[News] Meet the media and militiamen funded by ‘Lebanese AIPAC Guy’ pushing Beirut into Israel's hands

Wed Aug 12 14:33:30 EDT 2026

Meet the media and militiamen funded by ‘Lebanese AIPAC Guy’ pushing 
Beirut into Israel's hands
Ultra-Zionist Lebanese banker Antoun Sehnaoui is the man behind the 
curtain of Beirut's normalization talks with Israel.
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  Meet the media and militiamen funded by ‘Lebanese AIPAC Guy’ pushing
  Beirut into Israel's hands
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      Ultra-Zionist Lebanese banker Antoun Sehnaoui is the man behind
      the curtain of Beirut's normalization talks with Israel.

The Grayzone <https://substack.com/@thegrayzone> and Wyatt Reed 
<https://substack.com/@wyattreed>

Aug 12, 2026

<https://substack.com/@thegrayzone> 		<https://substack.com/@wyattreed>

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/*Above:*Antoun Sehnaoui with his girlfriend, former US envoy to Lebanon 
Morgan Ortagus, at the Holocaust Memorial Museum this April/

*As the deadly Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon continues, the 
fabulously wealthy banker-turned-”philanthropist” Antoun Sehnaoui has 
assembled a network of business and media operatives – and a fascist 
Christian goon squad – in Beirut and Washington dedicated to doing 
Israel’s dirty work.*

In late July, Lebanese daily L’Orient Today exposed 
<https://substack.com/redirect/4d5248ee-7b34-4599-8098-84a0dc351d6d?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>a 
wealthy banking heir named Antoun Sehnaoui as a driving force behind 
recent efforts to push the country to normalize relations with Israel as 
the apartheid state continues to occupy hundreds of square miles of 
southern Lebanon.

According to L’Orient, Sehnaoui is now actively seeking to manipulate 
Lebanese public opinion by lavishly funding local outlets including 
French-speaking Ici Beyrouth, English-language This Is Beirut, and Hunna 
Lubnan in Arabic. The report also built on local reports indicating the 
mysterious Sehnaoui has been wielding a fascist Christian militia to 
protect his banking empire and reputation.

After photos emerged in late July showing the financier cavorting with 
Israeli Prime Minister and international fugitive Benjamin Netanyahu at 
a private gathering in Washington DC, Sehnaoui has been publicly 
denounced by his uncle as a willing tool of Israel. While currently 
wanted for questioning by law enforcement in Lebanon, where publicly 
associating with Israelis is punishable by law, Sehnaoui has emerged as 
the man behind the curtain of the Lebanese government, injecting money 
and manpower into Beirut’s dangerous theater of normalization with Israel.

[caption id=”attachment_143096” align=”aligncenter” width=”1024”]

	<https://substack.com/redirect/9440cba5-4793-4b9d-9a7f-c587dd19c9e0?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA> 	

Antoun Sehnaoui faces Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu across at table at 
DC’s Four Seasons hotel on July 27, 2026[/caption]

      *The banker and the convert*

Long before his debut as a public proponent of Zionism, Antoun Sehnaoui 
was known across Lebanon for both his tremendous wealth and his tendency 
to serve as a kingmaker among the right-wing parties catering to 
Lebanon’s Christian minority. When Lebanon’s economy collapsed in 2019 
after it became clear that the country’s banking class had effectively 
been running a state-sponsored pyramid scheme, Sehnaoui emerged as the 
face of an amoral Lebanese elite that managed to squirrel over $15 
billion out of the country by using their connections with Lebanon’s 
central bank. While ordinary Lebanese residents were turned away from 
branches empty-handed, it emerged that billions were being funneled 
abroad via the Sehnaoui-owned Banque Richelieu France bank.

Since then, Sehnaoui has become romantically involved with US President 
Donald Trump’s former Special Representative for Lebanon, Morgan 
Ortagus. Ortagus, a formerly evangelical Christian convert to Judaism, 
is a fanatical Zionist who flaunts her ideology 
<https://substack.com/redirect/2238bcc2-cc54-47bf-a0be-059daac5165d?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>with 
her choices of jewelry.In late 2024, after being chosen to serve as 
Trump’s envoy to Lebanon by Steve Witkoff, Ortagus suggested to Israeli 
military leaders 
<https://substack.com/redirect/af7ffdcd-7bdf-4d50-99bd-904f16c9e792?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>that 
they attack the 2024 funeral of assassinated Hezbollah Secretary General 
Hassan Nasrallah at the Sports City stadium in Beirut. Israel ultimately 
decided to stage an intimidating overflight of the funeral rather than 
launch an attack that would have killed thousands of civilians.

