Even as Israel was attacking his home country of Lebanon, killing hundreds, and occupying territory within the country’s south, Antoun Sehnaoui was being publicly praised for his support for Israel, and his family’s history of being “Lebanese Christian Zionists”.Sehnaoui, one of Lebanon’s leading bankers and the chairman of Societe Generale de Banque au Liban (SGBL), was attending an event on Tuesday at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which he had donated to. And the person praising him for his pro-Israel bona fides was his reported romantic partner, Morgan Ortagus, a US Middle East envoy.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listAddressing the audience, Ortagus, who had been widely criticised in Lebanon for her perceived pro-Israel bias during her time in the Trump administration, framed support for Israel as an act that requires “moral clarity”, even when it involves personal risk.Praising Sehnaoui, Ortagus claimed his actions in funding a US-Israeli opera project were “technically illegal in Lebanon”, which prohibits dealings with Israeli individuals or institutions. Continuing, Ortagus described Sehnaoui as coming from generations of “committed Lebanese Christian Zionists”, saying he had been “trained to be a supporter of the State of Israel and the Jewish people” by his family.She also referred to what she characterised as a longstanding familial relationship with Israel, including that of his father, Nabil, one of the primary funders of the Christian militia, the Lebanese Forces (LF), which allied with Israel during its 1982 …
