Is Rai’s visit to occupied Palestine a political coup?

There is of course the rift that the French colonialists wanted between a Catholic Lebanon and the Orthodox East. Since the 1920s, the Christians of the East have gone two separate ways. One way was that of Lebanese Maronite nationalism striving for Lebanon’s secession and the other was that of Orthodox Christians struggling for the unity of the Levant and the Arabs. There are of course in the background of both sides church, religious and cultural influences, but they reflect in the final analysis opposing socio-political interests.

The Maronites in Lebanon are a majority [amongst the Christian population] for whom the possibility of forming separate nationalism was made possible. On the other hand, the partition of Arab lands resulting from the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Zionist project fragmented the large and significant Orthodox community in Greater Syria and segmented their community into minorities living between four countries. They, however, opposed the fragmentation of Arab lands and strove to reunite them by reclaiming their identity through two modern ideologies: Syrian nationalism and Arab nationalism and the latter, in practice, is Levantine in nature.

There remained Orthodox religious and political influence in Lebanon, whereas generally speaking, Catholics and other Christian sects in Greater Syria maintained the religious aspect of their lives but not the political and cultural ones.

There are of course Arab nationalist and leftist activists among the Maronites of Lebanon. But no Christian political party or even a Christian political movement was ever established in Syria, Jordan or Palestine. Ultimately, the Maronites lost by Lebanon’s separation and subsequent civil war in which they lost their special status in the state they created while the Christians of the other states of the Levant enjoyed economic, social, cultural, political and symbolic influence that far outweighs their demographic numbers in Syria, Jordan and the Palestinian national movement.

Until 2005, observers could have imagined this psychological, cultural and political rift between the Lebanese Maronite community and the Eastern Christian community. But the emergence of the Free Patriotic Movement in Lebanon led by Michel Aoun, whose new policies were closer to the spirit of the Christians of the East, flung the doors wide open toward Christian unity throughout the region within a unifying Arab nationalist context. This gave hope for the rise of this social and historical community that was crucified by Ottomans, Europeans and reactionaries for far too long. But it resisted, took root and expanded its presence on all levels.

Another very positive step in this direction came when Cardinal Beshara al-Rai became the Maronite patriarch. He came out of the Lebanese Maronite cocoon, which grants itself the right to monopolize what is Christian in the Levant and the East and saw with a pure heart, sharp mind and discerning eyes that the genocidal assault by the barbaric militias supported by the West, Israel and the Gulf against Syria’s Christians is a danger that also threatens Lebanon’s Christians - as imagined by the Lebanese Forces, the Phalange Party and Lebanese President Michel Suleiman. Having concluded that repelling this attack requires a return to the unity of Eastern Christianity, Rai became an additional symbol for a united Christianity, for the East and for political independence in addition to the symbolism of his post in the national church of Lebanon.

For the Lebanese patriarch, there is no separation between the religious and the political. In the person of Rai, there is no separation between the religious, the political and the symbolic. It is a standing that cannot be touched, the rank of the post and the person united in one, going beyond the limits of the church and its daily protocol. Undermining this status harms the Eastern Christian dream, which lives today the great pain of the crucifixion, of resurrecting their previous strong role in the region.

When a man carries a cross and the longtime hope of his people, he is no longer free in his decision to accompany the pope on a pastoral visit to occupied Palestine. Rai is not just any cleric to do that in a framework of a pastoral or church vision. He is a Lebanese and Arab Eastern national symbol and an emblem of the fight against foreign conspirators and butchers. His visit acts like a message, so let him today visit liberated Maaloula, and wait until Jerusalem is freed.

I will conclude with two observations. One, the patriarch’s visit to occupied Palestine in terms of its symbolism in the present situation is a hundred times more important than the pope’s visit. The former can not be justified by the latter. Two, I do not see the visit as separate from the patriarchal inclination towards extending the term of a [Lebanese] president who is hostile towards the Resistance and who courts the killers of Syria’s Christians. Is it a political coup?