We are not witnessing actual genocide in the Middle East, but what we are dealing with is the replacement of populations, involving both ethnic and cultural changes. For these reasons, the term white genocide* would be more appropriate to describe this situation, even though, on several occasions, bloodshed has proven necessary to accomplish major demographic changes.

Listen to the article

Although at the dawn of the 20th century, genocides were carried out through bloodshed or famines, those of the early 21st century are being perpetrated through devious, or at the very least, irresponsible, financing of population shifts. There was no need to directly exterminate 1.5 million Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac people in Iraq. The abduction or assassination of a few hundred was enough to push the rest into exile and eradicate a millennium-old civilization. The same was perpetrated against the 2 million Christians in Syria.

Military and Economic War

In Lebanon, the process was more complex, in a country where Christians constituted the majority and had a highly organized structure. The process had to require the combination of several methods: Damour and the port of Beirut’s bloodsheds, forced poverty, fifteen years of Syrian massacres and bombings of Christian residential areas, and 30 years of occupation by pro-Iranian militias. Finally, the breakdown and subsequent collapse of various institutions, the economy, healthcare and education systems, and overall security.

All these factors culminated with a disproportionate and massive influx of so-called refugees, unduly entrenched in Lebanon by the injection of billions of dollars, with the aim of deliberately forcing a demographic imbalance.

Lebanese people (across all communities) are dying at the doors of hospitals, while Syrians are getting full medical coverage from the international community. Schools are being drained of Lebanese students, while new ones are being built for the rapidly growing Syrian population. Lebanese citizens can no longer afford their most basic needs such as water and electricity, while they are being provided free of charge to Syrians, along with supermarket vouchers. This discriminatory assistance persists while the occupying militia (Hezbollah) continues to ransack the country on all levels, speeding up the emigration of the youth.

The forced impoverishment and unlimited exodus of the Christian youth will inevitably lead to the disappearance of a national group, its culture, and its millennia-old heritage. Meanwhile, Hezbollah keeps on colonizing rural areas, mountains, and Christian neighborhoods, after having destroyed their institutions and appropriated public services, ministries, and all components of the State apparatus. The white genocide* happens without bloodshed, but its outcome is the same, as it eradicates a culture and wipes out a national group.

The Prevention of Births

When it comes to international law, one cannot help but reflect on the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly, as well as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court adopted in 1998.

In Article 2 of the convention and Article 6 of the Rome Statute, the crime of genocide is defined as numerous acts “committed with the intent to destroy, as a whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” However, among these acts, both documents also warn against “measures intended to prevent births within the group.”

In 2023, the age group between 20 and 45 years old has significantly declined among Christian citizens. Today, starting a family has become almost impossible for the young Lebanese who have remained in their country, regardless of their backgrounds.

Currently, out of seven births in Lebanon, six of them are Syrian. Even though the term “measures intended to prevent births”, mentioned in clause “d” of Article 6 refers to biological constraints rather than economic ones, the result remains grimly the same for the Lebanese. This criterion should be raised before international authorities, as it falls short of claiming ethnocide or cultural genocide as mentioned by Raphael Lemkin, but not integrated in the legal definition of the Convention, and the Rome Statute.

Legal Relativism

The internationally recognized legal framework contains many grey zones. This ambiguity facilitates the implementation of ethnically driven cleansings that are not classified as genocides, while maintaining a clear conscience. As such, the partial massacre of certain populations, pushing the remaining ones into forced conversions or widespread exodus, are only recognized as genocide when in the two cases bad intentions and premeditated plans are evident.

Furthermore, this recognition does not extend to the portion of the population rooted out through emigration and dissolution, but solely to those that suffer from physical annihilation. However, annihilation should be substantial; in other words, proportionate to the size of the group. As such, the judgement of the case is left to the subjective interpretation of the judges on whether it pertains to the will of the genocide perpetrators, or to the scope of the victims’ numbers.

Tidy Genocides

All these classifications and terminology ploys, ranging from genocide, ethnocide, cultural genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, are simply a labyrinth of legal and diplomatic virtuosity. They all aim at allowing what happened to indigenous populations in America and Australia to be reproduced today through the substitution of populations by others.

Contemporary genocides are tidy. They linger under noble slogans such as human rights and refugee protection. They are being implemented through manipulation and the control of banking systems and immigration visas. And when bloodshed becomes inevitable, cleaning up teams promptly carry out their tasks, both in the international media and on the ground, as seen with the Damour bulldozers or the swift visit of the French president following the August 4, 2020, explosion. Meanwhile, Lebanese families remain   scattered across the three Western continents, while billions of dollars are poured in for their replacements.

Perhaps one day, the future will speak of this deadly injustice and will hold the international community accountable. But what good would that serve if an entire millennium would have already been wiped out from the Levant’s map?

*In this article, the term “white genocide” is not used in its recent definition of “genocide against whites”. It rather stands for “genocide without bloodshed,” either through emigration or assimilation.