winslow - lebanon war and politics in a fragmented society

Lebanon

Lebanon

War and politics in a fragmentedsociety

Charles Winslow

London and New York

First published 1996by Routledge

11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collectionof thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge

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© 1996 Charles Winslow

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted orreproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,

mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafterinvented, including photocopying and recording, or in any

information storage or retrieval system, without permission inwriting from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataWinslow, Charles

Lebanon: War and politics in a fragmented society/CharlesWinslow.

Includes bibliographical references and index.1. Lebanon—History—1946–. 2. Lebanon—History—1918–1946.

I. Title.DS87.W56 1996

956.9204′3–dc20 96–5890

ISBN 0-203-21739-X Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-21787-X (Adobe eReader Format)ISBN 0-415-14403-5 (Print Edition)

Dedicated to Maribeth Davis WinslowWife, Mother, Editor

Contents

List of figures ix

Preface x

Note on transliteration xii

1 Peoples and history to 1840 1

Introduction

Purpose

The problem

The basic argument

Ancient times

The Maronites arrive

Mamluk times

Other early communities

Ottoman times

Fakhr al-Din

The Shihābs

Bashir II

The Egyptian invasion

2 Wars and independence: 1840–1914 27

Bashir (Qasim) III

The war of 1841

The war of 1842

The Double Kaymakamate

The war of 1845

A decade of peace

The 1858 rebellion in Kisrawān

The civil war of 1860

The Règlement

Da‛ūd Pasha

Yusuf (Bey) Karam

Other Mutasarrifs

The end of the Mutasarrifate

3 Greater Lebanon: 1915–1943 50

Lebanon under Jemāl Pasha

The Allied occupation

The Mandate period

The Mandate system

Constitutionalism in Lebanon

War clouds

Independence

4 The independent Republic: 1943–1958 75

The French legacy

The Constitution

The French leave

Dilemmas at the beginning

Politics and the system

Politics and the economy

Politics and corruption

Al Khūri’s Khūri’s second term

The customs union

The gentle coup

Camille Chamoun

Cold War entanglements

vi

5 The civil war of 1958 103

Toward civil war

The war of 1958

The American intervention

Winding down the war

6 The best years: 1958–1970 126

Back to normal

The Shihābists

President Charles Hilū

Deterioration

The June war of 1967

Palestinian involvement

The Cairo Agreement

7 Toward civil war: 1970–1975 159

The elections of 1970

Suleiman Franjieh

Deterioration and violence

Moving toward war

The military cabinet

The undercutters

The issues

Other organizations and militias

8 Civil war and intervention: 1976–1982 194

The civil war of 1976

The war complex

The war in the south

Outsiders invade

The Israeli invasion of 1982

9 Permanent war: 1983–1990 226

vii

The Gemayel presidencies

Gemayel entangled

America entangled

Neglect and beyond

Hopeless division

Bombs, hostages, and hijackings

Violence and stalemate

Turf battles

Border war and turf battles

Wars of consolidation

The Ta‘if Agreement

10 Syria stops the war: 1990–1995 267

Aoun and Ja‘ja

The departure of General Aoun

Progress under President Hrāwi

Regional linkages

Release of hostages

Politics and reconstruction

War and occupation

The future

The long-term future

Appendix I: Religious sects of Lebanon 289

Appendix II: Dynasties and rulers of Lebanon 291

Epilogue 293

Notes 295

Index 322

viii

Figures

The divided city of Beirut xiii

1.1 Eastern Mediterranean ninth century BCE 81.2 The topography of Lebanon 101.3 Coastal enclaves and traditional regions of Lebanon 141.4 Traditional feudal districts of Mount Lebanon 232.1 Major regions, cities, and towns of Greater Lebanon 292.2 Traditional locations of Lebanese communities 326.1 Incidents of violence: 1947–1962 1276.2 Incidents of violence: 1958–1969 1366.3 Announced public projects: 1958–1969 1376.4 Incidents of violence and public projects: 1964–1970 1447.1 Incidents of violence: 1970–1976 1707.2 Announced public projects: 1970–1976 1718.1 Incidents of violence: 1975–1982 2158.2 Incidents of violence: 1980–1986 2239.1 Incidents of violence: 1985–1991 2469.2 Areas of strife and turf battles 25010.1 Summary of incidents of violence: 1947–1991 28010.2 Major rivers of Lebanon 287

Preface

In this monograph, I have tried to provide both a history and a political analysisof civil/sectarian strife, past and present, in Lebanon. After brief reviews ofancient times and the medieval period that led to the establishment of the ShihābiImarah of Mount Lebanon (1697–1841), the book examines the civil war periodsof the middle nineteenth century, giving particular focus to the Druze-Maronitewar of 1860. These are treated comparatively with other Lebanese conflicts:those occurring in the First and Second World Wars, in 1958, in 1975–6, andduring the long period of civil strife and foreign invasion from 1978 to 1990. Thefifteen years of civil/sectarian war from 1975 to 1990 resulted in either death orinjury to a million Lebanese and Palestinians; much of the country’sinfrastructure was destroyed; and its great entrepôt city, Beirut, was reduced toordinary status. It was a tragedy that played itself out, for the most part, beyondthe world’s headlines, a long saga of massacres and bombings which seemed tohave no purpose or end. The end did come in 1990, when the Syrian Armyousted General Aoun from B‘abdā Palace and installed occupation forces in thecountry. Though engaged in political reform and reconstruction, the Lebanesehave yet to regain their independence.

My study of Lebanon begins with the proposition that the politics of those wholive in the Levant is a function of their geostrategic situation, both past andpresent. Batted back and forth by greater power on the outside, Levantines are“conflict prone” in the sense that they find it especially difficult to organize andmaintain major systems on their own and are continually the victims of outsiderswho do. An additional theme developed in the book examines the politics of theLebanese in terms of the “inside-outside game.” Because people in the strategicMiddle East, including Lebanon, are continually used by outsiders for externalpurposes, they have learned to use outsiders for internal purposes. Both victimsand perpetrators, the Lebanese take net losses from the interplay that occurs inthis process.

In the final chapter, the book offers ideas on how the “inside-outside” gamemight be institutionalized so that the Lebanese, along with others in the area, couldexercise a reasonable form of political self determination. It concludes bysuggesting a policy agenda aimed at preserving an independent Lebanon withinthe context of a Middle East peace settlement. Sadly, the chances of such a

eventuality coming about in the near future seem remote. There seem to be toomany fortresses filled with bitter and vengeful hearts to make it possible. Theconviction, perhaps bias, that pervades the pages of this book is that people in theLevant must choose to be governed by secular institutions. The alternative isinequality, strife, poverty, and dependence. Can they make this choice? Thefollowing is dedicated to the belief that they can.

This project began as a study of the civil war of 1860 in Lebanon and grewinto a much larger (unpublished) work of which the following is an abbreviatedversion. I have had the support of many colleagues over the years, and to all ofthem I owe a great debt of gratitude. Professor Wadie Jwaideh of IndianaUniversity got me interested in Mount Lebanon. Professors P.J.Vatikiotis and thelate Edward H. Buehrig took special interest in sponsoring the expanded project;their help and comments have been invaluable. I have also benefited greatly fromthe comments and/or writings of many other Middle East hands. Among theseare James Spagnolo, Kamal Salibi, Iliya Harik, Michael Hudson, Jean SaidMakdisi, John Entelis, Peter Gubser, Edwin Prothro, Cathy Witty, Samir Khalaf,and Michael Suleiman. I also want to remember the late Malcolm H.Kerr who,many years ago, allowed me to accompany him on a brief series of speakingengagements at small colleges in Indiana. Besides basketball (Malcolm’s son isnow a star player for the National Basketball Association Chicago Bulls), wetalked about Lebanon, where he grew up and went to school. Malcolm, in allrespects, was a remarkable person; his writing, conversation, and example oftenkept me going.

This work would not have been possible without the help and encouragementof my associates here at Indiana University in Indianapolis; my colleagues JohnMcCormick, William Blomquist, and Richard Fredland have often had the bleaktask of keeping me at work on the project. I also received assistance and counselfrom many associated with Routledge, especially David Croom, Gordon Smith,Caroline Wintersgill, and Judith Willson. None of the above, of course, isresponsible for the shortcomings of the book.

Finally, I must mention the patience of my family—Donald, Emily, Evelyn,Clara, and Kyle—for putting up with my long absences from them. They, alongwith my wife, Maribeth, have had to share my burdens.

xi

Note on transliteration

Arabic names for persons and places, especially in Lebanon, pose numerousdifficulties for anyone trying to transliterate them into English. Words of Turkishor Aramaic origin may be given an Arabicized transliteration by some scholars,e.g., Salīm; a Turkish version by others, e.g., Selim; or a colloquial rendering bystill others, e.g., Sleem. The problem is further complicated by the fact that manyLebanese writers and publicists only know the spoken Arabic names for familiarpersons and places. Unfortunately, they do not agree on an English languagespelling for the colloquial Arabic, e.g., Hamādah, Himādah, Hmādah, Himada,etc. Adding to the problem in Lebanon is the fact that the French versions ofArabic, Aramaic, and Turkish names vary considerably from the English, eventhough both use essentially the same script, e.g., Chehab and Shihāb.

One solution would be to use only the classical Arabic version of the names inquestion and use all the diacritical marks needed to transliterate that languageaccording to formal linguistic criteria. To do so in this case, would make the textburdensome for all but a few scholars. Therefore, I have followed a policy ofusing a minimum of diacritical markings but employing those I do use to help thereader distinguish Arabic terms which, without the marks, would be spelled thesame but mean different things, e.g., Nāsir and Nasīr. When a word requiresmore than one macron, I have in general chosen to use only one and employ it toenhance pronunciation, to indicate where the emphasis falls on a long vowel,e.g., not Kisrāwān, but Kisrawān. Some words have undergone mutation becauseof popular usage, e.g., Janbalāt has become Jumblāt (as a compromise betweenJunblat and Joumblatt). Obviously, such well-known English language versionsas Nasser and Tyre have been kept as they are and not transliterated as Nāsir andSūr.

The divided city of Beirut

Source: Based on map of Multinational Force areas of responsibility, Robert B.Houghtonand Frank G.Trinka, Multinational Peacekeeping in the Middle East, Center for the Studyof Foreign Affairs, US Department of State, Washington, 1984, p. 75

1Peoples and history to 1840

INTRODUCTION

Lebanon is a small, Levantine state located on the eastern coast of theMediterranean, suffering, at present, from internal disorder and the militaryencroachments of Palestinians, Israelis, and Syrians. The residue of its mostrecent period of civil war—proxy militias caught in a syndrome of attack andreprisal, occupation forces on patrol, and politicians retreating to separatecommunities—has left the state in a condition of incoherence and dependence.Having only 4,015 square miles of territory, Lebanon is about the size ofConnecticut, i.e., a bit larger than the Yellowstone National Park, but “with amore lethal wildlife,” as old hands in the diplomatic establishment used to say. Atpresent, the Lebanese are beginning to recover from fifteen years of civil war andare attempting to rebuild their country, but they are also forced to tread water, soto speak, while awaiting the “peace process” to yield agreements among theirneighbors that would make a normal national life possible.1

During the past two decades, the Lebanese have experienced a terrible time:civil war; military intervention; occupation; and the interminable bloodletting ofsnipers, assassins, and car bombers. From the 1830s to the 1860s, the peoples ofan even smaller jurisdiction than the present Republic were periodicallyembroiled in domestic turmoil combined with external intervention. A halfcentury later, their descendants experienced blockade, starvation, and invasionduring the First World War, at which time their Turkish rulers were replaced bythe French. They were subjected, once again, to violence and militaryintervention during the Second World War when the French were forced to exitand the independent Republic was established. Major upheavals—the Nasser-Chamoun struggle in 1958, the bitter civil war of 1975–6, the Syrian interventionand bombardment in 1977, the Israeli invasions of 1978 and 1982, and thecontinued limbo—have since shaken the Lebanese and nearly deprived them oftheir state. With so many factions commanding firepower (their leaders on thetake from various paymasters), with so many different levels of politics, local,regional, and international, being played through Lebanon, it takes a great deal

of perspective, perhaps a penchant for fantasy, to believe that there will onceagain come a day when Lebanon is an independent Republic.

PURPOSE

To find hope, this narrative will pursue two lines of attack: to tell the story ofLebanon, both positive and negative, and to frame the Lebanese experience in anappropriate geopolitical context. Indeed, the country has a unique story to tell. Inspite of the present disaster, the thirty-year period preceding the outbreak of civilwar in 1975 was one of considerable achievement for the Republic. TheLebanese engaged in competitive electoral politics through which they were ableto institutionalize the transfer of power; they enjoyed individual freedoms ofpress, property, and person which approximated Western norms; and their laissezfaire economy resulted in both commercial expansion and monetary stability. Ifwe do not make the mistake of measuring achievement by the claims which theLebanese establishment made for itself or by the unrealistic demands fordistributive justice expressed by its critics, Lebanon, for all its glaringweaknesses, was making progress in social pluralism and democraticgovernment. Moreover, this was progress on the part of a people not importedfrom European cultures but indigenous to that setting. Lebanon was a real, andrare, case of a Middle East system trying to institutionalize a confessional modeof democratic pluralism.2

Can Lebanon be reconstituted? Should it be? The following account is pledgedto that purpose. Unfortunately, there have been so many participants in thebreakup of the state, so many categories of political actors involved, that it is oflittle value to look for a single cause or to locate the main culprits in the matter.Outsiders were certainly major perpetrators of the disaster. If, however,foreigners were the main factors, as some Lebanese suggest, how was it possiblefor them so easily to use the locals for their “insidious” purposes? As this accountwill try to show, the causes of civil war in Lebanon have been sufficientlyindigenous to suggest that the Lebanese do more than blame people beyond theirborders for their dilemmas. Whether in 1860 or 1975, the incendiary persons andevents causing civil strife are no mystery. The mystery is why this latest conflict,unlike those of the past, was not contained. If answers can be found to thisquestion, there is hope that the recent debacle will not turn out to be the finalchapter in the story of independent Lebanon.

To contribute to that hope, this account will offer a conceptual framework forthinking about the reconstitution of Lebanon in a policy-applicable fashion. Theconcluding chapter details a four-level framework in which local, community,national, and regional requisites are given a lexical ordering. It will attempt toindicate an ordering of requisites going in both directions, for those who aresolving problems at the most general level will not be directly involved in theirsolution at the most particular level. Choices will require analysis, patience, and

2 PEOPLES AND HISTORY TO 1840

reciprocity; they will also need to be driven by aspiration. Finally, the text willindicate those policy goals that are valid for reasonable decision makers to set.

THE PROBLEM

Lebanon’s condition is no accident. Rather, it is a paradigm of what it is to beLevantine: to be vulnerable, relativist, and conflict-prone.3 Lebanon’spredicament, as a subset of the problems in the Levant and the larger MiddleEast, must be seen as a function of three interrelated (circularly caused)dilemmas.4 These, treated as categories of mutually reinforcing causes locked ina syndrome, are as follows:

1 geostrategic vulnerability2 economic marginality3 ethical relativism

The first of these, geostrategic vulnerability, has meant that the Lebanese mustlive in a “corridor” through which armies pass back and forth, preventing themfrom having the time needed to institutionalize a stable, reciprocal politicalprocess. The second, economic marginality, plagues its victims with a scarcity ofresources that can be taken from the Mediterranean ecology on the edge of thedesert. Thirdly, an ethical relativism pervades relationships. This ethic arisesfrom the combination of turmoil and scarcity that so easily comes to Lebanon’sshores. The result is a basis for choice which emphasizes the “cut” of the pierather than its “size.”

It is these general conditions of life in the Levant, legacies of landform andlocation, to which we attribute the area’s extraordinary degree of socialfragmentation.5 These conditions not only reciprocally “cause” each other, theyrecapitulate the permanently unsettled result. Strife-torn Lebanon has representedonly one extreme example, a cause and victim of the Levant’s perniciousdynamics.6 Since the “war of all” is always nearby, no matter what ourcondition, the remedies for Lebanon, if there are any, should be instructive forall of us.

But what do we mean by the game-theoretical term, “conflict prone”? Whatconceptual role does it play? Are the Levantines in general, and the Lebanese inparticular, more susceptible to being “conflict prone” than other peoples ofcomparable development? Is the disease curable?

THE BASIC ARGUMENT

We begin with the following propositions: To say that the Lebanese are “conflictprone” is not to suggest that they are particularly warlike or are more determinedthan other peoples on acts of conquest. We should not associate conflict-proneness with the size of war or level of destructivity that a society is capable

PEOPLES AND HISTORY TO 1840 3

of. Conflict-prone societies do not fight “big” wars; they cannot enlist theloyalties and cooperation of a sufficient number of people for such a purpose.The extremes of individualism, as well as the hyperdefensive psychology thatpermeates their outlook, prevents them from organizing for long-term, large-scale public activities. The individual in such societies relies on kinship for hissocial cement; his cities, with their twisting narrow alleys, are a labyrinth ofprivate encampments; his politics are informal and ad hoc, conducted betweenpersons not within systems; and his law is given from above, allowing onlyindividuals, not corporate bodies, to act as legal persons. Beyond this, hisreligion links him truly to the Creator and only mythically to the community. InDamascus and Beirut, the Levantine’s house surrounds his open spaces;fortified, he is isolated and atomized. Nothing is permanent, and life is cheap. Evena wealthy man can depend only on himself and those who depend on him. Adetached interest is unthinkable, and even generosity has an ulterior purpose—tomaintain the dependency of others that is so necessary for safety in a world ofindividuals.

At the root of conflict-proneness is ethical relativism. The individual, in hisprecarious habitat, perceives value only as a relative measure between himselfand another; he does not see it in absolute terms as a measure of himself vis-à-viswhat is possible. The conflict-prone person is preoccupied with differences insize of the cuts of the pie rather than the size of the pie itself, one that can eithergrow or shrink. An extreme ethical relativist, relishing his comparative eminence,might even accept an absolute loss in order to enjoy a larger cut of a smaller pierather than a smaller cut of a larger pie.7 Game theorists refer to such perceptionsof value as “zero-sum” (involving transactions in which the gains for one personresult from the losses in like amount for another). The sum of value for the two iszero; only a redistribution, a transfer payment, has occurred. Presumably, nogrowth has taken place; the pie of values remains the same, fixed and closed.

Or has it? While, hypothetically, the pie has not gotten smaller, the reality isdifferent, both materially and psychologically. Cutting each other up over a fixedpie of values, relativists generate conflict that, over time, results in an absolute lossof material. Psychologically, the losses are perhaps even greater, since the loserfrom the transfer payment loses more from his interrupted expectations than thewinner gains from the opportunity that caprice has brought him: opportunity,moreover, which he could not have planned for nor incorporated into a networkof relationships. In the larger view, mutual reciprocal rip-off on the part ofrelativists is not just zero-sum but negative-sum. The pie gets smaller and thecommunity loses.8

Universalized, this ethical relativism could hardly remain compatible with astable order. Under such conditions, it is difficult for the individual to act withany degree of personal detachment; his public consciousness cannot go farbeyond the tie of kinship, the faction, and the sectarian community. Even withinthese allegiances, betrayal happens often enough. After a time, what Murray’s


Handbook says of the “Syrian” applies to the Lebanese: “His patriotism isconfined to the four walls of his house.”9

In such a society, concerted efforts by an individual are likely to beintermittent in character; focused on short-range goals; and divisive for theorganization in whose name he acts, splintering its membership. Notions ofcomity beyond kinship have no place; concepts of natural law find no favor; andveins expand while eyes bulge over every haggled exchange. When applied bymembers who subscribe to it, this norm reinforces its own efficacy in circularfashion. The amoral relativist does not expect integrative behavior on the part ofothers and acts so as to make integration unlikely to pay off when it does occur.By recapitulating itself, the norm continuously proves its value as a guide—onewhose peculiar revelation comes from the inevitable ill consequences of failingto heed it. Among the Levantines there are no patriots, just saints and martyrs.People are caught in a terrible dilemma, torn between grasping and hiding. Theyoung are angry, their elders weary, and only the illiberal survive.10

It is understood, of course, that the ethical tendencies outlined above arepresent in all societies at all levels of organization. Some societies, however,come to a threshold, a point of critical mass relative to centrifugal forces, beyondwhich it becomes unstrategic for their members to take a chance on cooperation.Levantine systems have usually managed to survive at the edge of this threshold,while Lebanon seemed to have gotten beyond it. Nor is it suggested that themeasure for performance of societies ought to tend entirely in the oppositedirection, that peoples should only cooperate, that they ought to develop theorganizational capacity and public ethic to fight “big” wars. If Levantineemotionalism and individualism make human disasters of a European magnitudeimpossible, so much the better. The dabke (folk dance) is certainly preferable tothe goose step. On the other hand, it is important to identify conflict not with theamount of destruction one people can impose on another but with the degree towhich peoples are able or unable to act in concert for good or ill. Further, it iscrucial to see that it has been no accident that Levantines find it difficult to act inconcert, that their societies are conflict prone and may ultimately produceEuropean amounts of destruction during their longer period of never-ending“little” wars. Levantine peoples, especially the Lebanese, are caught in an eddy.Geopolitically vulnerable at the global center, they are overurbanized and on theeconomic margin. Holding long memories of conflict and salivating over itsrelativistic residue, Levantines find it difficult to break out of the trap. Played outreciprocally, their victories only drag them down further. Razor sharp asindividuals, their team play is miserable.

