Revenge Is No Defense

Nestled in a fold of the snow-crested mountains of northern Lebanon, surrounded by vineyards, orchards and stony fields, lie the Christian village of Kobeyat and the Moslem village of Jaafra. But there is bad blood between them. In the Lebanese rebellion of last summer, the 8,000 Maronite Roman Catholics of Kobeyat supported the government of President Camille Chamoun; the 2,000 Moslems of Jaafra enthusiastically backed the rebels. At one point armed raiders from Jaafra stormed the police post in Kobeyat, killed a Christian woman and wounded five other villagers before being driven off.

Crackling Night. Lebanon's rebellion subsided in September, but bitterness remained in the mountains. Quarrels over grazing rights erupted into a series of gun fights in which a leading citizen of Jaafra and a seven-year-old Kobeyat girl were killed.

In this uneasy situation, guests began arriving in Kobeyat for the wedding of a local maiden and her Syrian fiance. The bridegroom's two brothers--a Maronite monk named Father Genadrios Mourani. 32, and Seminarian Jean Mourani. 23--arrived in nearby Tripoli with their cousin. Father Georges Mourani. 34. Hiring a taxi, the three Syrians set out in the rainswept dusk for Kobeyat, passing through a spectral countryside of deserted, barren hills. As they rounded a curve on the approach to the village, the night crackled with gunfire. Father Genadrios was killed in the first fusillade. The cabby stopped his car and fled.

Calling to their assailants for mercy, Father Georges and his cousin edged up the slope, where four Moslems kept them covered with their guns, then marched them off in the direction of Jaafra. On the way, the two captives were robbed of their money by one of the assassins, and of their wristwatches by another. When a third searched them and found nothing. he said: "Did the others take your money and watches? That's all right then."

National Nightmare. Entering Jaafra with their prisoners, the gunmen began firing their weapons in the air and crying: "We got blood!" But as rejoicing Moslems poured from the houses, another gunman said disgustedly: "We achieved nothing. We made a mistake. They are strangers."

At this news, the villagers became friendly. One man offered his house so the captives could dry their clothes. Others shook their hands and apologized. Explained one, magnanimously: "We do not shoot men of God. no matter of what religion--not even if they are from Kobeyat.'' The two Maronites were fed and sent on to Kobeyat with a letter expressing all Jaafra's regret at the error of its overzealous sons, but also going on to say that nothing was changed regarding the feud between the two villages.

Uneasily the feud in the hills became the subject of a parliamentary debate. Since Lebanon is almost evenly divided between Moslem and Christian groups, the nightmare of this small nation is the possibility of a war of religion. The Parliament usually tries to look the other way, but the Kobeyat feuding is only the most conspicuous of several recent incidents: a religious murder in Sidon. a lynching in Tripoli. "The time has come for the erection of gallows,'' said Interior Minister Raymond Edde, introducing a bill making capital punishment mandatory for "premeditated murder.'' Last week, made an issue of confidence by Premier Rashid Karami, the bill was passed, 28-3. No longer may a murderer plead as a mitigating circumstance the defense honored in Lebanon for centuries: a blood feud.

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