Israel, hands off the Christians of South Lebanon

While the West focuses on the Iranian firestorm, a quieter tragedy is unfolding in the hills of South Lebanon. Ancient Christian communities -the literal cradle of our faith- are facing a displacement policy that looks increasingly, terrifyingly, like the Gaza campaign. It is time for a cold truth: Israel cannot claim to be the vanguard of Western values while it uproots the very people who defined those values long before the modern state of Israel or the Islamic Republic were even concepts.

Make no mistake. These people are not newcomers. From the stone churches of Qana to the historic villages of Rmeich, Debel and Ain Ebel, these communities have breathed the air of the Galilee since the time of the Apostles. They were there before the Caliphates. They were there before the Crusades. They are the indigenous soul of the Levant, a bridge between the ancient world and the present. And today, they are being told to move into nowhere by a military machine that treats their ancestral lands as a tactical buffer zone.

Let us be brutally clear: the Christians of South Lebanon have nothing to do with Hezbollah. They are not proxies. They are not shields. They are a peaceful, rooted minority that has survived centuries of Islamic expansionism only to find itself at the mercy of Israeli grazing tactics. To apply the Gaza know-how to these villages, to demand mass displacement and to level homes and infrastructure, well, this is no defence. It is a civilisational crime.

Where is the West? Where is the Christian world that speaks so loudly of human rights but only whispers when our own brothers are under fire? Brussels and Washington appear paralysed by the fear of offending a strategic ally. But an alliance is a two-way street. If Jerusalem wants our support in its existential war against Islamist foes, the enemies who threaten our very way of life, then it must treat the Christians of the region with exemplary, non-negotiable respect.

The timing of this persecution is a masterclass in cruelty. We are in the heart of the Easter period. As the Catholic world finishes its celebrations and the Orthodox prepare for the Resurrection of our Christ the Lord, our brothers in Lebanon are being forced to carry a cross they did not choose, nor do they deserve. To rain fire on these communities during the holiest week of the year is a provocation that should resonate in every Christian capital, from Athens to Rome and beyond.

Christians in the Middle East have been the victims of violence for far too long. They cannot be left at the mercy of any aggressor. It matters little if the threat comes from a jihadist fanatic with an AK-47 or an Israeli conscript in a Merkava tank. A blow to a Christian in Lebanon is a blow to the Christian world. We have a cultural and moral responsibility to stand up. The West must find its spine and tell Jerusalem: This is the line.

Israel wants us to see this conflict as a binary choice between civilisation and barbarism. Fine. But civilisation begins with the protection of the innocent and respect for what is sacred. If Israel continues to treat the Christian villages of South Lebanon as collateral damage in its long game, it must realise that the free hand it enjoys in the region is no longer valid. You cannot save the West by destroying its origins. So, hands off, Jerusalem. The Cross is not for sale, and it is certainly not for grazing.