But why? How did this state of affairs come about? Geopolitically, the Levanthas the misfortune to be located at the very crossroads of the globe, situatedbetween continents and peoples. From a purely strategic view, this pivotal areaacts like the four center squares of a chessboard. Pieces located on the fourcenter squares control more of the board than do pieces located anywhere else. Inthe Levant, as in chess, competition for the center is unremitting and lethal.


Pawns are used, initially, to probe and make contact. Some even hang back, getstuck, and are isolated by the fury that ensues when the larger pieces come toplay.11 This geopolitical center attracts power from further afield, not merelyfrom aggressive motivation but from defensive as well. All and sundry rush tothe front so as not to be second in case war breaks out; and, in the rush, it usuallydoes. The larger pieces—the bishop, the rook, the queen, assisted by the knight’sdeadly pincers—must traverse the center to get to other places, to bring power tobear against the other side. Hyperstrategic, the Levantine square is an especiallyunholy place.

It is generally recognized that longevity is not a characteristic of those pieceswhich move to the four center squares of a chessboard. Likewise, large-scale,integrative development under conditions of political stability has not occurredindigenously for those peoples who have made cultures in the Levant. Theincredible fact is that in 5,000 years of recorded history, no indigenous Levantineculture has ever organized the area as a whole. On the other hand, outsidershave: the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, thePeninsula Arabs, the Mamluks (of Egypt), and, for over 400 years, the OttomanTurks. In fact, the grandest times of cultural efflorescence for the peoples of theLevant have occurred only when outsiders have provided the political cement. Justas the center pawns do not last long in most chess games, and (via anothermetaphor) the grass is all scruffed up near the middle of an (American) footballfield, so also have the peoples of the Levant been politically scruffed up over themillennia of great power contention in the area. Unfortunately, to bring it fullcircle, turmoil at the geopolitical crossroads attracts the very intervention fromthe outside that recapitulates it on the inside.12 Outsiders often play one groupoff against another in the Levant; they, in turn, are used by Levantines forfactional advantage.

For Lebanon, the problem is even worse. Not only is the country vulnerableand in the geopolitical vortex, but it also possesses specific geographical featureswhich keep its peoples separated and undefended. Lebanon has mountains whichdivide but do not protect and rivers which bisect but do not traverse, leaving itspeoples with the worst of both worlds—topographical features which segmentthe country yet leave it open to invasion. This exacerbates, on a smaller scale, thefragmentation and instability endemic to the Levant as a whole. As a result, thepeople of Lebanon try to use outsiders as weights against their indigenousopponents, while outsiders try to magnify the divisions among the Lebanese as away of using them more easily. Even more vulnerable than other Levantines, theLebanese often demonstrate stronger allegiances to outsiders than to theirneighbors on the Mountain.

ANCIENT TIMES

While the particularism and conflict-proneness of the Lebanese is partly afunction of their geostrategic location, it is also due to specific historical


circumstances. The country has a long history in which certain traditions andbehavior patterns have evolved. As a home for ancient coastal settlements; asPhoenician city states; entrepôt centers (under Persian, Greek, Roman, andByzantine rule); as a haven for dissentients (during the Umayyad and Abbasidperiods); and as semi-independent chieftaincies (under the Egyptian Mamluk andOttoman Turkish Sultanates), the mountains and coast of Lebanon have oftenoperated politically as separate entities. The mountains, many of them treecovered until the nineteenth century, gave water and protection to theirinhabitants. Because of them, historical Lebanon has served as a refuge for agreat variety of groups, sects, and individuals who have had to flee the largersystems nearby. The rawāsab (residue) of other peoples and cultures havediscovered the independence of the Mountain and have been stubborn to keep it.The result has been to pack a great deal of diversity into a small area.

Although artifacts give ample evidence that prehistoric people livedthroughout the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean, fewer skelatal remainshave been discovered there than elsewhere in Africa and Eurasia. More is knownabout the animals they hunted and the tools they used than about prehistoricMiddle East people themselves. For historic times, the opposite is the case. Thecoastal areas below the Lebanese mountains have provided us with one of thelongest and most complete records of human habitation anywhere. Whether onelooks at ancient Byblos, with its succession of conquerors,13 or the Phoeniciancity states, a characteristic pattern emerges. Local rulers were never completelyindependent and had to play the “inside-outside game” to keep whatever degreeof autonomy they did enjoy. Using outsiders to help them dominate local rivals,Phoenician rulers often found themselves abandoned in time of need or (morelikely) taken over by those they called on for help. Although the Phoenicianswent to sea, founded colonies, and projected their own influence beyond theircity states, they never organized the eastern Mediterranean area under their ownjurisdiction. Others did. Akkadians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Neo-Babylonians,Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines were able to organize such enclavestates as Sidon, Tyre, Berytus, and Aradus into their systems, imposing variousdegrees of hegemony on them. These city states may well have reached theirzenith of prosperity and cultural contribution under (accommodating) imperialrule. Yet, they always maintained their characteristic pattern—small, separate,and connected as much to outsiders as to one another (see Figure 1.1).

Under the Romans, these cities were important factors in imperial trade aswell as in its later politics. The area gave Rome one of its Emperors while Beirutwas a center for the study and practice of law. These coastal enclaves alsofigured in early Christianity. Jesus, himself, had visited Sidon; Peter, accordingto tradition, founded the church (42 CE) in Antioch.14 Paul sometimes tookrefuge in the early Christian communities of Sidon and Tyre. Eventually, the areabecame Christianized and under the control of Byzantium.

By 640 CE, after only seven years of war, the Arab Muslims were ableto conquer the whole of Syria up to the Taurus Mountains, including the cities


along the maritime plain of Lebanon. The Mountain soon became linked to theIslamic world with its center, under the Umayyads, in Damascus. Even if thepeople of the more remote settlements knew little of the Arabs from the south,they may well have welcomed the change. Islamic taxation was lenient, and, as“people of the Book” (ahl al-Kitāb),15 Christians had to be treated with respect.

Figure 1.1 Eastern Mediterranean ninth century BCE

Source: Kevin Mickey, Indiana University


But the area also received another people at this time, highlanders descendinginto the mountains from the north. These Jurājimah, (later called Mardaites), hadbeen induced by the Byzantines to move down from their home territory in theAmanus and occupy the Mountain. From its heights and inaccessible valleys,these bands skirmished with Mu‘āwiyah’s troops, raided the local population,and soldiered in preparation for the counterattack that was expected to win backSyria for Byzantium. After paying tribute to them periodically, the Umayyadsfinally organized an expedition and dispersed the Jurājimah.16 Setting in variousparts of Syria, these people amalgamated with the local population which,according to Maronite historians, became the core of the Maronite people.

Before the Jurājimah, historians had recorded the affairs only of peoples livingalong the coast; little note was taken of the Mountain’s inhabitants. With theJurājimah, however, the Mountain had become (for the first time) a locus ofpower. An intermittent and minor affair to be sure, but Lebanon, as somethingdifferent from the systems around it, had experienced a beginning. The Jurājimahhad conducted their raids from settlements deep in the mountains; they hadoperated from inside Lebanon (see Figure 1.2).

From the eighth through the fifteenth centuries, a decentralized pattern offeudalism developed as Umayyad, Abbasid, and Zengid outsiders set up a systemof tax farms to which the indigenous, Aramaic-speaking villagers were tied.Partly independent, partly subordinate to the systems on the outside, Shi‛iteamirs, followed by Maronite and Druze feudatories, contended for control overthe peasantry. The loose feudal pattern to emerge was that of highlandadventurers only tenuously linked to the various religious affiliations that hadfled to the Mountain. During the early period of (separate)17 Lebanon, bases ofoperation for the feudal order stemmed from centers located in the hills not farfrom the coast and in the “rift” regions of Wadi al-Taym and the Biqā Valley.Feudal power moved further up the valleys as religious sect gradually becamethe basis for communal affiliation. Peasants gave product and service in return forsome protection, but they were not tightly controlled. It is likely that villagerscould move from one location to another according to the dictates of a rugged,but ambient, environment. Whole villages, especially in the north, may haveregularly relocated from winter to summer quarters, following flocks to higherelevations in the summer and trading with the coast in the winter. We canassume that many of the mountain dwellers were only partially controlled by thefeudal structures that were established. Feudalism in Lebanon at this time wasdecentralized, resembling more the pattern of Europe than that of Asia. Mountaindwellers owned land and could transfer it to their heirs; some could even becomeminor feudatories themselves.

THE MARONITES ARRIVE

As previously noted, the Maronites moved from their center on the Orontes intothe Qadīsha valley early in the eighth century and expanded as more Christians


fled to the Mountain to avoid persecution. Few in number, the Maronites mayhave gained adherents through their association with the Mardaite (previouslyJurājimah) warriors whose raids caused trouble for the Abbasids and perhaps

Figure 1.2 The topography of Lebanon



attracted additional dissentients to the Mountain. Very likely becoming the feudalclass that eventually controlled the peasants of the Maronite areas in northLebanon, these chiefs, known as muqaddams, exercised their power within adecentralized feudal system that, before the eleventh century, hardly extendedbeyond the walls of the Qadīsha Valley (for sects. see Appendix I).

When the Crusaders arrived in 1099, several delegations of Maronitesdescended from the mountains to offer their services, and, at times, members ofthe sect fought along side the Franks against their Muslim adversaries.Accustomed to independence, the mountain dwellers were willing to use any allyto help weaken their Sunni rulers. Over time, Maronite relations with theCrusaders seems to have promoted some of their fighting men to the top of thefeudal hierarchy at the expense of others.18 The result was a militancy seldommatched by resources, not to mention the additional strain placed on existingrivalries. There were both regional and religious divisions within the Maronitecommunity, especially on the question of links to Catholicism. Patriarchs andlower clergy located near the coast (in the vicinity of Jubayl and Batrūn) wereable to lead their flocks back to the Roman Church and were more activecollaborators with the Europeans. Higher up, in the district of Bisharri at the headof the Qadīsha gorge, power and theology were linked to other problems. InBisharri, some members of the sect did not want to conform to the demands ofthe Vatican and be forced to give up the distinctive rituals they had inherited.Though the record is sketchy, the monothelite belief may also have remainedstrong for some (now unknown) prelates who had support from theirmuqaddams.19 Other Christians arrived to settle in the mountain sanctuary, oftenheterodox but non-Maronite, e.g., the Jacobite monophysite communion. Indeed,early Maronite historians complain of renegade muqaddams and anti-patriarchs.20

MAMLUK TIMES

Although several (semi-legendary) Maronite chieftains—Sim‛an and Kisrā forexample—gained fame in fighting on the Crusader side, and other Maronite andDruze clans won a few victories in rebellion against the Mamluks, their strugglesfor independence were costly. Beginning with Baybars, the Mamluksperiodically led expeditions into the mountains, destroying towns, slaughteringtheir inhabitants, and burning their crops. Although their rebellions were neverbrought to an end, a major setback for the Mountain dwellers occurred in 1305when the Mamluks brought an army to Lebanon and, with their Buhturid allies,defeated a coalition of mountain dwellers at Ayn Sofār. After extensivepreparations, some 50,000 of the Mamluk recruits moved high up into theMountain to crush the coalition of forces led by the Druze. The Maronites sharedin the disaster at Ayn Sofār and were most certainly among the many mountaindwellers who lost their lives in the massacre. Later, the Mamluks launched


another attack, ravaging the Maronites and chasing them back to their traditionalcenters high up in the Qadīsha valley.

The Buhturid clan, having come to the Gharb somewhat earlier, had fought asauxiliaries to the Mamluks in the battle at Ayn Sofār. They had been put incharge of the local halqā, a cavalry corps established to defend the coast betweenBeirut and Sidon. A remarkable clan, this Druze family controlled the southcentral foothills of Lebanon from 1147 to 1516 and remained politicallysignificant for another century under the Ottomans.21 They had to collect taxes,win at war, keep their political options open, and always be in a position to reactquickly to changing circumstances. Over the years the Buhturids skirmished anddealt with Crusaders in Beirut, Zengid and Ayyubid attabegs in Damascus,Mongols and Mamluks battling for that city, and (more particularly) with Saladinand Baybars. They also had to contend with local feudatories in the Gharb forlocal pre-eminence. At times they nearly lost their holdings; at other times theywere able to expand them. Some of the basis for Buhturid independence lay inthe fact that they were able to pass on their fiefs to their descendants and keeppower within the family. Yet they were always faced with the fact that theMamluks could, at any time, confiscate a fief previously granted.

Buhturid independence became less a problem for both sides once the last ofthe Crusaders had been driven from the region. The fifty-six-year reign of theBuhturid, Nāsir al-Din Hussein, coupled with a similar forty-two-year period ofrule by the Mamluk, al-Nāsir Muhammad, resulted in a prolonged period offruitful relationships. Initially, both parties struggled with holding onto powerand stopping the rebel movements that repeatedly flared up during these years.Mutual cooperation brought the Buhturs a stipend from the central treasury, andthey were equipped for a role in the elaborate policing system which stabilizedSyria during al-Nāsir’s long reign. The Sultan was able to employ not only hislocal forces, i.e., the halqā commanded by Hussein, but also carrier pigeons todeliver intelligence as well as fire beacons to relay signals over the mountainsbetween Beirut and Damascus!

Following the long reigns of both the Mamluk Sultan and the Buhturid Amir,decline set in for both systems. The Buhturs were faced not only with thedeterioration of the Mamluk system but also with local (Turkoman) rivals, usedby the outsider to keep local leaders in conflict and weak. Though they sufferedfrom the weakness in Cairo, the Buhturs, in continu ing their long tradition ofloyalty to the Mamluks, joined them in the hopeless resistance to the Ottomans.Needless to say, the family was not favored when, after the destruction of theMamluks, the Ottoman conqueror, Salim I, carried out a reassignment ofLebanese fiefs a year later. As supporters of the Ma‛ns, they did continue to playa political role during the Ottoman period but, by then, had to share their powerwith a number of other feudal lords in the Gharb. Rivals of the Ma‛ns, the Alamal-Dins, finally killed off the Buhturid clan altogether in 1633 (for dynasties, seeAppendix II).


OTHER EARLY COMMUNITIES

While the Maronites and Druze were the two communities most instrumental indeveloping the political traditions of later Lebanon, other sects were politicallyimportant as well. Shi‛ites (Matāwilah) have often been dominant in variousparts of Lebanon. Long settled in the Jabal Amil of the far south, they have alsoresided in the Biqā and in the central mountain districts. When the Fatimidscontrolled Syria, Shi‛ites of various persuasions dominated nearly all of Lebanon.Matāwilah, Nusayris, and Ismā‛ilis lived in Wadi al-Taym and the Shūf beforethe Druze missionaries arrived early in the eleventh century. Some becameDruze; others did not. Shi‛a chiefs controlled Kisrawān several centuries beforeeither Druze or Maronites moved in. Their families from the Ba‛albek region, theal-Hamra, Hamādah, and the Harfūsh, controlled portions of the central andnorthern mountain districts during the Mamluk and Ottoman periods. Sunnis hadlong lived in various parts of the country—in Wadi al-Taym, the Biqā, and theAkkār regions, some from Arab tribes, others of Turkish or Kurdish origin.There were also Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics, Syrian Jacobites, and“establishment Sunnis” living in the cities and towns of Lebanon.22 These wereusually subject to feudal chiefs not of their own sect (for the traditional regionsof Lebanon, see Figure 1.3).

OTTOMAN TIMES

In contrast to the year 1305, when they had been able to deploy a force of 50,000against the Lebanese mountain dwellers at Ayn Sofār, the Mamluks were, in1516, only able to assemble a coalition of 13,000 to confront the Ottomans. InAugust 1516, the decisive battle took place at Marj Dabīq, north of Aleppo. TheMamluk Sultan, Qānsuh, was killed when his coalition disintegrated, and theEgyptians were routed. By April of the following year (1517), the Ottomansunder Salim had moved through Syria, down the coast of southern Palestine,conquered Egypt, and put an end to the Mamluk Dynasty.23

The Mamluks had hastened their demise, during the last few years of the Burjidynasty, by trying to enforce an unenforceable centralization on their Syrianholdings. Salim employed a more appropriate strategy. In the case of Lebanon,he gave amnesty to the lords of the lower feudal order and confirmed them in theirold fiefs, and, in this fashion, left Syrian administration largely as he had foundit. Since few of the Mountain’s inhabitants were Sunnis, the Ottomans enrolledthem as ra‛īyah (herd) of the Sultan, to be governed according to the rules of themillet system. In brief, this system allowed the non-Sunni subjects of the Sultanto be ruled by their own authorities as long as these subordinated themselves toOttoman authority and paid tribute to the Sultan for military protection.Generally, the Lebanese were permitted to reside in their own communities andbe governed by local authorities in civil and religious affairs.


Stopping in Damascus on his way back from Egypt (in 1517), Salim I heldaudience for various delegations from the surrounding region. According to thetraditional version of the event, a local chief, Fakhr al-Din ibn Uthmān, soimpressed the Ottoman conqueror that he was made “Sultan” of the Mountain.24

Figure 1.3 Coastal enclaves and traditional regions of Lebanon



Unlike this Ma‛nid chief of the Shūf, the others, it is implied, were confirmed intheir previous privileges but only as amirs at a lower level of the feudalhierarchy.25

The Ma‛nid line lasted from 1517 to 1697, ruling parts or all of MountLebanon with o nly a few interruptions. Their rule was often contested by otherDruze chiefs (such as the Alam al-Dins of the Yamani faction)26 or by otherlocal rulers in the area (such as the Sayfas of Tripoli). Notably, at Salim’saudience in 1517, the Maronites were not represented. Their condition at thistime seems to have been fragmented almost beyond comprehension. Just beforeSalim was distributing feudal holdings in Damascus (1517), the Bisharrimuqaddamate had been forcibly cleansed of the Jacobite (monophysite) heresyand was vulnerable to power struggles from within the Maronite community. Ata time when the seat at Bisharri was in the hands of an infant, a rival muqqadammarried into the Ayyūb family and set himself up at Aytu.27 The ensuing quarrellasted some forty years, ending with both wings of the Ayyūb line reciprocallyreducing one another until they were finally destroyed altogether by Shi’ite andMelkite clans from the Anti-Lebanon (for sects, see Appendix I).

Meanwhile, the (Turkoman) Assāf amirs at Ghazīr had been brought toLebanon by the Bahri Mamluks to help control the area immediately north ofBeirut following the exodus of the Crusaders and the crushing of the heterodoxMuslims in 1306. Like the Buhturs further south, the Assāfs had held the watch(halqā) along the coast and were allowed to tax-farm the hinterland. Performingservices similar to those of the Buhturs, though not as faithfully, the TurkomanAssāf were also able to pass on their fiefs as an inheritance. Like the Mamluksand Ottomans, the clan was both Sunni in sect and ethnically Turkic, allowingthem more freedom to play politics like the majority power. Sometimescooperating, at other times competing, the Assāfs did play their hand correctly atMarj Dabīq (where the Ottomans defeated the Mamluks). For this move, theOttomans gave them an expanded domain and a minimal tribute to be paid annuallyto the Sultan.

