It was not until 1942 that Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance. One year later, in June 1943, the Supreme Court ruled that school children could not be forced to recite it.
The descendants of the Canaanites/Phoenicians are the modern day inhabitants of Lebanon (specifically the Christians). The Arabs and the Phoenicians aren't at all the same people. They just spoke two languages related to each other.
How the people of Syria identify is confusing at best and chaos at worse. The people tend to be Sunni Muslims who are ethnically a combination of various people, but most prominently Arabs and Phoenicians (sometimes also referred to as Canaanites).