A few days after his evacuation from Beirut, Ali Cheaib is holding court in his east Mountain living room. He's called yet another meeting to discuss how to help those he left behind.

Men shuffling papers shake their heads gravely.


Behind them, women huddle around the television, stunned by pictures of rubble transmitted live from Lebanon. Everyone here worries about a loved one back home.


The room is heavy with anxiety. But also expectation.


Then the bombing stopped and the rebuilding began.


Now what?


As one of Hamilton's most vocal and visible Arab leaders, Cheaib is charged with answering that question for a stunned and devastated community.


The list begins predictably enough.

Lobby governments to work for a lasting peace. Collect aid. Help settle evacuees coming to Hamilton.

But for Cheaib, on vacation from his teaching duties at Mohawk College, the list goes on.

The president of the Hamilton Council of Canadian Arabs now has to sit down to talk with people some consider enemies.

Last September the Hamilton Police Services Board called an open forum to help air citizens' views on police Chief Brian Mullan's controversial trip to Israel.

As the meeting spiralled out of control, Cheaib locked eyes with local Jewish leader Lorne Finkelstein, standing quietly nearby.

The two were acquainted through the Strengthening Hamilton's Community Initiative (SHCI).

The anti-racism committee was launched after the torching of a local Hindu temple in the days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and gathered leaders from around the city to promote tolerance.

Cheaib and Finkelstein, a local cardiologist representing the Hamilton Jewish Federation, had butted heads around the SHCI table.

"I can't exactly label it," Finkelstein later said. "But there was a definite tension."

At the forum, both men dropped their heads in shame as shouting from both camps filled the room.

* *

The next day, Cheaib and other faith leaders met with Finkelstein in his downtown office. By the end of the meeting the half-dozen men had formed a new group called the Committee for Hamilton Arab, Muslim and Jewish Dialogue.

They agreed to help their respective communities start trading perspectives instead of insults.

They committed to clearing the swamp of the suspicions that separated them.

To melt their mutual coolness, Cheaib and Finkelstein started meeting privately for breakfast on Sundays.

Over coffee and pastries -- croissants for Cheaib, chocolate cupcakes for Finkelstein -- the two men made inroads.

Cheaib heard about Finkelstein's experiences with anti-Semitism in Canada as well as "why so many Jews hold Israel close to their hearts."

"The Holocaust has changed their level of trust toward others," Cheaib later explained. "Israel gives them a sense of belonging and security."

Cheaib adds this is a difficult notion for many, including himself, who come from a region where Israel's 1948 declaration of independence is commonly referred to as nakba -- the Arabic word for catastrophe.

When talk turned to politics and Cheaib found himself raising his voice or Finkelstein's breathing grew too raspy, they would pull back a little.

"Sure we disagree about everything, but it's not an exercise in futility," insists Cheaib, who seemed to almost enjoy the sparring.

"It's nice to disagree with someone. And it's nice to be listened to."

The two men grew closer. They made peace.

And then a war broke out.

* *

This summer, almost two decades after fleeing his troubled homeland, Cheaib, 40, returned to Lebanon for a family vacation only to find himself trapped in a war all over again when fighting erupted between Israel and Hezbollah militants July 12.

Cheaib spent the next two weeks holed up in a highrise in Beirut with his wife, mother and two nephews.

As jets flew overhead and bombs exploded within earshot, the family made as many as a dozen trips a day down the stairs to a makeshift basement bomb shelter.

Cheaib spent much of his time glued to his computer trying to connect with the outside world.

Among those trying to reach him was Finkelstein.

When bombs started falling in Beirut, Finkelstein sent his new friend several anxious e-mails expressing his hope for Cheaib and his family's safe return.

Privately, he had another wish.

"I just hoped he wouldn't come back filled with hate."

* *

Cheaib does not hide his resentment.

He speaks openly about his anger against Israel and the devastation it has brought his homeland. He is also keenly aware that for many, the miseries of war fuel hatred, annihilate hope and cement suspicion.

But Cheaib insists he won't fall prey to that cycle.

"Now I know the dialogue has to continue because I have seen the alternative."

On Monday, the dialogue group met for the first time since Cheaib's evacuation.

It was business as usual. The group spent two hours working out logistics for an upcoming event. In November the dialogue group is bringing Judea Pearl, father of the murdered Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl, and Islamic scholar Akbar Ahmed, to Hamilton for a presentation on the divisions between Jews and Muslims and the dialogue necessary to overcome them.

The men hashed out venue and budget issues but ignored the elephant in the room.

The subject of Cheaib's recent ordeal in a war that has claimed almost 1,500 lives was off-limits. Members have pledged not to allow events in the Middle East to colour their work.