The Assāfs moved their seat to Ghazīr, on a strategic ridge between Kisrawānand Munaytra. After a period of struggle and confusion, the Amir Mansūr (al-Assāf) came to power in 1523. He spent nearly twenty years consolidating hispower, playing off the Qaysi factions against the Yamani, quashing rebellions,killing competitors before they could kill him, and generally serving Ottomaninterests. From 1541 till his death in 1580, Mansūr’s rule over much of northLebanon was nearly unopposed, and his moderate taxation policy attractedpeople of various sects to Kisrawān. Mansūr made use of both Shi‛ites andMaronites in his administration. His chief stewards were drawn from theMaronite family of Hubaysh, and their political skills helped sustain the Amir’snearly sixty years of rule. Whole villages moved into his realm, and the areaenjoyed a period of unprecedented prosperity. After Mansūr’s death (1580), hisson succeeded him but was murdered by the Pasha of Tripoli.28 The Assāf line


came to an end when the winner in Tripoli, Yusuf Sayfa, married the loser’swidow at Ghazīr and absorbed her feudal possessions as his own.

Ghazīr never again became a seat of power, but it had given stability andprosperity to Sunnis, Maronites, and Shi‛ites in a single system that broughtvarious sectarians to live on common ground according to accepted feudalpractices. Ghazīr was only an ephemeral moment, yet it was an instructiveexperiment in independence for the people of the Mountain and served as aprecedent for the Ma‛ni Amir, Fakhr al-Din II.

FAKHR AL-DIN

In 1585, at Jun Akkār north of Tripoli, a troop of bandits raided a caravancarrying Egyptian tribute to Istanbul. Culminating a series of insubordinations,rebellions, and acts of independence in response to direct rule, this eventtriggered a punitive expedition designed to restore Ottoman control in themountain districts of Syria. One of the chiefs, Qurqumās (ibn Yunis) Ma‛n of theShūf, may have been involved in the raid on the caravan and, in the face of theOttoman expedition, was forced to flee into the further reaches of the mountains.During the subsequent invasion of the Shūf, in which thousands were killed andthe countryside devastated, Qurqumās died after a long period of privation in aninaccessible cave near Jezzīn.29

The son, Fakhr al-Din (the Great) was twelve years old when his father lost hislife resisting the Ottomans. His mother had managed to have the boy taken out ofthe Shūf to Ballūnah in Kisrawān to be cared for by the Khāzin family,Maronites who had earlier moved to that village to take advantage of the betterconditions existing under the Assāfs of Ghazīr. In 1590, at the age of seventeen,Fakhr al-Din obtained a fief in the Shūf and began the fabled process ofdeveloping a political base and expanding his power.

He recognized that he could not survive by remaining one of a number offeudal small fry looking periodically for ways to defy the Ottomans, then runningto hide in the mountains when the Sultan sent forces to hunt them down. Thus, toavoid the usual disasters, Fakhr al-Din and his advisors used his factional andkinship ties to develop a series of local alliances. These he used, at first, not towin military engagements but to build up his political base in Lebanon. Afterspending a decade building alliances, the Druze Amir came into some goodfortune. The Ottoman Sultanate was momentarily weak and preoccupied, andFakhr al-Din was able to have the district of Sidon returned to the Ma‛ns. He wasalso able to add Beirut to his holdings without attracting opposition fromIstanbul. Another dynast, Ali Janbalāt of Aleppo, failed in a rebellion in that cityand fled to Lebanon.30 Fakhr al-Din allied himself with the Janbalāts, givingthem lands and peasants to “protect.” This family (the Jumblāts today) convertedto Druzism and served the Ma‛ns as an additional force for controlling the localclans in the Shūf. Becoming stronger, Fakhr al-Din began to build up the economicinfrastructure of the kingdom, bridging the main rivers along the coast, fortifying


castles and strong points, and encouraging trade with the Europeans. Quietlyadding Safad, Tiberias, and Nazareth in Upper Palestine to his domain, Fakhr al-Din endeavored to maintain correct relations with local Druze leaders as well aswith those of the surrounding districts. He attempted to keep the Sultan satisfiedby sending him lavish gifts. Yet, Fakhr al-Din was a threat and would have tokeep winning to survive.

The Druze Amir decided to build up his own military force, independent of thenearby feudatories. Therefore, he assembled an army of some 40,000mercenaries to serve as the core of a much larger military establishment, totalingperhaps 100,000 men (counting the retainers of feudal allies). Fakhr al-Din thenattempted a major gambit. To counter the inevitable Ottoman military response,he forged ties to Italian powers, to the Dukes of Tuscany and even the Vatican.Before long, the Ottomans were aroused and moved massively against Fakhr al-Din. There was no rescue attempt from Italy, and (in 1512) the Druze Amir hadto flee into exile in Europe, where he hoped to raise an expeditionary force foruse in Lebanon. When, in 1617, the Sultanate was again weak, Fakhr al-Din wasable to return to his country and rebuild what had been achieved earlier,expanding his power and domain even beyond what had been achieved before.

With weakness in Istanbul, Fakhr al-Din was once again in sight of his goal: togovern an independent jurisdiction in Lebanon. Murad IV (in 1624) evendeclared the Druze Amir “Lord of Arabistan.” Now ruling from Dayr al-Qamar,the Ma‛ns prudently paid tribute while embarking, once again, on a policy oftrying to build up the local economy. Encouraging European architects, irrigationengineers, and agricultural experts to help develop the country, the regimesucceeded to such an extent that travelers reported on the better conditions inLebanon at this time—cultivation of fruit trees, construction of aqueducts, andresidences in the European style.

By 1633, however, Ottoman military power had been restored, and the Sultandeclared Fakhr al-Din a rebel and gave orders for an assault on the Mountain.The Amir and his sons, who commanded his forces, put up a valiant struggle butlost the key military engagements. Italy again failed to send assistance, whilelocal feudal allies abandoned the sinking ship. With everything caving in on him,Fakhr al-Din, like his father before him, escaped to a castle (Qal‛at Niha) andthen to a cave near the waterfalls at Jezzīn. There, he was finally discovered andcaptured.31 Taken to Istanbul, the Druze Amir attempted to refute the chargeslaid against him but failed and, in the spring of 1635 (with three of his sons) waspublicly executed. Of his male children, only one, Hassan, was spared (laterbecoming an important Ottoman official).

Even though it ended in disaster, Fakhr al-Din’s achievement was remarkablenot for the military victories—although they were crucial—but for the pains hetook to build up the infrastructure of his realm to make it economically viable.Lebanon’s mountains and tradition of independence made it possible for theDruze Amir to plan beyond the skimming operation forced on local officials bythe Ottoman system. But the Ma‛ni regime needed to be more valuable to


maintain than to destroy. This was the game that the Buhturs had been willing toplay; they were able to win and quit when ahead. The Amir Mansūr of Ghazirwas also careful to rule within realistic boundaries. In hyperstrategic Lebanon, theDruze Amir, like his predecessors, needed to play conservative to keep hisrealm. Although Fakhr al-Din failed to keep it, his expression of independencefor Lebanon lived on.

The departure of Fakhr al-Din from Lebanon did not end the Ma’nid line. Theamirs who followed, however, were much weaker and in competition with theAlam al-Din clan which led the Yamani faction against the Qaysis.32 MulhimMa’n, a nephew of Fakhr al-Din, gained control of the Shūf and, by 1658, hadadded the districts of Batrūn and Safad to his domain. At this point, a period ofraids and reprisals, extreme even for Lebanon, ensued as the Ma‛n versus Alamal-Din (Qaysi-Yamani) vendetta continued without let up.33 Ahmed Ma‛n, theAmir Mulhim’s son, succeeded his father in 1667 and managed to defeat theYamani Alam al-Dins and take charge of the Druze Mountain. Unfortunately, thewar with the Alam al-Dins raged on to such an extent that, during his last years,the Amir was virtually a prisoner in his own palace. Finally, in 1697, AhmedMa’n died without leaving a male descendant.

THE SHIHĀBS

The various feudal chiefs convoked a conference at Samqanīyah (near Dayr al-Qamar) and passed over the Alam al-Dins in favor of a relative of the Ma’ns inthe female line, Bashir Shihāb I. The Shihābs were Sunnis, not Druze, and camenot from the Mountain but from Wadi al-Taym. In deciding on Bashir I, theDruze chiefs at Samqanīyah decided to keep the Imarah (Amirate) securely in thehands of the Qaysi faction and to reserve a maximum freedom of action forthemselves in their own districts. This independence seems to have been themain concession extracted from Bashir 1, and he was eventually demoted to aregent for the twelve-year-old Haydar Shihāb, who was favored in Istanbul andwas in a more direct line of succession from the Ma‛ns.

Bashir I proved to be more than a caretaker, however, and expanded hiscontrol into the Jabal Amil, south of the Mountain, while showing no inclinationto turn the reigns of power over to the young claimant. Haydar forced the issue in1706 by managing to have his uncle (Bashir) poisoned. Haydar had learned theways of the Ottoman system sooner than expected.34

Soon after Bashir’s murder in 1706, Haydar Shihāb took the throne at Dayr al-Qamar—the Imarah’s first Hakim, as the ruler of Mount Lebanon was thencalled. If the Vali’s (Viceroy’s) purpose in exchanging Bashir for Haydar was tocontain the power at Dayr al-Qamar, he must have soon regretted his gambit.Taking power in 1707, Haydar moved quickly to gain control of the Jabal Amilby appointing his own governor of that district in 1708. Sidon was furious andimmediately deposed the youthful Shihāb prince in favor of Yusuf Alam al-Din


Qamar the next year. Once again the Qaysi faction was roused to action. Itsleaders closed ranks and encircled the isolated Yamanis in the capital. In 1711,the Alam al-Dins moved out of Dayr al-Qamar for an attack but were cut downto the last man at Ayn Dāra.35

Following Ayn Dāra, Haydar put his own supporters in power. The Ab‛l-Lamswere raised to the rank of amirs, and a tradition of intermarriage between themand the Shihābs was begun, not unlike that which had joined the Buhturs and theMa‛ns and, later, the Ma‛ns and the Shihābs. Higher rank and enlarged holdingswere the rewards for other local chiefs who had fought on the winning side, e.g.the Abu Nakads, the Janbalāts, the Imāds (Yazbaks), the Talhūqs, and the Abdal-Maliks. The Amir, Haydar, also instituted new changes within the ranks of theChristians. The Khāzin sheikhs of Kisrawān had played an important role in thevictory over the Alam al-Dins and were rewarded with lands and politicalprivilege. From this influence, greater numbers of Maronites came south to workDruze lands, an immigration that was encouraged by the sheikhs. They weresoon to inhabit nearly all parts of the Mountain, changing the social character ofthe countryside. Dayr al-Qamar and Jezzīn, for example, became Maronitetowns. Moreover, by the middle of the eighteenth century, the Shihābs’administrative secretaries, usually designated mudabbirs, were Maronites. This,of course, was not new. Maronites had been informally prominent in both theAssāf and Ma‛n houses. What was new was that, after 1711, both MaroniteKhāzins and Druze Janbalāts could legitimately take part in choosing the personwho would rule from Dayr al-Qamar.

Also, under the Shihābs, the matter of succession was better institutionalizedand more successfully insulated from power higher up in the Sultanate. Havingbecome physically disabled during the last years of his rule, Haydar abdicated in1732 and designated his oldest son, Mulhim, to succeed him. Becoming Amir al-Hakim in 1732, Mulhim ruled until 1754, when illness forced him to hand overthe Imarah to his brothers, who continued his realistic approach.36 They ruledjointly (accompanied by much partisan heat) until 1762, when Ahmed resigned,leaving Mansūr to rule alone until 1770. He, in turn, passed on the power at Dayral-Qamar to Mulhim’s oldest son, Yusuf, who had already attained his majorityseveral years earlier and held the Jubayl district. The uncle’s abdication tookplace peacefully, and the nephew took his seat in Dayr al-Qamar, uniting the twoImarahs into a jurisdiction which extended from Sidon to Tripoli. This Druze-Maronite Imarah remained the basic jurisdiction of Mount Lebanon until Francecreated the larger state (Greater Lebanon) after the First World War.

During his first few years in office, Yusuf successfully met strong challengesto the north and south, turning back an attempt by the Hamādahs to retake Jubayland Bisharri (1772) and assisting the Ottomans against Zāhir al-Umar, an upstartin Galilee (1775). Yusuf was Hakim from 1770 to 1788 (except for the year 1778when his brothers, Sayyid-Ahmed and Afandi, briefly held office). His mainproblem, especially from 1778 to 1788, was al-Jazzār Pasha, the Vali of Sidon,who ruled from Acre.37 Jazzār called for a ruinous amount of taxes, and Yusuf’s


who, with a contingent of the Vali’s troops, expelled Haydar from Dayr al-

brothers even outbid that sum. This three-way bidding war—between Jazzār,Yusuf, and the chiefs—continued, and the regime at Dayr al-Qamar finally decidedto use force to gain relief from Acre’s insatiable appetite. This attempt by Yusufand his mudabbirs, S‛ad and Ghandūr al-Khuri (his son), failed. Chased fromDayr al-Qamar by his protégé, Bashir (II) in 1788, Yusuf was captured,imprisoned, and (after engaging in a final bidding war) executed in 1791.Conditions on the Mountain bordered on civil war. Had the manāsib (feudallords), with their Hakim, been able to take up the cause against Jazzār, they couldhave resisted the Vali’s arbitrary demands. Unfortunately, they were busylevering each other and maneuvering for position; they could not unite as theyhad been able to (in 1697) at Samqanīyah.

BASHIR II

A decade earlier, a young Shihāb, Bashir II, had appeared at Yusuf’s court. He waswell received, given duties to perform, and quickly gained a reputation for hisastute conduct at the palace. Without resources and far removed from thetraditional line of succession, the young man must have seemed a safe Shihāb tohave around. A cousin of the Amir Yusuf, Bashir II had been raised in nearpenury by foster parents. His father, Qasim, died soon after Bashir was born buthad earlier converted to Christianity. Bashir and his brother Hassan were alsobaptized (though Bashir’s faith later in life is open to conjecture).38 At court, theyoung Bashir had accommodated himself to Yusuf and gained experience in theways of Druze-Maronite politics. Useful at court, Bashir was also discovered bythe kingmaker among the manāsib, Sheikh Bashir Janbalāt.

Janbalāt was looking for an unencumbered Shihāb to be his candidate toreplace Yusuf as the Amir al-Hakim. Bashir took note of the overtures but keptquiet; he was poor and dependent. However, Yusuf’s desperation for resources(to accommodate Jazzār) provided Bashir with the opportunity he needed. Yusufhad enticed one of the (lesser) Shihāb amirs from Wadi al-Taym to visit Dayr al-Qamar and, once there, had him murdered. Bashir was chosen to go to Hāsbayyato assess the dead man’s fortune for tax revenue, i.e., sequestration. Assess hedid, but also, in the process, Bashir managed to marry the dead man’s widow,herself a woman of great means. His situation was even more promising, becausehis new wife (Shams) was from a family which had long enjoyed connectionswith the Janbalāts. Back at Dayr al-Qamar, with both money and kinship to helphim, Bashir could now consider Janbalāt’s offers.

In 1788, some of the Jazzār’s officers staged an uprising in Acre. When,initially, the uprising looked to succeed, Yusuf threw in his lot with the rebels,wanting to do whatever he could to get rid of Jazzār. As reviewed above, theuprising failed and, soon after, the Vali was able to defeat Yusuf in battle,forcing the Hakim to abdicate in favor of Bashir II. Three years later Yusuf wasexecuted, and Janbalāt, the kingmaker, had gotten his man in office.


But not for long. Because Jazzār was in a position to play games with thevarious Shihāb factions, Bashir’s initial taste of power lasted only two years(from 1788 to 1790). Strife continued, as various Shihābs played “musicalchairs” with the office; Bashir II was Hakim for a short time in 1793, again forfour years (1795–9), and finally gained a near permanent foothold on the officeafter 1800. Except for periods of exile from 1820 to 1822, he ruled the Imarah,without interruption, from 1800 to 1840. Counting the earlier years when theyoung Amir was bounced in and out of office at the whim of the Vali, the greatBashir was the major player in the Imarah’s politics for over fifty-two years. Onecan hardly doubt the political skills of a person who lasted that long in Lebanon.Yet, it could be argued that his policies also contributed to the destruction of theImarah as well.

Enjoying a brief respite from the Pasha and having Janbalāt support, Bashir II,in 1796–7, conspired with others to attack the Abu Nakads in Dayr al-Qamar,kill the five brothers, and seize their properties. This raid was the first of anumber of political moves the Amir al-Hakim made, gradually to consolidate hispower inside the Imarah. The Abu Nakads represented an especially grievoussource of local intrigue; they were supporters of the sons of Yusuf. Moreover,their properties provided the Hakim with both resources and much-neededpolitical patronage to dis tribute to future victims who had collaborated withhim, e.g., the Imād sheikhs. He fished for the small fry nearby, as Jazzār neverfailed to fish for him.

Napoleon’s invasion up the coast in 1798 caused the Hakim problems, butonce the French siege at Acre failed, Bashir was able to retrieve his status atDayr al-Qamar. Jazzār died in 1804, and his (ultimately) moderate replacement,Suleiman Pasha, cooperated sufficiently so that Bashir was able to expand hispower and, for two decades, rule Mount Lebanon with little opposition. Hecontinued his policy of reducing the number of feudal chiefs who could intrigueagainst him and, over a period of time, eliminated the Imād sheikhs, the sons ofYusuf, their mudabbirs (who had become quite powerful), the Arslāns of theLower Gharb, the Talhūqs of the Upper Gharb, and the Abd al-Maliks of theJurd. The distribution of their lands, however, strengthened not only Bashir IIbut also Bashir Janbalāt, who soon emerged as the wealthiest landholder in theDruzeMaronite Imarah.39 Once all of these lower feudatories had beendestroyed, the Mountain was left with only a triangle of powers: Bashir II atDayr alQamar; the great sheikh, Bashir Janbalāt, at Mukhtāra; and the Vali ofSidon (Suleiman) at Acre. The structure had been simplified but was stillunstable (see Figure 1.4).

Not to be outdone by the Sheikh, who was the wealthiest man on theMountain, Bashir II (in 1806) ordered a new palace to be built at Beit alDin, afew miles up the Damūr valley from Dayr al-Qamar, and it was completed in1814. This grand edifice, with its famous fountains supplied by an aqueduct thatbrought water from a stream ten miles away, not only provided the ruler with thesymbols of oriental magnificence but also gave him the high ground above Dayr


al-Qamar, a perpetual source of dissidence. The Amir and the Sheikh continuedto work together, adding parts of the Biqā to the Imarah and becoming owners ofvast tracts of grainproducing land. They cooperated on several other military andhumanitarian ventures, earning credit with both the Porte (the Ottomangovernment) and the local population.

From Acre, Suleiman Pasha’s moderate and regular fiscal demands resulted inother benefits for the mountain dwellers. In matters of personal conduct, much ofthe informal administration of the previous era was replaced by moreinstitutionalized procedures. There is evidence that the combination of Shihābrule and Janbalāt wealth actually improved the lives of ordinary people.Registers were kept, negotiated agreements recorded, and population grew.Documents give evidence of considerable village home rule; people ownedproperty and shared in its watering; the peasant, perhaps, even experienced somestability.40

But Bashir had to face difficulties as well. In 1818, the Turks decreed newrestrictions on non-Muslims which the Maronite clergy resented, causing thedilemmas of the Hakim’s real faith to surface for the first time. Having reducedthe local feudal lords, Bashir had become increas ingly dependent on thePatriarch. When Suleiman, the Viceroy at Acre, died in 1819, his replacement,Abdullah, decided to return to al-Jazzār’s policies. Accordingly, the new Valirequested an exorbitant tribute from Bashir, forcing him into exile. The“playthings” that the new Viceroy in Acre put in Dayr al-Qamar, Hasān andSalman Shihāb, could not contain the 1820 ‛ammīyah (a series of Maroniteuprisings that began in Antilyās), and Bashir had to be called back to office. Hethen gathered his forces and quickly crushed the rebellion.

But, unfortunately, the politics of the Mountain had begun to change. For aMaronite Hakim, partly beholden to the church, to enforce the ruinous taxationof a Sunni system and crush an uprising of his flock was difficult for thePatriarch. Maronite clergy, largely drawn from the peasant classes, had played apart in staging the uprising; Maronite nationalism was on the rise. Thus, whenBashir II joined Abdullah in trying to retrieve lands lost to the Viceroy ofDamascus, they failed and both were deposed. The Patriarch looked the otherway when the Hakim went into exile in Cairo. There, in 1822, Bashir conferredwith Muhammad Ali, the modernizing Viceroy of Egypt, who was able to bribethe Sultan into forgiving Abdullah and allowing Bashir to return to his old seatof power. (It was during his exile in Cairo that Bashir promised support forMuhammad Ali’s future conquest of Syria).41 In the meantime, while Bashir wasaway, Sheikh Bashir had decided to sponsor a new Shihāb for the position atDayr al-Qamar. When the Amir did return from exile, he refused to make peacewith the Sheikh. Trying repeatedly to get back into the Hakim’s good graces, thelatter finally had to flee to the Hawrān and then, in trouble with Damascus, wenton to the Akkār region above Tripoli. Seeing that the Hakim was about toconfiscate his lands, Bashir Janbalāt returned to the Shūf, gathering supportalong the way. In 1825, Janbalāt assembled his alliance at Mukhtāra and


marched on Beit al-Din, but Bashir II won the ensuing battle, forcing the rebelsinto exile in Syria. Bashir Janbalāt, himself, was captured, taken to Acre,imprisoned, and (at the urging of Bashir II) executed by Abdullah.

