Lebanese Christians and Middle East Jews: A Symbiosis

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After 3,000 years the "symbiosis" between Jews and the people of Lebanon, the ancient Phoenicians, is being rekindled. This amazing phenomenon has already produced the first attempts at firm political alliances. A treaty was forged in 1946, only to be undermined by pro-Arab forces. Again, after the events of 1982, a peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon was concluded -- again only to be sabotaged by the Syrians, who have never given up their ambition to establish "Greater Syria" by gobbling up Lebanon and Israel and incorporating them in an all-Moslem state.

But in the hearts and minds of the ancient people of Lebanon, the yearning for joining the Jews has never stopped. Prophetess Deborah sang of the joint crews of Jewish-Phoenician mariners who set out to sea to found Carthage and the Jewish-Phoenician colonies along the Western Mediterranean. King Hiram of Tyre sent workers and artisans to the Jerusalem of King Solomon.

I therefore yield to a guest columnist, Mrs. Theresa Khuri a young American-Lebanese patriot, who, together with Michel Raphael, an elder Lebanese-Christian scholar, has written movingly the following charming article in which she reveals the deep-rooted yearning of her ancient countrymen to forge links again with the Jewish people in their biblical land:

The human soul, navigating the riptide of human interaction, employs social hierarchy as an "intimacy valve," regulating the flow of potential emotional caustics to its tender core. Each degree of this hierarchy, ranging in intensity from distinctly removed to passionately intense, serves a discrete and necessary function. In fact, the human soul would experience hardship if one were omitted, for it cannot flourish on a single level of relationship any more than the physical body can have well-being on one type of food.

At the most jejune level there is distant knowledge -- the level where we know someone from afar. This tacit relationship is akin to an emotional one-way street: We may know, yet not be known in return. At the acquaintance level, an individual has entered our sphere of influence. This person may be someone we meet regularly: a teller at a bank; the checkout person at the supermarket, etc. We exchange greetings and pass a few pleasantries, but nothing more -- we keep our emotional cards to our chest.

More intense is friendship. For most, this is the closest relationship. Through the acquaintance process, we determine that there is enough commonality to allow increased access to our true inner self. We have opened the value of intimacy to share more openly with those to whom we feel a more common bond, a neutral emotional pH. We like the same hobbies, the same types of food, the same music, the same clothes, but herein lies its weakness. Since homophile defines most of these friendships, they must, of necessity, have as their basis the same culture, the same mores, the same milieu; and, as a result, they hinder relationships between those of a different race, culture, economic status, ethnicity, etc.

But there is one type of relationship that forgoes parity and steps beyond the bounds of duality into that mystical area of oneness characterized by the biblical concept of "cleaving" between a husband and wife. It is a realm of abstruse friendship -- one where no physical union is involved -- and which often confounds the uninitiated.

Such was the relationship between Ruth, a Moabite, and Naomi, a Jew. There was no commonality of culture, religion, or ethnicity, and yet somehow, it transcended the bounds of friendship and entered the province of profound "soulical" union. This mysterious oneness -- like the singleness of Naomi and Ruth -- typifies the historical relationship between Lebanese Christians and Jews.

Michel Rafael, a Lebanese Maronite Christian, feels within his being that strong oneness, which he calls a "symbiosis," with the Jews. A oneness, he says, that goes back almost 3,000 years to the reigns of King David and King Solomon in Israel and Hiram, King of Tyre.

Now Hiram King of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon, when he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father, for Hiram had always been a friend of David … and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a covenant (Kings 5:1).

The two of them made a covenant -- a pledge of mutual support and peaceful co-existence -- which has remained to this day in the hearts of their descendents, the Jews and the Lebanese. It is an amazing fact, says Rafael, that throughout the centuries of turmoil that has gripped the Middle East from the various conquests and hegemonies, there is not one recorded incident of hostility between the non-Arab Phoenician/Aramaic people and the Jews.

The word "phoenicia" was invented by the Greeks from a root word meaning "red." It referred to a dye used to color tunics that was made from a shell native to the shores of Tyre. The Lebanese, renowned as seafarers and traders, sailed with the Jews to found the city of Carthage in north Africa and many coastal cities in Spain. Returning Phoenicians and Hebrew sailors always knew they were approaching Lebanon by the smell of the cedars. Aramaic was the colloquial language spoken in Lebanon and in ancient Israel after the captivity.

