(1) Nationhood changes a people. The Jews before Israel were mostly Leftist and felt like outsiders. Modern Israelis are extremely right-wing nationalist. But an even larger change happened to the Maronites of Mount Libnan, previously in the domain of Ottoman Syria as an autonomy

(2) Today Maronites are known as being vehemently anti-Arabism, nationalist, and above all else tribal. Before the creation of their own homeland however, Maronites in Mount Libnan generally acted more like today's Syrian and Palestinian Orthodox and Catholic Christians-

(3) who are more of a regional Shami entity than being too sectarian or nationalist. Look at Amin al-Rihani or Faris Chidiac, two Ottoman-era Maronites who were absolutely convinced of a united Arab Federation and saw every Arab struggle as their own. Al-Rihani himself stated-

(4)-that he viewed Egyptian Pharaonism, Lebanese Phoenicianism and other movements as colonialist schemes to divide the Arab people. He toured around Arabia meeting with princes of Bahrain, Kuwait, and even the legendary Ibn Sa'ud himself. He even called Ibn Saud the premiere-

(5)-pan-Arabist of the time, and was certain he would conquer and unite all of Arabia, even referring to al-Sham w Iraq as 'Northern Arabia'. This is not to say Rihani was more correct than Lebanese nationalists. Rather, it is to show how different a people become with a nation.