The South End of Dearborn has been home to immigrants from the Middle East for generations. While many of the current residents are from Yemen, the previous generation that lived in the South End was from Lebanon, particularly from South Lebanon. Many have moved into east Dearborn and return to Lebanon often; some have built homes there. As the Israeli army bombs and invades these cities and villages, anger and anguish can be seen on the faces of our neighbors.

Ali Harajli is a Ford electrician who grew up in the South End. Like many local Lebanese Americans, the war has been a time of deep concern for friends and family in Lebanon and outrage at the U.S. government’s support for Israel’s bombing.

Fred David: The Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (AADC) has sued the federal government for failing to pick up American citizens who were in Lebanon, especially South Lebanon. Is there a connection between the South End and South Lebanon?

Yes, oh yes. Most of the people are originally from the South End, but now they live in East Dearborn. They are primarily from South Lebanon, but not exclusively. The names of the people are the names of the families in those villages; Berri, Fawaz, Harajli. My father’s mother was a Fawaz from Tibnin. My grandfather was a Saide. He is from another of the small towns. My father was born in South Bend, [Indiana] and went back to Tibnin when he was three. He came back when he was 21. A coworker, Nancy, was born in Bint Jbail and has been here for 35 years. She has been so upset by the destruction of her village. People go back to Lebanon all the time; some even have built homes. Family members live in them when they’re not there. My mother was born in Michigan City, and her mother was also from Tibnin.

When I was a kid, there would be a procession of cars coming down the street, honking horns and I’d say, “What happened?” and the adults would say “it’s some of the Berris honking their horns, celebrating because Abdullah Berri won a seat in the senate in Lebanon.” And I as a kid was saying, “What is up with that?” The links are very much alive.

The old country people in the South End became very sophisticated. They stopped writing letters; they would send cassettes to the families. They were pretty amazing for third world immigrants; they really got into the technology.

Many of the Lebanese moved out of the South End to East Dearborn and the people who live in the South End are Yemeni. Although you can imagine since 2001 that immigration has slowed, if not stopped.

The mosque in the South End has always been a Sunni Mosque. There were a handful of Sunnis in the South End even back then. We Americans could care less about those distinctions; That they kill each other over this is outrageous. That never meant anything to us in the Arab-American community.

When the recent bombing and invasion of South Lebanon started there was a demonstration of 10,000 in Dearborn.

The people are demonstrating in support of their families. And also politically. They don’t view Hizballah, and neither do I, as a terrorist organization but as a resistance.

The situation in Lebanon is just terrible. It is much worse than the news sources are reporting. The news is coming back into the community, from other news sources, from phone calls, that it is much worse than we are seeing and hearing from U.S. news sources. The devastation is just horrible. In the Arab world the story is Lebanon; Iraq and Gaza are in the background and I believe that Israel is taking advantage of the focus to increase its attacks on Palestinians in Gaza.

What do you think of the U.S. media’s coverage of the Israeli invasion?

It is all propaganda. I don’t feel that they deal with the issues honestly. How they portray Israeli suffering; rarely do they show us the suffering of the Palestinians. We’ll see funerals of Israelis. It’s one-sided, very much so. I don’t look to the American media to tell me what’s going on in the Middle East. I get all my information from the web. I go to English web sites; Pakistani web sites; of course, Al Jazeera.

Let me tell you a story about 1982 when the U.S.S. New Jersey was bombing the Shuf Mountains.

Reagan had sent the Marines in during the civil war in Lebanon as a “peacekeeping” operation. They were housed in a building that ultimately was destroyed and 241 Marines were killed. While they were there, Reagan shifted American policy and he tilted towards the right-wing Lebanese and he began to shell the Shuf Mountains and that is where some of the leftists were.

And I watched Peter Jennings; I remember this like it was yesterday. Now at that time he was quite liberal. He gets on TV and the U.S.S. New Jersey was firing shells with bags of powder; the powder was so old that they could not fire accurately. So they would set their sights on something and who knows where it would go?

To me that was so immoral; God knows how many people were killed. And Peter Jennings didn’t say anything. He told his viewing audience that the shells they fired “were the size of VWs.” And I’m thinking, you coward, can you imagine the death and destruction?”

I don’t look to the American media for any information on the Middle East that is without spin. I don’t even waste my time. I stopped watching the national news.

Do you think that Bush’s popularity has fallen among Arabs?

Oh yes, absolutely. He is not highly respected. The only Arab groups that I’m familiar with that supported Bush were the Shiite Iraqis after the start of the war. There were some professional Moslem groups that backed the Bush presidency the first time around. They could never get a foothold in the Democratic Party because of the Zionists; they actively campaigned for Bush and sent money. And then when the war broke out, for example, in the Moslem Observer, there would be articles saying, “how did we end up in this position?” that is, supporting a president who makes war on Moslems and Iraq. They felt betrayed. Over time the Iraqi Shiites came around and they understand that Bush is not serving their interests or their families’ interest.

What do you want your neighbors and coworkers to know about what is going on now in Lebanon?

There are about 1,000 Lebanese in Israeli prisons with no chance of trials, including women with their children. There has to be fairness in the Middle East. The notion that Moslems are anti-democratic is patently absurd. They are like any other people on the planet; they love freedom and they expect fairness. The thing I really want to say [is] Moslems are not anti-democratic; their governments are anti-democratic, supported by the United States, certainly financially and militarily, but the Moslems are decent people and they want freedom just like everybody else. That is why so many of them are here; they couldn’t get democracy there. Moslems love democracy; when undemocratic governments come to power there is always an American connection.

Fred David is an editor of Critical Moment.