Jihad Against Lebanese Christians

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | November 20, 2003 | Dr. Walid Phares

[SJackson]

A few hours after the blasts in Riyadh, a chain of commentaries mushroomed around the world. These op-eds ran before the media broadcast the names of the victims. By the next morning, the official "version" of the attack (in Washington, D.C., and abroad) was to label it as a Muslim-on-Muslim attack, blaming the Islamist al-Qaida for mass murdering Muslims in their spiritual motherland Arabia, and during their holiest month of the year, Ramadan.

A U.S. State Department official quickly spread the word. "This was is not against America and the West only, " he said, "it is also against Islam." He concluded that al-Qaida's jihad was a "war against civilization." This version of the Saturday, November 10, terrorist attack is convenient for the U.S., its allies and the general campaign against terrorism. It could be turned into an immense rallying banner around the world. If al-Qaida starts massacring fellow Muslims, then it would generate an internal Islamic war and lift the mantra of "Crusade" from Washington's efforts. Diplomatic analysts on both sides of the Atlantic hoped this would be a pragmatic shift in the War on Terror. In fact it wasn't. And here is why.

The characterization of the Riyadh's attacks took off without accurate data. Both the BBC and CNN ignored the victims: their names, their socio-economic realities and the history of the Jihadists in this regard.

First the statistics: According to Diaspora-based Lebanese sources, among the injured from the attacks about 90 victims were Lebanese. Five Lebanese nationals were burned to death, including two children, Jad and Raya Mezher. A newly married woman, Nina Joubran, was also massacred. A pregnant woman, Houry Haytaya, and her husband, Dany Ibrahim, were also killed. Another family, the Haidars, were murdered, as well. The fact is certified: The massacre of the Muhayya compound was directed at the Lebanese Christian community living in Saudi Arabia.

Media commentators and news rooms were too fast in describing the horror as Islamist terrorists murdered "Muslims." This is not to say that al-Qaida and its alike do not kill Muslims. They have terminated more than 48,000 Muslim civilians in Algeria and many moderate Muslims in Egypt. But the Muyahha attack targeted the Lebanese Christians for very specific reasons. A community of roughly 100,000 Lebanese people has been working in the Kingdom since the mid-Sixties. Many of these Lebanese Christians have since become a pillar of the Saudi economy. The contribution of the Lebanese (from all communities, although particularly the Christians) to Saudi prosperity is widely known in the business world. The most recent waves of Lebanese include representatives fo the liberal sectors and management planners. They are found in all spheres of the work force and as advisers to government. It is to note that more than 80 percent of these migrants are Christians, and many among them are Maronites (Eastern-rite Roman Catholics).

Al-Qaida aimed at this vibrant community as a way to cripple one the pillars of Saudi economy. With one car bomb, the Jihadists wanted to kill as many of these Lebanese "infidels" as possible, because these Lebanese migrants were both "kafirs"and economic assets. Osama's audio message, played on al-Jazeera in October, called for the cleansing of Arabia from all people of the Book. There are no Jews left in the Peninsula. Most of the Americans are either gone or in well-protected communities. The next on the Jihadists hit-list are the Lebanese Christians.

Last weekend's massacre was the first step toward their elimination. The other steps will come in the form of an alleged "help" extended to them. In fact, few days after the tragedy, the Syrian-controlled government of Lebanon declared it would reduce the price of the tickets for a one way return flight to Lebanon, or to any other country of their choice. The ethnic cleansing of the Lebanese from Arabia seems to become more sophisticated than the Balkan's predecessor.

But why this Jihadist determination to obliterate Lebanese Christians? Are they not Arabs? To be academically correct, they are not. The Christians of Lebanon, particularly the Maronites, speak Arabic very well, but they have their own ethnicity: Aramaic. They are the descendants of the Phoenicians. In their religious services, the Syriac language is still used as it was spoken by Jesus, some 2033 years ago.

