As a ceasefire agreement in the north appears imminent under US President Joe Biden's administration, Donald Trump's team is searching for someone to manage Lebanese affairs. Guy Nohra, a Lebanese-born American businessman and fervent Trump supporter, may be the chosen candidate for this role.
Nohra visited Israel last week, where he met with senior officials, toured various sites, and delivered a speech at a business entrepreneurship conference. Despite this being his first visit to the country, his identification with Israel appears absolute, to the extent that he speaks of the United States and Israel in the plural. "We must win this war," he says, then corrects himself, "I mean, you need to win. You're the ones fighting and paying the heavy price. But I'm here because you and we are the last democracies."
Born in Mount Lebanon in 1968, Christian-born Nohra joined Lebanon's internal conflicts at age 15, deceiving his parents, until he was wounded by PLO gunfire. Following this incident, his family fled to the United States, where he rebuilt his life from scratch. "I have an affinity for Lebanon and would like to help it, but I feel completely American," he said during our meeting at a Jerusalem hotel. Indeed, neither his accent nor any other detail betrays his country of origin.
A natural entrepreneur, Nohra launched a distinguished business career in life sciences and pharmaceuticals, amassing an estimated fortune of $2 billion. At the beginning of the decade, he decided he "wanted to give back to the country that had given him so much," so he ran for various positions in Nevada and integrated into the conservative party leadership in the southern state. He also made a decisive contribution – both organizationally and financially – to Trump's victory in Nevada in the recent elections, marking the first time in 20 years that a Republican presidential candidate won there.
Nohra's support for Trump is unconditional. He is convinced that the president-elect will save the world in general and its democratic parts in particular. His part, he hopes, will be rehabilitating the country he fled as a child. "Lebanon needs internal peace and external peace with Israel, but without the first, there won't be the second," he said.
When asked how to achieve internal peace in a country that has been internally divided for fifty years, regardless of the war with Israel, he responded: "My model is Switzerland, but I know it will be difficult, yet this is Lebanon's opportunity to rejoin the world."
