Of Stefania Bonfiglio
Source: The Voice of Italy

In this frame, Fabrizio Fratus meets Nassib Wehbe, 51 years, Lebanese Christian. Now he works for the Italian contingent that acts as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon. Nassib took up his first rifle 14 years and fought in the Phalanx, Christian armed militia. In combat at the age of 16 years he also lost a leg (how distracting, NdR). Nassib is married, he has two wonderful children named Antonio and Maria and, while playing with them, decides to give a raw interview on the reality of the war involving his native Lebanon, on the truths that the mass media often hide from us, on how essential Christians are so that total chaos does not reign.
You belong to the Phalanx, when she was born and today who she is allied with?
And. I have belonged to the Falange since 1978, at the height of the war against Lebanon, like most young Christians of the time. I had 14 years. It was not mandatory but voluntary, after the Lebanese Christian community was threatened with its very existence. The diabolical plan against Lebanon at the time, and specifically against its Christian community, it was renamedthe substitute homeland. Its creator was Henry Kissinger, the then US foreign secretary (1973 1977). The Kissinger Plan (so also known), of the beginning of the years 70 he planned to have Christians immigrate from Lebanon to give it to the Palestinians instead of Palestine. In this way Kissinger thought he could resolve the Middle East problem between Israelis and Palestinians. The Falange is a social democratic party, a Lebanese nationalist party in all respects, founded in 1934 by the Maronite Christian Pierre Gemayel. It is a party with a Christian majority, and, but it is also a party to which many Muslims of all faiths have joined and still join. Of Phalangist Muslims I can cite the names of dozens of martyrs who fell together with the Christians under the flag of the Phalange in defense of Lebanon. The Phalange has given Lebanon two Presidents of the Republic, Bachir Gemayel (1982), assassinated in a bomb attack on 14 September 1982, nine days before his inauguration in the presidential palace, e Amine Gemayel (1982-1988). During the war against Lebanon (1975-1990), the Falange offered well on the altar of the Fatherland 6000 martyrs and thousands of wounded. Today the head of the Falange is our friend Sami Gemayel, a young man of 36 years, who succeeded his father Amine Gemayel in the party elections in June 2015. Despite his very young age, he leads a party that has 82 years, Sami Gemayel is honest, dynamic, very active. The party today has 5 deputies in parliament e 3 government ministers. It is positioned in the middle between all the components and political currents of Lebanon. It approaches or distances itself from this or that Lebanese political current based on the political position taken in favor or not of the independence and sovereignty of the country, to the interests of the Lebanese people.
Lebanon is divided into religious groups, with whom Christians are today allies after past wars?

Lebanon is not just divided into religious groups, Christians and Muslims, but we can safely say that the Lebanon we know today, since its independence in 1943, it is founded precisely on religious bases where the high institutional positions of the country are religiously divided between the major religious communities. For example, the President of the Republic is a Maronite Christian (Eastern Catholic), the President of Parliament is a Shiite Muslim, the Prime Minister is Sunni Muslim. And so on for all the other state offices, always divided between Christians (Maronites, orthodox, Catholics, Assyrians), and Muslims (Shia, was forced, Druze, alawiti). It is a model of state and government unique in the world.
This, sometimes, it was bad for Lebanon and for the Lebanese and, sometimes, a good thing. And I'll tell you why. In a country with a religious political model like Lebanon, people often feel tied to their religious confession more than to their country, to their homeland. And so internal political problems can easily arise, and even armed clashes, religious and even confessional, for any reason or matter, even trivial ones. Imagine then if there is the hand of some foreign power intent on harming Lebanon, trying to play on these religious and confessional chords.
Over the centuries the Christian community in Lebanon has always been a factor of pacification. He has always worked for peaceful coexistence and to bring together points of view between other religious components in Lebanon and the Middle East, despite having suffered atrocities during these centuries. This should remain his position, especially in this very difficult moment for the entire region, where some foreign powers strive to create a large-scale sectarian clash between Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims through some fundamentalist Islamic groups such as ISIS and the Al Nusra front.
In Italy, negative thinking dominates about Hezbollah, what do you think? What does this party essentially do in Lebanon?

