January 22-2016
The Lebanese Hezbollah is training and paying Christians in Lebanon to fight the Islamic State.
Hezbollah is the largest Shiite political and military organization in Lebanon. It has been allied politically in recent years with some Christian parties, but it was never known to have trained Christian fighters until now.
Citing Lebanese sources, Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin says Christian villages in the Bekaa Valley area of Lebanon are forming militias to join Hezbollah fighters already fighting the Islamic State and the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat an-Nursa Front in the Qalamoun Mountains, a range that is just inside Syria opposite Lebanon.
Rifit Nasrallah, a Greek Catholic businessman and member of a militia fighting the Islamic State, discussed the alliance with Hezbollah in an International Business Times report last month.
“We’re in a very dangerous situation,” he said. “The only people who are protecting us are the resistance of Hezbollah. The only one standing with the army is Hezbollah. Let’s not hide it anymore.”
Nasrallah said Hezbollah does not expect its allies to convert to Islam or create an allegiance to the group’s ideals.
“They accept us as we are,” he said. “They do not impose on us anything. When there’s an occasion, they come to our children’s birthdays. The people here accept that Hezbollah comes and helps.”
The IB Times report describes the alliance as one of convenience. The Greek Catholic region of Ras Baalbek is important to Hezbollah because it is a barrier to nearby Shiite towns. So, defending Ras Baalbek is a shared Christian-Shiite goal.
According to a November article in the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar, Hezbollah is even paying wages to the Christians joining the militias.
Last fall, The Christian Post reported that GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz was booed when he told Middle Eastern Christians in Washington, DC, “Christians have no greater ally than Israel.”
Mark Tooley, president of the Institute of Religion and Democracy and an attendee at the evening event, later wrote in a blog entry that he was not surprised by the reaction. “It’s no secret that many Mideast Christians generally aren’t big fans of Israel. I learned this firsthand during the 2006 Israel war on Hezbollah, when my discussion at church with a Lebanese Christian nearly escalated to a shouting match,” wrote Tooley.
“Sometimes American Christians romanticize overseas persecuted Christians into disembodied noble souls unaffected by terrestrial concerns. But they, like everybody else, have histories, loyalties, resentments, grievances, and political calculations.”