But Cheaib knows it's a bullet they cannot dodge forever.

Soon he will meet privately with some of the members, including his new friend and ardent Israel-supporter, Finkelstein, to tackle the subject of war head-on.

"We have two emotionally charged communities here," says Cheaib. "And we have to be aware of that."

* *

Sitting on his plush living room couch, Cheaib is trying to focus on a conversation. But his six-year-old nephew, Rami, distracts him as he clambers on his lap, vying for attention.

Rami plays with the three stubs on his uncle's right hand and giggles.

Cheaib lost the fingers as a teenager in Beirut when he was caught in the crossfire of a shootout while sitting in the passenger seat of a car.

"It always makes him laugh," says Cheaib, a mischievous grin spreading across his moon-shaped face as he wiggles the stubs to his nephew's delight.

This is not the first time Cheaib has transformed war into spectacle for his nephew.

Last month, when they were trapped in Beirut together, Cheaib told Rami the explosions were fireworks, set off in honour of his favourite soccer team.

"Italia!" he would shout, raising his arms over his head, whenever the rumbling threatened to frighten the little boy.

He complains his nephew, who barely leaves his side, exhausts him. But within minutes, it is Rami who falls asleep inside the fold of his uncle's arm.

* *

Cheaib demonstrated his leadership qualities early in life.

He was born into a prominent Shiite Muslim family, but attended Catholic schools where he received a French education.

The son of a Lebanese colonel, Cheaib took after his father as a go-to person for people needing connections and help.

His wife Ghada, a Hamilton settlement worker, remembers watching her then-fiance scrambling in Beirut from bakery to bakery to find bread for friends and family when food was scarce during Lebanon's protracted civil war.

His drive to help others is a quality few who know him fail to mention.

Cheaib eventually fled the war-ravaged country, arriving in Hamilton in his mid-20s.

Ghazi Harb, owner of the popular Lebanese restaurant chain, La Luna, ran a restaurant at King and Victoria streets popular with Lebanese newcomers.

He remembers his first impressions of the recently arrived Cheaib.

"He stood out," says Harb. "He was always surrounded by people."

Cheaib quickly found work as a programmer analyst at Mohawk College and turned his attention to helping other newcomers.

"When people would come to Canada, they would always go to him," remembered Harb.

* *

When he first arrived in Hamilton, Cheaib was struck by the quiet civility of his new Canadian neighbours. But he was also irked by the subtle bigotry he saw slipping through the cracks.

Back then, some people saw Muslims as "dark skinned, camel herding, terrorists," he recalls.

But it was the attacks of 9/11 and their aftermath in Hamilton that spurred Cheaib into action.

Sickened by the attacks, Cheaib resolved to get the message out that "the mainstream Muslim world was against what happened."

Others disagreed.

When the Hindu temple was firebombed, most believed it had been mistaken for a mosque.

Women wearing hijabs started getting spat on.

"People in the community stopped identifying themselves as Muslim," Cheaib recalls.

Cheaib was heartened by the banner hoisted by other faith leaders that read, "An attack on one, is an attack on all."

But he felt that local Arab Muslims had to do more.

"As a community, we were not active at the time," says Cheaib, who decided then and there to step up and be counted.

"9/11 created leaders," says Abbas Hamade, a trustee and former president of the Hamilton Islamic Centre, a mosque on Upper Gage Avenue which boasts the city's largest Lebanese membership. "It brought our hidden leaders to the surface."

"They preached about the importance of coming out and being visible so that we are not looked at as a people who do not want to participate in every aspect of life. Cheaib helped to show people that we were secluded, that Hamilton did not know who we are."

* *

If 9/11 helped forge Cheaib's leadership, the recent war in Lebanon will certainly test it.

Not everyone in his community supports the idea of the dialogue group.

Some even flat-out oppose it.

"The war has weakened the support for the dialogue group from both (Jewish and Arab) sides," he says.

He's heard mounting cynicism from some within his community who are doubtful that "any of this will make a difference."

But despite their objections, Cheaib is eager for Hamilton to see Arabs reaching out and building bridges. He says he is doing it for them.

He also appears to be putting his foot down and saying, "we're going to try this my way now."

Cheaib does not shy away from his contempt for Israel's role in this war and even praises Hezbollah's recent resistance.

And he plans to express those views when he sits back down with his friend Finkelstein and others from the dialogue group.

The point, he says, is to keep talking.

"How is this ever going to end? By putting more walls up?," he asks. "People have to understand that we cannot cancel each other out. If we're saying we're Canadian and we want to do it differently, we should be creative enough to figure out how."




Credit: The Hamilton Spectator