The OP appears to be an American Lebanese Christian. There’s a big difference between them and Muslim Arabs.
The phrase “Middle Eastern” can mean many things. I’m in Los Angeles and the Middle Eastern people here tend to be Jewish Israelis, Iranian Jews, Iranian (of Muslim descent but mostly secular), Christian Armenians and a lot of other Christians like Lebanese and Egyptian Copts.
I think there’s a few things that need to be clarified here when comparing the US Arabs vs European Arabs.
USA Arabs
The phrase “Middle Eastern” can mean many things. I’m in Los Angeles and the Middle Eastern people here tend to be Jewish Israelis, Iranian Jews, Iranian (of Muslim descent but mostly secular), Christian Armenians and a lot of other Christians like Lebanese and Egyptian Copts.
I think there’s a few things that need to be clarified here when comparing the US Arabs vs European Arabs.
USA Arabs
- Most are Christian.
Many are very educated, due to the H1-B visa only letting in skilled immigrants. - Many have a good business brain are pretty well off. In the middle eastern countries, historically, many of the very well off families are Christian.
- Many are very assimilated into US culture. Some have been in the US for 3 or 4 generations. I’ve come across Arab-Americans where I had no idea that they were Arabs until they told me. The only thing Arab about them is the fact that they sometimes eat hummus for lunch!
- Many Lebanese don’t even consider themselves Arab – I’ve heard some call themselves Phoenicians.
- Most are Muslim
- Many are poorly educated. A lot of them came into Europe for manual labour
- Many are on welfare.
- Mostly they do not assimilate – they stick around with other Arabs & they prefer to live in ghettos amongst many other Arabs.
- They’ve only been in Europe for 1 or 2 generations and on the whole are not assimilated.