This April in Washington DC, in the midst of talks between Lebanon and 
Israel, Ortagus introduced Sehnaoui at the Holocaust Memorial Museum’s 
“Remembrance Day,” where Sehnaoui’s name was inscribed on the 
institution’s Donor Wall. In revealing comments, Ortagus praised 
Sehnaoui’s family as “committed Christian Zionists” who had “trained 
[him] to be a supporter of the state of Israel and the Jewish people.” 
She then volunteered her opinion that “what Antoun [Sehnaoui] is doing 
today is technically illegal in Lebanon.”

One of the Lebanese lawyers who sought an arrest warrant for Sehnaoui 
after his meeting in DC with Netanyahu this July stated 
<https://substack.com/redirect/56168763-f5ae-4cd0-9529-9a3afde1ee7b?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>that 
Sehnaoui is now credibly accused of conspiring to force the country to 
submit to Israel’s will “using the money that the Lebanese people have 
been robbed of from the banks.”

      *Dawn of a media empire*

A review of the media ventures uncovered by L’Orient confirms that 
Sehnaoui’s empire of media outlets are little more than thinly-disguised 
pro-Israel propaganda mills. Many of This Is Beirut’s employees openly 
moonlight at Israeli influence vehicles like the Foundation for Defense 
of Democracies (FDD) and the Washington Institute for Near-East Policy 
(WINEP).

Chief among them is columnist Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a former Shiite 
Muslim who first came to prominence as the face of Alhurra Iraq, a 
US-funded Arabic satellite network launched by Washington to promote 
Western-aligned narratives in Iraq following their catastrophic 
invasion. Abdul-Hussain also works as a so-called “research fellow” at 
FDD, which was revealed by a senior Israeli military-intelligence 
official 
<https://substack.com/redirect/3e0f3b1f-01da-4643-8321-2064d8dd87f9?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>in 
2017 to be a co-conspirator in an Israeli government-led plot to spy on 
critics of the apartheid regime on American soil.In fact, FDD emerged 
out of an organization called EMET, which outlined 
<https://substack.com/redirect/74ac7e15-75fe-4fd0-b60d-43094596832d?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>a 
mission in its founding documents “to enhance Israel’s image in North 
America.”

The tradition of collaboration with Israeli assets appears to have 
carried over to This Is Beirut, which co-hosted a panel with MIND Israel 
– an Israeli “think tank” founded by former Israeli military 
intelligence chief Amos Yadlin – at the 2026 Munich Security 
Conference.Israeli media lauded 
<https://substack.com/redirect/5dabadb8-4425-4360-ba58-072e13deabe3?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>the 
military-industrial summit’s “First-ever Lebanese–Israeli civil panel” 
as a “meaningful step” towards normalization between the occupying power 
and its victims.

Founded in 2023 and re-launched in June 2026, This Is Beirut has 
exploited Sehnaoui’s generous funding to assemble a Zionist dream team 
of anti-resistance Lebanese Shiites, former US government officials, and 
devoted pro-Israel influencers and journalists. Its roster includes Seth 
J. Frantzman, an American-Israeli pundit who works for Israel’s 
right-wing Jerusalem Post while contributing to FDD 
<https://substack.com/redirect/ba339ad1-3e75-4e4c-a1d3-283d7688cb58?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>. 
Sehnaoui’s English-language outlet also acquired its reporter Claudia 
Groeling from WINEP, a Zionist think tank founded by AIPAC 
<https://substack.com/redirect/472407f1-47bf-406b-8c81-c6eec7e5bcaf?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>members 
to provide an academic veneer to Israel’s aggressive US lobbying efforts.