Figure 1.4 Traditional feudal districts of Mount Lebanon


Note: Smaller districts not shown


With the great Sheikh out of the way, Bashir (1826) proceeded to tax, fine, andconfiscate the iqtās (feudal holdings) of the Janbalāts, redistributing lands to theAbu Nakads (those who had remained loyal to him), to the Talhūqs, and tomembers of his own family, especially his son, the Amir Khalil. Shihābcandidates from the Muslim faction of the family were blinded, making themineligible to rule. Relations between the Hakim and the Patriarch improved, andcorrespondence shows that Muslims and Druze, as well as Maronites,increasingly sought the Patriarch’s intervention with Bashir, most often to getback confiscated land. With the vacuum in the Druze districts, however, it wasnot long before the Patriarch was intervening in disputes between Maronites andDruze, a direct challenge to the traditional prerogatives of the chiefs. Bashir’scentralizing activities had undercut the feudal system. Moreover, his palace wasin the Shūf, the traditional home of the Druze chiefs; where, as the Hakim for aDruze-Maronite Imarah, he had become a Maronite ruler.

THE EGYPTIAN INVASION

In 1830, Muhammad Ali demanded Syria from the Porte as a reward for hisefforts in trying to prevent Greek independence. Istanbul offered much less, so,in November 1831, the Egyptians began their campaign to acquire Syria.Muhammad Ali’s son, Ibrahim, moved into southern Palestine, taking the coastaltowns without much resistance and was at the walls of Acre by November. TheOttomans were weak and exhausted; the European powers were occupied; andIbrahim had a modern, battle-tested army under his command. Acre stood in theway, and, during the siege, Ibrahim requested the assistance from Bashir that (weassume) the latter had earlier promised Muhammad Ali. The Amir tried to avoidcommitting himself but was threatened with an invasion unless he cooperated.Thereupon, Bashir declared on the side of the Egyptians and remainedunwavering in his support for them to the end.

Acre finally fell on May 27, 1832. Meanwhile, as the siege was in progress,Bashir assisted Ibrahim in gaining control of all the major towns nearby: Sidon,Dayr al-Qamar, Beirut, and Tripoli. Within two months, all of Syria was underthe control of the Egyptians, and Sultan Mahmud was now forced to send hisown army. By the end of the year, Ibrahim had won a series of battles against theTurks, moving into Western Anatolia and in position to threaten Istanbul itself.On many occasions, Ibrahim called upon the Amir al-Hakim to assist him militarily—against the Viceroy of Damascus, against Druze rebels in the Hawrān, toconscript the Druze, and to help quell revolts in the mountain districts wheneverthey occurred. These military actions, along with Muhammad Ali’smodernization program for Syria, encroached on the prerogatives of thetraditional elites, even among those non-Muslims who, presumably, had the mostto gain from it. Bashir’s local support was undercut, his political base becamenarrower and narrower. Forced to choose between the Egyptians and his own


community, the Amir continually chose the former. Both lost before he couldswitch sides.

The eventual outcome might have been different had Muhammad Ali receivedquick title to Syria, but matters on the diplomatic front worked against him. TheTurks and the Russians signed the Treaty of Hunkiar Iskelesi, giving the latternearly carte blanche to intervene in the Dardanelles. The Ottoman army was stillvulnerable, but the Russians had placed a rook on one of the four center squaresand checked Muhammad Ali. This turn of events so frightened the Europeanpowers that, after some hesitation, they began to make preparations to interveneon behalf of the Ottomans. At about this time, a new series of revolts againstEgyptian rule broke out, first in Palestine (1834) and soon after, in Tripoli andLatakia, north of Bashir’s Imarah. No longer independent, Bashir had to furnishtroops to help crush these revolts. Revolts also erupted in Wadi al-Taym and inthe Hawrān, and the Hakim was called upon for help. Bashir’s troops were ableto combine with other forces to end the troubles in Wadi al-Taym but he wasthen required to rearm the Maronites to help end the rebellion of the HawrānDruze. This he did, but the operation appeared to pit Maronite against Druze, avery dangerous precedent.

Ibrahim continued to defeat the Ottoman forces sent against him, and Bashir wasable to assist him in putting down local rebellions. Together, they maintainedfirm control of Syria until the middle of 1840. After that, the situation for theEgyptians and their ally at Beit al-Din deteriorated rapidly. European diplomacy,led by the British, began to move against the Russian threat; agents from Britainand France worked the Mountain for support. Ibrahim understood that the Druze(and other Muslims) would be inclined to revolt but expected his Maronite ally,Bashir II, to keep the dhimmis (Jewish and Christian subjects) on board. After all,for them, a modern, rationally administered Syria was surely preferable to theOttomans.

But other changes, besides those introduced by Muhammad Ali, wereoccurring. Among the common people of the Maronite community, somethingakin to the earlier ‛ammiyah (of 1820) broke out. Aided by some of the chiefs,various Shihāb candidates, and the lower clergy, they made proclamations,elected wakīls (representatives), and sounded the call throughout their districts.Bashir had forces but no allies. The Maronite revolt spread quickly, threateningthe Egyptian occupation and taking away soldiers needed for the war against theOttoman army. Acting on the stipulations agreed to at the Convention ofLondon, British and Austrian warships appeared, bombarded Beirut, landedtroops and arms at Junieh, and made contact with local rebel militias. Ibrahim’sarmy was forced back into the mountains at al-Hadath. The Europeans were thenable to occupy the whole coast, and the Egyptian force began to fall apart. Britishagents continued to try to get Bashir II to switch sides, but events overtook thenegotiations. Finally, at the battle of Bharsāf (in the Matn), Ibrahim’s army(already shrunken from disease) was crushed. The British fleet and localrebellion had succeeded, and Muhammad Ali’s project was lost for good.


Though never completely coordinated, Lebanese groups had managed enoughcollaboration (in 1840) to conduct several firefights which assisted the powers inforcing the Egyptians to leave Syria. Once again, the people of the Mountainwere able to demonstrate that, as separate communities, they would strive topreserve their traditional independence. But it was not clear, at this time, thatthey could do anything with it. The people of Mount Lebanon had gotten bothgood and bad from their Amir al-Hakim. He had ruled with a steady hand, buthis centralizing policies had also undercut the traditional support from the feudalclass he needed to maintain his independence. Isolated from the chiefs andunable to build on newly emerging nationalist forces, Bashir could only rely onthe foreigner. Unfortunately for him, so could his opponents.

Leaving Beit al-Din on October 12, Bashir II went to Sidon (with full retinue),where the British picked him up and took him to Malta. Soon after, the Britishplaced the Shihāb they had been grooming, Bashir Qasim Shihāb, in charge ofthe Imarah. Bashir III then hastened to take his seat at Beit al-Din, and Lebanondescended into utter chaos. Wiser than his contemporaries about power, Bashir IImade sure that, before sailing for Malta, his servant had handed over a large sumof money to the Patriarch. Bashir knew that this was the one person whose helpwould be needed if he was ever to return to power. But the Amir al-Hakim neverdid return and died in exile in 1850.


2Wars and independence: 1840–1914

BASHIR (QASIM) III

For the next two decades, the Mountain was host to various forms of conflict:most notably periodically from 1840 through 1845, in 1852, 1858, and 1860. Ofthese, the harakāt of 1841–2, 1845, and 1860 amounted to general civil war.1These were decades of convulsion as well as transformation for the Lebanese.During this period the Egyptians were expelled; the Druze-Maronite Imarahcame to an end; and the formal structures of the feudal system were abolished.Born in conflict, the Lebanese were to give birth to even more.2

Near the end of Bashir’s rule, the Ottomans issued a firman investing BashirQasim Shihāb as Hakim. Supported by British agents, Bashir Qasim organized aMaronite militia and was given weapons for mountain fighting. It was his unitwhich, in guerrilla style, did most of the killing of Egyptian soldiers at the battleof Bharsāf and dealt the final blow to both Muhammad Ali’s project in Syria andBashir’s rule in Lebanon. Not very astute, Bashir Qasim acted as if he hadsimply been elevated from the commander of a Maronite militia to the ruler of aMaronite “state.” He conducted himself as if he were no longer subject either tothe Mountain’s traditions or to Ottoman control.

The first important issue Bashir III faced came to a head when the Druzechiefs returned from exile and demanded to be reinstated with their estates andformer prerogatives which, in the southern districts, had been handed over toChristian landowners. The new Hakim not only refused the Druze claimsoutright but further reduced their judicial functions. Even when firmans wereissued by the Porte authorizing the restoration of their feudal privileges, BashirIII refused to execute the decrees. The Patriarch made things worse when heissued a circular (irlām) urging the Christians living in the mixed districts torenounce the legal authority still held by their Druze chiefs. By this time, theChristians were the majority in the Druze areas, and many had become wealthyduring the Egyptian period when most of the Druze chiefs were in exile.3 On theother hand, the Druze had cooperated in the rebellion that ended Egyptian rule;they were on the winning side; and they expected to return to their feudalprivileges. Bashir Qasim and the Patriarch, for their part, were happy with the

new order which Muhammad Ali had established, but they did not have Bashir IIand Ibrahim to enforce it. It soon became obvious to the diplomatic establishmentthat Bashir Qasim could not stay on in Dayr al-Qamar, but, unfortunately, theyand the Patriarch could not agree on a replacement.

THE WAR OF 1841

In the autumn of 1841, a Christian was caught shooting a partridge on the land ofa Druze sheikh near the Druze town of B‛aqlīn. A melee ensued and severalpersons were killed. A Christian force set out from Dayr al-Qamar to attack theDruze at B‛aqlīn, killed seventeen, and returned sounding the clamor of victory.Before long, Druze warriors had surrounded Dayr al-Qamar and were poised torid themselves of the Maronite Hakim. War cries reverberated throughout theMountain, in Jezzīn and in Zahleh. The fighting quickly spread to other parts ofthe country. The Druze ravaged numerous villages in the Jezzīn area and, withOttoman complicity, managed to regain control of the Shūf. Christian forces fromZahleh, Ihdin, B’abdā, and Jezzīn tried to relieve Dayr al-Qamar withoutsuccess. As the Christians were moving toward the capital, the Druze ofRāshayya (a town on the Anti-Lebanon side of the Biqā) were mounting anattack on the Greek Catholic stronghold of Zahleh (see Figure 2.1). With someassistance from the Shi’a of Ba’albek, the people of Zahleh managed to defeatthe Druze, chasing them out of the Biqā Valley.4 Yet Dayr al-Qamar remainedsurrounded, and the Druze were preparing to attack other Christian settlements.

Several notables tried to get the war stopped. They recognized that a Druze-Maronite conflict would only help the Ottomans, that if the Druze lost theirfeudal privileges, Christians would lose theirs. When the Druze initiallysurrounded the Hakim’s palace, Colonel Rose of the British detachment gallopedto Dayr al-Qamar to avert a slaughter, but the Druze and Turks had agreedsecretly to cooperate in attacking it and the Christian quarter. Forces from theMaronite centers won a few engagements but were unable to come to the aid oftheir Hakim. The Druze eventually managed to infiltrate some armed men intothe town and surrounded the Amir’s palace. A subsequent attack slaughtered agreat number of Christians and resulted in the capture and shameful treatment ofBashir III. While one Janbalāt (Na‛aman) was trying to limit the conflict, another(Sa‛īd) took part in a massacre of over 200 Christians at Saghbīn. About thistime, the Porte’s own representative in Beirut, Najīb Pasha, made plans to go onthe pilgrimage. His absence, presumably, would allow escalation to continueuntil the Lebanese system destroyed itself.

Druze bands rampaged; Maronite forces stumbled over each other; thePatriarch took refuge with the British; and the Ottoman representative planned toleave. Richard Wood, the British agent who was endeavoring to save the Imarah,was finally able to persuade the Muslim ‛ulama, the Druze chiefs, and theTurkish Pasha to end the bloodshed. Once pressure had been exerted in Istanbuland the appropriate orders were issued, the fires of intrigue and passion began to

28 WARS AND INDEPENDENCE: 1840–1914

burn themselves out. More than 3,000 lives were lost, villages torched, and cropsdestroyed. The Maronite clergy had threatened, and the Druze took booty.Fighting had been sect against sect, a terrible precedent for the Lebanese.

The European Powers continued to exert pressure, and the cumbersomeOttoman machinery finally began to crank out a new approach to Lebanon. The

Figure 2.1 Major regions, cities, and towns of Greater Lebanon


WARS AND INDEPENDENCE: 1840–1914 29

unfortunate Bashir Qasim was dispatched to Istanbul, and a new governor, UmarPasha, was sent to make those appointments to office which might placate thevarious adversaries making their claims. For the most part, the Powers sought theindependence of Lebanon while Istanbul hoped to convince them that direct rulewas the only solution to the country’s endemic strife. Prepared to employ aveneer of tanzimāt5 constitutionalism and take advantage of the conflict-proneness of the mountain dwellers, the Turks expected to supercede the localrulers with their own administrative control.

On the Mountain, the Druze, initially, were delighted with the turn of events.They had rid themselves of the Shihābs and were able to reoccupy their previousholdings, which would surely give them dominance in the south. True to therequisites of the local ethic, they immediately began to overplay their hand,lording it over the local Christians and taking every opportunity to demonstratetheir revived power and prestige. Similarly, many Maronites were averse toobeying a power (the Ottomans) that was weaker than their own Europeanfriends. Before long, the Druze became so “active” in re-establishing theirpresence that the situation in the Shūf once again deteriorated to the point of war.Indeed, Umar Pasha was forced to send his own troops into the area to controlthe situation. In an attempt to mollify the Maronites, he decided to incorporatesome of their number in his army, soldiers who had formerly served Bashir IIagainst the Druze rebels in the Hawrān.6 Thus, within the space of a few months,the Druze were turned from enthusiastic supporters of the new regime toimplacable opponents. For their opposition, seven of their chiefs were jailed.

In the meantime, the Ottomans were attempting to persuade the Powers thatdirect rule was the only solution and were circulating petitions among theLebanese, especially the Christians, calling for this change. Although theMaronite Church opposed direct rule, some members of both the Druze andMaronite feudal class, as well as some among the Greek Orthodox, favored it.According to Colonel Charles Henry Churchill (who lived in Lebanon at thistime), the Turks bribed and intimidated the mountain dwellers to the hilt andundermined what would have otherwise been the majority’s clear choice, namely,to reject direct rule and bring back a Shihāb to govern the Imarah.7

The Maronite feudal chiefs, like their Druze counterparts, were increasinglyfaced with policies that threatened their traditional roles. Lebanon’s new traderelationships with the Europeans had brought hard times to the landowners, andan obvious solution to their dilemmas was to join with the Druze manāsib(feudal lords) in demanding the restoration of the traditional Druze-Maronitestate.8 Soon after the 1841 clashes died down and Ottoman plans were clear, someof the Druze sheikhs did try to interest the Maronites in a new alliance. Each side,however, insisted that it would cooperate only after the other had acted first. Thisarrangement amounted to a “mutually impossible demand” which, by its verynature, could not have been reconciled.9


THE WAR OF 1842

Unable to come to an agreement with the Maronites, the Druze decided to actalone and, late in 1842, rose in rebellion once again. On this occasion, YusufAbd al-Malik of the Jurd and Shibli al-Aryan of the Shūf gathered Druze fightingmen from the Jurd, Wadi al-Taym, and the Hawrān; moved into the Shūf;blocked the road to Damascus; and surrounded the Turkish Governor, UmarPasha, in his palace at Beit al-Din. Trapped, and without water or supplies, Umarmight have capitulated to the Druze demands had not the Pasha in Beirut been ableto bring up a force from the rear that, when combined with Umar’s beseigedtroops, was able to defeat the rebels. Shibli al-Aryan had been expecting a forcefrom Antiliyās to come to his relief, but the Christians there were unable to agreeand left him dangling. Turkish concessions to the Maronites at the last minutehad artfully separated them from the (possible) coalition. Some of the Druze fledto the Hawrān; others were captured and added to the already large number ofDruze sheikhs in Ottoman prisons.

THE DOUBLE KAYMAKAMATE

Following this episode, the Porte replaced Umar Pasha and adopted a new plan,suggested by Austria’s Prince Metternich. It called for dividing the Mountaininto Christian and Druze districts and selecting a Maronite kaymakam for oneand a Druze kaymakam for the other. The activities of the kaymakams were to beboth administrative and judicial, thus usurping many of the traditional functions(and revenue sources) of the mu‛qāti‛ji.10 Major problems occurred at the outset.Originally, the plan was intended to give representation on the basis of religionalone; but, unfortunately, Druze lived in the Christian area and Christians livedin the Druze area (see Figure 2.2). In the latter case, the Christians outnumberedthe Druze by a two-to-one margin, so that implementing the plan as originallyformulated would have given the Christian Kaymakam authority over morepeople in the Druze area than that possessed by the Druze Kaymakam.Recognizing this fact, the Ottoman Governor chose to implement the agreementby dividing the Kaymakamates into two territorial areas and made himself theadministrator for the Christians in the Druze areas and the Druze in the Christianareas.

Neither the Druze nor the Maronites would cooperate satisfactorily with thenew arrangements, and it was impossible to find a way to give representation tothose persons living in the mixed districts. Other schemes were tried, includingthe establishment of “wakīls” (agents) reporting to the kaymakam of his ownreligion, but these also did not satisfy the chiefs. The Druze had never made useof them and were not about to surrender their political power to Christianwakīls.


THE WAR OF 1845

The rigidity and hostility among the various communities continued unabated,and in less than a year the Druze-Maronite war of 1845 was in full swing. TheDruze held a conference at Mukhtāra and settled their own Janbalāt-Yazbak

Figure 2.2 Traditional locations of Lebanese communities



divisions as a preliminary to taking action. The Maronites, recognizing that planswere being made at Mukhtāra, held their own meeting at B‛abdā where theShihābs assumed leadership.11 The Christian forces attacked first, movingquickly through the upper reaches of the Barūk river valley in the Shūf, burningDruze villages as they went. Their goal was the Janbalāt palace at Mukhtāra,which had become the center for the Druze opposition. At Mukhtāra, theMaronites were surprised by a fusillade from a large Turkish force drawn up infront of the fortress. This attack, combined with the Druze, threw back theChristian advance and forced their retreat from the Shūf. In the Matn, where theMaronites vastly outnumbered the Druze, they also began to get the upper handbut were again stopped by Turkish troops just as they were putting their enemiesto flight. Also, from the beginning, the Christians were divided. Greek Orthodoxleaders, who wanted their own kaymakam, refused to join the campaign, and theKhāzin sheikhs, still jealous of the authority of the Christian Kaymakam, refusedto join with their forces.

The key battle of the 1845 war was fought at Abayh. There, the Druzeengaged the Maronites (led by the Shihāb amirs) in a fierce encounter that endedwith the rout of the latter. Again, Turkish forces served as a reserve byblockading the Christians and holding the Shihābs hostage in their own palace.With victory in their grasp, the Druze now began an assault on Christian villagesin the Matn, pursuing the fleeing Christians and killing as many as they could.12

By late summer, the protests of the European consuls began to have an effect,and the Turks were persuaded to intervene and stop the fighting. In the meantime,the Powers were able to get the Porte to send the Ottoman Foreign Minister,Shakib Effendi, to the scene. He arrived in Beirut during September of 1845,having already consulted with the consuls and local leaders, and proposed a kindof primitive version of the confessional system later adopted by the French andutilized by the Lebanese during their period of independence.

