reportage
A German-Lebanese meeting center was considered a place for help and security – until an attack left people dead and injured. Was there anyone in the house who was more than just a displaced person?
Said Arnaout struggles to keep his composure. The 73-year-old from Tübingen still cannot understand what happened. His meeting place, an intercultural center in Lebanon, was destroyed, six people were dead and many were injured. There was no warning, he says: “There was no news from Israel. In war there is no break and no mercy.”
25 years ago, the German-Lebanese founded the “Dar as-Salam” – the House of Peace – with others to create a meeting place and a place for further training – based on the model of German academies
“The meeting place was widely recognized; the German ambassador was also in the house, also from the United Nations and the Swedish consul. We built a bridge between Germany and Lebanon,” says Said Arnaout.
Numerous refugees admitted
His wife shows a photo: a friendly, large guest house in the Chouf Mountains in Lebanon, in the middle of an idyllic village, lots of trees, lots of green. In front of the guest house on the terrace there are tables and chairs and a parasol. They are impressions from peaceful times. The couple proudly reports that more than 6,000 German visitors have been here in recent years.
But the war in Lebanon has also caught up with the House of Peace: Numerous refugees from the south were taken in here, and around 80 people were in the house when two rockets hit the top piece on Wednesday – only one of them detonated. The house partially collapsed.
Victims are no strangers
The victims are not strangers. “We knew almost all of the refugees we took in personally. The school director was a colleague of my wife. And the two children are now screaming for their father.”
Why was their meeting place hit? Said Arnaout, who has lived in Germany since 1972, and his wife cannot understand this. Heike Mardirian, chairwoman of the German Evangelical Community in Beirut, also knew the house well: “At this moment, it was a place that people noticed because they thought they would be safe there.”
A false sense of security?
So a false sense of security? Friederike Weltzien, a long-time pastor from Stuttgart who lived in Lebanon and was in the House of Peace a few weeks ago, cannot let this question go. “It was a place from which help simply emanated for the entire surrounding area. Why it was bombed is such a mystery to us,” she says.
The Israeli army emphasizes that it is taking targeted action against Hezbollah in Lebanon. But the bombing of the meeting place casts doubt on this narrative. Or was there someone in the house who was more than just a displaced person?
“That has probably been our downfall because we cannot ensure that,” said Weltzien. You can’t tell by looking at people. Mainly women, children and families came. “It seemed to us that they weren’t Hezbollah people.”
No statement from the Israeli army
How “targeted” and “limited” – these are phrases Israel always uses – is the war in Lebanon really? One ARD-Requests to the Israeli army for a statement on the attack on the meeting center remain unanswered.
“I think that if it hits a center like this, then quite a threshold has been crossed,” says Bente Scheller from the Heinrich Böll Foundation. She is shocked when she finds out about the bombing. “The targeting that we have seen in some political killings before is not reflected in this type of attack.”
She was often a guest in the house herself, reports Scheller. It is an important meeting place in Lebanon’s difficult political landscape with its many denominations and civil war past. “The special thing about this meeting center was its location in the mountains. It was an atmosphere in which you felt safe to have an exchange – even about sensitive topics. And there are plenty of those in Lebanon.”
“Dar as Salam” is to be rebuilt
And that’s exactly why “Dar as Salam” must continue – everyone agrees on that. Many Germans are showing solidarity with the founders, and there will be a vigil in Bad Kreuznach.
“I won’t let this place go,” says Friederike Weltzien from Stuttgart. “This is a place that stands for rebuilding, moving on and not giving up, not letting these attacks destroy what the spirit of this place is.”
And Heike Mardirian also says: “It will be rebuilt. Like many things in Lebanon. And we won’t give up.” Said Arnaout and his wife from Tübingen don’t want to give up either. If at all possible: They want to rebuild their meeting place. “We need security, we need peace, we need stability, we need support,” says Latife Arnaout – so that Lebanon will have a house of peace again in the future despite the war.