Analysis Urges Recognition of Maronite Famine in Mount Lebanon, Lebanon, During First World War

President Joe Biden issued a statement, cited in a Washington Institute policy analysis by Robert Rabil, recognizing the Armenian genocide. The statement said, “the American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today… We see that pain. We affirm the history. We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.” The analysis calls the recognition long overdue and argues that the world should also recognize the forced starvation of Lebanon’s Maronites during the First World War. Rabil writes that other peoples who faced extermination in that period still see their tragedies go unrecognized.

The analysis describes the Maronite Catholic community as one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East. It cites the historian Istifan al-Duwayhi, who it says regarded the Maronite Church as having continuously upheld the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church since the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE. According to the analysis, Maronites faced periods of marginalization and violence from 517 CE until the 1860s, which led many to seek refuge in Mount Lebanon, their home since the 6th century. The article also describes a long relationship between the Maronites and France, dating to the Crusades.

According to the analysis, the First World War was the most trying period in Maronite history. The Ottoman authorities, who controlled Lebanon at the time, were suspicious of the Maronites and their contacts with France. Jamal Pasha, the Military Governor of Greater Syria, abolished the autonomous region of Mount Lebanon, introduced martial law, and deployed Ottoman troops there. The analysis reports that British, French, and Russian nationals and missionaries were expelled from Beirut and Mount Lebanon, which weakened educational and medical services in Maronite communities. It also states that in March 1915 Father Youssef al Hayek was arrested for communicating with Paul Deschanel, then President of the French Chamber of Deputies, and that Jamal Pasha ordered his execution by hanging.

The analysis states that Jamal Pasha cut off Mount Lebanon from the Bekaa Valley, Beirut, Palestine, and Syria, causing a severe food shortage. Swarms of locusts further damaged the region’s sericulture industry. During this period, the Maronite Church helped starving families across sectarian lines, and the Maronite patriarch welcomed Armenian survivors of Ottoman atrocities, declaring, “the piece of bread that we have, we will share it with our Armenian brothers.” The analysis notes that the Ottomans tightened the blockade and took able-bodied Maronites to work in labor camps. At the point when the Maronite Church shared its scarce bread with Armenian survivors, the article offers that as a picture of sharing with the vulnerable (Hebrews 13:16).

The analysis says that as the Ottoman position weakened, Jamal Pasha issued orders controlling the sale and transport of grain, which prohibited food shipments to Mount Lebanon. It quotes a French intelligence report stating that Jamal Pasha allegedly boasted, “We have rid ourselves of the Armenians by the sword. We shall do away with the Lebanese by famine.” By the winter of 1916, the analysis reports, famine was widespread in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, and malnutrition helped spread cholera, malaria, dysentery, and influenza. In October 1916, Father Boulos Akl, described as the Maronite patriarch’s go-between with French intelligence, sent a report to French officials on Arwad Island stating, “There are no doctors, no medicine, no food, and no people to bury the dead.”

The analysis cites a New York Times article of September 16, 1916, based on an American woman’s reportage, which described women and children lying by roadsides and people searching garbage for food. It also cites memoirs of Jesuit fathers, held at Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut, which the analysis says describe inhabitants searching refuse for food, unburied dead, and reported cases of cannibalism.

According to the analysis, by the time Entente powers occupied Beirut and Mount Lebanon in October 1918, dozens of villages had been reduced to rubble, and approximately 175,000 Lebanese, almost one third of the population of Beirut and Mount Lebanon, had perished.

Source: Read the original report