Lebanon is mentioned over 70 times in the Scriptures, with one-fifth of the references related to, or written by, David and Solomon. Rafael says that, historically, the ancient Lebanese and Jews believed they were children of the same land. They didn't even draw a border between them. Even as the Lebanese adopted Christianity as their religion, there was never friction between them and the Jews. When the early Christians -- who were Jews -- had to flee Jerusalem, it is said that many of them went to Phoenicia. The Lebanese and Jews carried on with commerce and navigation, in contrast to the Arab invasion of the 7th century.

Rafael states that in the same way the history of South America can be categorized into the pre-Columbian and post-Columbia eras, so too, the history of the Middle East can be divided into two eras: pre-Mohammedan and post-Mohammedan.

After the Arab invasion, the Lebanese Christians took refuge in Mt. Lebanon, which became their haven and stronghold for the next 600 years. Mt. Lebanon became a refuge not only for the Lebanese Christians, but for all ethnic populations persecuted by the Arab Moslems -- including Jews. In fact, the Lebanese Christian enclave of Mt. Lebanon was one of the first places where Jews were hidden from surrounding persecution.

During the Arab occupation -- which continues to this day in Lebanon -- the Lebanese Christians and Jews grew closer, as they realized they needed to rely on each other for survival. Generation after generation of Christians and Jews witnessed widespread mini-holocausts at the hands of the Arab Islamists.

By the beginning of World War I, as talk of self-determination for the Jewish people was bantered about, the Lebanese Christians started to look at Zionism as "an inspiring model for national rejuvenation and for assistance."

In 1937, Dr. Chaim Weizman met with President Emile Edde in Paris, and they congratulated each other on their respective efforts to secure independence for small minority Mideastern peoples against the forces of Arab Islam. This meeting had been preceded by Jewish-(Lebanese-Christian) Maronite contacts, deliberations on Zionist economic assistance to Lebanon, plans for Jewish tours, and an agreement for joint security measures against extreme Palestinian Arab elements. During his conversation with Weizman, Edde did not refrain from expressing hope that the future Jewish State's "first international friendship treaty be with its good neighbor, Lebanon!"

Like the covenant struck between King Hiram and King Solomon, and the meeting between Edde and Weizman, these feelings of mutuality and friendship between Lebanese Christians and Jews are reflected again and again. Ben-Gurion recognized a shared fate for the Lebanese Christians and Jews of the Middle East and spoke of the benefit the Jewish state would be to the Christians of Lebanon.

Lebanese leaders, such as Archbishop Ignatz Mubarak of Beirut, Camille Chamoun, Sa'ad Haddad, Pierre and Bashir Jemayel, Fady Frem, and Walid Phares, reiterated the same desire for closer relations with Israel.

One may say that no Middle Eastern nation has had so many national leaders express such sincere desire for closeness with the Jews.

These same feelings reverberate today throughout the membership and leadership of the World Lebanese Organization (WLO), the unsuppressed and undistorted voice of Lebanese Christians today. The WLO looks to Israel as its most reliable strategic ally in the region. Galvanizing this union further is the Leadership Committee for a Free Middle East, founded by WLO president Walid Phares and Manfred Lehmann, president of the World Committee for Israel.

Like the meetings of Dr. Chaim Weizman and President Emil Edde a generation ago, the Leadership Committee for a Free Middle East works to secure autonomy and independence for "captive nation" groups fighting for survival against Arab Islamization. These historical, indigenous peoples -- the Copts, Assyrian, Lebanese Christians, South Sudanese, etc. -- look to Israel as a model for independence in the region. There is a strong belief in the hearts of these people -- and especially among the Lebanese Christians -- that Israel will not leave them as enfants perdu, allowing the forces of radical Islamism to extinguish their ancient flames in the Middle East. The Lebanese Christians, for one, believe that their symbiosis with the Jews will continue into the future, just as it has in millennia past. Century after century of affection and friendship, as well as the crucible of persecution, have forged these two peoples into a oneness of spirit. In the hearts of the Lebanese people, the covenant between King Hiram and King Solomon is not just a historical event -- it is a living solidarity of harmony and rapport, a unity that overcame in ages past and will continue to triumph a long as it remains one.

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