There is an important section in Friedman’s “From Beirut to Jerusalem” that talks about the Phoenician-descent myth that Lebanese Christians invented for themselves, and how the Israelis bought into it hook-line-and-sinker as they were preparing for their first Lebanese invasion and occupation (circa 1980).
I continue to be dismayed by how much residual resentment still seethes just below the surface between Lebanese Christians and Muslims, even among those who left decades ago. I am equally dismayed every time I encounter Americans or other Westerners who lived among Lebanese Christians and have bought into their fantasies of innate superiority.
How many of the world’s problems can be traced to people trying to pass themselves off as a remnant of some fictional lily-white race rather than admitting they are as mongrelized as their self-appointed enemies? FYI, as a human owned by a series of over-indulged mongrels (of the canine variety), let me assure readers that, for me at least, the word “mongrel” is not an aspersion of the shoe-throwing sort…
I am a mixed-race descendent of illegal boat people from Ireland…