A few more lines on Lebanon

Some additional paragraphs:

“Beirut’s enduring lesson for me,” writes Thomas Friedman, “was how thin is the veneer of civilization, how easily the ties that bind can unravel, how quickly a society that was known for genera­tions as the Switzerland of the Middle East can break apart into a world of strangers.[1] This too is a lesson taught by the Book of Mormon and one reason why it can be said that that volume is increasingly relevant to the situation in which mankind finds itself today. Fortunately, the Book of Mormon also teaches us the path we must take to avoid such situations as those of the Nephites, the Jaredites, and the unfortunate people of Beirut.

When the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 1982, they did so in order to put an end to Palestinian raids into the north of Israel. Yasir Arafat and his men had too many weapons there for them to feel entirely comfortable. But in the twelve months leading up to the invasion, there had only been one Israeli death inflicted by Pal­estinians operating out of Lebanon. The Israelis plainly had other things to think about, other concerns that moved them to launch the invasion when they did. It is not unreasonable to conclude that they were worried about the quasi-state that Yasir Arafat and his men had built up in Lebanon and about Arafat’s new role as a kind of statesman (based upon his new role as a Lebanese warlord), which was giving him too much international respectability for their liking.

Unfortunately, the Israelis did not understand Lebanon. Not at all. They invaded to come to the aid of the Maronite Christians of the country, who were locked in a war with the Sunni Muslims (among whom were the PLO) and with the Druze. The Israelis tended to see the Maronites as much like themselves, representa­tives of Western civilization getting no gratitude from backward Arab Muslims despite all the good they were trying to do. It seemed to the Israelis that Lebanon was, or was supposed to be, a Christian society, just as Israel was a Jewish society, and that each was afflicted with a troublesome bunch of Islamic primitives.

This view was simply not true. As Thomas Friedman puts it, the then Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, and other Israelis

did not notice that these “Christians” they were going to save in Lebanon were not a group of hooded monks living in a besieged monastery but, rather, a corrupt, wealthy, venal collection of mafia-like dons, who favored gold chains, strong cologne, and Mercedeses with armor plating. They were Christians like the Godfather was a Christian.[2]

It was, for a while, common to see television advertisements in which conservative Protestants appealed to their audience to donate money to help the suffering and persecuted Christians of Lebanon. There is abso­lutely no question that innocent Christians were suffering in Leba­non, but to portray the struggle there as one between virtuous followers of Jesus who wanted only to be left alone and evil anti-Christian Muslims was utterly misleading. The soulful eyes of the children shown on such advertisements were genuinely moving, but they could as easily have been the eyes of Muslim children, for there were innocent Muslims suffering there as well. The battle was not so much about faith as it was about control of insurance rackets and smug­gling and, in the end, about vengeance for past wrongs. It was the ancient Arab principle of blood vengeance come back to life. But that prin­ciple is pagan Arab, not Christian.

[1] Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, 47.

[2] Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, 137.

Posted from Paris, France