Beirut: Farewell to the Arabs
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to the old Turkish school of diplomacy. Lebanon has no raw
materials, little to export, and has been a trading nation since
Phoenician days. The war has hurt everything. It has meant
higher taxes. It has kept away tourists. Resorts and hotels have
closed down. We have to support the miserable Moslem refugees who may some day rise against us. He shook his head. "If
only we could trade again—at least with Israel. But, as you
know, Moslem leaders of the Arab States are boycotting the
Jewish State.
"They are trying to hurt the Jews, but in reality they are
bleeding their own bodies by disrupting Arab economy and
hastening Arab collapse. Lebanese standards of living, literacy,
health, and education are the highest in the Middle East. We
are not an Arab nor Turkish people in origin, but basically
Christian. We are not an Arab State, though the language we
speak is Arabic because it was forced upon us by the sword.
Lebanon cannot prosper in isolation, or by looking to the dry
sands of the East. Lebanon can only prosper by turning to the
waters of the West, and by trading with Israel. The fanatic
Moslems cannot understand this; they cannot understand that
there are worlds beyond Islam. They wish to reduce Lebanon
to the level of the all-Moslem countries.
"It is our aim to make Lebanon the Achilles heel of ArabMoslem solidarity. Otherwise it means that the Christians'
cause is doomed in the Middle East."
A diametrically opposite point of view was that held by the
Najada (meaning "Helpers"), led in Beirut by Dr. Mohaddin
Berghout, who told me:
"The sole aim of Najada is to keep the Lebanon Arabic.
Our goal is contained in the sentence uttered by King Hussein
["father" of the Arab awakening]: 'The Arab countries are for
the Arabs only.' Any stranger can live with us in peace on the
condition that he agrees with our social and political life, and
does not plan to fight Arab aims in the future."
"What is your attitude toward Israel?" I asked.
"We don't recognize that a Jewish State exists," he said,