My Father Insisted We Weren’t Arab. The Truth Hit Harder Than I Expected

I never called myself “Arab.” It felt like an identity that just didn’t fit, one so distant from who I believed I was. But after a year of the war in Gaza and now Lebanon—of witnessing horrific images of death and destruction that continue to flood social media—I’ve come face-to-face with a truth I never anticipated.
My father never wanted us to call ourselves “Arab.” Though it was never spoken out loud, it was clear: we were Lebanese. Born in Canada, yes, but Lebanese first—always Lebanese first. We didn’t speak Arabic or eat Arabic food. Instead, my father insisted we spoke Lebanese and ate Lebanese—hummus, baba ghanoush. Even the ubiquitous pita loaf, which dates back thousands of years to ancient Mesopotamia and is claimed by multiple cultures, was called “Lebanese bread” in our home.
For my father, being Lebanese was a universe unto itself. “We are descendants of the Phoenicians!” he would proudly exclaim, pointing to the ancient civilization that set us apart from the Arab world. While we shared food, language, and culture with traditional Arabs, we embraced a Mediterranean, Western-leaning lifestyle. Though the most distinguishing factor of all was our faith—we worshiped at a church, not a mosque.
After my father immigrated to Canada, the Lebanon he knew began to disintegrate. Tensions surged in the Middle East as Palestinians, forced from their homes, sought shelter in an already unstable Lebanon. Their arrival was like pouring gasoline on a smoldering fire—igniting a brutal fifteen-year civil war that devastated the country.
I remember my father tormented by the footage on ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Arabic curse words hurled at the screen as he watched helpless. His family was living the reality unfolding before his eyes—his beloved homeland ravaged, night after night. It was then that the word “Arab” became more than a simple four-letter word. For my family, it became conflated with war.
Because I didn’t fully grasp the complexities of the conflict, I directed my youthful anger toward the obvious—those I saw in the news reports: the Palestinian refugees who had poured into Lebanon. I wanted to share in my father’s rage, to blame those he seemed to hold responsible. If my father was against them, then so was I, and by extension, against Muslims and all “Arabs.” This was especially confusing given that my mother’s maiden name was Arab, creating a layer of contradiction. Yet because I accepted my family’s beliefs without question, I pushed aside any nagging thoughts—a strange irony, I thought.
When I traveled to Lebanon for the first time in the late ’80s, armed with a fresh journalism degree and a desperate need for answers, I was ill-prepared for what I found: a country in turmoil. Apartment buildings were riddled with bullet holes, the constant threat of car bombs loomed, and the distant shelling at night—said to be far off—never felt that way.
Daily life was punctuated by military checkpoints manned by Lebanese militias, Palestinian groups, and Syrian forces, each demanding our IDs. It felt as though everyone wanted a piece of Lebanon. I could feel my father’s acrid anger bubbling up inside me—a mere taste of what he’d carried for years. This experience only reinforced the narrative I’d been taught: Arabs were the enemy.
When 9/11 struck, my perception became even more distorted. As I watched in horror, alongside millions around the globe, what unfolded in those 17 minutes seemed to signify more than the collapse of the Twin Towers—it felt like the collapse of the entire world. Soon, we were thrust into a new era of Islamophobia, marked by reductive stereotypes that depicted Arabs as violent extremists, deepening my sense of alienation and further fracturing my understanding of who I was.
While 9/11 was a crushing shock, it was after the attacks of October 7 that I felt a bomb go off inside me. Witnessing the destruction and suffering in Gaza and Lebanon has forced me to confront my identity with an unvarnished honesty I’ve never known before.
Just as my father was once transfixed by the evening news, watching the desolation in Lebanon, I can’t seem to look away from the desperation in either Gaza, or Lebanon. Injured and bloodied civilians are rushed to overwhelmed, partially-destroyed hospitals, seeking any semblance of safety and hope. Mothers wail as they sift through ash and charred metal for remnants of their children. Women who look like me, speak like me, and cry like me are enduring unimaginable pain.
The war in the Middle East has driven me to reexamine what it means to be “Arab.” The term no longer feels like an uncomfortable label. Discovering that Christian and Muslim communities have co-existed for centuries, molding the cultural and political landscape of the Arab region—including Gaza—was revelatory. Yes, a Christian Arab is not an oxymoron.
For me, the barriers I once believed existed between Arab Muslims and Lebanese Christians have been erased by the shared history and pain of our people. While society may still recognize these distinctions, they have become meaningless to me.
It has been a life-changing awakening to my Arab roots, fundamentally altering how I see myself and my place in the world. I don’t expect all Lebanese to share my views, to dismantle their identity as I have. The debate over whether Lebanese people are more Phoenician or more Arab has persisted for generations. But for me, this realization is as undeniable as the atrocities I witness every day.
This is what I have come to know: I am unquestionably of Arab descent—Christian, Lebanese and profoundly tied to Arab identity. Each facet of my identity cuts to the bone and feels equally powerful. As I reflect on the confusion and separation of my past, I am overwhelmed by my newfound clarity and certainty. The narrow definition of who I was—and who I wasn’t—has dissolved, replaced by a rich acceptance of who I am: Arab, and immensely proud to be so.
I wonder how I could have remained so naive for so long. My embarrassment today is not only about the years spent living a limited truth but also about how dramatically I allowed it to define me.
The convictions we hold most tightly—the ones we feel at our very core—are often not as unshakeable as we think. Even the certainties we consider sacred must be scrutinized, especially when they’ve been handed down to us, regardless of whether they’ve shaped us for better or worse. We don’t get a free pass just because our parents told us so. And it shouldn’t take a war to wake us up to what’s been right in front of us all along.
Angela Yazbek is a first-generation Arab-Canadian writer and former award-winning broadcast journalist based in Toronto. Her essays have appeared in The Globe and Mail and Elephant Journal. She is currently querying her debut memoir, ‘Collapsed: A Life Broken Open’, which breaks the silence often expected in Arab culture to reveal the isolated, often brutal struggle for belonging that many children of immigrants experience.
All views expressed are the author’s own.
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