Tag Archives | united states

Hollywood Made a Bad Movie About Beirut – So What?!

Everyone and their mother seems to be upset about Jon Hamm’s new movie, titled “Beirut”, because of its bad portrayal of our Beirut city and all the stereotypes that appeared in the trailer.

The movie is written by Tony Gilroy (author first four films of the Bourne series) and tells the story of Mason Skiles (Jon Hamm a former U.S. diplomat who is called back into service to save a colleague from a terrorist group that was responsible for the death of his own family 10 years earlier.

As the trailer shows, the movie is gonna give quite a gloomy picture of Beirut, and with everything bad going around us in the region right now,western people will unconsciously associate us with terrorism after watching it. But then again, you can’t just blame this movie for the bad publicity we have abroad… We have been ruining our country for over 40 years now and have made enough headlines so far for the whole world to judge us without the need to watch any movie about Lebanon!

And what are you expecting from Hollywood in the first place? A promotional tourism movie about Lebanon? In a world where everyone has a different point of view, why can’t we take their side for a second? We treat them as invaders but they simply regard themselves as our white saviors… Ever knew about the 1985 TWA Flight 847 that was hijacked by Lebanese people and rerouted to Beirut with 85 American passengers on-board? How about the 1983 barracks bombings in Beirut? Regardless what your political views might be, these are acts of terrorism to them and the average American had every reason to think of us as terrorists back then…

Even worse, back to our side, how do you label 15 years of civil war? We butchered each other, mass killings were nothing unusual over that period, and minors did join militias back then. Go read or watch some Lebanese war documentary to learn all about it… Do you only feel butthurt because an American is mentioning it now?

Instead of whining about the movie, just let it be and move on, if it’s really bad then it will eventually be a box office flop. If anything, you can probably brighten the country’s image by simply replacing the warlords that have been ruling the country since the civil war era and are the ones responsible for Beirut’s bad publicity everywhere!

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Lebanese couple marries on Skype

skype marriage

I just stumbled upon this article from Annahar today about a Lebanese couple from Tyre who got married on Skype since the bride, Hawraa Said, lives here in Lebanon while the groom, Assaad Fakhoury, is in the US. Check all about it here.

Technology for the win!!

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Maura Connelly’s bodyguards harass two women in Hamra

Maura Connelly

Is the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly now determined on creating a mess every time she goes out on weekends?

First her convoy drove over some ancient ruins in Tyre and damaged a stone wall two weeks ago, and just yesterday, her bodyguards harassed Lebanese actress Yara Abou Haidar and one of her Egyptian friends at Dar Bistro in Hamra where Connelly was having a coffee. You can read all about the incident in this article by Al-Akhbar.

via @AbirGhattas

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Direct flights to resume between Lebanon and the US?

According to this article from Al-Akhbar, Mohamad El-Hout (The CEO of MEA) is now working to convince the American authorities to remove the ban on MEA that was imposed in 1985 following the hijacking of a TWA plane at Beirut airport.

Aridi and Hout requested the resumption of air transport relations between Lebanon and the United States. One expert familiar with the issue said, “Hout went seeking US recognition of Beirut Airport’s ability, and the adequacy of its safety standards, to receive American airplanes and fly MEA planes to the United States.”

There has been an American ban on MEA since the hijacking of a TWA American passenger plane at Beirut Airport in 1985. Following this incident, the airport was put on the US terror list. MEA flights were banned from US airports and American airliners no longer flew to the airport in Lebanon.

The expert revealed that Hout took detailed files on MEA and Beirut airport to the DoT in America, including information on public safety standards at the airport, the technology used in this regard, as well as current capabilities and other related information. The DoT officials were satisfied with the information Aridi and Hout provided about the Lebanese carrier and the airport.

Telling by the actions Hout is taking, I wouldn’t be surprised if flights really resume some time in the near future. Given of course that politics will have nothing to do with the matter…

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You don’t mess with Lebanese expats! – Part 2

I have no idea when was this footage recorded, but it shows a Lebanese man in his 7-Eleven store in the USA being threatened by a criminal with a bat trying to steal the money from the cash register. You’ve got to see how he responded! Typically Lebanese!

Also check an earlier post I published last month showing how another Lebanese man, Nicholas Dawoud, was able to hold an armed criminal at his convenience store.

Thank you @ibarazi

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You don’t mess with Lebanese expats!

Check out this video showing Nicholas Dawoud, a Lebanese expatriate in Massachusetts, putting up a fight against a couple of burglars at his mini market when they tried to rob him on Friday.

According to this article, Nicholas Dawoud was robbed of $1,800 a few days earlier and so he decided to fight back with a baseball this time and eventually succeeded in holding the man with the help of his neighbors until the police arrived. Hat-tip to the man!

Thank you Kheireddine

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