For centuries, the Levant—that fertile crescent
stretching from the Mediterranean coast through Syria, Lebanon,
Palestine, and Jordan—embodied a remarkable experiment in pluralistic
coexistence. Long before Western liberal theorists coined terms like
"multiculturalism," Levantine societies had perfected the art of
commercial and cultural interdependence across religious and ethnic
lines.
The great trading cities of Aleppo, Damascus, Beirut, and Jerusalem
were not just commercial hubs but laboratories of pragmatic
accommodation. Armenian merchants, Greek Orthodox bankers, Jewish
traders, Sunni Muslim craftsmen, and Maronite Christian entrepreneurs
operated within overlapping networks that prioritized economic utility
over ideological purity. This was not the sanitized diversity of modern
university campuses, but a hard-edged, profit-driven pluralism that
worked because it had to work.
What made the traditional Levantine model so effective was its
fundamentally conservative character—it was built on established
hierarchies, respected traditions, and the recognition that prosperity
required stability. The Ottoman millet system, for all its
imperfections, provided a framework where different communities could
maintain their distinct identities while participating in a broader
economic and social order.
The Levantine merchant families—whether the Greek Orthodox Sursocks of
Beirut, the Jewish Sassoons who operated across the region, or the
Sunni Muslim commercial dynasties of Damascus—understood that their
prosperity depended on maintaining networks that transcended narrow
communal boundaries. They were, in essence, practical conservatives who
understood that tradition and innovation could coexist when mediated
through market mechanisms.
What destroyed this delicate ecosystem was not ancient hatreds—a lazy
Western stereotype—but the toxic combination of imported European
nationalism and the heavy hand of modern state intervention. The
Levantine cosmopolitan order was dismantled not by organic evolution but
by deliberate political engineering.
The Balfour Declaration, the French Mandate system, the creation of
artificial borders, and later the rise of Arab nationalism and Zionist
state-building all represented attempts to impose European models of
ethnic homogeneity on a region whose genius lay in its heterogeneity.
Each successive wave of ideological transformation further eroded the
commercial and cultural networks that had sustained Levantine
prosperity.
The rise of political Islam, Arab socialism, and militant Zionism—all
modern phenomena—completed the destruction of what had taken centuries
to build. Where once you had Lebanese Christians and Muslims sharing
commercial ventures, Palestinian Arabs and Jews engaging in trade, and
Syrian communities of all backgrounds participating in common
enterprises, you now have rigid ethnic and religious boundaries policed
by state security apparatus.
Today’s Middle East reflects the bitter harvest of abandoning the
Levantine model. Instead of the creative tension between competing
communities within a shared framework, we have zero-sum conflicts
between artificially homogenized ethnic and religious blocs.
Lebanon, once the jewel of Levantine cosmopolitanism, has become a
confessional state paralyzed by sectarian mathematics. Syria has
collapsed into ethnic and religious warfare. Israel–Palestine represents
perhaps the most tragic case—two peoples who once shared commercial and
cultural spaces now trapped in an endless cycle of mutual recrimination
and violence.
The current political dynamics reveal the consequences of rejecting
the wisdom of gradual, market-driven integration in favor of top-down
ideological projects. Whether it’s Hezbollah’s Iranian-backed
sectarianism, Hamas’s Islamist resistance model, or the Israeli
settlement project, all represent attempts to impose ideological
solutions on problems that once found practical resolution through
commercial interdependence.
The traditional Levantine economy was built on what conservatives
would recognize as sound principles: family enterprises, long-term
relationships based on reputation, respect for property rights, and the
understanding that prosperity required stability. These merchant
communities created wealth not through resource extraction or government
subsidies, but through trade, finance, and services—adding value
through human capital and commercial innovation.
Today’s Middle Eastern economies, by contrast, are largely dependent
on oil rents, foreign aid, or military expenditure—all of which create
perverse incentives that undermine the kind of productive
entrepreneurship that once flourished in places like Aleppo’s textile
markets or Beirut’s financial districts.
The economic interconnectedness that once made war between Levantine
communities economically ruinous has been replaced by aid dependency and
resource competition that makes conflict profitable for political
elites. When Palestinian and Israeli entrepreneurs can no longer do
business together, when Lebanese Christians and Muslims compete for
foreign patronage rather than collaborate in domestic enterprise, the
economic foundation for peace dissolves.
For American conservatives skeptical of Middle Eastern engagement,
the Levantine model offers important lessons. It suggests that
successful societies are built not on the triumph of one group over
others, but on frameworks that allow different communities to pursue
their interests through cooperation rather than domination.
The Levantine experience demonstrates that religious and cultural
diversity need not lead to social fragmentation if properly channeled
through market mechanisms and traditional institutions. Indeed, the most
successful periods in Levantine history were those that combined
respect for traditional identities with openness to commercial and
cultural exchange.
This is not multiculturalism in the contemporary Western sense—it
does not require the abandonment of particular identities or the
adoption of relativistic values. Rather, it represents what we might
call “conservative cosmopolitanism”: the recognition that different
communities can maintain their distinctiveness while participating in
broader networks of exchange and cooperation.
The tragedy of modern Middle Eastern politics is its enslavement to
European models of ethnic nationalism that are fundamentally alien to
the region’s historical experience. The attempt to create homogeneous
nation-states in a region characterized by heterogeneous populations has
produced nothing but conflict and instability.
A return to Levantine principles would not mean abandoning
sovereignty or legitimate security concerns, but rather recognizing that
security and prosperity are best achieved through frameworks that
accommodate rather than suppress the region's natural diversity. This
might involve federal arrangements, economic cooperation zones, or other
institutions that allow different communities to maintain their
autonomy while participating in broader networks of cooperation.