They are after the water of the Litani river, folks.
And I only asked the question because my Sunday Globe brought me this:
"Building boom transforms downtown Beirut; Financial woes in region aiding Lebanon growth" by Zeina Karam, Associated Press | February 7, 2010
BEIRUT - Blocks of historic Ottoman-era buildings, once pocked by bullet holes, have been majestically restored, and new high-rise apartment towers with mirrored facades front the glittering Mediterranean, signs of an unprecedented real estate boom that is transforming Lebanon’s capital.
Beirut’s building craze, despite chronic political turmoil in recent years, has astonished even the experts, turning Lebanon into an investment haven at a time when other regions - including the oil-rich Persian Gulf - are hemorrhaging cash. Even the seemingly unstoppable city-state of Dubai has hit the brakes after a massive debt crunch there rattled world financial markets.
Related: Blooming in Dubai
Must not be that bad.
“The market is continuing to really stun a lot of people and to attract some new players,’’ said Raja Makarem, founder of Ramco, a leading real estate company. He added that Lebanon has seen a 30 percent increase in property value for each of the past four years.
Lebanon has seen a window of relative peace since the devastating Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006 and deadly gunbattles two years later between Hezbollah and its political rivals in the streets of Beirut.
FLASHBACK:
Yeah, that was the way Israel left it.
Since then, political wrangling has continued, but Lebanon’s many factions have managed to keep their differences from exploding into violence.
Yeah, despite the various Israeli assassinations, car bombs, and terrorism.
Moreover, the financial meltdown that hit Dubai and elsewhere may have helped Lebanon. While real estate buyers in Dubai were mostly investors and speculators depending on bank loans, the demand in Beirut is mainly from consumers buying with cash, Makarem and others said.
Real estate isn’t the only sector booming: Tourists have rediscovered the coastal nation with its beaches, scenic mountains, and freewheeling lifestyle. Earlier this month, officials announced that Lebanon attracted a record 1.8 million foreign visitors in 2009, earning an estimated $7 billion, beating the previous record of 1.4 million tourists in 1974 - just before the 1975-1990 civil war broke out.
Yup, TIME for ISRAEL to FLATTEN THEM AGAIN!
For many, especially those who have not visited Beirut in a while, the transformation from the real estate frenzy is striking.
Blocks of elegant buildings with apartments selling at prices ranging between $5,000 and $8,000 per square meter have arisen downtown.
Some are restorations of buildings dating back to the era of 19th Century Ottoman rule, others are brand new ones on plots where rubble had long been bulldozed away. High-rises also now stand on land reclaimed from the sea.
“It’s the new Beirut. It looks nice and modern, but the problem is you have to be rich to enjoy it,’’ said Iman Haidar, a 42-year-old mother of two walking recently through Beirut Souks downtown - a 1,076,400 square foot outdoor shopping mall.
Seems like that is the situation EVERYWHERE in EVERY COUNTRY on the PLANET!
The $300 million mall was built by Solidere, Lebanon’s largest construction and development firm, on the site of a historic souk, or market. But with its high-end retail outlets, it is nothing like the bustling souks that existed there before the civil war, where people from all over the country came to buy everything from vegetables and clothes to jewelry.
I'll bet Lebanese miss those days.
--more--"
Memory Hole:
This goes back many, many years to the mid-1980s; however, it is still relevant. I would like to preface the story by telling you I had just gotten out of school and was looking for work. Took a job cooking in a restaurant, and the chef at the place was a Lebanese guy. I don't know what happened to him, and I was gone in about a year, but I'll never forget one day working with him.
One time during the work day, I was singing Jesus Christ Superstar or something and he started to ask me about it. He asked me if I believed Jesus was the son of God and I said, "Yeah, don't you?" Well, he was a Muslim and he said "No" a little indignantly. He said he believed he was a prophet but not the son of God. I didn't know a thing back in those days, but he had talked about his family before and how he got to America. His family lived outside of Beirut, but when the civil war started he went to Germany and married an American soldier.
One day, I believe it was the 1988 elections, he was talking about how he wanted Bush (in Massachusetts, a Dukakis state, right?). Turned out the whole reason was over Israel, and the reason being the U.S. embassy location. Bush I wanted to leave it in Tel Aviv and Dukakis wanted to move it to Jerusalem, and I said something like, "So, what does it matter?"
He then began to mention Palestine and asking why the Palestinians should pay for something the Germans did, all that happened in Europe, etc. Now here is where the Zionist brainwashing curriculum comes in: I remember thinking at the time, "Wow, he really hates the Jews. They really are persecuted." Oh, HOW LITTLE I KNEW!! Oh, how the Zionist brainwashing works!!!
So I said something like, "Yeah, but the Jews didn't do anything to anybody," and he started to get animated, talking about their invasion of Lebanon (and he was a Sunni, too, readers, not a Shiite). He might have even mentioned Zionists but, I really didn't have any concept of that at the time.
And yet, I lived on for years believing the holohoax lies, the lies about poor Israel, the lies about poor, set upon Jews when the Zionist monsters are the worst of all!!! Just thinking back to 2006 and Lebanon, when I was aware of the truth (finally!!), I can COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND his exasperation at me!!!
Reflecting on that memory, readers, caused me to look further at my earlier education. One blogger noted somewhere that the Diaries of Anne Frank are required reading for junior-high students in America, with follow-up holocaust courses in high-school. There are always memorials, etc, for that particular event -- to the exclusion of ongoing, current holocausts or other omitted and less focused on slaughters of the past (Native Americans?). I visited the holocaust museum in 1995 so that all had to be true, didn't it? So what if I thought the rail car was kind of small to put to death so many people; that thought soon evaporated.
What is really disturbing is the education I received in college. No where were we told that the Jews barged into Palestine and all the issues resulting from such. Zionism was a quick and passing reference in all the texts they gave me. In fact, looking back on my college years are somewhat humbling because I was a full lefty who believed all the bullshit!
I was even one up until 2003, believing the 9/11 cover-story (the lies of Iraq finally laid the truth bare to me) and all the other MSM bullshit.
Never again.
