Lebablogging

Life is always full of interest in Lebanon. A reader who was in Beirut when the Civil War started in 1975 writes:

Tony Franjieh [son of the Christian President of Lebanon from 1970-1976] and his family stayed as house guests in Maine long ago with a senior pair of State officials, and they all went out to see the movie "The Godfather" at a local cinema in the Maine woods. Tony came out of the movie almost shaking and told the State Dept pair that "this movie is all about my country and my family."...

In 1978, Franjieh was bumped off Sonny Corleone-style, apparently by the rival Christian warlord family, the Gemayels.

A few more distinguished or notorious Lebanese-Americans to add to your roster: Vince Vaughn has some Lebanese ancestry, which fits with Jennifer Anniston’s Greek forebears. Reporter Helen Thomas, a dinner guest at our DC house two decades ago ... descends from Greek Orthodox Lebanese. Danny Thomas is from Maronite stock in Bcherri, where the only Cedars left in Lebanon still stand. Fmr Senator George Mitchell from Maine is half Lebanese, which helped him decipher the endless grievances in Northern Ireland. Don’t forget new arrivals to the US like Selma Hayek and Shakira, both of Lebanese descent. Finally, long ago my Greek-descended wife went out with [prominent Arab-American politician X], who told her that Lebanese and Greeks had a natural affinity. Ask Vince and Jennifer, perhaps! ...

The notorious April 1975 events were interpreted by the US Embassy Political Section as a Maronite attempt to prevent the eventual takeover of Lebanese politics by the demographically more numerous Muslims, Sunni and Shi’ite, whom everyone believed at that time comprised the majority of the population. It was strongly believed that the Maronites had received military, political and covert assurances from “Dixie,” the code for Israel in Beirut. Israel, according to the US consensus in-country, had no desire to see Lebanon succeed as a multi-confessional democracy, which was what the PLO charter outlined for a “Palestinian State”--- comprising Muslims, Christians, Druzi, and Jews all singing "Kumbayah" --- that would replace Israel and the Occupied Territories after a negotiated settlement based on UNSC Res. 242 & 338.

I liked singing "Kumbayah" at summer camp, but, then, I was an especially sappy child.

That was the Arabist view and Lebanon did collapse and the multi-confessional democratic model went up in smoke...

... Michael Ledeen and his Israeli contacts concocted a scheme to get the massive PLO arms caches captured by the IDF in South Lebanon into the hands of the Iranians, then in the middle of an endless war with Iraq, which Israel considered its chief foe in the Arab world. Iran Contra ensued as Iran received large numbers of Kalashnikovs & ammo [through Israeli channels] and a thousand TOWs from the US, who sluiced the proceeds to the Contras fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. The Israeli sale of PLO munitions has never been documented...

Here's the perspective of the Jewish Virtual Library on Ledeen's role in Iran-Contra.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer