@Oxymandias
It does. You're saying that the average Lebanese person is half Arab. What various genetic studies shows including the Nat Geo genographic study one, is that Lebanese people along with the Palestinians and other groups along the Mediterranean mainly in Tunis and Spain share a common genetic ancestors. i.e the Phoenicians. They mixed with other groups but never the less its still there.
For the study you're talking about, it showed that just as commonly known between people in Lebanon.
Muslims and specifically Sunni Muslims are either Arabs or highly mixed with Arabs. While Christians and other groups are only slightly mixed with Arabs.
Everyone is slightly mixed with everyone else at this day and age. So it doesn't make much here.
For the rest of your post now.
Let us first talk about the original Arab culture, Bedouin Arab culture. Bedouin Arab culture is nomadic, tribal, and had common law through honor codes. Of course a lot of if not all these attributes entered many of the cultures the Bedouins conquered. However lots Bedouin culture wasn't excluded from influence of other cultures and was fundamentally influenced by the cultures it interacted with. For example, Persian culture was a very big influence on Bedouin culture and these influences include an emphasis on urbanism, mysticism (the Bedouins were also mystic however it was a different sort of mysticism from Persian mysticism which they inherited), art particularly the miniature, architecture, clothing, and administration. These influences are the things that changed Bedouin culture into what is often considered to be Arab culture.
This is historically not factual.
Bedouin Arab traditions does exist, but its not nomadic. There were nomad Arabs but the overwhelming majority of Arabs were living in small and medium cities. And by the time Islam showed up, they've had already lived for centuries in cities. The difference between Arabs and others back then is that they simply didn't have many large kingdoms or empires, because it was not possible to maintain the logistics of conquering the various independent cities of Arabia when those cities usually rose on the only water sources in their respective areas while between them was just a vast water-less desert.
When Islam showed up in Medina and the defeated Mecca, it spread to the rest of Arabia first because it took the center of trade -Mecca- and second because it put focus on helping the poor. Which Arabia had many poor people and just a few rich ones to keep them down. Basically the rulers of Arabia had a choice between joining Islam and the nation of Islam or face a soon peasant or slave uprisings incited by the Muslims.
Even though Bedouins Arabized their conquered territory in terms of language and values, the feeling was certainly mutual. Arab culture was also significantly influenced by the cultures it conquered. I may argue even more than how much it influenced other cultures.
Arab culture was being changed but not by those in which it conquered but by Islam.
The people in the conquered regions became developed a new culture that is basically a mixture of their own, Arabic culture, and Islam. While the Arabs enjoyed the wealth taken from these empires and didn't really change much other than the initial change that came with the rise of Islam.
However Arab countries are very different from each other culturally.
They are, that came long after the Arab empires. Mainly during the Ottoman empire when each area was granted partial self governance and thus each started reviving their historical heritage slowly and gradually but nevertheless effectively.
Actually an interesting thing is that, during the height of the popularity of Baathism and Pan-Arabism, Lebanese people did in fact identify as Arab. Until the disasters that were Syria and Iraq and their negative effect on Lebanon happened this sentiment ended. Pan-Arabism is also being lost in countries such as Syria and replaced with Greater Syrian Nationalism.
Ok, don't take this the wrong way dude. But Lebanese people hate Syrians, and hate the Baath regimes, and they fought to the last bit of their lives so the greater Syria project doesn't stand.
When those Arab nationalists rose to power in Syria, they conquered Lebanon and butchered Lebanese people by the 10s of thousands. Not to mention keeping the country under military mandate for decades ending in 2005 only.
The only people in Lebanon who do love the Arabs and identify with them and still have this Arab nationalism are the Sunnis in Lebanon. The rest don't. Even now, the alliance between the Shias in Lebanon and the Syrians is that of convenience not of liking.
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