hope.

The casus belli came in the form of a post, by Syrian blogger Ahmad Edilbi, that called for professional hackers to destroy Syrian blogs he deems are “immoral” [Ar]:

The post itself caused outrage, and many of the commenters were highly opposed to such means.
The incident, until yesterday, was mostly unknown in the English part of the blogosphere - as language is one of the many lines of divide in the Syrian blogosphere.

The real debate exploded when Razan Ghazzawi quoted the post, and used it in a comparison between Syrian Expatriate, and Local bloggers [Ar]:

The post was picked up by a number of bloggers, and each discussed the incident from a different perspective.

Dania, of My Chaos, discussed what she feels as a religious fever sweeping the society, and in turn, the blogpshere:

I don’t mind it, after all it is freedom of expression, but some of them are sending messages of not respecting the “other” freedom of expression, and more dangerously to attacking other's freedom of expression. Can any one help me out in here to figure this thing out? Is our society heading toward the religious mentality to hypnotize itself out of a miserable reality? Is it systematic? Chaotic? A normal result of giving the freedom of religious organization to move after decades of firm controlling? is it a type of defense system against the global media hostility against Islam?What is it?!

Abu Fares, expressed his own observations on the state of the Syrian blogosphere:

The Syrian blogging movement had started as a secular/liberal outcry in the face of political totalitarianism. The early writings addressed individual freedom and liberty, attacked the unilateral decision making process of the political establishment in Syria and advanced pluralism. Generally speaking, they were mostly written in English. The recent trend, mostly expressed in Arabic, is best characterized as a sweeping current of religious zealotry. These newcomers may or may not openly oppose the political establishment but they share the common vision/dream of Islamic Revival to right what is presently wrong in this country and the rest of the world.

His post attracted a large debate, and around 37 comments, so far.

The debate was further expanded by different perspectives on the matter shared by Dubai Jazz, Abu Kareem, and Ayman Haykal [Ar].

The heated exchange clearly highlights some of the most pressing, and controversial issues that divide the Syrian society. The internet and the implications of such open mediums like blogs, the definitions of personal freedoms, and the concepts of Law and State, between the different ideological currents roughly representing a Secular and Religious outlook for the future.

The exchange also highlights how divided the Syrian blogosphere is, and how isolated each group is. This debate was almost exclusive to the bloggers who are associated with the English-language Syrian blogosphere (except for some comments on Ayman’s post [Ar]), just like the debate that took place around the first post [Ar], was almost exclusive to the Arabic-language bloggers.

While the bloggers may not represent a true quantitative image of the dynamics of the Syrian society, they do represent many of the colors and currents that are flowing, and clashing in that society.

Mariyah, a Syrian blogger from Damascus, has been playing with the hearts of her readers with the most delicate series of posts about the story of Ghassan and Alexandra.

It all starts on one cold evening in the winter of 1955 in Stuttgart, Germany:

There was something to be said for poise. As the other women became increasingly loud, a petite, fair skinned woman sat quietly watching and smiling. She was clearly enjoying the entertainment but seemed shy and reserved – too much so to become involved in the conversation. Her large, blue eyes glistened with intelligence and her diminutive features gave her a look of a porcelain doll. Her auburn hair glistened red as the light from the fireplace threw an amber glow around her. Ghassan observed that she was well dressed but not ostentatious. When she did speak, her voice was quiet - he couldn’t hear it from his table. Ghassan found, as the evening wore on, that he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

We are never explicitly told, but we do sense that Ghassan and Alexandra are actually, Mariyah's father and mother, which makes the story all the more compelling.

“Guten tag. Can I help you sir?” she cooed from beside him. “Something for the pretty lady?”

Ghassan could not help but look surprised. Had his facial expressions reflected his thoughts of Alexandra to the extent an old woman, a stranger, could recognize? He had intended to buy flowers but only as a way to further his study of this woman whom he now believed far wiser than he could have imagined.

“Yes, yes of course. What do you suggest?” Ghassan attempted to speak as smoothly as he could muster.

“Red, dear, accented with a touch of purple. And, of course, blue to highlight her eyes.” The woman replied easily.

Ghassan was flabbergasted. “How? How did you know?”

Mariyah's beautiful writing, along with her most timely story breaks has captured the imagination of the readers, leaving them asking for more after each part.

She even decided to better set the mood with some music from those rosy days of the Ghassan and Alexandra's winter of 1955.

You can find all the published parts here. We are now at Part 5, and waiting, patiently, for part 6!

This week's pick comes from the Western Sahara blog, writing about the new Sahrawi satellite TV station, R.A.S.D. TV (Democratic Sahrawi Arab Republic Television):

لا أخفيكم سرا كم انتظرت شخصيا كما الكثيرين بالمناطق المحتلة خروج هذا المولود الجديد الى النور بعد طول انتظار، نعم أخيرا لنا تلفزاتنا الفضائية

I have to tell you how much I've personally waited, like many others in the occupied areas, for this newborn baby to see light. And after a long wait, yes, we now have our own satellite television station.

