(Photo: John Wreford)

Tareq Al-Hashemi, one of Iraq’s Vice-Presidents has been campaigning in Syria, ahead of Sunday’s election.

He spoke to thousands of Iraqi refugees at the Jalaa sports stadium in Damascus this afternoon.

If you love reading Arab blogs, you need to be reading Toot. It’s not an aggregator (like Syria Planet, which simply lists every single blogpost), instead Toot handpicks its favourite Arab blogposts every day.

Membership of this exclusive club isn’t easy to achieve. And that’s all the better for the readers. Every post they recommend is worth a look. And they’ve just added a brilliant selection of bloggers to their collection, making Toot even more valuable than it was before:

Syrian Foodie in London – Kano’s blog which I raved about when he first launched it

Maya Zankoul’s beautifully drawn cartoons, taking a cynical look at life in Lebanon

Qunfuz – one of my favourite Syrian blogs of all time (look at my sidebar if you don’t believe me), by Robin Yassin-Kassab, author of The Road From Damascus

And the Syrian firestarter, Maysaloon

Ok, so I know four of their new additions. But there are a whole load more new blogs added to Toot which I can’t wait to fall in love with.

Damascus, the play by Scottish playwright David Greig is showing at the Briggs Opera House in New Hampshire. Now, as is well known, I have never been to America. But Google Maps tells me that it’s only about 100km from Boston. Well worth the journey.

In fact, it may be the last chance you ever get to see this amazing play. After the controversy when it showed in Syria last year, Greig told me he would never let it run again. It’s showing daily (except Mondays) until March 7. You can book tickets here. If only flights were cheap, I’d be straight over there to see it again…

And in a weird cultural swap, Amreeka, Cherine Dabis’ critically-acclaimed film is getting its first ever showing in London (it’s still not clear whether it will ever go on general release in the UK – they haven’t even got a distributor). This Thursday, 7pm at SOAS. This is very exciting.

So there you have it. A British drama about cross-cultural interactions shows in the US. And an American drama about cross-cultural interactions shows in Britain. Isn’t symmetry beautiful.

Commentators have been asking why it has taken a year for Obama to even send an ambassador to Damascus when he made this a key part of his election campaign. This editorial should give you some clue. It’s a nonsense. It’s basic argument is: we can’t change Bashar’s behaviour, so why bother. The problem is that mature states don’t have relations with other countries to change their behaviour.

Don’t expect progress from talking to Syria starts with a telling line: “The notion that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad can somehow be turned from his alliance with Iran and sponsorship of terrorism is one of the hardiest of the Middle East.”

The ‘dictator’ label is the fifth word. But it’s only used when referring to America’s enemies. I’ve never seen the WaPo call Mubarak a dictator. And secondly, Obama doesn’t want to turn Syria away from Iran – he apparently sees this relationship as an advantage: Syria can be the bridge between America and Iran, just like it was when Britain was attempting to get its sailors released after they were arrested by Iranian forces 2 years ago.

Then there is a paragraph full of fudges: “[William Burns] met with Mr. Assad in 2004 on behalf of the Bush administration. Earlier, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell “engaged” Mr. Assad. … Yet none so far has produced the slightest change in Mr. Assad’s behavior.” Burns and Powell “engaged” Bashar before the US-Syria relationship broke down amid the Hariri killing in 2005. 2004 was a different era.

And what of “Mr Assad’s … unacceptable ambitions.” WHAT? To get the Golan Heights back, which Israel has illegally occupied for 43 years? That’s unacceptable?

“Having carried out a campaign of political murder in Lebanon, including the killing of a prime minister for which he has yet to be held accountable.” The WaPo acts as judge and jury here. Good.

“He continues to harbor exiled leaders of Saddam Hussein’s regime and to allow suicide bombers to flow into Iraq for use by al-Qaeda.” This is just pure fantasy. Which exiled leaders? Names please. And ‘allowing suicide bombers into Iraq’? American military commanders in Iraq have already said there are just a handful crossing now, after a successful crackdown by Damascus.

