Friends, Four years ago this week, I forwarded this now-prescient speech by Ray Close: https://levantium.com/2003/02/09/war-coming/ It’s a long read, but remarkable in how accurately he anticipated the problems that would arise from this administration’s folly. Well worth reading a second time (or a first, if you’re relatively new to this list). I called Mr. Close …
Category: Israel
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2007/03/12/close-call/
Mar 10 2007
Baptists in Levantium
Interesting history. Thank you very much. I’m curious, because it wasn’t mentioned in the article and perhaps wasn’t germane, but how much Baptist work in Israel/Palestine is with Jewish (secular and confessing) persons and how much is with non-Jewish (i.e., Arab Christians and Muslims and non-Arab visiting pilgrims/tourists) persons? What are the ratios? Maybe I’ve …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2007/03/10/baptists-in-levantium/
Mar 07 2007
Børre’s nightmare
http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/300/350/355/july-war/20070304/20070304-images.html We left Beirut at 9 yesterday and were back 12 hours later. Drove to Sidon and checked in with the army to get permission to enter the occupation zone evacuated by the Israelis in 2000 and which is finally under Lebanese Army control. Then straight to Tyre, Jouwaya, Tibnine and Bint Jbeil. We saw …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2007/03/07/b%c3%b8rres-nightmare/
Nov 01 2006
Olive harvest
My childhood friend Yusif Makhoul harvested his crop in Mieh-ou-Mieh, just east of Saida a couple of weeks ago. He said they had a bumper crop, but that they were small. They spent a week harvesting compared to the two days it took us when I was with them in ’97. (I guess olive trees …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2006/11/01/olive-harvest/
Dec 10 2005
Lines, lines, everywhere lines
I noticed the other day that the border between Israel and the Sinai is not a straight line. About halfway across, between Gaza and Aqaba, the border has a couple of protrusions into the Egyptian side (there are other places, but these are the most noticeable). Does anyone know the history of how this border …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2005/12/10/lines-lines-everywhere-lines/
Sep 29 2005
Border forts
It’s interesting how news about the war in Iraq dribbles out. Today’s local paper has a front-page story about a James Vandenberg, a Little Rock architect who serves in the Civil Engineering Corps, U.S. Navy Reserve Seabees. He recently spent 10 months in the Al Anbar region of Iraq. Here’s the part of the story …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2005/09/29/border-forts/
Nov 02 2004
Trolling for fools
With Trembling Finger By Hal Crowther, circa November 2004 I used to take a drink on occasion with a network newsman famed for his impenetrable calm — his apparent pulse rate that of a large mammal in deep hibernation — and in an avuncular moment he advised me that I’d do all right, in …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2004/11/02/trolling-for-fools/