I spent this morning browsing Haaretz's on line archive of articles and editorials related to the ongoing Israel-Lebanon debacle. Several Israeli writers and artists were asked to comment on the situation; the result of this survey was more or less predictable (for instance, A. B. Yehoshua is for the war, Aharon Shabtai is not). A feature on "blogging the war" provides an interesting overview of the different voices speaking out on, for and against the war and even mentions Flickr's Save Lebanon group. Unfortunately Haaretz's Hebrew and English sites do not mirror each other, so I am not able to provide English-language links to the Hebrew articles I have cited.
Alex Epstein's piece "Lebanon Time," does not seem to be available in English (as far as I can tell). Unable to locate an English translation, I decided to translate the poem myself. Those who read Hebrew should consult the original text, which was recently published in Haaretz. In reading this poem, I'm reminded of that flashback scene in Pulp Fiction in which Bruce Willis's character Butch receives a gold wristwatch from his father's friend, Captain Koons, a Vietnam war veteran played by Christopher Walken. Capt. Koons explains that the watch once belonged to Butch's father and had been passed down the family for a few generations. The watch survives several years in a POW camp hidden "in the one place he knew he could hide somethin'. His ass." Later, Butch will risk his life to recover this priceless watch and the events that unfold ultimately make the watch even more valuable and Butch more deserving of its possession. In Epstein's piece, the watch is a more ambivalent possession; the memory of the shooting game that gives the child so much pleasure is problematized not only by the real life shooting taking place along Israel's northern border, but also by its origins, the Israeli military occupation of southern Lebanon, which began in the early 1980s. The image of the digital watch seems to foreshadow the increasingly technological aspect of modern warfare. Indeed, it's the watch that allows the son to continue his father's battle. I'll end my reading there and let you uncover your own reading of this intricate and subtle text.
Lebanon Time
Five Notes from the Margins by Alex Epstein
0. If I'm not mistaken, until the 1950s (analog) wristwatches had no second hand.
1. In early 1984, my father returned from reserve duty in Lebanon with a Casio, digital watch, which he gave to me.
2. For hours and hours I played a shooting game on the watch. I loved my gift.
3. I think that the game was a mini version of Space Invaders.
4. You can take Israel out of Lebanon but you can't take Lebanon out of Israel.
Translated from the Hebrew by Adriana X. Tatum
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