A DECADE OF PEACE

The Règlement Shakib Effendi was the last of several attempts to institutionalizethe “Double Kaymakamate.” In this case, the Porte divided the Mountain intotwo administrative units, one Christian and one Druze, each headed by akaymakam to be assisted by a council (majlis) composed of members for eachsect (Sunni, Druze, Maronite, Greek Orthodox, and Greek Catholic—with anadvisor for the Shi‛ites). In this arrangement, there would be a Druze area and aChristian area, but all sects would have access to representation in both areas. Inaddition, the wakīls established in the previous version of the Kaymakamatewere retained for use in the “mixed districts.” Although this series of structuresthreatened to bring chaos to the feudal system, it did provide a more modernadministrative system for the Mountain. Individuals could find representationbeyond the Patriarch and the chiefs on a basis they understood and could,perhaps, indulge in a little more politics and a little less war.


Although, from the outset, there were problems with implementing it, theRèglement brought more than ten years of comparative calm to Lebanon. Thesecret of its success was that it could never be effectively implemented.Moreover, in this instance, unlike previous attempts, its non-implementation wasequally ineffective for everyone. In fact, Lebanon witnessed ten years’ return totradition, barely concealed by the new institutional trappings. The Khāzinsheikhs in the Kisrawān once again demanded exactions from their peasants, thelike of which had not been available to them since the time of Bashir II. TheDruze sheikhs were even more defiant, complying with neither the DruzeKaymakam nor the Turkish authorities. The rift between the Druze and theOttomans lasted nearly ten years, a major reason so little large-scale violenceerupted for that decade.

Near the end of this period, in 1852, the Turks decided to order theconscription of the Druze, who thereupon fled to the highlands of Wadi al-Taymand declared rebellion. The attempt by the Ottomans to put down this rebellionproved fruitless, as did trying to incite the Maronites to take the field againstthem. While a few skirmishes between the communities did break out, most ofthe campaigning was staged by France and Britain. The French Consul had triedto get relief for the Christians from their Druze overlords, who had been ignoringthe authority of the Kaymakams. On the other hand, the Druze had turned to theBritish for friendship as a counter-weight to French support for the Maronites.The rebellion of 1852, therefore, took on an additional dimension for Lebanon:overt rivalry between the Powers.13 Unable to crush the rebels in Wadi al-Taym(and the Hawrān) by the end of 1852, the Ottomans, under British influence,withdrew their previous demands on the Druze sheikhs, allowed their return tothe Mountain, and collaborated with them on the formation of a special Druzedetachment to fight in the Crimean War. Though never sent, the establishment ofthis military unit indicated an acceptance by both the Druze and the Turks of anew relationship, one that would be lethal in 1860.

THE 1858 REBELLION IN KISRAWĀN

Between 1852 and 1858, the Mountain’s politics was characterized by clashesover personalities and interference on the part of French and British agents.While the Druze chiefs mostly ignored the new instrumentalities established bythe Règlement Shakib Effendi, the Christian sheikhs busied themselves withtrying to determine who would be their Kaymakam and what status he andvarious wakīls would have. These, in turn, began to represent the church andespecially its younger clergy, who were sympathetic with the Maronite peasants.Ironically, under the kaymakams, peasants living in the “mixed districts” hadaccess to protection from the excesses of their feudal lords not available to thoseliving in the all-Maronite district of Kisrawān. Thus it was more of an advantageto be a Maronite peasant in a Druze district than to be a Maronite peasant in aMaronite district. In this way, Ottoman institutional reform gave added impetus


to the breakdown of peasant-sheikh relations among the Christians and not theDruze.

The peasant rebellion of 1858 emerged from a dispute between the MaroniteKhāzin sheikhs and the Christian Kaymakam, Bashir Ahmed Abu‛l-Lam. BashirAhmed was determined to uphold the powers of his office, and these often werein opposition to the traditional functions of the sheikhs. In carrying out his dutiesas Kaymakam, Bashir Ahmed encountered resistance and retaliated by arrestingseveral of the Kisrawān sheikhs. They, in turn, surrounded the Kaymakam at hisplace of residence in Brummāna and forced him to flee to Beirut. Bashir Ahmedhad often used the Maronite Church and its local clergy to limit the power of thefeudal class. As his politics in this regard became increasingly transparent, theKhāzin sheikhs began in earnest to organize against him and to promote hisrival, Bashir Assāf. However, their attention was so riveted to the vicissitudes ofthe competition between Bashir Ahmed and Bashir Assāf that they failed to seethe truly momentous developments taking place among the Maronite peasantry.These presaged a breakdown of the feudal order altogether.14

The Khāzins (in 1858) began circulating petitions and organizing meetings asa means of convincing the Ottomans to dismiss the “unpopular” Bashir Ahmed.An initial meeting was held in Ghazīr; wakīls were selected; and the lords wereled to believe that the populace was organizing on their behalf. Theseorganizational efforts backfired, however, when it soon became evident thatwhat the people really wanted was to have their own grievances heard, and theseturned out to be grievances, not against Bashir Ahmed, but against the Khāzinsheikhs themselves. Economic conditions had worsened for the sheikhs, and theyhad become more demanding. They acted as if they owned the peasants (on astatus basis) when, in fact, they were little more than landowners.15 Havingorganized the peasants in order to get rid of their Kaymakam, the feudal lords ofKisrawān had helped organize their own demise.

Led initially by Salih Sfayr of Ajaltūn, the people were encouraged to electwakīls, present their grievances, and bring their protests to the feudal lordsthemselves. When the sheikhs first realized they were confronted with a peasantrevolt, they were both astonished and uncompromising, but their fulminationsand reprisals simply intensified the animosities of the peasants against them.Finally, when the sheikhs agreed to negotiate with the peasants, the latterresponded by increasing their demands. Under the leadership of Tanyūs Shahīnof Rayfūn, who had been made Sheikh Shabāb by the peasants, additionalmeetings were held and action planned. In early spring of 1859, hostilitiesescalated, and the Khāzins were forced to flee for their lives. Several were killed,their homes plundered, and their crops seized and distributed.

As the Khāzins were being ousted from Kisrawān by Tanyūs and his populistbands, the Druze were busy settling differences among their factions and unitingbehind Sa‘īd Janbalāt. After holding consultations with Khurshīd Pasha, theOttoman Governor, they began planning for war. At the same time, the highclergy of the Maronites, spurred by their populist movement in Kisrawān and


worried about the activities of the Druze, began to urge their co-religionists inthe mixed areas to take action. If it was acceptable from the Patriarch’s point ofview for the common people to free themselves from their Maronite chiefs,surely it was just as necessary, if not more so, for them to be free of their Druzechiefs. The call to action in the mixed areas, however, could not be made on thebasis of feudal status but only on the basis of religious sect. Druze peasants showedno signs of rebelling against their chiefs or trying to undo their traditional feudalobligations. Thus, revision of the feudal order in the south meant that Maronitepeasants (and perhaps other Christians) would, ipso facto, be opposing the Druze.Differences would not be those of status but of sect.

THE CIVIL WAR OF 1860

The squabbles over kaymakams and the peasant insurrection in Kisrawānspawned an outpouring of “nationalist” fervor from the Maronites and plottingfor war on the part of the Druze. From the way the war was conducted, it isevident that the latter had conspired with local Ottoman officials not to interferewith Druze attacks and even to assist them where possible. On the other hand,Maronite preparations were considerably less discreet, with various clergyactively engaged in mobilizing their war effort.16 The Bishop of Beirut, Tubiyya‛Awn, has been singled out by several observers of these events as one whoseactions were especially inflamatory. His Maronitism was of the radical sort.Bishop Tubiyya organized some of the younger Maronites, encouraging them tocontinue on the warpath even after the Patriarch had attempted to cool thingsdown.17 He reportedly told the Christians of Dayr al-Qamar that if they refusedto fight the Druze, he (‛Awn) would “cause” the Christians and Druze to go towar.18 The growing hostility expanded beyond the Maronite-Druze confrontationas the Greek Catholics of Zahleh mobilized and some of the Greek Orthodoxdeclared their readiness to join in a Christian war against the Druze.

From the spring of 1859 on, both sides hastily brought in and distributed largenumbers of weapons. The Druze were united and showed no signs of squabblingamong themselves. The Christians were led by bishops, muleteers, and leftoverShihābs. Some of the Orthodox were decidedly unenthusiastic about the comingwar. Indeed, it is clear that, on the Christian side, almost no one with any militaryexperience was prepared to take charge. Who would lead the Christian legions:the muleteer from Rayfūn, the Maronite Bishop of Beirut, the Greek OrthodoxBishop of Sidon? Whatever the case, it would not include the Khāzin sheikhs.They would not fight for a Patriarch who had let the peasants walk all over them.

Similar to the case in 1841, where a Christian was caught poaching on Druzeland, an incident occurred which rapidly escalated the violence betweenmembers of the two sects as they prepared for war in 1860. Near Beit Mīri, inAugust of 1859, two pack animals collided with one another, precipitating anarmed affray. Several people were injured on both sides, and battle cries wereraised.19 The Patriarch tried to calm Maronite tempers, but his efforts were


fruitless. Bishop Tubiyya ‛Awn issued inflamatory proclamations and TanyūsShahīn, from Kisrawān, promised 50,000 men. In the spring of 1860, sporadicincidents broke out—hijackings, beatings, killings—and before long, theChristian inhabitants of the Druze areas were in panic, abandoning their villagesand fleeing to Christian strongholds. The Greek Catholics of Zahleh took theinitiative, sending out a badly organized force of 3,000 men to attack the Druze atAyn Dāra. There, they were met by a much smaller Druze force which sent themin retreat. Tanyūs Shahīn mustered a force of his followers from Kisrawān andproceeded to B‛abdā to protect the Shihābs resident there. Convinced thatShahīn’s undisciplined troops would more likely invite the Druze than protectthe Shihābs, the latter persuaded the Kisrawānis to withdraw, preferring todepend on the Turks for their protection. Yet, no sooner had Shahīn’s Christianswithdrawn than the Druze attacked, sending the inhabitants of B‛abdā and nearbyvillages stumbling down the hillsides to Beirut. (The last Hakim from Lebanon,Bashir Qasim Shihāb, a blind old man by this time, was captured and hacked todeath by the Druze marauders.) Panic ensued among the Christians in the Druzeareas, but their attempts to mobilize for war were hopelessly confused. Localofficials and the consuls seemed to agree that the Druze had scotched theChristian drive and could be persuaded by the Ottomans to desist. They failed torecognize, however, that the conflict was no longer a traditional battle overinterests; it had become a struggle inflamed with religious hatred.

Soon after the rout at B‛abdā, the emboldened Druze initiated the first of twoattacks on Dayr al-Qamar. They burned part of the town and, though sufferingsevere losses, forced the desperate Christians to surrender. The next day, TahirPasha arrived from Beirut with a Turkish force sent to restore order, and theDruze agreed to withdraw. In doing so, some of their number began a large-scalerampage, attacking Jezzīn and the villages on the sides and in the valley of thatbroad amphitheater that lies below its waterfalls. These ferocious assaults andburning of villages produced the intended panic, and the Christians, pursued bytheir attackers, fled as best they could down the mountain slopes toward Sidon.Perhaps as many as 1,200 persons were killed in the Jezzīn area and 300 more atthe hands of Muslim fanatics in Sidon itself.

At Hāsbayya and Rāshayya, in Wadi al-Taym, a pattern of cooperationbetween the Druze attackers and the local commanders resulted in wantonslaughter (see Figure 2.1 for location of regions and towns). At Hāsbayya, theDruze launched their typical surprise attack, surrounding the town andthreatening to overwhelm its defenses. When the Christians asked the Turkishcommander to let them take refuge in the serrai (fortress), he assented. Onceunder his control, he then proceeded to disarm the Christians and, after a delaycaused by protests from the consuls, threw open the gates to let the maddenedDruze rush in. Every man between the ages of seven and seventy wasslaughtered, perhaps 970 in all. A similar episode occurred at Rāshayya, whereIsmā‛il al-Atrash brought a force out of the Hawrān, surrounded the town, andsucceeded in getting the doors of the serrai thrown open to him. The result was a


massacre of some 150 of its inhabitants, including the leading members of theSunni Shihābs who had sought protection there.20

At Zahleh, on the western edge of the Biqā Valley, the Druze could surelyremember the severe thrashing that the town’s Greek Catholic militia gave themin the first Druze-Maronite war of 1841–2. In June of 1860, soon after theirvictories in Wadi al-Taym (south of Zahleh), the Druze advanced toward the town.Its Christian townsmen twice ventured forth to pre-empt the Druze attack butwere thrown back in both encounters. Hoping for help from the Maronitedistricts in the north, the Zahlites retired inside their walls to wait out a siege.Populist leaders such as Tanyūs Shahīn (with his Kisrawānis) and Yusuf Karam(with his own militia from Ihden) had remained almost untouched up to this point;yet they had large numbers of armed men at their disposal (though of uncertainmilitary value). For reasons that have never been fully explained, none of theseever came to the assistance of Zahleh even though, according to thetownspeople, aid had been promised.21 Convinced that Yusuf Karam wascoming, the Zahlites opened their gates to what they thought were his forces onlyto find that they had been deceived. The Druze had painted crosses on their flagsto mislead their enemies and were able to ride their Trojan Horses right intotown. Hundreds were killed in the battle for the town and in the retreat to thecoast following the Druze onslaught.

Even the defeated and humiliated Christians of Dayr al-Qamar were not to bespared a slaughter. Following Zahleh, the Druze forces descended on thedefenseless “first town” of the Christians, burning and plundering it for itsconsiderable spoil. Once more, the hapless residents sought protection in theserrai, in this case the old palace of the Shihābs. Then followed the familiarpattern. The Christians were disarmed by the Turks who opened the gates for amassacre by the Druze warriors. The Turkish regiment did nothing to stop theviolence, and more than 2,000 people lost their lives. Pressure from theEuropeans finally induced Khurshīd Pasha to call the leaders of the two sectstogether to present them with a set of peace proposals. These both sidesaccepted. All was to be forgotten, no compensation assessed, and the blameplaced on the malfunctioning of the Kaymakamate. While the “PeaceConvention” actually consecrated the Druze victory, it also provided for agreater degree of direct rule by the Governor, perhaps the object of Ottomanstrategy all along. Even the Christian leaders, at that time, seemed to accept theoutcome and did not request European military intervention.22

Although a furor erupted in Europe over the massacres, the Peace Conventionmight well have ended the tragic story had it not been for a later event thatoccurred outside Lebanon. In Damascus (July 9, 1860), the Muslim population,aided by soldiers of the local forces, set upon the Christians in that city andslaughtered nearly 5,500 of them in one day. Christians throughout the Levantwere now persuaded that pogroms against them were being officially sanctionedby the Ottomans. Whole communities in Galilee suddenly converted to Islam.When news of this unprecedented outbreak of horror in Damascus reached Paris,


the French government immediately dispatched a squadron, and a month laterGeneral d’Hautpoul landed in Beirut. The Turks also reacted by sending Fu‘ādPasha, a respected professional, to Syria, where he immediately commenced aninquiry into the affair. Fu‛ād punished the local ruffians in Damascus with utmostseverity. Some 170 officials, soldiers, and locals were summarily executed,including Ahmed Pasha, the Governor in Damascus. The Turkish commanders inboth Hāsbayya and Rāshayya (subordinates to officials in Damascus) were alsoexecuted: they had obviously connived with the Druze in the massacres of thosetwo towns. Fu‛ād Pasha then proceeded to Beirut, perhaps intending to deal asharshly there with the killers as he had in Damascus. In Lebanon, however, bothChristian and Druze had acted to incite the war, and it was not easy to determineguilt. Fu‛ād Pasha made the mistake of asking the Maronite notables for a list ofthose Druze whom they thought deserved to be executed. The Maronitespresented a list of 4,000 persons—more than half the total number of 8,000 adultmen of the Druze community in Lebanon—whom “these ecclesiastics wished, incold blood, to consign to death.”23 After continued haggling, the Christiansmanaged to reduce this list to a mere 1,200 individuals but refused to give publictestimony against them in person, claiming they all deserved death.24 As it turnedout, most of the Druze who were sentenced to capital punishment or exiled toTripolitania had already fled to the Hawrān. Eventually, most had their sentencescommuted. The French force did march over the Mountain and back but wasengaged more in relief work than in military activities.25

THE RÈGLEMENT

Finally, the Turkish government convened a meeting of the representatives of thePowers in the form of an international commission presided over by Fu‛ādPasha, who had acted so resolutely in reasserting law and order in the Levant.After a long and difficult period of negotiations, the Commission produced theRèglement organique which reorganized Lebanon, limited it to the Mountain,and created a new jurisdiction called the Mutasarrifate. This governorship wouldbe headed by a non-Lebanese Christian, directly appointed by and accountable tothe Porte. An Administrative Council was instituted to assist the Mutasarrif(Governor), and it provided for representation on a sectarian basis, a feature thatwas further developed when the French established Greater Lebanon after theFirst World War.

With more than 12,000 people killed in the Levant in 1860 and an arousedpublic in Europe; Britain, France, Prussia, Russia, Austria, and the Ottomanssigned the Protocol of August 3, forming an International Commission to (amongother things) establish a new political accord for the communities of Lebanon.From the work of this Commission came what was formally known as theRèglement et protocole relatifs à la réorganization du Mont Liban, signed onJune 9, 1861 and amended on September 6, 1864. It accomplished the following:


1 provided the Mountain with a distinctive and separate status within theOttoman system;

2 specified that the jurisdiction would have a Christian governor (mutasarrif)whose authority was largely independent of the Ottomans;

3 created an Administrative Council to apportion taxation and supervise inspending the revenue that was raised;

4 gave the Council a consultative role in the Governor’s employment ofOttoman troops;

5 divided the country into six districts, each with its own mudīr (director) andcouncil, appointed by the Governor in consultation with local leaders;

6 and (where possible) further divided each district into smaller sectariancantons which were, in turn, further subdivided into village communes ofapproximately 500 persons, each headed by an elected sheikh. In the mixedareas, this official represented only those from his own sect.

These, in some respects, were only its major formal achievements; informally,the Règlement accomplished even more. It introduced some legal “play” into thelocal political game and, by setting the precedent of having as the ruler aChristian who was not Lebanese, reduced communal strife on this crucialquestion. The settlement also established the practice of allowing the Europeanconsuls to intervene in important matters, e.g., to appoint and reappointgovernors and to alter the provisions it had established by amending theRèglement.26 Significantly, the Administrative Council and the appointedGovernors began to identify with the needs of the new jurisdiction; the Councilin particular began to defend the system as constituted. Moreover, it established aspecies of electoral politics on both a republican and sectarian basis, a dual modeof representation that, at the time, was the only realistic way for the Lebanese tomanage their rivalries. The consuls also tended to serve as an executive agencyin reserve, acting as a clearing house for communal interests.

It must be emphasized, of course, that the Powers partly ruled Lebanon duringthe period of the Mutasarrifate. They provided much of its constitutionalism andparticipated in the orchestration of political change, especially that whichinvolved the transfer of power. The consuls, sometimes together and sometimesseparately, also intervened from time to time to protect their creation. One suchintervention occurred in 1864, when the need to alter the basis for choosing theAdministrative Council arose. The French suggested a conference for amendingthe Règlement and proposed a nine-member Administrative Council with theMaronites receiving four seats; the Greek Catholics, the Druze, and the GreekOrthodox receiving one each; and the Sunnis and Shi‛ites (together) getting twoseats. The British and Russians came back with a proposal to establish a twelve-man council, giving the Maronites four seats; the Druze three; two for the GreekOrthodox; and one each for the Greek Catholics, the Sunnis, and the Shi’a. Thisapportionment upheld the sectarian basis for representation without giving


France’s Uniate protégés an absolute majority. This arrangement was agreed toand maintained for the duration of the Mutasarrifate.

Other changes, beyond those involving the Administrative Council, also hadfar-reaching consequences. Each village, no matter what its sectariancomposition, was to have only one elected sheikh, and these, as a group, wouldselect the members of the Administrative Council. Moreover, in the mixeddistricts where the hostilities of 1860 took place, a candidate for an allottedCouncil seat would find it necessary to solicit votes from electors of other sectsif he wanted to win. In the Matn, for example, the candidate for the Maroniteseat was forced to obtain the vote of a Druze, a Shi‛a, and a Greek Catholic todefeat his (Maronite) opposition for that seat. This combination of territorial andsectarian representation “greatly diminished the possibility of a candidateholding extremist sectarian views being elected.”27 In short, the revision of 1864was a “package deal” that not only made the system more representative butstrengthened the Governor (at the expense of the traditional holders of power)and reduced the influence of the Patriarch. Finally, as a vote of confidence, thePowers reappointed the first Mutasarrif, Da‛ūd Pasha, for an additional five-yearterm and allowed him to continue the Lebanese experiment.

