Ghosts of Beirut

Ghosts of Beirut is very well written and depicts its time periods accurately. The acting is solid most of the time and I like the documentary pieces that were added.

The series should be 3 episodes longer, however. What I really missed, was the 90s and how Imad managed to be the so called ghost. In my opinion this is an essential part of his reputation.

I also would have liked the Arabic actors to be Lebanese, as most of them have a an Israeli Arabic background. This does not entirely capture the Lebanese vibe, although Dina Shahibi has lived in Beirut.

But this is well worth your time and attention.

I have tons of respect for Lior and Avi, and I get that they wanted to show the whole picture of Imad. But let's face it - the man was a monster. His forces were responsible for murdering so many innocent people and later united with Assad who murdered so many Syrians. We can show that he has a private life but the story wasn't balanced. They didn't show how his actions affected civilians but showed him as a civilian all the time.

As a show, the acting (apart from the actor who played Imad) was horrendous. It was like me reading this review out loud in a monotone voice. This is the network that brought us Dexter and the people who brought us Fauda. I blame Barker for this, obviously.

So, interesting historically but you can just read a wiki page.

Good acting although the Middle East topic was and still is very very complicated, I feel that there was not enough data about mugniyeh, his background, his extreme ruthlessness that is not depicted enough, for example there is a story about him burning alive a three year old child of a south Lebanese Israeli collaborator.

Where he grew up, how he met Hassan nasserallah. So the series is good acting is good but they could've added two episodes at least for a more gripping intriguing story.

The amount of stories about the Middle East can be made to an entire season, Meir Dagan R. I. P the head of mossad then was quite a fascinating man himself.

Sitting in 2024 while the 10/7 war is still unfolding, this is a good reminder of the original events that led to the disaster we are facing today. "Radwan" is today the name of the Hezbollah unit that most threatens Israel. USA and the world allowed this monster to grow into a powerful Iranian proxy that threatens the region with hundreds of thousands of missiles (not a typo). A few quibbles: the English subtitles of Arabic spoken language are overlaid by the "regular" subtitles when turned on, making this tough to watch. The journalist interviews while informative, aren't really necessary for the educated viewer. Last words: God how could we have been so dumb?

Well, it seems that some people can't grasp that this is a dramatisation, based on real events, that took place in Beirut in the mid-80s. The facts that the some of the actual people involved in the incidents are talking about them at various points in each episode seems to have also passed them by.

The characters are well-drawn by the actors and it soon becomes clear that, at this time, many in the CIA were thoroughly incompetent when it came to understanding what was happening with the development of many radical Muslim groups in the Middle East. Most of them were completely clueless about what was going on Iran and how that was fomenting radicalism in Lebanon.

This is a very interesting miniseries that demonstrates the level of incompetence in the upper levels of the CIA.