The blogger says that the most important mission for the station should be to advance the Sahrawi case among other Arab countries:

لعل أهم دور لها آن تعرف بالقضية الوطنية لأخوتنا العرب في ظل صمت الجامعة العربية والذي نتمنى أن تتمكن القناة من كسر جدار الصمت هذا وان تجعل منها منتدى للنقاش البناء وللتفاعل مع الأشقاء العرب ، وهو اكبر تحدي للتلفزة نظرا لامتناع المسؤوليين عن الأقمار الصناعية العربية عن إعطاء تردد لها.

The most important role [for the station] is to shed light on our national cause to our Arab brothers. As the Arab League has remained silent over the issue, we hope the station will be able to break this silence barrier and to be a forum for constructive and interactive discussion with our Arab brothers, which will be the biggest challenge facing the channel, considering that the officials at the Arab TV Satellites have refused to host the channel on their frequencies.

He adds:

وأخيرا نتمنى أن تميط القناة اللثام عن واقع المناطق المحتلة من خلال بث أشرطة متلفزة تظهر فيها الصحراء الغربية من الداخل وان تؤرخ هذه الحقبة والمنعطف الهام في مسيرة قضيتنا الوطنية العادلة،

And finally, we hope the channel will also uncover the realities in the occupied areas by airing footage showing the Sahara from the inside, and to document this era and this important juncture in the history of our just national cause.

The Syrian bloggers were as divided as their counterparts in Lebanon about who is to blame for this latest crisis, and what must be done to avoid such events in the future.

We start with Ayman's post titled “Rai” or “Opinion” [Ar]:

لقد آلمني كثيراً أن يستعمل حزب الله سلاحه في صراع سياسي داخلي، وأن أرى صور المسلحين الملثمين في شوارع بيروت من جديد. لكني لا أستطيع أن أخفي شماتتي لانكسار شوكة جماعة 14 آذار.
[…]
إن بلداً كلبنان يستحق أكثر من أن يكون دمية بيد الخارج، ويستحق حكاماً أفضل من مجرمي الحرب الذين على رأس السلطة الآن.

It was truly painful to me to see Hizbulla using its arms in an internal political conflict, and to see pictures of masked gunmen in the streets of Beirut again. But I can't hide my joy for having them broken the thorn of the forces of March 14.
[…]
A country like Lebanon deserves a lot more than to be just a puppet for foreign powers, and it deserves better leaders than the war criminals who are in power now.

This is how Sasa started his coverage of the events:

There's not much I can add. It's a mess, and as usual, it's a mess of Lebanon's creating.
Hizbollah is to blame for starting this civil violence. March 14 is to blame for letting this political crisis fester for 18 months.

Wassim of Maysaloon, writes about what he perceives as the “Liberation of Beirut“:

After so much talk, so much posturing and so much thuggery in the end it took only 24 hours for Beirut to be liberated. Let me come out clean from the start, those men who flushed out the Future movement and surrounded Jumblatt are clean men, strong men and, I feel, the most honourable men in the region.

While Abu Kareem of the Levantine Dreamhouse, makes his case against Hizbulla's military action, and says “Hizb Should Disband its Militia“:

I have little sympathy for most of the March 14 politicians but my anger today is directed squarely at Hizbullah and Nasrallah. Many of us, because Hizbullah managed to deliver a black eye to the Israeli army in the summer of 2006, seem to be willing to overlook their transgressions or question their political motives. But I cannot escape the fact that, no matter how you slice it, the presence of an independent militia, armed to the teeth, that is accountable to no one is an unsustainable and destabilizing situation in a sovereign state. The repeated claims, that the arms are only for protection against Israel, ring hollow, especially in the last twenty four hours with Nasrallah’s bombastic threats of civil war if he does not get his way.

Over at Joshua Landis‘ Syria Comment, he writes on Rex Brynen's (of McGill University) argument that Hizbullah has blundered, saying:

He is correct that the Shiite move on Sunni West Beirut has exacerbated sectarian anxieties and fears - not only Sunni fears, but Christian fears as well. Lebanon's other sects now realize how little stands between them and Hizbullah's militia.
Second, Sunnis such as Salim al-Hoss and Najib Mikati who would be expected to lead Lebanon in a compromise and who have showed themselves in the past to be willing to work with Syria even at the most trying of times, have taken an anti-Hizbullah line.

Also at Syria Comment, Qifa Nabki, presents a comprehensive analysis of what happened in Lebanon in the last few years, and how that culminated in last weeks crisis:

It is tempting to regard the political stalemate that has gripped Lebanon for the past seventeen months – with all of its futile spats and squabbles, accusations and recriminations – as yet another example of the mundane and self-destructive charade of Lebanese democracy. The level of discourse among the political elite has fallen so low that it is often scarcely distinguishable from the sloganeering of propagandists and the taunts of schoolyard bullies.

And last but not least, Razan reports on one largely forgotten victim in this conflict, Syrian workers in Lebanon:

This is something that will not be mentioned in the media of March 14 or in the media of the opposition because both could care less about the plight of Syrian workers in Lebanon. Today, Hariri militia men in the North stopped a bus carrying Syrian workers and shot at them.