DA‛ŪD PASHA

The first Governor of the Mutasarrifate, Da‛ūd Pasha, was a compromise choice.After extensive bickering and maneuvering, the consuls finally decided on a non-Lebanese, Armenian Catholic as the only person who would not negate any oftheir essential interests. In 1861, Da‛ūd was appointed with only the British inopposition. As a man from a minority sect of a minority religion in a Sunnisystem, Da‛ūd went to Lebanon determined to prove that Christians couldprosper in a reformed Empire. Soon after taking office, according to theAmerican missionary, Henry Harris Jessup, the new Mutasarrif held a receptionfor the notables of Lebanon and, in an address to them, used the followingillustration:

A doctor fell sick, and called in a fellow physician and said to him, “Weare three, you, I, and the disease. If you help me, we will conquer thedisease. If you help the disease, you will conquer me.” So we in Lebanon arethree; you, the people, I, the ruler, and the traditional animosity of races inLebanon. Help me, and we shall conquer it. Help it, and you will ruin meand yourselves together.28

Da‛ūd recognized the disease, the amoral relativism of the Levantine ethic; and,with his allusion to a structural problem, seems to have anticipated the gametheorists’ conception of conflict.

The difficulty of Da‛ūd’s position is evident when the many sources ofopposition to his authority are considered. A satisfactory choice for the French in


Istanbul and Paris, Da‛ūd did not have strong support from many French officialson the scene in Lebanon. The British had pointedly voted against his appointmentand would wait for him to fail. The Maronite Patriarch, Bulous Mas‛ad, who hadplayed a role in the Druze-Maronite civil war, was irrevocably opposed toanyone but a Maronite holding the office. He and his bishops had been part ofthe problem in the past; they would be part of the problem in the future. Inaddition, Da‛ūd was faced with the disease—the sects, the rivalries, the disparateregions of the country, and its questionable viability. On several occasions hepleaded with the Ottomans and the Powers to increase the size of his jurisdictionby attaching Beirut and the Biqā region to it.

Besides the difficulties he had with his immediate rivals, Da‛ūd was alsovulnerable to the structural limitations on his power. The unique status of MountLebanon was a concession that had been forced on the Ottomans; they were notplumping for its success. Da‛ūd’s program was not their program, and they didnot always cooperate with him, e.g., Beirut’s tax base was not made available toimprove the infrastructure of the Lebanese hinterland on which the citydepended. In addition, until 1864, Da‛ūd had to deal with an AdministrativeCouncil that regularly opposed his policies, especially those which requiredmoney. He also had to put up with the many agents (wakīls) appointed by eachof the six sects to be continually “at the governor’s elbow.” The town of Dayr al-Qamar was itself a source of trouble. The Druze chiefs were gradually returningto the Shūf and, in several instances, displayed their vengence against theMaronite land-owners who had replaced them. The feudal district of al-Manāsif,in which the capital was located, had traditionally been under Druze control.There was still plenty of opportunity for political intrigue in the mixed districts.Evoking memories of the recent past and warning the towns-people of Dayr al-Qamar about the future, Da‛ūd told them:

You were poor, and I left you alone; today you are going to be rich; youare going to receive your indemnity. Be as peaceful in prosperity as youhave been during the last three years, and I will look after you.29

In fact, Da‛ūd was more successful in the fractious south than in the north wherethe Maronites still hoped for their state. Most important, he was able to win theconfidence of both the French and British, especially those in Lebanon. It wasthis relationship that enabled the outside to provide the political cement that heldthe inside together.

During the final two years of his tenure in Lebanon, Da‛ūd’s program hadbegun to bear fruit. Most of the country was pacified and paying taxes; localadministration had become more regularized; and the new infrastructure of roadsand schools was beginning to pay off in the expansion of commerce. Da‛ūd’sconfidence and determination in his self-proclaimed mission grew by leaps andbounds. He was sure that, by this time, the European consuls had come to believehim indispensable and that the Lebanese public would actively support his plans


to annex Beirut and part of the Biqā to Mount Lebanon. But Da‛ūd had oneadditional adversary, a man who, like himself, was ambitious and reformist. Thiswas Muhammad Rashid Pasha, Vali in Damascus of the recently establishedVilāyet of Syria. Both he and Da‛ūd wanted their jurisdictions to succeed, butDa‘ūd also wanted to be elevated to the rank of Vali, i.e., the Viceroy of theVilāyet of Lebanon. This larger jurisdiction, with Beirut as its capital, would gainthe allegiance of the Lebanese and serve the interests of the Powers. Were this tohappen, however, it would also come at the expense of the Vali in Damascus.

When Rashid Pasha shifted the customs revenues of Beirut to the Damascustreasury, Da‛ūd expressed his annoyance at this change and began a campaign tohave Beirut attached to his jurisdiction. At this time, the question of theMutasarrif’s reappointment was also under consideration, and Da‛ūd, certain ofsuccess, decided to tie his reappointment to the disposition of Beirut and itscustoms revenues. Thus, against the advice of the consuls, he suddenly appearedat the Porte and threatened to resign. Da‛ūd apparently believed that the Powerswould rather put pressure on the Porte to make the changes he demanded thantake a chance on a replacement. In this assessment, he proved to be mistaken. Bythe time the French Ambassador in Istanbul had persuaded Da‛ūd not to resign,Fu‛ād Pasha was in the process of “kicking him upstairs” to another (Christian)post in the Ottoman government.

Da‛ūd did not meet all his goals in Lebanon but did take the first steps towardcreating a new state. He also cooperated in the peaceful transfer of power, animportant precedent. Although his work was unfinished, the first Mutasarrif wasable to leave with honor.30

YUSUF (BEY) KARAM

The most difficult domestic opponent (along with the Patriarch) for Da‛ūd Pashawas Yusuf Karam of Ihden, near Bisharri in north Lebanon. Yusuf began toattract a following when the Druze-Maronite conflict was brewing and recruiteda small militia to assist his co-religionists in the south. Though he played nosignificant role in the 1860 war,31 by its end he had become the most prominentof the young Maronite leaders and was eventually appointed ChristianKaymakam of the northern districts. Although Kaymakam for only a brief period,Karam compiled an excellent record, playing a role in mediating between thepeasants of Kisrawān and the Khāzin sheikhs and impressing the British andFrench representatives. Once the Powers had intervened and imposed theRèglement, Karam undoubtedly hoped to become the Mutasarrif. When it wasdecided that only a non-Lebanese should hold that office, he was greatlydisappointed and did not stay for long in any of the positions to which he wasappointed. Suspect in the eyes of many Christians, and not on good terms witheither Da‛ūd or the Patriarch, Karam’s star had dimmed far below hisexpectations.


Returning to the north, Karam once again started to organize his ownmovement, causing excitement and attracting a following. His message was thatthe Mountain was being ruled by foreigners, contrary to the traditions of itspeoples. Da‛ūd’s response to Karam’s resignation was to try to scotch theincipient rebellion by rearranging the old feudal pieces. An Abu‛1-Lām was sentback to the Matn while Amir Majīd Shihāb was put in charge of the north whereKaram was raising the fuss. Following some disturbances in the Kūra regioninvolving some of Karam’s sympathizers, Da‛ūd ordered his arrest. Soon after,an Ottoman troop took Yusuf Bey to Beirut, and then, accompanied by Fu‛ādPasha, he was exiled to Istanbul.

Claiming that he had been wronged, Karam began a campaign to return toLebanon and, instead of waiting for arrangements to be worked out, simplyslipped into the country on his own in November of 1864. Unable to get theconsuls to intervene, his supporters soon stirred up trouble in the north even asDa‛ūd was conciliating them.32 After the French informed the Maronites thatthey would not tolerate their secessionist movement, Da‛ūd was given a writtenstatement from Karam promising to recognize the Mutasarrif’s Muttasarif’sauthority and remit the required amount of taxes to Beit al-Din. However, Karamwas not satisfied with this arrangement and continued to act with independence.More confrontations occurred, and Da‛ūd once again sent Turkish troops north toarrest the Bey. Afterwards, there ensued what could be called Yusuf’s Yusuf’speriod of “internal” exile, a protracted series of small engagements that kept himon the run. For nearly the whole of 1866, the Bey from Ihden played cat-and-mouse with the Governor’s troops, conducting a kind of guerrilla warfare inwhich he sometimes just disappeared, only to reappear later with locals recruitedalong the way. His forces fought a few pitched battles but mostly moved about ina fashion to keep the government insecure, demonstrating, once again, thedifficulty of controlling dissidents in the inaccessible heights of Lebanon.

Finally, in November of 1867, Karam came out of hiding with about 150 menand marched from Batrūn into Kisrawān. His troop finally met the Lebanesemilitia in the valley of Abu Firān near Beit Shabāb, and, after a brief skirmish, aceasefire was arranged. Taking sanctuary with the Patriarch, Karam negotiatedhis surrender to Da‛ūd and indefinite exile. He was never to return to Lebanon.

Still, Karam’s influence on politics in the Mutasarrifate remained potent foranother decade. He ended up in Paris and there, with his longtime supporters, theBey precipitated the crisis that kept Da‛ūd from being appointed to a third termas Mutasarrif. Ordered to take up his exile in Algeria, Karam escaped to Belgium.From there, he wandered to Austria, Italy, Corfu, and Istanbul, hoping for achance to re-enter Lebanon. In 1873 through 1875, and in 1877, Yusuf tried toorganize armed expeditions to “liberate” his country. Until Karam’s death (1889)in Naples, “his return was inevitably rumoured during every crisis that affectedLebanon.”33 In many ways, Karam was the paradigm Lebanese militiacommander. Partly self-made, he continually applied to the outside to help himwith the inside, never able to satisfy either. The Bey’s words were shaped in the


context of ideals that went beyond his personal interests, but his deeds revealed adisposition that never ventured beyond the next opportunity. As ProfessorSpagnolo puts it, “For Karam to be subservient to Daud’s policies was apsychological impossibility. His independence of character made him a hero buthis restricted view of politics was to drive him to rebellion.”34 Yusuf Bey,wanting to lead a new state, had pushed his way into an impossible complex offorces. He ended up like so many Middle East expatriates, writing about injusticeand trying to regain power.

OTHER MUTASARRIFS

Franco Pasha, often referred to as Franku Bey Qusa, was formally invested asGovernor on July 27, 1868, although he had already taken over the office threeweeks before. Although he died after serving less than half his ten-year term,Franco is important for having successfully administered the transfer of powerwithout major incident. That the transition occurred peacefully was partly due, ofcourse, to the cooperation of the Conference of Ambassadors, but credit mustalso go to the Règlement itself. The communities gradually began to see its value,and even the Maronites were prepared to defend the legal order it prescribed.Moreover, Franco Pasha was adroit in managing the array of relationships bothinside and outside Lebanon fairly well. Until just before his death, the Mutasarrifstayed on excellent terms with Rashid, the Vali of Syria, and was able to keepthe consuls at arm’s length. Rivalry between the sects remained remarkablymuted during this period as they all had a chance to play politics. AlthoughFranco tried to increase his tax revenues from the Maronites, who paid thelowest rates in the Empire, he gave in gracefully to their traditional resistence insuch matters. He was forced, instead, to beg the Ottomans to replenish thetreasury at Beit al-Din.

When Franco Pasha died in 1873, the French were reasserting their strength inthe Levant but, unable to get agreement on their first two candidates forMutasarrif, the French finally had to compromise. Rustum Pasha, a RomanCatholic, was appointed for a ten-year term, and he turned out to be the mostsuccessful of the Mutasarrifs of Mount Lebanon. Though, undoubtedly, Da‛ūdwas the greater figure, given the problems he faced; full success had eluded him.Rustum, on the other hand, continued the development of Lebanon’sinfrastructure, left the country’s administration in good order, avoided personalcorruption, and managed to serve out his full term. He was forced to conduct hisactivities at a time when the Ottomans were undergoing a constitutional crisis inIstanbul—the time of Midhat Pasha’s constitutional program (1876), theconvocation of a legislative assembly, and its revocation in 1878 by AbdulHamīd. This protracted crisis posed both hazards and benefits for Rustum andthe Lebanese. The Maronites began to give the Governor less support, makingthe most out of every grievance to undermine his authority. His insistence onlegality and an end to traditional corruption put Rustum at odds with the local


bishops, whose powers of patronage he had sharply reduced. These clericsresponded by launching a campaign of complaints and accusations at theGovernor’s expense, hoping to generate support in Paris and among theMaronites. Their campaign failed, however, and Rustum was able to deport twoof the clerical troublemakers and gain acceptance by the Powers for his actionand, more importantly, protect the legal strictures of the Règlement.

Rustum’s action against the clerics sustained his policy of loyalty to the Porteand legality on the Mountain, enabling him to complete his term without a majorblemish on his record. Meanwhile, France was involved in a new “Catholicpolicy” in the Levant. Paris would now use its Eastern Christians, not theMutasarrifs, to hold back the British. The benefits of this grand cause came fromthe amount of attention which France suddenly began to bestow on her clients inthe Levant. New roads were built, and advances were made in education andhealth. Especially significant was the commitment France made to building andcontrolling a railroad network in Syria.35 French activity and community wouldproclaim France’s presence in the eastern Mediterranean.

The new policy also hurt Lebanon. Indulging the Maronites tendedto strengthen their resistance to financing the progress and development thatMount Lebanon needed. This refusal to provide the Governors with sufficientrevenue coincided with a growing economic crisis for the Ottomans. Rustum, inhis last year, was forced to cut salaries, including his own, and eventually reducethe number of persons working for his administration. While Lebanon’seconomy continued to grow, her political infrastructure did not undergocommensurate development.

What did develop was corruption. Starved for revenue and prevented fromdeveloping their own port (at Junieh), the next three Mutasarrifs, Wasā, Na‛ūm,and Muzaffar (Pashas) began to adapt to the personalism of Lebanese society byfinancing themselves directly, i.e., by placing the political and administrativeservices they had to offer on the market. An ancient tradition, the complexity ofthe sectarian situation along with rapid economic growth in the Mutasarrifatepointed the way toward an increase in corruption far beyond what the previousMutasarrifs had allowed. The means used and the results obtained weresufficiently widespread to keep the country at a controlled simmer, and,generally, the Governors were able to serve out their full terms.

An interesting case in this regard involves Muzaffar Pasha who, in the 1890s,devised several important institutional advances for the Mutasarrifate but gainedlittle credit for them due to his personal failures. His wife, Marika, took moneyfrom job-seekers while her son, Fu‛ād, managed her corrupt activities from hisposition as head of the Mountain’s security forces. According to one report,Marika would write the decrees of appointment herself and force her “weak”husband to sign them. It is said that, on one occasion, she even went so far as tolock the Mutasarrif in his bathroom until he ended his resistance and compliedwith her wishes.36 Ineffectual at home, Muzaffar’s political methods also did notmeasure up to his ambition. In moving rapidly to change traditional practices, the


Governor had not taken pains to build a support base for his program. When itbecame known that Muzaffar’s enemies in Istanbul were working assiduously todeny him a second term, his authority in Lebanon quickly evaporated. The PolishMutasarrif, neither successful with his program nor his family, had a heart attackand died on June 12, 1907.

The conservatives were now ascendant in the Mountain’s politics and wereable to secure the appointment of Franco’s son, Yusuf Bey Qusa, to be theMutasarrif. Yusuf returned the anti-reform politicians (under Wasā and Na‛ūm)to their posts but did not, in fact, allow influence-peddling to resume at previouslevels. Rather, he quickly let it be known that he was prepared to emphasize hisauthority as one administering directly for the Porte. That Yusuf’s intentionswere serious became clear when, in 1908, he pushed the Administrative Councilto approve higher rates for both land and poll taxes, something that had beenattempted repeatedly, without success, since 1864. Discreetly threatening todissolve the Council while, at the same time, promising to increase the salariesof its members got quick results. Lebanese were to be taxed at a rate close towhat others in the Empire paid.

Unfortunately for Yusuf, events soon occurred that made it difficult for him tocontinue his version of strong rule. In July 1908, the Young Turks initiated aseries of military moves which led to the reinstatement of the 1876 Constitutionand a return to parliamentary political life. Within a year, Sultan Abdul Hamīdhad been removed from power, replaced by the Committee on Union andProgress. These events allowed the Lebanese unprecedented freedom of action.Numerous schemes were hatched, some Pan-Islamic, others calling for an Arabor Christian jurisdiction that would have gone beyond the boundaries of theMutasarrifate. The Administrative Council, which forced several concessionsfrom Yusuf, might well have developed into a genuine legislative body had thecontention been less bitter and personal. But politics in Lebanon was highlypersonal, and institutional norms were seldom defended unless they supported aparticular personal or communal advantage. During the period of the takeover bythe CUP, some cooperation between the legalistic Yusuf and the Council hadoccurred. Several liberal politicians, hopeful that a Lebanese version of the CUPmight emerge in the Mutasarrifate, were even led to believe that the Governorfavored the gradual development of legislative powers for the AdministrativeCouncil. But as the campaign to strengthen the Council failed to gain support,the tide turned against reforms. After 1910, Yusuf fought back and, in theensuing disturbances, arrested several of the most prominent supporters of theCouncil’s prerogatives. During the last two years of his term, the Mutasarrif hadall but suspended the Council and rendered the Règlement a dead letter.

In 1910, when Yusuf closed the door on the Council’s initiatives, Lebanonwas still very much a traditional society. The list of demands for reform that hadbecome part of Muzaffar’s program in 1902, representing what many believed tobe the pressing social needs of the time, were still largely unmet two decadeslater. According to Khalaf, this fact suggests “that after a lapse of more than


twenty years, little was accomplished in the way of transforming these and otherdimensions of social life.”37 The British Consul, Henry Cumberbatch, had alsobecome disillusioned with the personalism in Mount Lebanon’s politics. Thepoliticians, in his view, were a nuisance and gave no thought to society’s needfor political stability.

THE END OF THE MUTASARRIFATE

Having vetoed a second term for Yusuf, the French awaited the usualcounterattack from the Porte on their preference, an Armenian Catholic holding ahigh position in the Ottoman government. While this notable was rejected,another Armenian Catholic, Ohannes Bey Kuyumjian, did become thecompromise choice. He served as Mutasarrif from late 1912 to early 1915, atwhich time the military government that had taken power in Istanbul decided torule Lebanon directly through their own Muslim administrators.

Kuyumjian’s appointment was accompanied by a Protocol, agreed to by thePowers, that provided for the first significant revisions of the Règlement since1864. The revisions strengthened the Council by giving it budgetary powers,control over the conduct of its members, and a more democratic basis forchoosing its members.38 Some redistricting was also mandated, leading to moremeaningful elections. The Council’s Vice President, Habīb Pasha Sa‛ad, hadbeen in charge of the Mutasarrifate for the previous five months and, along withthe Council, was not prepared to concede to Ohannes Bey the range of executivepowers normally exercised by the Governor. Kuyumjian Pasha did not challengethe Council and its experienced Vice President. Elderly and unenergetic, he andthe Council functioned together smoothly, accomplishing virtually nothingduring the two-year period prior to the outbreak of the First World War, insisting,instead, that the Ottoman subsidy was sufficient to meet expenses. Obviously,democracy was beginning to have its effect.

In 1914, the Turks went to war and subjected Lebanon to a militaryoccupation. In 1915, the Turks suspended the Mutasarrifate and recalledOhannes Bey to Istanbul, annulling the Règlement and abolishing theAdministrative Council. The Porte then appointed Muslim Governors: Ali MunīfBey (1915–17), Ismā‛il Haqqi Bey (1917–18), and Mumtāz Bey (July–September1918).

The war was a terrible time of suffering for the Lebanese. They were facedwith military occupation; their property was sequestered, their forests destroyed,and a blockade imposed. Massive starvation ensued. Finally, the British invaded,drove out the Turks, and the French took over. Even with these tumultuousevents, some of the constitutional principles of the Règlement carried over to theMandate of (Greater) Lebanon that the French established after the First WorldWar. Indeed, even some of the military government’s appointees as Governormade notable contributions to the future of the country. The second of thePorte’s appointees, Ismā‛il Haqqi Bey, was a Shi‛ite who took a special interest


in Lebanon. He ordered a general economic and social survey of the land andpeople under his control, the first of its kind in Lebanon.39

Although accompanied by violence and corruption, without question theMutasarrifate was a net success in the development of a Lebanese polity. It was atime of confrontation with new forces, of meddling by the Powers, of transition,and of a gradual awakening. Some of the Mutasarrifs were gifted leaders, someterribly narrow in their outlook. None of the sectors of power had a free hand, soit was the competition among them, especially among the Powers, that helpedLebanon get better government than any single source of authority was preparedto give. Constitutional principles and practical political experience were carriedover from the period of the Mutasarrifate to the later times of the Mandate andRepublic. Mount Lebanon, for a half century, was generally recognized to be“the best governed, the most prosperous, peaceful and contented country in theNear East.”40 On balance, the period was not so “peaceful” as it was pivotal, atime when the Lebanese were building their state.