“Mr Assad … wants the European Union to grant Syria trade privileges.” Well, no. The EU has already agreed to sign the Association Agreement, but it is Syria which isn’t sure it wants these ‘privileges’.

“Anyone who thinks the Obama administration has come up with a way to change the Middle East through detente with Syria would do well to study the history of Mr. Assad’s decade in power.”

Maybe it is the WaPo’s leader-writers who would do well to study a bit of Syrian history.

Sabra Zoo

If you know me at all, you’ll know that I’ve been raving about Sabra Zoo since I got my hands on an advance copy last month. Here’s what I think of it:

Waltz With Bashir through Palestinian Eyes

It may be fiction, but Mischa Hiller’s making it clear that Sabra Zoo is based on reality. His reality. The English-Palestinian debut author lived through the 1982 Israeli siege of Beirut and the massacre at the Sabra refugee camp. This is his story.

It’s being compared to Israeli war film, Waltz With Bashir. That movie came under fire for presenting the siege from an Israeli perspective, while playing down the voice of the victims. Sabra Zoo presents those events from the other side of the frontline.

18 year old half-Palestinian Ivan stays behind in Beirut when his parents are evacuated with PLO fighters. He spends his days translating for foreign medical volunteers where he falls in love with a Norwegian physio, and his nights working undercover for Arafat’s men. The two parts of his life collide when Bashir Gemayel is assassinated and the Israeli tanks roll in.

Part coming-of-age novel, part graphic account of the realities of life under the Israeli siege, this book covers well worn ground with fresh young eyes.

And big things are planned for Sabra Zoo. His cinematic adaptation of the book has already won a European Independent Film Festival award.

It brought me to tears in parts. Go and get Sabra Zoo right now. Straight after I finished this, I moved on to Bliss Street.

Bliss Street

I had high hopes for this book. I picked it up in Amman a couple of years ago, and it came highly recommended. But after the mindblowing Sabra Zoo, I crawled through the first 100 pages as the author very very slowly introduced all the characters. It was torture. But it quickly improved.

Bliss Street is set at the time of the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. The author, Kris Kenway, has clearly spent a lot of time in Beirut, and puts his finger on what it is to be a westerner in the Arab World. He picks up on all of those little Arab ticks, and phrases. It’s worth reading just for those observations.

A Good Land

Third up was Nada Awar Jarrar’s character-based novel. Although it is set at the time of the Hariri assassination, it is the least political of the three. Jarrar has a beautiful subtleness of touch as a narrator – a tone which rubs off on all of her characters, none of which is overwhelming. But maybe that was the book’s problem.

So while all three of these books were incredibly different – in format, in characters, in the story arc – they all had something in common: Beirut and its politics (the Sabra massacre, the liberation of the south, and the Hariri killing). And that’s what I took from this reading binge: the transient nature of Beirut. All three relied heavily on the theme of exile and looking for self. Sabra Zoo’s protagonist is a Danish-Palestinian who stays on in Beirut when his parents flee because of the war; Bliss Street’s lead character is a Brit who stays in Beirut as he tries to figure out who he is; A Good Land’s characters are all exiles – from family, from past, or from Palestine.

And, in beautiful symmetry, all three novels ended with a plane journey (I won’t tell you who flew, or what happened, so as not to ruin the books for you).

So just to continue the theme of exile and searching, I’ve just started reading the acclaimed A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar.

The trouble is, it neither answers the question, nor delivers any humour. Cue lots of slow-motion shots of men walking through the souq arm-in-arm.

Five years ago today I became a blogger.

14 February 2005 was a pretty important day to start writing about Syria, because next door, Mr Lebanon had taken his last breath.