But al-Qaida has more recent political reasons to aim at them. It is known, in the circles sympathetic to the Jihadists that Lebanese Christians have pro-Western affinities, work in American companies in the Peninsula and constitute an obstruction to the radical clerics designs on the Kingdom's infrastructure. Worse by Jihadist standards, the Lebanese Christians have been at the forefront of the campaign against terrorism. Both in the U.S. and elsewhere, they have produced top translators, diplomatic analysts, staffed official media agencies and were recruited by the military. On Al-Jazeera and on the LBCI, many Islamic fundamentalists went to the length of calling General John Abuzaid a traitor to his "roots."

But jihad against the Lebanese Christians has a very long history. Decades before 9/11, al-Qaida's predecessors have slaughtered Lebanese monks in Deir Ashashe in 1975; massacred thousands of Christians in Damour in 1976; and raped, maimed and razed villages in East Sidon in the mid-1980s. Even after the so-called end of the War in Lebanon, bin Laden's men were still rampaging in Christian areas of Lebanon into the new Millennium In January 2000, al-Qaida terrorists murdered a number of civilians in Kfar Habou in Northern Lebanon, slicing the body of a pregnant woman and torturing a nun to death in a Beirut suburb. Lebanese Christian blood was spilled by the organization responsible for September 11 throughout the 1990s. Symbolism wasn't absent from al-Qaida guidelines. Many McDonalds, Pizza Huts and other American-themed restaurants, located in the Christian sectors of Lebanon, were bombed over the past 12 years.

The Jihadist paragdim is systematic. From Beirut, to Riyadh, passing by Haifa, the region is to be made Lebanese-Christian free. Al-Qaida wants to sign and enjoy its horrors. According to Pierre Atallah, the Lebanese journalist in exile in Paris, who lost his nephew and niece, "the terrorists were machine gunning the victims for more than twenty minutes. Killing has proceeded before the blasts." The bombing in Riyadh was not set by Jihadists against other Muslims; it was a slaughter of Christians. But by way of consequences, it is a Muslim image that al-Qaida was maiming.

Few hours after I have finished writing this piece, an al-Qaida commander out of Iraq admitted that the compound was "under surveillance for many months." Al-Hijazi added it was known "that a large group of Lebanese Christians were living there." He openly declared, "After consultation, we decided it was appropriate to attack this place and destroy it, including the people who lived there, because it housed Americans and a large majority of Christians holding Lebanese citizenship."

With these words, al-Qaida has declared war on Lebanese Christians, and if it gets the opportunity, on Christians worldwide.

[jocon307]

Must read bump. Who says these Islamics aren't trying to kill us all? I'd like to see the nincompoop nine questioned as to their reaction to this. Except Lieberman, he gets it.

[samtheman]

This is absolutely right. The press, and even the President, routinely say that these people are "against civilization". They are not. They want to install a Facsist Islamic Dictatorship in the "Moslem world" (a "world" that now includes France and Great Britain, according to their version of reality).

We might not think a Facist Islamic Dictatorship is very "civilized", and according to our values, it's definitely not.

But to imply that these people are something akin to nihilists, who want to destroy for the sake of destroying, is wrong.

They want to build.

They want to build a big prison and stick humanity inside it.

Just like the communists wanted to build a global prison.

Which is why the western leftists love the islamo-facists so much. It's the common goal of locking up humanity in a prison fortress that gives them common brotherhood. And sisterhood --- since the feminazi's hate western civilization much more than they hate the islamo-facists.

All facists are basically on the same side.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Bin Laden.

They all want to build that Big Prison for The Rest of Us.

And they're all supported by Useful Idiots in the west.

[MEG33]

Very interesting.

[gaspar]

The slaughter of Christian Lebanese continued at a rapid pace after the nineteen sixties when France washed its hands of the Maronite Christians that it had championed for nearly a thousand years. As Britain learned in 1939, and the United States has just learned, the French do not make good allies.

[samtheman]

France was bad when it was full of French people. Now it's filling up with Arabs and Islamic Africans. It's getting much, much worse. Going from unstable, unhelpful, unrealiable to downright dangerous.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[Mamzelle]

The Lebanese Christians I have known have also been the only vocal, unapologetic antisemites I have ever known. The cultural ties with Arabia are very important, and can be more important than the bonds of faith.