This Is Beirut’s “About” page 
<https://substack.com/redirect/cb5db6c9-4972-44e8-b59e-f2eb4dd89acc?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>makes 
no mention of Sehnaoui’s role in funding the outlet. Instead, they 
describe themselves as “independent and nonpartisan, but not neutral: We 
do not tolerate violations of human rights, integrity, or the 
sovereignty of individuals and states.” Their refusal to tolerate 
violations of sovereignty of states, however, does not appear to apply 
to the Israeli regime – which violently occupies approximately 600 
square kilometers of sovereign Lebanese territory as of publication.

When not regurgitating IDF press releases 
<https://substack.com/redirect/49fe003f-926c-4288-8e64-502cbc809d38?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>, 
This Is Beirut frequently gestures towards “peace” with Israel, a common 
rhetorical device used by advocates of closer ties between Beirut and 
Tel Aviv. “We aspire for Peace between Lebanon and Israel,” they write. 
Instead of covering the apartheid state’s occupation of southern 
Lebanon, “we aim at exposing terrorism” – focusing on what they call 
“Iran’s networks of terror in Lebanon and the region.”

The teaser for an August 4 op-ed 
<https://substack.com/redirect/9cccc2e4-fffd-41be-a50e-aacea498acf4?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>by 
Abdul-Hussain was especially explicit in lobbying for collaboration with 
the Israeli military: “Whoever recognizes Hezbollah as the paramount 
threat should make common cause with whatever force can help dismantle it.”

If the group’s masthead or its self-description left its Zionist 
leanings in question, a glance at their list of interviewees clears up 
any remaining doubt. Recent subjects include 
<https://substack.com/redirect/2f7368d0-bda6-4b29-bc8f-9acec229f736?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>Hagar 
Chemali, a co-founder of the “Lebanon Israel Peace Alliance” and a 
former US Treasury Department official known for ringing up her 
erstwhile colleagues to advocate for stronger sanctions on Hezbollah. 
Chemali has described herself as a “Lebanese Zionist,” 
<https://substack.com/redirect/2022fbab-7721-4f95-ad4b-045d476cff11?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>and 
a “good friend” 
<https://substack.com/redirect/50e40adf-f420-479b-9d4d-59d7f1f5f0db?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>of 
Sehnaoui’s romantic partner, Ortagus.

The mission of bending Beirut to Tel Aviv’s will is shared by the 
director of This Is Beirut, another anti-resistance Shia named Hanin 
Ghadar who also moonlights as a “senior fellow” 
<https://substack.com/redirect/94cc3047-2df9-424e-a880-b3984f5ecd34?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>at 
WINEP.As This Is Beirut bragged on social media 
<https://substack.com/redirect/342ec541-cbfb-4d14-9f4a-6ad1cda43898?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>in 
February, “Hanin Ghaddar was the second to testify before the U.S. House 
Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa during 
its discussion on Lebanon and the dismantling of Hezbollah.” During the 
course of her testimony, Ghadar repeatedly urged the US to target the 
resistance’s “political and economic institutions.”

      *De-banking Lebanon’s working class on Israel’s behalf*

While Sehnaoui’s band of media mercenaries made the case for debanking 
Hezbollah in public, Marco Rubio’s State Department was quietly laying 
the groundwork for an aggressive push against any Lebanese bank that 
could plausibly be accused of links to Hezbollah.

At the top of the list was Al-Qard Al-Hassan, a financial institution 
known for providing interest-free “benevolent loans” to Lebanese of all 
backgrounds – whether they’re Muslim or not. Just a few months after 
Israel bombed the institution’s branches 
<https://substack.com/redirect/7f1dd3b7-e1b2-4d62-bb7f-19241f340de7?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>in 
the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh in March, Washington announced a 
devastating new sanctions regime intended to destroy the usury-free 
financial entity once and for all.

A coordinated campaign was launched to eliminate Al-Qard Al-Hassan, 
beginning with the June 14 declaration by Lebanon’s Justice Ministry 
announcing an investigation into the charitable institution. Days later, 
an article 
<https://substack.com/redirect/1f06f3bd-156f-410f-b5ce-b7cf5ee4f14c?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>appeared 
on the homepage of FDD, the Israel-aligned think tank in DC. “Squeezing 
Al-Qard Al-Hassan Could Weaken Hezbollah’s Chances of Survival,” FDD 
promised.

