Dhimmis of the world, unite! A report from J. Michael Kennedy of the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service (thanks to Sr. Soph):
…Swathes of the southern suburbs are in ruins after 11 days of Israeli attacks. The main road from the south is bombed out and impassable. The main road to Damascus, Syria, is knocked out. Hotels have emptied out. Electric power comes and goes.
But the main shopping street of Hamra in West Beirut was jammed with cars on Saturday morning. Stores were open, at least for a few hours, even clothing shops that sold no clothes….
The newly-built centre of the city, with its fashionable shops and banking centre, was eerily empty, save for a smattering of people in what few cafes were open. The tourists who made it one of the busiest parts of the city have long since gone, either by sea or overland to Damascus or Amman, Jordan.
But on the main highway going north up the coast, more stores and restaurants were open, including fast-food standbys like Hardees, KFC, Subway and Burger King.
On Saturday afternoon, the road was jammed with cars as it passed the port and headed north, past modern shopping malls and other developments that are a part of the rebuilt Beirut.
Virtually all of this territory is home to the Christians of Lebanon, who allied themselves with the Israelis during the invasion of the country in 1982.
In Bikfayah, the roads were more crowded than usual, because this is one of the routes to the Syrian border now that the main highway has been knocked out by Israeli jets.