"The Grass Trampled Beneath Their Feet"

We asked Faysal Itani, who described Beirut for us last week, where the Lebanese see themselves in the David and Goliath myth.

I would go with ‘neither’. We are indeed the grass trampled beneath their feet as they fight it out. But somehow I feel that absolves us Lebanese of too much responsibility. It is at least partly our fault as Lebanese for having let it come to this. For our weakness, our divisions, our lack of political wisdom and sense of statehood. It’s a difficult lesson to learn, but we must learn something from all this.

Faysal Itani, The Thinking Lebanese, in an email to Open Source, 7/27/06

You can follow another discussion of the David and Goliath characters on Faysal’s blog, where he wonders whether Lebanese are David, Goliath or Pebbles?. You can read a harrowing account of his evacuation here.