Two weeks later, the US Treasury’s “Terrorist Financing Targeting 
Center” appeared to take their cue from FDD, formally declaring over a 
dozen Lebanese individuals as terror financiers due to their alleged 
links to Al-Qard Al-Hassan.

Widely suspected by Lebanese citizens of ratting out Hezbollah-tied 
groups to the US government, Sehnaoui has made little secret of his 
intimate connections to the Treasury Department. After first coming into 
US banking regulators’ orbit when he invited former Bush Attorney 
General John Ashcroft 
<https://substack.com/redirect/37ccbdad-44fe-45d3-b9af-80ac5f8217c3?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>to 
probe accounts of suspected Hezbollah members at his newly-acquired 
Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB) in 2010, Sehnaoui was praised by the 
Treasury’s then assistant secretary for terrorist financing, Daniel 
Glaser, as a “responsible owner.”

Sehnaoui would reap the benefits of these relationships for years to 
come, with Ashcroft offering to represent another of Sehnaoui’s banks, 
Société Générale de Banque au Liban (SGBL), in US court on numerous 
occasions. In the years that followed, Daniel Glaser walked through the 
revolving door of corruption and strode into a plush gig as a “senior 
adviser” to the bank’s chairman – Antoun Sehnaoui.

Glaser would later deliver a 2016 lecture 
<https://substack.com/redirect/1bc63b8c-23b1-4a06-9af3-193e9f3b807a?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>at 
WINEP headquarters in Washington in which he declared that “Treasury 
strives to isolate Hezbollah from the global financial system,” and 
celebrated that “the group’s access to the Lebanese financial system has 
been challenged in a way many never thought possible.”

Thus far, there’s no direct proof that Sehnaoui personally wielded his 
banking and media connections to cripple Al-Qard Al-Hassan’s finances 
and prevent working Lebanese from accessing zero-interest credit. But 
the circumstantial evidence traces back to his network of influence.

      *Family dinners, Israeli spies*

For the Sehnaoui clan, cozying up to the US and Israel, and working 
behind the scenes to eliminate their rivals, is a family tradition. 
According to Antoun’s estranged uncle, Maurice Sehnaoui, the 
slick-talking banker’s obsession with Israel was inherited directly from 
his father, Nabil Sehnaoui.

“My brother has always been fascinated by Judaism,” Maurice Sehnaoui 
told Lebanese media 
<https://substack.com/redirect/c2fd58a6-4dec-447e-8498-2d9bb9f947bb?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>, 
adding that Nabil went as far as insisting “we had Jewish ancestors” – a 
claim Maurice derided as “nonsense.”

When Mossad’s then deputy director, David Kimche, sought to make inroads 
among Lebanon’s Christian community, he turned to Antoun Sehnaoui’s 
father, Nabil – who was reportedly so eager to work with Israeli 
intelligence that he personally hosted the senior Mossad spy at his home 
for dinner in the late 1970s. When not tending to his family’s business 
empire, Nabil had emerged as a leading figure of a clandestine 
ultranationalist Christian militia called Al-Tanzim (“the 
organization”), which was largely composed of diehard right-wing 
military officers who viewed themselves as modern-day crusaders 
confronting the Islamic “menace” by any means necessary.

Kimche was far from the only influential Israeli to make house calls. 
According to former schoolmates, the young Sehnaoui was known to 
publicly boast about visits to his family’s upscale apartment by 
Israel’s then-Defense Minister, Ariel Sharon. And when his father, in 
turn, visited Sharon at his ranch in Sderot, Antoun frequently tagged along.

Nabil’s cheerleading for Israel was so intense that he criticized even 
the factions in Lebanon that Tel Aviv covertly backed during the 
country’s civil war for being insufficiently pro-Israel – most notably, 
the Lebanese Forces militia, which massacred thousands of civilians in 
in Beirut’s Sabra neighborhood and the nearby Shatila refugee camp under 
the direct watch of Sharon’s Israeli forces in just three days in 1982.

