All it takes is a false rumor to ignite a firestorm and perhaps a nation. Just ask Father Ibrahim Surouj.
Surouj is a Greek Orthodox priest and a library curator who says he forgives the Muslim militants who burned Lebanon's second largest library in Tripoli last Friday: 78,000 books--many rare and irreplaceable, were damaged or destroyed.
So what prompted this senseless attack on Saeh Library, one of Lebanon's most beloved treasures? Sources quoted by Al-Akhbar newspaper say some young Salafis spread rumors in the neighborhood saying that Father Surouj was about to reprint a book that had insulted the prophet Mohammed. Armed Islamists reportedly shot one of the library workers in the foot and then set the library ablaze. No one intervened to prevent the attack.
CBN News has learned that the owner wanted to demolish the building because the property is worth more than $1.5 million. Father Surouj resisted efforts to give up his lease because the building was an historic place, perhaps centuries old.
Here's a Murr TV report (in Arabic) that features video of the Saeh library and comments from Father Surouj several days before the library attack:
Some say this was just a library, people sould be more concerned about escalating violence and how the country is being dragged progressively into Syria's civil war.
Regardless of the motives behind this attack, it's clear that some young Lebanese Muslims--in this case Sunnis--are easily manipulated into acting on a false rumor of blasphemy. Imagine how easily they can be swayed into joining the jihad against Bashir al-Assad!
Government officials and members of the media atempted to downplay the attack in order to prevent an eruption of sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians. They labeled the burning an act of "terrorism" rather than a religiously motivated attack against a Christian institution by militant Muslims.
The irony of all this of course is that Islamic books and even Qurans were likely destroyed in a library burned by Muslims. Last time I checked, many Muslims consider that act blasphemous.
So, the real victims here are not only Christians; they are Muslims insulted not by an innocent priest, but by fellow Muslims acting on the commands of others.
All of Lebanon suffers.