i'm michael proponents i teach middle eastern history at the university of california san diego i recently sat down and had a long chat with anthony shadid and patient is a pulitzer prize winning middle east correspondent for the washington post and he was shortlisted for a pulitzer prize connected with its coverage of the two thousand and six summer war in beirut he spends most of his time in lebanon and we spoke about his experiences there his his impressions  reflections on the war over the summer of two thousand and six and sent in lebanon we talked for quite a long time and covered many areas of middle eastern politics and history and the united states role in the region looters how can you how can you get what you write into the newspaper in the end and your cell phones of course work but not always we also have satellite phones and this is kind of a day to day making the the journalism work that often river present sixty seventy percent of the actual effort involved is just trying to cover the story itself that was you know the israeli army was very insistent on not letting us cover the story that the way it should have been covered and i think that just getting a place i've been to jail which you know even today is still pretty much devastated it's almost destroyed in a way was was not impossible we made it but we made it you know one day out of out of how many you know more than four or five weeks  journalists and and the coverage or so i mean the sort of infrastructure that was destroyed it was was it was clearly destroyed in order to limit that sort of movement and i mean and make it part impossible  to to cover you would you would say i mean how many people how many journalists were down there how many how many of your your colleagues you know are quite a few journalists it's tough to say put numbers on it because there are there are television journalists in another hotel than there are many print journalist d you know several times a day and there was one instance i remember that that stands out when we were on the phone with i d f of israel and israeli military telling them that we were going out to a village there was a convoy of journalists going to this village and you know we're in contact with them every ten fifteen minutes they knew where we were that was he knew who we were we drove along a road that was in full view of the israeli military and this is a border road and it was very exposed in a way that's the village then about an hour of work you know we can stay that much longer and then on our way back we one of the you know journalism is criticized often i think very legitimately criticized i think that you know the profession has risen really failed and in a lot of very substantial ways but that that notion of bearing witness that notion of being there when you know for instance civilians are killed and the war in iraq or the lebanese civilians are killed and the israeli attacks that happened last summer i think it's one of the things that the journalism can do well and it has to do as part of its mission doesn't always do it it doesn't write for for the washington post for an american newspaper that the government the american government would have had us believe that all the journalists and all the american citizens private citizens whatever in lebanon were under threat more from the from the forces of hezbollah that are that are that are in those communities where they may provide you know services and support within this community then then the bombardment of the israeli military did you did you find that to be the case i mean did you ever feel that you were you were threatened by hezbollah forces and i wonder if you could say as a sort of a corollary to that i wonder if you could say something about the social function that all of filled with in those communities and there's a great great point to make about the threat that you know that people face in lebanon last summer and it struck me as a or as a reporter in these in the villages in southern lebanon doing the work how different was satan than covering the war in iraq for instance when dealing with such a different landscapes a different environment southern lebanon you know as well and we were there they were very day that they had informers in every village that they were keeping an eye on things there was no questioning that we were there but there was never a threat directed toward us in any way the town is kind of in some ways the natural border of southern lebanon and hezbollah but the fighters they were resupplying their lines basically across the river it is a kind of a clandestine operation they were doing trying to do it very quickly and what haphazard they they knew we were there they know we were going to play in any kind of war the world a journalist wanted to play in a war and i was always struck by that there was obviously that self interest in doing what they did you know we also had an interest in watching what we did and i thought it was it was a nice convergence and allowed us to do a story that would have  otherwise that i thought was important and i think that goes to what what the role of in some ways we're having a little bit of a tangent here but the role that hezbollah does play in the south and we're going to return to a little more personal direction i more thing like that i'm not sure i want to live in a state that's that's controlled by hezbollah but you can't deny the organic role they play in that landscape in terms of social services in terms of welfare of the people in terms of the connection they see themselves as having to the inhabitants of the region that they're that they're working in it is a goes to the day to day livelihood of these people in the world it has brought place in bettering that situation that's why i think it's so frustrating for a journalist sometimes when you deal with the american context the american simply label it as a quote unquote terrorist organization when you're the it's it's kind of a cliche you know the politics are local but it's it always strikes me as a way to understand islamic movements in the middle east you know that the politics are incredibly