This is a political position that does not reflect the truth about the true existence of Hezbollah. It is not out of malice on Italy's part, a country that has given a lot to the Middle East and especially to Lebanon at all levels (politico, humanitarian, economic, and also civil). The point lies in the manipulation of information by the mass media, who demonize Hezbollah for various interests, by deliberately not making Italians aware of the true positive role of Hezbollah and its successes in Lebanon and the region.
Many Lebanese over the years 80, especially Christians, they did not trust Hezbollah and considered it an Iranian fundamentalist party in Lebanon. Over the years it has been discovered that Hezbollah is a Lebanese nationalist party to the core. In general, Lebanese Shiites have no country other than Lebanon. They are religiously linked to Iran as Catholics are to Rome.
In the 2006 I had done a study on Shiites and specifically on Hezbollah, titledHezbollah, the structure and the men, on behalf of the former president of Lebanon Amine Gemayel. I discovered that in 1400 years of Islam the Shiites in Lebanon, present in the country since the seventh century AD, they have never perpetrated any massacre against Christians. On the contrary, Shiites were persecuted and massacred just as much as Christians.
After 18 years of endless resistance, of thousands of husbands and much destruction, Hezbollah has reached the 25 maggio 2000 the greatest victory ever achieved by any Arab country: unconditional withdrawal from the Tsahal, the Israeli Defense Force, from the occupied Lebanese territories of the south. This historic victory was given by Hezbollah to all Lebanese without any distinction. Note that the collaborators, the thousands of Lebanese who collaborated with the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon, they did not suffer any persecution from the victorious Hezbollah, the liberator of Lebanon.

It is true that Hezbollah is fighting in Syria against ISIS? How come?

Hezbollah foresaw the danger of these groups and ISIS not only for Syria but for the entire Middle East and also for all humanity.
In four years, since Hezbollah began its military intervention alongside President Assad's regular Syrian army, Hezbollah offered approx 800 young martyrs in Syria against the fundamentalists of ISIS and its similar organizations. This military intervention by Hezbollah saved Lebanon and its religious communities, Christian and Muslim, from a terrible end similar to that of the Yazidis in Sinjar. It is known that ISIS executes and crucifies not only Christians and Shiites but also all those who do not think like them even if they are Muslims.
Hezbollah is also on the Syrian-Lebanese border to protect Lebanese villages and prevent ISIS and the Al Nusra Front from invading Lebanon and reaching the Mediterranean. He even armed all the towns and villages bordering Syria, including Christians, so that they can militarily repel any ISIS attack.
In addition to the alliance that has linked Syrian President Assad and Hezbollah for many years, ISIS has always acted militarily against Shiite Muslims since its birth, and has always publicly declared his intention to exterminate them together with Christians, Alawites and even all Muslims who are against his thoughts and actions. So Hezbollah defends itself in this atrocious war, its people, other religious communities, Lebanon.

What can you tell us about Lebanon and its future?
There will be no future for Lebanon without its Christian community. The same also applies to the entire Middle East. The Holy Land without Christians is unimaginable, which today are only about 2% of the population, a continuously decreasing number. The same goes for Iraq, following the US military occupation first, and then the arrival of ISIS. The same goes for Syria too, where Christians have been fleeing en masse for five years to avoid being massacred (and their women and children sold).
Unlike most Muslim countries in the Middle East, with the exception of Syria which the composition of its population is very similar to that of Lebanon, in the land of cedars there are Muslim religious leaders who have always lived alongside Christians. Right here, in the first place, and by Muslim religious leaders from across the region, Today, more than ever, a very strong and public stance is required, repudiating the violence and fanaticism of Islamic fundamentalist groups in favor of interreligious coexistence between Islam and Christianity..
Otherwise I don't see any Lebanese Christian willing to suffer the end of the Christians of the Holy Land, of Iraq and Syria but I see them all ready to embrace the rifle again and defend themselves together with their moderate Muslim compatriots against the fundamentalism and fanaticism of ISIS and its sisters.
Source: The Voice of Italy