Lebanon: The Arab Village Idiot
Dr. Joseph Hitti
April 18, 2008

For four decades, the Arabs have forced Lebanon into being the only Arab war front with Israel, while they themselves embarked on peace overtures and treaties with the Hebrew State.

To the Lebanese fell the role of the village idiots. Their country burned so that Yasser Arafat could "liberate" Palestine, so that Fuad Siniora could brag about being "the last Arab country to sign peace with Israel", so that the other hypocrite Lebanese Sunnis from Salim Hoss and Rafik Hariri down could uphold "Arab honor", and so that Shiite Hassan Nasrallah and his herd of Iranian-paid Lebanese Shiites could inflate their gonads in pride at "resisting" and drag the entire country behind them into the dirt. And so, while the Lebanese were forced to agree (beginning with the 1969 Cairo Accord) to get beaten up on the head by Israel, other Arabs like Egypt and Jordan officially made peace with the Israeli "enemy", the Palestinians´ PLO made peace with Israel and returned to Palestine to start a country, and now in broad daylight, Israeli Foreign Minister Livni pays a visit to Qatar and speaks at a trade and democracy convention there. Mind you, this is the tip of the iceberg. God only knows how much trade and cozy relations are being had by many other Arab countries with the "enemy", while the idiotic Lebanese, led by Hassan Nasrallah on the Shiite side and Fuad Siniora on the Sunni side, continue to set their country backwards and "resist", "defend Arab honor" and "liberate" Palestine for the Palestinians, all at Lebanese cost in blood and treasure.

I find the position of Fuad Siniora the most hypocritical. He is the prime ally of the United States, the top (albeit newly discovered) anti-Syrian politician in the country who wants Syria (and indirectly Israel) to settle the Shebaa Farms issue with Lebanon, and who supposedly is against Hezbollah´s rhetoric about "permanent resistance". Yet, he has repeatedly stated that Israel is the enemy, and that Lebanon will be the last Arab country to make peace with Israel.

Why doesn´t Siniora tell the Lebanese in clear unambiguous language why he wants Lebanon "to be the last Arab country to sign peace with Israel"? Is it to reinforce the notion that Lebanon is a retarded country that cannot make its own decisions without deferring to its Arab "brothers" to "go first"? Isn´t it enough for Siniora that Sunni Egypt and Sunni Jordan have signed peace with Israel? Isn´t it enough that Qatar is entertaining all types of smart – business and technology – relations with Israel to develop itself, become the most advanced Arab country, and replace Lebanon as a center of business and tourism in the Arab world? Whom is Siniora waiting for to make peace first? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Why doesn´t he tell the Lebanese people what his plan is to get them out of decades of wars, death and destruction?

The hypocrisy of Lebanon´s Muslims – Sunnis and Shiites alike – regarding the issue of Palestine and Israel is causing great harm to Lebanon´s future. Having burned Lebanon through 40 years of war on the pretense of "resistance" and "liberation", they are now letting Lebanon fall behind economically and technologically by keeping the country chained by false and obsolete slogans. Having crucified their fellow Christian Lebanese over the decades on accusations of "dealing with the enemy" – Bashir Gemayel and Abu Arz come to mind, to name only a couple – but also Miss Lebanon whom the Rafik Hariri government once arrested in the mid-1990s at Beirut Airport, accused her of "dealing with the enemy", interrogated and persecuted her for months because alphabetical order had her standing next to Miss Israel in the pageant on television, Lebanon´s Muslims seem determined to do all they can to maintain Lebanon´s status as the retarded impotent idiot among the Arab countries because while the Arabs are busy modernizing and developing, they have delegated all the valiant "resisting´ and "liberating" to the Lebanese who, brave and stupid as they are, act with an inferiority complex and feel some kind of moral obligation to do all the anti-Israel fighting on behalf of the Arabs, in return for a few cheers and pats on the back and an occasional dollar or two..


One argument that one occasionally hears from pro-Siniora Lebanese is a conspiracy theory that goes like this: Israel is behind the destruction of Lebanon because Israel is afraid of the fierce economic and technological competition that a "healthy" Lebanon could pose to Israel. Another version of that theory is that Lebanon must not normalize relations with Israel because then Israel will defeat the Lebanese economically and technologically. Therefore, like Siniora, these people argue that Lebanon must remain "unhealthy" or in a state of low-level hostilities – no peace and no war – with Israel because this is the only way the Lebanese could maintain their presumed superiority over the Israelis. Keep in mind that this superiority is only theoretical, since one does need a functioning country to implement and realize it.

So the conundrum for the proponents of this otherwise asinine policy is that if the Lebanese engage Israel in full-fledged war, Israel wins militarily. If they engage Israel with full-fledged peace, then Israel wins economically and technologically. The price, however, for maintaining a "soft war" with Israel is that Lebanon never recovers, as it occasionally suffers massive destruction by Israeli retaliations, the economy never picks up, investments never come, all of which continues to set the country backwards. Neither is a "soft war" condition a good position to prove Lebanon´s presumed superiority. Still, the conspiracy theory believers find it – in their degenerate idiocy – a comfortable position because they can always conveniently blame Israel for everything, including preventing Lebanon from fulfilling that superiority which, when unleashed, would defeat Israel.

It is with this psychological pathology that the Muslims of Lebanon have managed the country for the past 30 to 40 years: They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want Lebanon to prosper, to attract investments and tourism, to show the world the magnificence of Lebanese genius, which by way the country enjoyed when the Christians "ruled" between the 1920s and the 1970s. But unlike the Christians, the Muslims feel they must be the substitute cretins on behalf of all the Arabs and fight Israel, drawing enough Israeli ire every couple of years (1978, 1982, 1985, etc. up through July 2006) to keep Lebanon like a putrid decomposing pile of dung: Warm, wet, smelly, and unlivable. That is why more Lebanese have left the country over the past few decades than there are Lebanese living in it, and they still line up at foreign embassies by the hundreds every day.

Quoting from a pro-Siniora newspaper (Profile News, January 2008) published here in Boston by members of the Lebanese community who uphold this conspiracy theory:

"And we do not forget that Israel always seeks to sow troubles in Lebanon because the Lebanese people are the only ones who can compete with the Jewish invasion of the Arab markets, whether in scientific, technological, or artistic superiority. This is why Israel is fighting Lebanon mercilessly."

Ultimately, Lebanon´s leaders must make their own decisions based on the interests of the country before any other cause. If making peace with Israel is good enough for Egypt and Jordan, it must be good for Lebanon, and Siniora should not wait for Syria to settle the Golan or for any other Arab to be satisfied with Israel before he dares make peace with Israel. The Lebanese government of the 1970s and 1980s was paralyzed by the Muslims of Lebanon who placed a higher priority on defending the Palestinians and other Arab causes than on protecting and saving their own country. Now that the Taif Agreement gave them the ultimate power and decision-making, they have not been able to transcend the pan-Arab, pan-Islamic nationalism they cling to and continue to drag the country into a fatal dead-end. A "Lebanon-first" policy must be adopted in which Lebanon must remove itself from the Arab-Israeli conflict, make peace with both Israel and Syria, and get on with the business of salvaging the country before it is too late.