Led by a young warlord named Bachir Gemayel, whose sadism was matched 
only by his charisma, the Lebanese Forces represented the military wing 
of the phalangist Kataeb party established by Gemayel’s father, Pierre. 
The group mimicked Spanish and Italian fascist formations when Pierre 
Gemayel founded it during the 1930s. Long before its infamous slaughter 
of Muslims in Beirut, it had gained a reputation for grotesque displays 
of violence. Bachir Gemayel was personally implicated 
<https://substack.com/redirect/2f34d3e2-3143-48fa-a304-7ed6bdd1c182?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>in 
many shocking incidents, including the 1975 Beirut’s Black Saturday 
massacre, in which Lebanese Forces hunted down hundreds of Muslim and 
Druze civilians and killed them in retaliation for the slaying of four 
young Christian men around a dozen miles away.

Documents disclosed 
<https://substack.com/redirect/98dcefc6-44fc-47dc-afaf-0e0784b92df0?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>by 
Israel’s High Court of Justice in 2022 revealed that Gemayel operated 
with the explicit blessing of the Israeli Mossad, which agreed to arm 
his men during a 1976 meeting at his parents’ home. Gemayel, who was 
assassinated shortly after his election as President of Lebanon in 1982, 
initially demurred when it came to the question of normalizing ties with 
Israel, however.

For Antoun Sehnaoui’s father, that was tantamount to treason.

“Nabil was one of Bachir Gemayel’s fiercest critics,” a source close to 
the Sehnaoui family told L’Orient, because “he believed Gemayel had 
betrayed the Israelis by failing to sign a peace agreement immediately 
after his election in 1982.” Relations between the two men grew 
increasingly bitter after Gemayel effectively seized Al-Tanzim by force, 
drawing it under the banner of a single national Christian militia at 
gunpoint in 1980.

Today, the Sehnaoui family’s fascist militia lives on in the form of the 
Soldiers of God, a small but especially ruthless self-styled Christian 
morality police which patrols Beirut’s Achrafiyeh district dressed in 
all black, hunting down gays 
<https://substack.com/redirect/a26257e9-0b1e-4c84-a860-11de43b5fbbf?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>.

When the elite-induced economic crash of 2019 left outraged bank patrons 
demanding their deposits back at gunpoint, the Soldiers of God were 
dispatched to branches of Sehnaoui’s SGBL banks to protect them. Several 
members reportedly provide security at the Beirut office of his 
French-language Ici Beyrouth outlet.

Sehnaoui’s Soldiers of God stormed back onto the scene in 2024 when they 
killed 
<https://substack.com/redirect/2a6702db-c2d7-4f0f-935a-5a43e502b4c4?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>a 
member of the Lebanese Forces, a rival right-wing Christian militia, 
during a street brawl in Achrafieh.

Antoun Sehnaoui’s ultra-rightist, uber-Zionist politics represent the 
influence of his father, Nabil. “My brother became very close to the 
Israelis after the 1982 invasion, and I could never accept that,” 
Maurice Sehnaoui told Lebanese media, referring to Nabil. “His son 
followed in his footsteps.”

A separate source explained to L’Orient Today that Antoun is also 
“fascinated by Judaism, speaks some Hebrew, and sees in Israel what 
Lebanon should have become.”

That fascination – or fetishization – was shared by the US official who 
would become Sehnaoui’s paramour, and closest collaborator in Trump’s 
Washington.

      *Holocaust honeymoon*

When a receipt dated December 13, 2025 first surfaced 
<https://substack.com/redirect/bd5ee804-e957-4808-acc1-6ce379b25d2d?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>showing 
Antoun Sehnaoui had spent nearly $60,000 buying luxury jewelry for 
Morgan Ortagus, Trump’s former Deputy Special Presidential Envoy for 
Middle East Peace under Steve Witkoff, the relationship began to raise 
eyebrows – both because it raised serious conflict of interest concerns 
and because it seemed obvious Ortagus had been pursuing Sehnaoui’s 
affection while still married to another man.

But it was clear the pair had plenty in common, as both seemed deeply 
consumed by a shared infatuation with Israel. Sehnaoui, who had long 
been forced to contain his more exuberant Zionist tendencies among much 
of Lebanese high society, was in good company with Ortagus, who 
constantly flaunts a Star of David necklace with the sort of zeal that 
only a convert can muster.

