I have been acquainted with MANY people from Lebanon since the 1950s ---I used to go to Lebanon at least once a year. Beirut was a gem... The Paris of the Mediterranean. Have you ever been there? American Community School and American University of Beirut were great schools. Shopping, hotels and restaurants were great. We used to stay at the Phoenicia or the St. George . So much history.. Baalbek and Biblos were fabulous.
Everyone vacationed in Beirut. Movie stars, celebrities, captains of industry from all over the world... Everyone spoke French, English and/or Arabic and the Lebanese were warm and wonderful. It was about half Christian.
Israel has ruined all that .. that's why Hezbollah was founded in the mid 1980s
In the 1950s "LEBANON" meant, in my understanding, Christians and Jews.
who are on the run from something------in my childhood understanding --
people on the run---were running from "nazis". It was not until the 1960s
that I learned that both jews and christians were on the run FROM
MUSLIMS. For the record---what REALLY developed in the 1980s was
increasing "arab nationalism"----with one of its nefarious branches being
a form of nazism----BAATHISM. Baathism is arab nazism. In the 1970s
I came into contact with lots of Iranians--muslims and jews. Both were on
the run from Islamism. To be clear---HAMAS is not exactly BAATHIST---
Sadaam Hussein---mass murderer, was a Baathist as was KHADAFFY DUCK
Gamal Abdel Nasser. AYATOILET KHOMENEI and the other bastard with a
similar name are not Baathists---they are shiites-another important designation-----important---they despise sunnis and most are Iranians
and hate arabs with a PASSION. Another important designation is
MARONITE---they are the christians of Lebanon---the muslims of
Lebanon hate their guts. I learned this stuff directly from the players
over a long period of time---it is very accurate.