Socially, politically and economically, Syria has changed more in the past five years than in any similar period in our generation. Here are a few of the landmark moments of 2005-2010:

2005:

14 February – Rafiq Al-Hariri assassinated on Beirut’s Corniche

15 February – America withdraws its ambassador, deciding that Syria is to blame for the Hariri killing

14 March – Massive anti-Syria demonstrations in Beirut

27 April – all Syrian troops leave Lebanon

KFC and Coca Cola appear in Damascus (right)

June – Hariri’s son Sa’ad leads his coalition into power in Lebanon

12 October – Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan commits suicide

30 December – Syrian vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam defects

2006:

March – Syria Planet (the first Syrian blog aggregator) launches

March – Four Seasons and Damascus Boulevard opens (right)

May – Michel Kilo and Anwar Al-Bunni arrested, others released

July – Israel launches 33 day attack on Lebanon, many seek refuge in Syria

September – 4 terrorists attempt to attack the American embassy in Damascus

2007:

Work begins on Medhat Pasha in the Old City of Damascus (right)

May – Fateh Al-Islam attacks the Lebanese army from the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, fighting lasts all summer and 40,000 civilians are made homeless

September – Israel bombs a disused factory in northern Syria and calls it a ‘nuclear bomb plant’

November – Lebanese President Emile Lahoud leaves office – there would be no replacement for 6 months

2008:

The Old City gets its own private cleaning company, Swan (right)

February – Israel assassinates Hizbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh in western Damascus

May – street battles between Lebanese opposition and pro-government forces in Beirut – fighting ends when the rivals meet in Doha and agree on Michel Sleiman as the compromise candidate for president

May – Syria and Israel acknowledge they have been in peace talks

July – Bashar Al-Assad is guest of honour at France’s Bastille Day celebrations

September – Bashar invites French President Nicolas Sarkozy to dinner at Naranj restaurant in Damascus (right)

September – Black Saturday: 17 people killed in a car bomb in southern Damascus

October – American helicopters invade eastern Syria, killing 8 civilians

December – Israel attacks Gaza relentlessly for four weeks, prompting massive demonstrations in Damascus and truckloads of Red Crescent aid convoys (right)

2009:

Damascus gets a new set of green buses, replacing the old white Russian dinosaurs (right)

January – George W Bush finally leaves office

June – Hariri’s coalition wins a second term in office, but the coalition quickly falls apart and the Hizbollah-led opposition is invited into government

September – Hugo Chavez visits Syria

December – a tyre burst at a petrol station south of Damascus kills three people, it was originally feared to have been a bomb blast

December – Sa’ad Al-Hariri visits Damascus for the first time since his father was killed

2010:

January – Syria makes it into the New York Times top ten destinations for 2010

February – Syria accepts America’s new ambassador to Damascus, filling a post that had been vacant since 15 Feb

Happy birthday to you, to you, to you, to you, to you…

2006 The Syria News Wire’s first birthday

2007 Happy birthday Syria News Wire

Well, you only celebrate birthdays when you’re young, don’t you.

That’s the hope.

Posters have started appearing along Gemmayze, telling the crazy kids to shutup.

And yes, I am aware that the posters have been up for ages. Thank you and goodnight.

I’ve been doing something that may even make it on to this blog at the start of March. If you know me, you’ll know what I’m all excited about. It’s the only thing I’ve been talking about for the past month.

In the meantime, I’ve got some posts written in my head that need to find their way through the keyboard and on to the internet. Including, maybe, something to celebrate this blog’s fifth birthday. Ideas, anyone?

Oh, and Damascus almost has a new American Ambassador. There have been so many false alarms that I’m nervous about posting this news *again*. The last one was withdrawn exactly 48 hours after this blog started. Wouldn’t Robert Ford’s arrival at Damascus International Airport be a nice fifth birthday present.

Zain, the Kuwait-based pan-Arab mobile phone network, is trying again to launch in Syria.

After last year’s botched takeover of Syriatel, the company is now in talks with the Syrian government to bid for the third Syrian mobile license.

There are currently two operators: Syrian-owned Syriatel, and South African network MTN. Zain offers free calls between subscribers – even if they are on a Zain network in another country. But the Kuwaitis face tough competition for that new license from Turkish giant Turkcell.