As British celebrity news mag OK! explained 
<https://substack.com/redirect/adf85cc1-8716-4286-87c6-1313b51abd22?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>, 
“those close to the couple say the relationship is rooted in a shared 
conviction that has defined both of their careers: that peace in the 
region is definitely achievable, especially for Lebanon and Israel.” 
It’s been suggested the pair had been seeing each other since mid-2025, 
when Sehnaoui held a dinner in her honor at his Beirut restaurant, La 
Centrale, where guests included now-dead, pro-war US Senator Lindsey Graham.

The relationship was not made public until the DC-based US Holocaust 
Museum held an event in April 2026 honoring Sehnaoui’s hefty donation to 
the institution. There, standing by his side and delivering remarks on 
his behalf, was his beaming girlfriend Morgan Ortagus, who heaped praise 
on her paramour for funding a US-Israeli opera project that, she bragged 
<https://substack.com/redirect/4c710d9c-2435-43b6-b07b-6c057a608310?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>, 
was “technically illegal in Lebanon.”

Video from the event published by Hagar Chemali – the “good friend” of 
Ortagus – shows Ortagus kvelling that Sehnaoui came from a long line of 
“committed Lebanese Christian Zionists,” and that “his father and his 
mother, May and Nabil Sehnaoui, trained him to be a supporter of the 
State of Israel.”

X avatar for @HagarChemali 		
Hagar Hajjar Chemali
@HagarChemali

I don’t know why, decades after the Holocaust, standing up for Jews must 
be something that requires bravery. It shouldn’t. My good friend 
@MorganOrtagus gave a few impromptu and deeply moving words last night 
at the Holocaust Museum about @SehnaouiAntoun 's support for this
Image
9:01 PM · Apr 14, 2026· 39.5K Views
24 Replies· 25 Reposts· 254 Likes

<https://substack.com/redirect/e444e64b-6c56-426a-b2cc-bd511da03a57?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA> 

The event therefore represented not only Sehnaoui’s romantic coming out 
as the beau of Ortagus, but also his coming out as a Zionist. At This Is 
Beirut, Sehnaoui’s employees boasted that the ceremony 
<https://substack.com/redirect/cb2cb2c7-5d7c-494e-9045-44db365db26f?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>marked 
“the first time a Lebanese donor’s name has been inscribed on the donor 
wall at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.”

It wasn’t long before Antoun Sehnaoui became known around DC as “the 
Lebanese AIPAC guy,” according to L’Orient. Months later, he capped off 
this performance by hosting a memorial dinner at Washington’s Four 
Seasons hotel in honor of Lindsay Graham, where photos showed the 
Lebanese banker seated alongside Israel’s globally reviled prime 
minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Accompanying the men were their romantic 
partners and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, whose senate office is effectively 
run by an Israeli operative 
<https://substack.com/redirect/7760aea8-4bc0-4626-bfa8-87eb54ad5f2a?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>.

The photo immediately prompted shock and bewilderment in much of 
Lebanon. Over a dozen lawyers responded with a demand that the 
government seek Sehnaoui’s arrest. A Lebanese judge quickly acquiesced, 
ordering authorities to seize Sehnaoui and question him for 30 days 
should he appear in the country. But instead of denying his involvement 
or justifying himself, Sehnaoui has seemingly basked in the attention. 
At This Is Beirut, his team publicized the event, claiming it had 
succeeded in “bringing together a distinguished group of American, 
Israeli, and international political figures.”

With no apparent plans to return to Beirut, it’s unlikely that Sehnaoui 
will face justice anytime soon. But thanks to his vast banking and media 
empire, the “trained” Zionist doesn’t need to set foot in the country to 
continue pushing it down the perilous path of normalization with its 
occupier, and closer to the precipice of civil war.

A guest post by
Wyatt Reed 
<https://substack.com/@wyattreed?utm_campaign=guest_post_bio&utm_medium=email> 

Correspondent covering the end of empire
Subscribe to Wyatt 
<https://substack.com/redirect/648160a3-f450-49ea-b629-98ab23acffc1?j=eyJ1IjoiNDg0OWljIn0.Y6K1LMhdrJlQZgVGsgH3ZN_uOH6pr27RwbiXoo1LXXA>

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