Lebanese Christians Refuse to Flee Israeli Onslaught

Israel resumed airstrikes on Lebanon and prepared for a possible ground invasion, reported The Associated Press on Friday. Yet as violence escalates in the region, some Lebanese Christians have refused to leave their homeland, choosing instead to wait for the conflict to end and depend on God.

|PIC1|“I stay because I don’t want to abandon my country when matters get tough,” stated Dr. Habib Malik, professor of history and cultural studies at the Lebanese American University in Beirut.

“But it is not all patriotism,” he added.

Malik, a Harvard graduate and son of the internationally known Lebanese diplomat who was instrumental in the drafting of the U.N. declaration on Human Rights, lives with his family in the heart of the Christian area just north-east of Beirut.

“I have a cash-flow shortage, no home of my own in the U.S., and leaving introduces all sorts of new unknowns about the time spent away and when I can return,” Malik wrote in an email to The Christian Post on Wednesday. “Here I have my house and I have bought some basic supplies for the children and I pray it (the conflict) doesn’t last for too long.

Although many Christians have left, Malik said “there is something in me that resists fleeing like other Christians from the region just because hardships have intensified. “

“I hope I’m not being too foolhardy,” he wrote. “Time will tell. I rely entirely on the Lord’s mercy.”

The current conflict is the largest offensive against Lebanon in 24 years and has resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties on both sides and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese and Israelis. According to AP, Israel appears to have decided that a large-scale invasion is the only way to push Hezbollah back from the Lebanon-Israel border. Hezbollah, which sparked the conflict by capturing two Israeli soldiers, has fired hundreds of rockets at northern Israeli towns since fighting began on July 12.

|AD|Malik described the situation to The Christian Post six days into the Lebanon-Israel conflict. “I have small children,” he wrote, “so you can imagine how difficult it will be to handle their needs in such a situation with no electricity, no medicines, no diapers, not enough food, etc.”

“Christians are feeling very anxious because they don’t see how destroying Lebanon is going to rid it of the scourge of Hezbollah,” continued the Middle East scholar, who is currently writing a book for Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom. “Christians here are caught between Iran and Syria, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and a completely apathetic West. It is a tragedy of the first order. None of the above cares one iota for Christians, and the indifferent West is perhaps the biggest letdown, particularly after all the positive attention Lebanon received the past year and a half from the U.S., Europe, the U.N., and the so-called international community.

“Where have they all evaporated?” Malik asked. “We are thrown to the ravenous wolves surrounding us.”

According to AP, top Israeli officials met Thursday night to decide how large a force to send and said Israel won’t stop its offensive until the Lebanese guerrilla group is forced behind the Litani River, 20 miles north of the border. The U.N. estimated that about a half-million people have been displaced in Lebanon, with 130,000 fleeing to Syria and about 45,000 believed to be in need of assistance.





Michelle Vu
Christian Today Correspondent