local and when you look at the muslim brotherhood for instance in egypt or hamas and in palestine we're very you know in some ways inspire some spectacular you know intensely and unintentionally you know the civil war forced the lebanese government withdrawn some respects but eventually unintentionally all of these governors abandon the south for you know thirty years now and is well into that back and without it it would have been an even more miserable landscape i mean it's already a poor lens here for those hardships but it isn't much worse without his blood there in terms of the hospitals in terms of payments and the social services and i think also the sense and i don't want to take this too far but in the  notion of defending the community of defending the land of defending the people who live there so that means to to to to characterize the israeli and to a certain extent the american approach policy in lebanon specifically where there's a kind of a in an argument that his bullet is not a deeply rooted organization but rather some sort of foreign implant that can somehow be b by war hezbollah but it's was one of those memories that they that that still so vivid to me sitting in the washington post bureau in beirut i think was the second or third day of the war and kind of these are rice said this war is going to end with the destruction of hezbollah the dismantling it has or some notion along that you know some something along those lines i'll never forget almost rolling my eyes because i said if this is their their their will their understanding their lack of understanding runs this deep in we're in for a very long war because you simply don't remove hezbollah from from the lebanese landscape it's a  integral a very organic part of that landscape and one is going to remain for it lisa generation the israelis and to a lesser extent the americans actually thought that they were going to be able to somehow kerry's boat out of run you know lisa one hundred seventy eight when they first invaded the country they've dealt with his boss and screeching almost after the after these really invasion itself and how we're still how they would still remain what is this notion that that you could turn the rest of lebanon against  of i think a lot of you would really disagree with what we're about to say but i think a lot of it has to do with you know i think when i was in israel you know the lack of humanity they read in the their opponents the lack of i think there's a certain oppressed prejudice the right that for so long was defined by the israeli palestinian conflict and perhaps one of the conflict going on on the margins the lebanese civil war for instance their rhetoric war now we're dealing with i mean we're dealing with not only these rogue palestinian conflict but lebanon and almost a declared civil war in iraq and just utter chaos just the level of degradation in the region is so breathtaking to me and so it's hard and it's hard for me to just to to see something really happening on the israeli palestinian front that's not undertaken for cynical purposes i think there is a certain cynicism the colors what's going on in the israeli palestinian talks not people who are born better than me think that i'm wrong with you some people that i've talked to are actually hopeful about what's what's afoot right now but you know  here in action is what the israelis and americans are trying to do time and again and it's to disenfranchise a very powerful current in the politics of these countries and that's the islamics current it's got to be it's a current that's got to be represented as a current that is essential if we're a kind of democratic transformation in countries like egypt lebanon or palestine jordan for that matter and it's a current that until now the israelis an american simply won't now want not embrace i mean always asking them to embrace it but even acknowledge and so that the  what you're i guess right i think one level i think of another level war this is where we talk about this kind of cynical notion of sectarian sectarian tensions that you know whether the bush administration that rice used kind of fomenting sunni anxiety over shiite iran to like you know further this this campaign against iran i'm very cynical you know cynical playing with with tensions that you know that worked to some degree and i what they're represented but there's no quite you couldn't escape the notion that the people that a long been disenfranchised in lebanese politics the people living on the margins of people been left out of even how did these vision i think to a certain degree had all the sudden come in and seized the downtown very symbolic i think and it was inescapable and i think both the people who were in the downtown understood and people who were watching it happen the rest of lebanon saw it happen as well there is a notion of that i think you know in just understanding but these politics which are a world  themselves it's hard to me at least it's hard to escape the notion that that war seeing is a very is a very long standing arc of shiite empowerment take place in lebanon something that's happened that dates back to the late sixty's and is this playing itself out now in a very forceful way and that and again this goes back to were talking earlier that you can't you know you've got to understand his last relationship to the shia community organic relationship and what that represents and what it means for the future of lebanese politics you know lebanon i think it's always been interesting because it kind of out punches its weight it's always kind of said a little bit more than that you know that movie would be able to say just being four million people but i think it's a punch its way because it in some ways is it fits into the grander scheme of things going on in the region and such a such a concise way you know everybody's playing a proxy battle in lebanon not to not to absolve lebanese responsibility for any the conflicts of have but you know the opposite but i think also these conflicts they go on in lebanon in some ways mirror the conflicts that are going on in the rest of the region between