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Israeli bombs united Christians, Muslims in Lebanon, says envoy

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  • Israeli bombs united Christians, Muslims in Lebanon, says envoy

    Ecumenical News International, Switzerland
    Sept 2 2006

    Israeli bombs united Christians, Muslims in Lebanon, says envoy

    Peter Kenny and Stephen Brown

    Geneva (ENI). Lebanon's minister of culture, Tarek Mitri, says the 34
    days of fierce fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah movement
    forged unity between the country's Muslims and Christians, despite
    many people questioning why the war started.

    "Lebanon is still besieged," said Mitri, despite United Nations
    Security Council Resolution 1701 passed on 12 August. "We hear every
    day of new conditions that Israel is imposing," said Mitri saying its
    southern neighbour was refusing lift a blockade it imposed in early
    July. This began after Lebanon-based Hezbollah seized two Israeli
    soldiers and Israel replied with a month-long bombardment.

    The Lebanese minister was speaking to journalists on 2 September
    during a meeting of the central committee, or main governing body, of
    the Geneva-based World Council of Churches where he was responsible
    for Christian-Muslim dialogue from 1991 to 2005.

    "Lebanon thinks of itself as a society that is tolerant, pluralistic
    and democratic," said Mitri, who represented his country as foreign
    minister at the United Nations in New York in August, while the UN
    Security Council resolution seeking a halt to fighting was being
    hammered out.

    Mitri said because he was dispatched to New York he was not able to
    meet a WCC delegation that included a Roman Catholic bishop, which
    travelled to Beirut, Jerusalem and Ramallah during the fighting. It
    was under the leadership of the Rev. Jean-Arnold de Clermont, who is
    also the president of the Conference of European Churches.

    Earlier in the week, de Clermont reported back to the WCC leaders
    about the visit. "The unanimous message we received in Lebanon from
    both the non-Christians and Christians whom we met, that a
    democratic, multicultural and multi-confessional Lebanon is not only
    possible, but is needed to guarantee peace throughout the Middle
    East," he said.

    Addressing the WCC governing body, Mitri said the people of Lebanon
    had drawn encouragement from the solidarity shown by groups like the
    WCC.

    "Some of you may have lived in areas that are besieged and the visit
    of friends from different parts of the world is a gift from God,"
    said Mitri appealing to the church grouping not only to help the flow
    of humanitarian aid but also to pressure governments for the peace
    process in the region to be resumed.

    "Spare no effort as well to allow small countries such as Lebanon to
    survive," urged Mitri, who is a scholar of Christian-Muslim relations
    published in Arabic, French and English. "That means pressure on
    Israel."

    The first meeting in Geneva of the WCC's main decision-making central
    committee since it was elected in February in Brazil at a once every
    seven year assembly, is paying special attention to the role that
    churches can play in the Middle East.

    And answering a question on how US denominations could help Lebanon,
    Mitri said, "The American people in general and the churches in
    particular have a real role in challenging the blanket demonisation
    of people and religion in the name of the global war on terror."

    Mitri noted at his press conference there had been a history of good
    relations between Christians and Muslims since the end of a civil war
    during the 1970s, but there had not always been good relations
    between religious communities.

    "It is not religious wars that have divided us, but wars that divided
    religious communities," said Mitri who studied chemistry and
    philosophy at the American University of Beirut and holds a social
    science doctorate from the University of Paris-X.

    Explaining the complexity of Lebanese politics, and the difficulty of
    classifying religious identity, Mitri cited the fact that Hezbollah
    has a parliamentary ally in Michel Aoun, a Christian Maronite general
    during Lebanon's 1970s civil war, who has the backing of many
    Christians.

    Mitri said of Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement: "The movement is not
    particular friends of ours [the current Lebanese government]." But
    its alliance with Hezbollah had helped ease political tensions
    between Muslims and Christians, he noted.

    During the Israeli onslaught on Lebanon, Mitri said most of the
    victims of the bombing of "150 000 homes" were Shiite Muslims. "Many
    of them were welcomed in Christian houses and monasteries," he said,
    noting that, "in a fractured society like ours this is always a
    pleasant surprise."

    :: Muslims and Muslim related groups make up almost 60 per cent of
    Lebanon's population. Shiite, Sunni, Druze, Isma'ilite, Alawite or
    Nusayri are seen comprising this group. The 39 per cent of the
    Lebanon population that is Christian is made up of Maronite
    Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Melkite Catholics, Armenian Orthodox,
    Syrian Catholics, Armenian Catholics, Syrian Orthodox, Roman
    Catholics, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Copts, and Protestants. Other
    religious groups are believed to account for just over 1.3 per cent
    of its population.

    :: Under Lebanon's laws; the president is required to be a Maronite
    Christian; the prime minister, a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of the
    Parliament, a Shiite Muslim.

    http://www.eni.ch/articles/display.shtml?06-0699
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