Hi everyone.

I’m on my work computer on the perennially terrible Lebanese internet, in a relatively safe town. I’m talking about some stupid client KPIs in a meeting with a bunch of people around the world. An “important” meeting. The clients assume I’m in Dubai or somewhere like that, and I don’t correct them.

I’ll get asked “How are things in Lebanon?” by some coworker in Dubai or Europe after the call and I’ll say the classic “Alhamdulillah, my family and I are okay.” And we’re safe, we haven’t been bombed, not personally. I am lucky to work with decent people, but how could they understand. Will HR give me shit if they learn how much time I’ve spent out and about helping move essentials to shelters in the “dangerous outside world” instead of just burying myself at home “until it’s over”? Maybe I can get fired for putting myself in danger. Or maybe they give me leeway as a relatively senior person with the best English in my team who they get to pay less than everyone else because I don’t have a French passport - what a steal! (They pay me okay, and quite well compared to others around me, but we all know what this arrangement really is)

But corporate work, in normal times, rots the soul from the inside out. This is worse. I have to stare at the bad screen for hours while the EMTs dig people from under their homes. I have a duty to at least try to help my people, but I can’t. If I quit my job, my family loses this home and this security, and we have no place to go now that our original town is being bombed. I don’t come from money. I can’t just move or buy a house abroad or even a plane ticket (Lebanese people with no other nationality can’t go many places without a long visa process). I can’t “just move to Europe bro”, I can’t “just move to Dubai bro”. I have responsibilities. I’d love to move, but I can’t. Maybe I should.

Naturally, even nice coworkers cannot comprehend this. Besides, they need my input on the KPIs. This client is very important and number must go up after all. I hear another thud in the distance, through the crickets, I feel it in the pit of my stomach. Not close enough to threaten my life, but close enough to understand I might be next and that no area is truly safe.

This isn’t a woe is me post and I don’t want people in the comments feeling too sorry for my situation yeah. I still have my family, four limbs and two eyes, my home, a source of income in actual usable currency. Save your real sorrow for the people who have lost more both here and in the occupied territories. It could have been me in Gaza, it could have been you.

Please donate to the Lebanese Red Cross if you have the ability. Our people in the orange jumpsuits are our pride and they need everything they can get, especially now that they’re being hit as well. Relatively transparent and reputable org with boots on the ground and a functional donation platform, please consider helping.

    • @undergroundoverground
      7•1 month ago

      “Only Israel are allowed to break international law, in these here parts, thank you very much!”

        • @undergroundoverground
          3•1 month ago

          Oh, don’t worry, I know full well that you don’t understand the point being made.

          Do they prosecute themselves for their illegal occupation and colonisation of gaza and Palestine?

          No, of course not. Israel only cares about international law when people they want to steal land from breaks it.

            • @undergroundoverground
              0•1 month ago

              It made the point just fine and its only you who failed to understand it. Youre the problem here.

              You spoke about law and international law falls under “law.” You just don’t want to talk about the laws Israel are breaking, as it shows you to be full of shit when you talk about how bad it is that laws are being broken. Appartide is illegal too but you don’t care about that.

              No, you only care about the laws you feel will justify Israel illegally colonising yet more land they have no right to.

              Also, you just made up your own definition of “occupation” and then declared Israel to not being doing you own, personal definition of the word. The word actually means:

              the action, state, or period of occupying or being occupied by military force.

              ‘Not being able to handle independence’ (however its worded) is never an excuse or justification for illegally occupying or refusing to leave occupied land. It was like one of the first rulings on colonialism the UN ever made.

              From start to finish, all you gave was lies.

                • @undergroundoverground
                  0•1 month ago

                  Art. 42. Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation applies only to the territory where such authority is established, and in a position to assert itself.

                  No wonder you didn’t quote it.

                  You just can’t stop lying can you? Well, i hope its that you’re lying and you parents didn’t spend money on getting you “some education on (sic) international law at an accredited^^^^tm law school” only to get it so spectacularly wrong, while being so far up you’re own ass about it too.

                  I hope it wasn’t the latter because that would be really embarrassing for you.

    • @TheFonz
      2•1 month ago

      Read the room bro. Not the time or place. As if OP has some control of the geopolitical instability in the entire region.

      Hey @[email protected] why don’t you solve the entirety of the middle east conflict?

      This guy is just sharing their personal experience in this shitty situation. A little empathy goes a long way.