iran and united states for instance between the visions of the region you know economically socially politically and i think that lebanon is often a very  powerful microcosm of what of what it's elsewhere so it's this sort of neo liberal rebuilt paradise it's downtown beirut i mean how how how comfortable with that place for people from so people from these villages i mean is there a perception that this was built because lebanon is deeply indebted the expense of rebuilding the downtown in this sort of very beautiful but also very very posh fashion tremendously and it did everyone and on some level but i mean how how widely is the feeling held that that was done for everyone are people from the so comfortable there i think it's a great i think it's a great question and i think that we really see on it's two am and we don't have electricity in a doctor for six eight hours a day and i think is a really to them is a real notion of you know a real what's the word i'm looking for it represented the disparity of resources a spirit of existences in some ways and you know the downtown was not for the for the she had a large degree it wasn't for the working class christians there that are represented by michel own in the salons of his blazer and i think there's also a lot of this the sit in that was very political in some ways also funneled a very what you know deep disenchantment with the direction of the absolute there for instance of what of what the downtown represented of making lebannon you know putting love on the service of broader forces of capital that you know everyone not everyone was going to shar city was right there in the center of town and all these places that had been where these people previously been sort of i mean actively excluded from the actively excluded and you know they didn't feel comfortable being there there's no question about it now they were there and and it did i think it made i think when people look back on this conflict in twenty thirty years i think that that's going to be one of the statements that really made is going to want to say was that people remember what the you know how to sit in represented that this is not recommendation but this land claim to an area that wasn't there before and how do i mean from the from the perspective of lebanese who do come in these in these posh new areas and who feel that this was made for them by them i mean how did they react to the presence of these  is not the case anymore you often hear this criticism and it's a way of taking taking away you know legitimacy from hezbollah to make that argument but i think what we saw especially just like this when you're pointing out the rest of lebanese see what was happening often very forcefully stated it's definitely whispered constantly and i think this is part of what you know has been the shiites were reacting against that the country eventually is going to be a shiite country and it's now or it's later but it's going to happen that lebanese politics need to be reconfigured and those people realize that the economic system the political system is not set up for their benefit as it is today that's exactly right you know there's a new a new deal has to be brokered basically and you know i think of it one person said to me this way that his of the shia haven't said exactly what they want and the rest of the of lebannon hasn't said what they're willing to give and that's where we're at right now or so this is still going on the parliament supposed to elect a president that hasn't been right there's a lot of speculation i think and we talked about this that the impediment to a deal will create a new government elected presidents in the parliament is coming from outside what's what or what are people talking about i mean where's the what's the what's the what's the system we look to to stabilizing the lebanese political system at least in the near term it's you know it's it's almost the definition of the word process a ferocious at a ferocious pace and i think the same time time most lebanese realize that there will be no deal without a deal abroad in other words as long as the u s iranian standoff continues as long as the united states and syria remain on different pages there's going to be no resolution  the crisis in lebanon i think there's a sense among a lot of lebanese at this point that that the americans themselves are being maximalist in terms of trying to stop a a compromise and it's not that you know it's you know it first glance maybe sounds a little bit but when you think about it actually makes it's it makes sense given what american politics are today to have a compromise you have to bring has won to the government you have to recognize it was role and lebanese politics you have to cede some power to the shiite community none of these things are on the agenda for the americans right now and as american politics are caught as american policy is constituted right now opposing those things is what they've been doing for the past five or six years what they plan to keep on doing is one of this ministrations of power and so stopping a compromise would stop that and i think that's what's going on right now a certain degree so we see that that over the last couple of years there was a hamas government elected in palestine in a clean free election and that this government was was was was sanctioned by the administration and i differently is really sore from the americans there was no no deals made no talking with no acknowledgement of this government and then we see a similar situation happening in lebanon now with hizbollah and we've also heard and i wonder if you if you can say something about this that the united states has pressured the syrians not for the israelis not to talk to the syrians over the golan heights and other outstanding issues between a few countries because at the is that the americans are an agent of confrontation not conciliation and there's just no question about this point this is where we saw this this generalized degradation in the rest of the region this is very much symptomatic of of this american policy toward confrontation that one side can when and once i