Ironic, since it wasn't the Jews that were always trying to kill them.

[gaspar]

Let's be honest. Lebanese anti-Semitism was never much until the 6 day war and the arrival of yet more Palestinians in Lebanon. If the Israelis could manufacture a magic bullet that would kill all Palestinians in Lebanon the Lebanese, from Jumblatt to the lowliest Maronite cleric, would be overjoyed.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Death to Islam/Ann Coulter was right ping.

Its time to retake Lebanon and Syria for Christendom. Free the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Damascus! Invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

ping

[livius]

Thanks for posting this. There were a few mentions of this inconvenient fact, and then it just disappeared and the "official version" (that it was Muslims attacking Muslims) came out.

While Muslims were killed, they were just collateral damage - local Muslim security guards and other employees of the complex, etc. The target was the Lebanese Christian community, and the author was very perceptive in noting that the real goal of al Qaida is to cleanse all Arab lands of non-Muslim Arabs.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Ping.

Counterargument to "Muslims killing Muslims".

[nuconvert]

Thanks for ping

"goal of al Qaida is to cleanse all Arab lands of non-Muslim Arabs."

Exactly. The goal of the TERRORISTS.....that's why we have a WAR ON TERRORISM.

[dennisw]

First I've heard the ones murdered are Lebanese Christians!!! Very informative!!

[ArrogantBustard]

France was bad when it was full of French people.

I think Gen'l George Washington would disagree with you. That, of course, was before the demonic horror known as the French Revolution. La France, she has not been the same since the pagans and atheists took over.

[Terriergal]

"goal of al Qaida is to cleanse all Arab lands of non-Muslim Arabs."

And to Islam, all land is theirs.

Just heard Ken Timmerman on Laura Ingraham's show (_Preachers Of Hate: Islam and the War on America _)

Talking about how Islam has stated its goal to make America an Islamic Nation and the European Union as well. That's why they really hate Turkey and why the bombings have happened there, because it is secular.

[Stopislamnow]

Here's what I think is going to happen, probably in 10 to 15 years.

Islam is gonna be exterminated one way or another. My guess is a large nuclear exchange between Israel and the arab states.

But before that happens...people are going to start realizing that a religion founded by a murdering, pedophilic, illiterate highway robber can not, in any way, be peaceful or reconcile itself with higher ideas and thought, as well as technology.

As people begin to realize this they will start persecuting them. I believe the euro states will start that up first, striking back and passing laws and deporting muslims.

If another 9-11 happens here in the US, well, then the game is gonna be pretty much up. Bush spewing its a "Religion of Peace" is not going to work should thousands of Americans die again. First some po'ed Americans are gonna start taking out mosques and individual muslims, and the American people will not be as outspoken against it this time, maybe law enforcement doesn't work as hard to catch the perps. Beyond that backlash will grow in the middle of America, people who don't pay attention all that much suddenly will again and they are going to recognize who and what is behind the evil that is islam, muslims. Muslims will not be safe. I think laws will passed against islam, and against having muslims serving in office.

Islam should immediately lose its classification of a religion removing any constitutional protections it has, it should not be considered a religion today due to its promotion of barbaric practices such as slavery, womens rights, limb removal, pedophilia, and extreme intolerance towards anything not islamic. If a muslim converts to a real religion, they are supposed to be killed.


Hate to think like this, but there really isn't a way to bring the backward morons that follow islam into the modern age. There just isn't. With islam having "No legal controlling authority" there is no way to get them all to listen to anyone. Each mosque is its own little cell of modern day killers, haters, slavers, pedophiles and deviants with its own modern day caliphs in the mullahs.

I mean, come on, look at what kind of man muhammed was, and tell me if its "OK" to follow a completely evil man's delusions, most of which were stolen from Hebrew and Christian ideas, along with a very large helping of the practices of the arab moon god.

Muslims are modern day Nazi's. And the moderate muslims are the germans who stood by and did nothing.

[Apogee]

Very nice touch - quoting from a Maronite Christian.
:)