3Greater Lebanon: 1915–1943

LEBANON UNDER JEMĀL PASHA

When, in 1914, hostilities broke out in Europe, the Turks were allied with theCentral Powers led by Germany and found themselves at war with Britain, whichhad been their major prop throughout most of the nineteenth century. With thehelp of the Germans, the Turks hoped to rouse Muslims to the cause and declareda jihād for that purpose. Initial military moves into areas of Turkish population inthe Caucasus pitted them against the Russians and eventually failed. Early thenext year, in February 1915, a Turkish army under Jemāl Pasha tried to cross theSuez Canal to move against the British force there but was driven back. Bykeeping large numbers of troops occupied, these moves helped Germany morethan Turkey. More importantly, another part of the grand strategy also failed; theTurkish jihād did little to attract the masses of Muslims who were needed to winthe war. After a year’s campaigning, the Turkish military was overextended and,even with German assistance, could not withstand the counterattack.

Soon after their successful defense of Suez, the British tried unsuccessfully toforce the Dardanelles with their fleet. A month later, in April 1915, Britishtroops undertook their great gambit at Gallipoli, landing a massive army andintending to drive straight to the Turkish capital itself. This plan, conceived bythe First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, would have opened up theBalkans as a highway from Istanbul to Germany. The landing, however, couldnot be sustained, and the British had to evacuate their troops, losing 25,000 in theprocess. This monstrous debacle may have prolonged the war in the Middle Eastby a year. Unfortunately, it was a year of terrible hardship for the Lebanese asthousands died from famine.

Throughout most of 1915, the war in the eastern Mediterranean wasstalemated, with inconclusive fighting being carried out along the coast of theSinai. Early in 1916, the British launched their attack against the Turks along tworoutes, invading Syria from Egypt and moving into Mesopotamia from their baseat the head of the Persian Gulf. Conquering Syria would deny the Central Powersaccess to this strategic corridor and push the Turks back into Anatolia. Byinvading Mesopotamia, the Allies hoped to link up with the Russians in the

Caucasus and close the ring, thereby containing any eastward advance theCentral Powers might make toward India. Encountering resistance only atBaghdad, which held out for nearly a year, the British (Indian ExpeditionaryForce) moved steadily through Mesopotamia and had gotten to Mosul by the endof the war.

The main British force in the Syrian campaign, commanded by GeneralAllenby, proceeded from the Sinai coast to Jerusalem, then (after the climacticbattle of Megiddo) to Damascus, where it was joined by the troops of the ArabRevolt, and finally on to Aleppo which was still resisting when the armistice ofOctober 1918 ended hostilities. On Allenby’s right flank were the Sharifianforces led by Amir Faisal and (as an advisor) Colonel T.E.Lawrence. OnAllenby’s left flank, after the Battle of Megiddo, was a column sent up the coastto free its towns from the Turkish blockade, an effort that was critical for theLebanese. By the war’s end, the situation in Lebanon was desperate; the Turkishembargo had shut off most of the food supplies and brought on mass starvation.The Turks had savaged much of what they could get their hands on in order bothto incapacitate the local, often disloyal, population and to supply their ownforces. Once freed, British military administrators cooperated with the smallnumbers of American mission staff still operating in Lebanon to release a fewhoards of foodstuffs and organize the relief effort. Amir Faisal’s Sharifian forcesalso sent a representative to assist, but his presence turned out to have more of apolitical than humanitarian effect on the situation. Indeed, the political situationin Lebanon was as difficult to remedy as was the misery that had befallen itspeople.

The Porte’s administrative presence had fled as the British column advancedup the coast and joined with the main army to besiege Aleppo and, eventually,clear the Levant of Turkish forces.1 The British then controlled the whole ofgeographical Syria and divided it into several zones to be administered by themilitary, pending further definition and implementation of wartime agreements.These agreements were, in some respects, contradictory in what they hadpromised. In the correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and SharīfHussein ibn Ali (formal head of the Sharifian forces that had conducted the ArabRevolt), the British had promised to give support to the creation of an Arab statein Ottoman Syria.2 The British had also promised to help in the establishment ofa “national home” for the Jews in Palestine, and, in the Sykes-Picot Agreement,had divided the prospective areas to be taken from the Turks into those portionsto be placed under French control and those to remain in the hands of the British.What had been promised to whom was deliberately left vague, partly because ofthe political complexity of the situation and partly for the sake of expediency.Without going into this much debated controversy, it is clear that the recipientsof these promises—the Sharifian Arabs, the French, and the Zionists—believedthey were entitled, in each case, to more real estate than their overlapping claimsmade it possible to give. In Lebanon, these sectors of influence also rushed to fillthe vacuum left when the Turks were evicted, each wanting the British to

GREATER LEBANON: 1915–1943 51

acknowledge its particular claim. This problem was further complicated by thefact that some wanted to attach Lebanon to a larger state; others would havedetached all or parts of it to create a separate jurisdiction.3

When they went to war in 1914, the Turks had subjected Lebanon to a militaryoccupation. The next year, they suspended the Mutasarrifate and recalledOhannes Bey to Istanbul, annulling the Règlement and abolishing theAdministrative Council. The Porte then appointed Muslim Governors: Ali MunīfBey (1915–17), Ismā‛il Haqqi Bey, (1917–18), and Mumtāz Bey (July-September 1918). The wartime experience for the Lebanese, and many others in(geographical) Syria, was not significant so much in what it created but in whatit destroyed. What was destroyed was all vestiges of attachment by the Arabic-speaking peoples of the Empire to its Turkish rulers. In Lebanon, attachment wasslipping before the war; by the war’s end, it was nonexistent. Both Turkish andAllied policies were responsible for this change in allegiance.

Two months before the war broke out, militants of the CUP were able to getthe government to unilaterally abrogate the centuries-old capitulations, imposedirect rule on the provinces, and use the new German connection to drop allpretenses of working toward a decentralized Ottoman system. This last act, ofcourse, assisted the Arab nationalists in giving support to the Sharifian ArabRevolt, which ended up providing important assistance to the British invasion. InLebanon, these policies resulted in the removal of consular influence, declarationof the draft for all citizens, and, in 1915, the abolition of the quasi-autonomousMutasarrifate and its rule by a Turkish-appointed governor. When war did breakout, the Lebanese were trapped between an Allied naval blockade of the coastand military control directed by Jemāl Pasha from Beirut. Supplies could notreach the Lebanese from the sea; those from indigenous producers were subjectto the Turkish control and often sequestered for the war effort. Though trappedby the war, the Lebanese were not inactive.

To contain Lebanese activity against the Turks, Jemāl Pasha initially triedconciliation, hoping to attract the local population to the Muslim solidarity that adeclaration of jihād supposedly called forth. Failing to cross the Suez Canal andhaving information on the stirrings of Arab nationalism and plottings of theradical al-Ahd group among the Arab officers, Jemāl decided on strong measuresagainst the local population. These measures included the following: directmilitary rule; infiltration of organizations followed by execution of thoseconsidered disloyal; embargo against imports (including desperately neededfood); and sequestration of locally produced agricultural products. He was, afterall, in charge of Lebanon where a desire for autonomy among the Christiancommunities was an already established fact. Having meagre forces at hisdisposal, Jemāl fully recognized the vulnerability of his position. With his smallforce, he had not only to keep order along the coast and in the mountains ofLebanon but also to contend with the intelligence gathering activities of theBritish and French. Both of these had numerous clients within Jemāl’sjurisdiction.

52 GREATER LEBANON: 1915–1943

The British operated mostly in the south, nearer to their planned invasion routeand to their clients among the Druze of Lebanon. Possessing an uncontestednaval presence, they first began paying for information by using the coastline inthe south to dispatch and pick up couriers. Among the hundreds of natives usedin this fashion, only seven were discovered and executed by the Turks.Obviously, Jemāl’s men were not able effectively to counter the British operationand were hardly more effective against the French, who had set up shop on theisland of Arwād about a mile off the coast of Tripoli. The latter discovered agreat number of people who were willing to help, wanting to get rid of the Turksas well as believing that independence was coming. Stories came to the islandtelling of mass starvation, of whole villages being abandoned, as the Turksblocked all sustenance from reaching the remoter areas to punish its disloyalsubjects.4 The Karam clan in Ihden was active against the Turks as were theKhāzins in Kisrawān, two of whom were hanged for their collaborationistactivities. Perhaps the key contact on the Mountain for the French was thepersonal secretary of the Patriarch Huwayyik, Father Bulous Aql. In charge ofnumerous clerical couriers, he was especially well placed to receive and transmitinformation. As for the Maronite clergy, at least one priest, collaborating withthe Allies, was caught and executed during the war.

By far the most famous event of Jemāl’s period in Lebanon was that whichtook place on August 21, 1915, at the Place des Canons in Beirut. At that time,Jemāl Pasha had eleven persons, suspected of either disloyalty or collaboration,quickly tried and publicly executed in the main square, known today as Martyrs’Square. This tragedy happened partly because of a terrible oversight on the partof Georges Picot, the French Consul General in Beirut. In the rush to leave whenthe war broke out, he left a list of persons in Syria who could be counted on tooppose the Turkish regime, either because they supported France or were activeas Arab nationalists. His former translator, Phillipe Effendi Zalzal, led localauthorities to where the list had been hidden, enabling Jemāl to uncover a largenumber of possible subversives. In all, fifty-eight individuals were tried andsentenced to death; forty-five of these were either out of the country or avoidedarrest; two were given reprieves; and the other eleven, ten Muslims and oneChristian, were disgracefully hanged. This public display of terror was only aprelude to additional steps taken as part of the wartime policy of repression.Hundreds of people were rounded up and interned, some never to return to theirhomes, while in May 1916, after more “show trials,” twenty-two more were triedfor plotting against the state and publicly hanged.

Undoubtedly, this military man, one of three controlling the Empire, intendedthat his draconian display of retribution serve as an example to others. In fact, itdid put fear in the hearts of many citizens and may have crippled anyorganization for sabotage and revolution that the natives were developing.Lightly defended, Jemāl argued that he had no means other than those of terror tohold the area.5 He claimed that the executions had, in fact, forestalled a rising inSyria. Others, however, have examined this period and see Jemāl’s actions in


Syria as turning the tide against Istanbul, “causing the Arab Muslims in the areato make up their minds once and for all to break away from the TurkishEmpire.”6 Jemāl had perpetrated a “Remember-the-Alamo” for the Lebanese.Throughout the country, the story of his perfidy was passed from person toperson and from village to village. It helped consolidate Lebanese opposition tothe Turks, an opposition that became permanent as eyewitness accounts werepassed from generation to generation. One can hardly measure the significanceof these hangings in stimulating people to abandon their Ottoman attachment. Thisepisode, according to Nicholas Ajay, was an epic for Lebanon, an importantchapter in the country’s development.7

Once the British column had moved up the coast during September andOctober 1918, meeting little resistance in Tyre and Sidon and entering Beirut onOctober 8, they encountered a population in a terrible state of affairs. Emigrationon a large scale had already been occurring for the previous twenty years; nowstarvation and dislocation had reduced Lebanon’s population by perhaps anotherfifth. Moreover, having just suffered four years of harsh military rule, thepeoples in Beirut and on the Mountain naturally wondered if liberation wouldbring British rule, Sharifian (Arab) rule, or that of the French. One matter,however, had been settled: the Turks were gone and would not be missed.

On October 1, 1918, the day that Faisal’s forces entered Damascus just a fewhours before Allenby, a local Muslim notable, Umar al-Da‛uq, was invested withauthority by the quickly departing Mumtāz Bey and left in charge of MountLebanon. Al-Da‛uq immediately raised the Sharifian flag over the publicbuildings in Beirut and proclaimed it (and Lebanon) as part of an Arab state. Afew days later, an emissary of Faisal’s group, Shukri al-Ayyubi, arrived with atoken force, stationed it in the city, and proceeded on to B‛abdā where hereconvened the Mountain’s Administrative Council as the new localgovernment. One week after the Turkish authorities fled, the British enteredBeirut and, with a small detachment of French Guards, began to organize policeand rescue activities. Allenby, himself, came over from Damascus to deal withthe uproar that, as could be expected, broke out over these developments. TheMaronite Christians were not about to submit to an Arab government formallyheaded by Sharīf Hussein, Guardian of the Holy Places in Mecca. Their contactswith the French, who were then based on the island of Arwād, had made it clearthat they would not be forced to trade one Muslim authority for another. Frenchships were anchored in Beirut harbor; the country’s soldiers were participatingwith the invasion forces; and French consuls were armed with the Sykes-Picotcommitments. Thus, when General Allenby arrived in Beirut on October 8, helowered the Sharifian flags and placed Lebanon under a French militaryadministration. Those supporting the Arab cause felt the British had dealt them aterrible setback. However, as if to leave the future somewhat ambiguous,Allenby surprised the Catholic side by giving his blessing to the AdministrativeCouncil and leaving it in charge of the local government. Significantly, themajority of its members (from the Christian communities but not all Maronites)


were opposed to a French takeover and, therefore, not necessarily disposed to theMaronite point of view.

THE ALLIED OCCUPATION

In the difficult period following the end of hostilities, General Allenby tended tooperate at two, perhaps contradictory, levels.

At the first level, the British Commander in Chief established three mainmilitary zones and placed them under the control of Occupied Enemy TerritoryAdministrations (OETAs). These divisions corresponded roughly to the areas ofPalestine, Lebanon, and the rest of greater Syria as called for by the broadoutlines of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Although French military personnel hadbeen put in charge of what eventually became OETA West, it was the Britishwho had conquered the area from the Turks, and General Allenby was thesupreme authority. French and Arab commanders, including the Amir Faisal,were entirely subordinate to the British in Syria pending a future peace settlement.They had been assigned administrative duties in such cities as Beirut andDamascus and were to keep strictly to their military role. At this level, allpolitical bets were off; the important questions had to do with restoring order andorganizing relief operations. The French and the British, in November 1918,even issued a proclamation claiming that the object of their policy was the“liberation” of the peoples of Syria so that, as an exercise of their own initiative,they could freely live under governments of their own choosing.8 On the otherhand, the implication was that future political arrangements were still pending;nothing had been decided.

In fact, a great deal had been decided. At the second level of operations, militarymoves were made that precluded native self-determination, moves called for byalready signed “secret” agreements. In the first place, Syria was divided intomilitary zones that looked suspiciously like future political divisions. There wasan OETA South (Palestine) for the Jewish National Home, an OETA West(Lebanon) for the French, and an OETA East (Syria-Jordan) for whatever British-French negotiators agreed to. The French were advancing their claims, but Faisaland the Arabs had helped the British conquer the area. For the Sharifian group,the divisions were worrisome, not because they were divisions, but because theydid not correspond to Arab plans. The implied jursidictions were British, notArab, and the thrones that might become available would suit European interests,not those of the Arab movement. The Arabs unrealistically saw Britain, with itslarge army, as merely “temporary” while the British, with their French allies,seriously underestimated the nationalist passions that the promise of self-determination had unleashed. All of these claims, those of the British, the French,the Arabs, the Jews, and the Uniate Christians, impossible to resolve in 1918,remain unresolved even today.

Soon after Allenby’s forces had occupied the coast and the complexion of itsmilitary administration was determined, the British and French, together with


local administrators, conducted a massive relief effort that, by all accounts, wasextraordinarily successful. Within a year, food supplies, medical services, andschooling had returned to normal levels and were even poised for greateradvancement. Resistance to the British, and later the French, continued in thenorth for several years after the Armistice, in Tripoli, in Alexandretta, andfurther north in Cilicia. In November 1919, fulfilling their wartime promises tothe French, the British began to evacuate OETA West and were replaced by theFrench under General Gouraud. Although Faisal was the Commander inDamascus, it was clear by this time that he was not going to have a free hand inSyria’s future. Accommodations he had reached with the French and the Zionistsin Paris were incompatible with the sentiments of the Arab nationalists back home.Returning to Syria, Faisal decided to cast his lot with the nationalists and declarefor independence. The previous summer, in response to inquiries from the King-Crane Commission, the Amir was the Arabs’ clear favorite to be Syrian head ofstate. On March 8, 1920, Faisal was proclaimed King of Syria; prominentmembers of the Christian community swore allegiance to him; and even theMuslims on Lebanon’s Administrative Council came to Damascus to pay himhomage. Unfortunately, for every trip Faisal had made to European capitals tosecure his kingdom, a Maronite emmisary from the Patriarch had made one toprevent it. The Lebanese Catholics were indignant over this turn of events;certainly, this scion of Mecca was not their king.

Of greater importance was French determination not to be outmaneuvered inSyria. On April 24, 1920, the Peace Conference met at San Remo, and Francewas assigned the Mandate for Syria. Attempts at an accommodation withGeneral Gouraud failed, and on July 24, a small band of Faisal’s forces met theFrench army at Maysalūn Pass and, after a six-hour battle, were thrown back indisarray. On August 7, General Gouraud entered Damascus and raised the FrenchTricolor. After a few additional attempts to reach an accord with the French, theAmir left Syria for Italy and, finally, moved on to Baghdad where, in 1921, theBritish installed him as King of Iraq. The diplomatic imbroglio between Britain,France, and Kemalist Turkey over what constituted the Mandate—questionsinvolving Cilicia, Alexandretta, and the Mosul district—was not finally settleduntil the Treaty of Lausanne was concluded in July 1923. Cilicia and(eventually) Alexandretta went to the new Republic of Turkey; the Mosul districtwas added to the British Mandate in Iraq; and France received a Mandate for thearea now comprising present-day Syria and Lebanon, i.e., geographical Syriaminus Palestine and Jordan. The war had lasted from 1914 to 1918, the peaceprocess from 1918 to 1923. It had taken longer to settle the war than to fight it.

THE MANDATE PERIOD

Only during the two decades preceding the First World War had the Frenchmade it the cardinal point of their policy to gain and hold a position in theLevant. A number of factors contributed to their success in that endeavor. France


had its traditional ties to the Porte and especially to the Christians of Lebanon; itprojected a considerable cultural influence to the area. French diplomacy hadalso been consistently reliable in supporting the British-led balance of power inthat crucially strategic region, and the French were competitors but with cautionand restraint. France was a factor, of course, in the European balance of power, anecessary weight against the German challenge. On the other hand, France couldcontribute almost no military capability to the war effort in the Middle East;Britain possessed most of the power-in-being. It is likely that the French wouldnot have received anything more than Lebanon in the settlement had it not beenfor an additional resource at their disposal. French capitalists had built andowned a large portion of the social infrastructure in Syria. France was materiallyon the scene.

France was able to make its business and financial interests in Syria its toppriority because, at this time, the Young Turks were continually short of fundsand could easily be pressured into concessions by those with capital. After theturn of the century, Germany became a competitor, having 60 percent of thecontrolling interest in the Anatolian-Baghdad railroad compared to only 30percent for France. Italian commercial ventures and presence in Libya (takenfrom the Turks in 1912) also gave the French cause for alarm. After 1910, anearly hysterical climate developed in Paris around the question of losing inSyria. Expecting the Empire soon to fall apart, various leaders and publicistswaged a passionate campaign to persuade the Quai d’Orsay to consolidate thosecommercial links which would give French capitalism a preponderance in theLevant.

Control of railroads was the cutting issue. France did not want competition onthe line linking Damascus to the Baghdad railroad; the French worked to preventthe Germans and Turks from building a line from Alexandretta to Aleppo. Butthe French were anxious to extend their own Syrian rail links; a line to Lyddaand on to Egypt was planned. Those favoring more involvement in Syria arguedthat control of the railroad network would bolster France’s case for the Syrianproperty should it eventually fall into the hands of Europe. At the height of thehysteria (1909–10), French tactics with the Turks verged on blackmail, but inearly 1914 the Quai d’Orsay did conclude an agreement that was advantageousto both sides. In return for a loan of 800 million francs, the Porte conceded toFrance nearly every demand it had made concerning railroads and commercialguarantees in the Levant. French capitalists would be allowed to construct 1,790kilometers of new railroad and to administer the Damascus-Dera‛a portion of thelucrative Hejaz line. According to William Shorrock, “As a result of the Franco-Turk accord, …an economic sphere of influence was delineated for France inSyria. And this fact was recognized by both Germany and Turkey.”9 In theBritish Foreign Office, Louis Mallet commented to the effect that Turkishindependence in Syria was vanishing before the advance of French financierswhile, in the House of Commons, Sir Mark Sykes declared that the concessionwhich France had extracted from Turkey “must, whether the financiers desire it


or not, pave the way to annexation.”10 Since the British were involved in similartactics in the Persian Gulf, there seems to have been an unwritten understandingbetween themselves and the French that palpable interests in the Arab part of theOttoman Empire would dictate its division should the Turks fail. As for theFrench, they had made their loan and received the concessions just in time forthe war.

