Jerusalem

I AM SITTING IN A DELI with Natan Sharansky telling him about my friend Fawaz who thought his book, The Case for Democracy, was a great moral testament. Over the last three days I have been surprised to find that Israelis truly believe the gullible Western press reports that all of Lebanon supports the fanatical Islamic resistance, and so Sharansky is a little startled to hear that there are Lebanese neocons, Arab readers who embraced his message well before George W. Bush did. I explain that this is why I moved to Beirut in the first place, not to cover a war and the destruction of a country, but to watch its rebirth, its re-entry into the democratic fold, and its struggle for independence.