Six weeks after the battle at Maysalūn Pass and the entrance of the French intoDamascus, General Gouraud, the new High Commissioner, proclaimed a(provisional) statute governing the Mandate and dividing up its territory. Syriawas initially cut up into five “states” through which the “two state” solution theFrench had decided upon could be implemented. After 1924, the Aleppo andDamascus units were combined and became the state of Syria that, with thestates of Greater Lebanon, of the Alawis, and of the Druze (Jabal al-Duruz),constituted the whole of the Syrian Mandate. Except for the Alawis, theMaronites, and a major faction of the Druze (perhaps 20 percent of thepopulation), these divisions were vehemently opposed by the local populace inSyria. While a Federal Council to coordinate policies among the states wasestablished by Gouraud, both Greater Lebanon and the Druze state weresignificantly excluded. France was keeping its promises to the Patriarch toseparate Lebanon from Damascus. This was the “two state” solution.

When General Allenby turned over the main responsibility for administeringthe West Zone to the French in 1919, Lebanon was beginning to recover fromthe deprivations of the First World War. During the preceding two years, whenthe Sharifian administration was still operating in Damascus, the Britishappointed Colonel de Piepape to manage the West Zone, part of which includedthe Sanjaks of Beirut and Mount Lebanon. Acting for the High Commissioner,Georges Picot, who could not take up his post immediately, was RobertCoulondre. Early on, while Faisal’s Sharifian government remained inDamascus, Beirut was the headquarters for the French operation in Syria.

The (Maronite) head of Lebanon’s Administrative Council, Habīb al-S‛ad, hadinitially tried to recognize Faisal but switched his support to the French when itbecame clear that the Sharifians would not last. Another local, Emile Eddé,returned on the ship that brought Coulondre and began his career as an intrepidnationalist by having a falling out with the acting Commissioner. Eddé hadplayed a major role in making the Maronite case for a Lebanon separated fromSyria. He had worked closely with Robert Coulondre and Georges Picot on the“project” but discovered that the Quai d’Orsay was not anxious to move as quicklyon independence for the Lebanese as Eddé had hoped. The French were, in fact,planning for an extended period of tutelege for the people of Syria, and althoughtheir Christian clients in Lebanon would, no doubt, learn quickly, they wouldstill have to take the full course.

In 1919, of course, no one knew exactly how the French would choose togovern Syria and, more to the point, what kind of Lebanon they would create.While it was clear that there would be a separate Lebanon, it was not clear what


size it would be or what peoples would be residing in it, a question of bothnumbers and religious affiliation. The Mutasarrifs, during the previous period,had continually sought to enlarge their jurisdiction. At a minimum, they wantedto add Beirut and the Biqā to their domain. In 1919, however, the Biqā wasattached to OETA East; it might well not be included in the “new” Lebanon.France then faced the same problem that has always been a dilemma for theLebanese. Lebanon needed to be large enough to be economically viable but smallenough to make political sense. To make a credible case for a separate Christianjurisdiction, France needed to include in it only those areas where Christianslived. Yet, to draw borders around the Christians and create a viable state was asdifficult in 1919 as it is now.

To the diplomats in 1919, the demographic figures for this “proto-Lebanon”were significant. At the Peace Conference, the British offered a populationsurvey of the Ottoman Empire based on adjustments (from an American sourceof some obscurity) of the Turkish census of 1914.11 The relevant figures are forthe Sanjaks of Beirut and (Mount) Lebanon, the latter being the formerMutasarrifate. The 850,000 persons counted in these two jurisdictions, includedtogether, adds up to about two-thirds of the population which inhabited GreaterLebanon at that time. There were approximately 310,000 persons counted in theBeirut Sanjak and 540,000 in that of Mount Lebanon. According to these figures,Muslims were about 42 percent of the population in the Beirut Sanjak, 17percent of Mount Lebanon, and 26 percent of the two taken together. Thesefigures were bitterly contested by the various sides at the Paris Peace Conference;they were, after all, ammunition for those trying to make a case for theirown view of self-determination. The documented undercounting of non-Muslimsin the Ottoman 1914 census might well have resulted in overcompensating themin 1919. Whatever the case might have been, the additions to these two Sanjaksthat the French made in creating Greater Lebanon, areas mainly to the east andnorth, were inhabited mostly by Muslims. Thus, by 1932, the date of the first andlast census held in Lebanon, Muslims comprised about 46 percent of the total whilethe Maronite community, so insistent on having a separate state, made up nomore than 30 percent of the country’s population. Since that time, of course,when Christians may have comprised 54 percent of Lebanon’s population,demographic surveys have shown that Muslims now outnumber Christians inLebanon by a two-to-one margin, with the Shi’ites as the largest single sect.

THE MANDATE SYSTEM

Greater Lebanon was established and separated from the rest of Syria in 1920,but the final frontiers of the Mandate were not determined until after theLausanne Conference in 1923. Even then, due to American complaints, theproject was unfinished; and the French had to tie up some loose ends in 1924.The difficulties for the Mandatory Power at this time did not come from the Arabnationalists or remnants of the Sharifian forces—nor even, for the most part, from


separatist communities. The problems were, in fact, with the Turks who, after thearmistice expired, fought French occupation forces in the north. The Syria thatFrance eventually controlled was south of the Baghdad railroad and, after 1937,excluded the district of Alexandretta.

Once their status was finally formalized, the French made an impressivecommitment to their project in Syria. In contrast to the small staff the Britishmade use of in Iraq, the French installed a pervasive officialdom in Syria.Heading all of it was the High Commissioner in Beirut who was responsible tothe Ministry of Foreign Affairs for administering all the Mandated territoriesincluding semi-autonomous Lebanon. He acted for the Syrian and Lebanesejurisdictions in foreign affairs, and his staff exercised wide-ranging powers(along with native authorities) to initiate, supervise, and veto decisions madelocally. Each “state” had its own governor with councils, bureaux, courts, andstaff, all of which had French personnel attached to them. The whole machineryof French control established for all of Syria, including Lebanon, was duplicatedat each regional level. It was clear that French élan was behind this grand effortto civilize the Levant. The Crusaders had returned.

In Lebanon, where the High Commissioner was always close at hand, thecountry experienced a succession of four French Governors: Georges Trabaud(1920–23), M.Privat-Aubouard (1923–4), General Vandenberg (1924–5), andLeon Cayla (1925–6). Between the High Commissioner and the Governor was aSecretary General in charge of designing and imple menting the French strategyof political and economic development for the Mandate. The man who, morethan anyone else, drew up the program of reform that the French hoped wouldmodernize Syria was Robert De Caix, Gouraud’s choice as the first SecretaryGeneral. From 1919 to 1923, he put through his ideas of organization which “laidthe foundations of a new Lebanese administration”12 and enlisted the talents of anew class of native Lebanese, mostly Christian, who had recently graduated fromthe Protestant and Roman Catholic missionary schools. Due to the efforts of DeCaix, the first two High Commissioners, Gouraud and Weygand, not onlydeveloped a Lebanese civil service but also established a new electoral law, anew currency, new laws regulating land tenure, and a reorganized police andlocal militia. The Secretary General placed great hopes on the eventual creationof a federation of states through which the particularism of the Lebanese, Alawi,and Druze could be squared with the general Levantine reality that had grown upover the years of Ottoman rule and that had partly been put together by theconstruction of roads and railroads. For the grand design to work, the Frenchneeded to be able to shape appropriate institutions for specific regional needswithout undermining the integrity of the Mandatory’s mission as a whole.

Inevitably, however, advancement for Lebanon meant inattention to someother area or for Syria as a whole. The audience of various Syrian nationalists; ofthe several Druze factions; of Orthodox, Sunni, and Alawi partisans in Latakia; ofthe many communities in Lebanon; and of other divisions in the Jezīra regionwould, with ever watchful eyes, be looking at the differentials and making the


invidious comparisons. It was not simply that there were conflicts of interestbetween the generalists and particularists in Syria but that each of the particularcommunities was itself divided. There was a developmental need for a federationbut no political basis for it. France could supply the federative cement but notwithout behaving like the ruler of a unitary state.

The intense and pervasive tutelege by the French in Syria resulted inwidespread civil strife, the most destructive of which was the Druze revolt in1925 that quickly spread to the rest of the country and lasted for two years.13

Indigenous nationalists, in and out of the country and in and out of prison,attempted to expand the various sectors of rebellion into an all out struggle togain independence. At different times, the Hawrān region, Damascus and itssuburbs, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo were sites of bitter and protracted fightingthat resulted in several military setbacks for the French and a great deal ofsuffering for the native populace. The initial rebellion in the Druze area alsospread to southern Lebanon for a brief period; rebels controlled the Biqā onseveral occasions; and the strife periodically spread to Tripoli and the Akkār inthe far north. Additional outbreaks took place along the frontier region borderingTurkey, over an obese, and eventually hanged, prophet in the Alawi District, andover Kurdish separatist demands in the Jezīra district. Civil strife onceagain became widespread in 1936, when the Quai d’Orsay refused to ratify theSyrian Constitution as well as in 1938–9 when France was negotiating thecession of Alexandretta to Turkey. The rebels were signally unsuccessful incoordinating their activities, and at no time did the strife occupy the Mandate asa whole. In most areas, even during the worst times of violence, administrativemeasures were carried out in a normal fashion. This struggle in its many phasesnever completely abated and served to cripple France’s mission civilisatrice. Ofthe many advances in Syria which must be credited to the French, few of these werepolitical. Although vast improvements were made in the administrativeapparatus, stubbornness on the question of national self-determination made itimpossible for the Mandatory power to leave Syria with any comparableadvances in the conduct of politics.

CONSTITUTIONALISM IN LEBANON

Because the Uniates (Maronite, Greek, and Armenian Catholics) in Lebanon hadtraditionally been clients of France, its tutelary apparatus had more success inmoving the country toward constitutionalism than in the rest of Syria. TheFrench Mandatory authority faced much less resistence in Lebanon than in therest of Syria and could find more collaborators. Not that the French authorities,by any stretch of the imagination, were home free. Conflict did erupt from timeto time but only became serious during the Second World War period of theMandate, when anger and obstructionism finally sent the French packing.

In 1918, an attempt to resettle Armenian refugees resulted in an outbreak ofviolence among the Muslims in Beirut. In 1923, fighting broke out between the


Druze and Christians in the Shūf, resulting in many casualties and requiringgovernment intervention. A special court was set up to punish the offenders,whose traditional intercommunal feuds were not acceptable to the new (French)administration. Beirut, of course, was the scene of riots over various issuesinvolving the French, e.g., in praise of Kemal Attaturk’s success at forcingFrance out of Cilicia, in rallying to the Arab cause during periods of the 1925–7civil strife in Syria, in rioting over an influx of refugees, in plans to settleArmenians and Assyrians in Lebanon, or merely in political protest overunpopular actions taken by the Mandatory that were at odds with local demands.In 1924, a notorious bandit chief, Mulhim Qāsim, led a series of raids in the Biqāwhich forced the French to send troops. Further rebellion broke out in the upperBiqā during the nationalist uprising in Syria; Ba‛albek was under rebel control forseveral weeks in 1925, as was the Akkār region. Even Tripoli was occupied briefly.

The most serious extension into Lebanon of the Arab uprising occurred insouthern Lebanon, most notably at Wadi al-Taym on the western slopes of MountHermon. Druze from the Hawrān, led by the anti-French faction of the Atrashclan, came to rouse their Druze cohorts to join the struggle. They were able tooccupy Hāsbayya and, on the other side of the Valley, Marjayoun, as well asseveral nearby Christian villages. An attempt was made on the Shi‛ite center ofNabatīya, not far from Beaufort Castle and, most importantly, on the Christiantown of Rāshayya. Had this town fallen, the Druze from the Hawrān and theShūf might well have combined to take the rest of the Biqā, much to thediscomfort of the French. A gallant resistence on their part, however, relieved thelocal garrison at Rāshayya; the Druze were turned away, and south Lebanon waskept out of rebel hands. It was not until the next spring (1926), though, that twoFrench columns, one from Qunaytra and the other from Marjayoun, were able toclear out all the dissident forces. Proclamations by radical, expatriatenationalists, at this time, also hurt the independence movement. Minoritycommunities, such as the Greek Orthodox, the Shi‛ite Muslims, and some of theDruze factions, initially cooperative in the struggle against the Mandatorypower, began to have second thoughts as some nationalists seemed to identify aunified Syria with its majority Sunni community. Control by Frenchadministrators was aggravating, but it did protect the smaller communities frombeing pressed into the service of a Sunni state.

From the rebellion of 1925–7 came one benefit, the start of a constitutionalprocess in the Mandate which, while inconclusive for Syria, did result in aconstitution for Lebanon. In early 1926, Henri de Jouvenal was sent to Beirut asHigh Commissioner, replacing General Serail, whose inept and rigid policies haddone much to expand and prolong the hostilities. He immediately gavepermission to the Representative Council to act as a Constituent Assembly anddraft a constitution, which would be subject to restrictions that protected theMandatory’s privileges. Though these were not minor—rights to control foreignrelations, to veto important legislation, to dissolve parliament, and to arbitratedisputes between Syrian states—the Lebanese drafters, fearing the tumult


happening in the rest of Syria, had little trouble in improvising a documentacceptable to the French. De Jouvenal, a liberal who was also determined toprotect French interests, did not hesitate to suppress resistance to the Council’swork from all quarters. Petitions were organized by the Unionists, whofulminated against separation, while others, like the Patriarch, demanded asmaller, more homogenous Lebanon, less subject to French control. After manyweeks of discussion and consultation with the High Commissioner’s office, a draftwas accepted, and Lebanon, on May 24, 1926, was proclaimed a ConstitutionalRepublic. The Constitution provided for an appointed Senate, an electedChamber of Deputies (the old Representative Council), and a new President,Charles Dabbās, a Greek Orthodox. Auguste Adīb Pasha, a Maronite of repute,was asked to head the first of many cabinets that were to follow during the nextfew years. The Lebanese had been launched into modern times with a documentthat remains the formal constitution of the country today.

The French had gingerly put one toe in the water to see how politicaldevelopment in Lebanon might work. They tried to cover themselves even morein the draft constitution for Syria (of 1928), but its provisions attracted so littlesupport that nothing much came of it. On the other hand, in Lebanon, the Frenchhad given its peoples some Western-style rights and institutions; but, as amultitude of critics pointed out, France had not gone very far toward granting thecountry real independence. One might say that the Constitution of 1926 providedthe political machinery for the Lebanese to govern themselves according toFrench preferences. It would not have worked except that, for many Lebanese,the alternatives were far more dangerous—a smaller Lebanon difficult to defendor a Lebanon dominated by Syrian Arabs.

Even so, these initial, conditional steps toward constitutional forms onlybarely worked; the election of a President during a joint session of bothlegislative houses proved cumbersome. Moreover, the excessive division ofprimary institutions for such a small country gave people too many opportunitiesto manipulate its politics. Some of the complications were dealt with byamending the Constitution. An initial amendment, in 1927, abolished theappointed Senate; a second amendment, in 1929, extended the President’s termfrom three years to six years but made it non-renewable. President Dabbās,however, whose first term came by appointment, was elected to a second term.

A word should be said about the leading exponent of Lebaneseconstitutionalism at this time, Michael Shihā, the major force behind theCouncil’s 1926 draft. As an ardent “Lebanonist” and (Roman) Catholic, Shihābelieved in the necessity of the larger Lebanon that the French had established.But he had also witnessed politics in action among the Lebanese and felt hiscountry could survive only if ways were found to control the traditional conflictamong the sects. To maintain themselves, he thought the Lebanese would find itnecessary to use traditional means, most of which would operate on an informal,non-institutional basis. In other words, the Lebanese would have to use traditionto defend against force. The only imprescriptible duty of the country’s citizens was


loyalty to a separate, historical Lebanon. The essence of Shihā‛s approach, writesKamal Salibi, was that a Lebanese constitution should not “lay down hard andfast principles for cooperation between the various confessions, but…leave thetraditional process of give-and-take to operate spontaneously.”14 One can hardlyimagine a more “Levantine” enunciation of constitutional principles, aconception that assumes, even if unconsciously, the permanent presence of aMother Protector. Without her, the process of spontaneous “give-and-take” inLebanon, if put to the test, would surely engage no inconsiderable amount ofordnance.

Of course, Shihā‛s constitutional ideas went beyond the notions of informalismand spontaneity suggested by the above passage. He called for an equitablerepresentation of the various sects in Lebanon’s public institutions, but neitherfixed the exact proportion of government positions to be given out to the sectsnor reserved specific offices for them. Bringing about “equitable representation”would result from the “give-and-take” of politics conducted through various“unwritten agreements” as circumstances warranted. In this vein, it should berecalled that Lebanon’s first President was Greek Orthodox, a community notunfriendly to the nationalist cause; the first few Prime Ministers were Maronites,unlike the situation in later years when this office was reserved to the Sunnis;and the most prominent Sunni officeholder in the early years, SheikhMuhammad al-Jisr, made a serious bid to be elected President. In fact, in 1932,when the rivalry between the two Maronite hopefuls, Emile Eddé and Bishāra al-Khūri, produced a stand-off, Eddé supported the al-Jisr candidacy as a means ofprovoking a crisis. He was so successful in this effort that the French feltcompelled to suspend the Constitution and dissolve the Assembly. Later, in 1935,after the French had restored some legislative powers to the politicians, even aProtestant, Ayyub Thābit, held a high office. He was named Secretary of State(the second most important post) in a government led by Emile Eddé.

Thus, in the early constitutional years, some precedents were establishedwhich, if they had been maintained, might have helped the country avoid theworst evils of confessionalism. Shihā, of course, accepted confessionalism as afact of Lebanese life, realizing that the people would never trust a government inwhich they had no means of protecting themselves as communities. But he alsorealized, as some of his compatriots did not, that the communities would have toshare power. It was his conception that by refusing to assign portions of powerand specific offices to the confessions, Lebanese politicians would possessgreater flexibility in arranging the shares. Unfortunately, there were other morepernicious precedents that accompanied those mentioned above. The excessivemaneuvering among the Maronite and Greek Orthodox politicians for thepresidency, rivalries that were personal and entirely devoid of considerations ofpublic policy, soon forced Lebanon’s politics into the confessional mold. Eddéand al-Khūri, for example, would huff and puff, not to win the race, but to blowthe house down. There was plenty of “spontaneity,” as Shihā intended, but alsomore “take” than “give.” In fact, the French, during these years, were the


constitution of Lebanon, and they were not unhappy to play divide-and-rulewhile the Lebanese played musical chairs. Shihā’s concepts of “consociationaldemocracy” might have worked, but Lebanon’s confessionalism did not.15

During the period of non-constitutional government between 1932 and 1937,the French allowed the Lebanese to return to normal public life in stages. TheHigh Commissioner, Henri Ponsot, once again chose Dabbās to head a caretakergovernment made up of persons who were known more as administrators than aspoliticians. The French upgraded the office of Secretary of State, making it thekey conduit through which they temporarily administered Lebanon. Under closesupervision from the Mandatory, this office was held by members of severalsects, both Christian and Muslim. Ponsot also supervised the election of a newChamber of Deputies with twenty-five members, including seven directlyappointed by the High Commissioner. French rule through Lebanese techniciansduring this period brought many benefits, appreciated more by ordinary citizens,perhaps, than by the politicians. Under Damien de Martel, who had beenappointed High Commissioner in 1933, the Mandatory authority, withoutconsulting the Chamber, offered the Lebanese a new civil code, replacing that ofthe Ottomans still in force at the time. New rules of administrative conduct werepromulgated and enforced, and corruption was noticeably reduced. The office ofPresident, which at times during this period had been left vacant, was put up forelection by the recently reconstituted Chamber. This attempt, by de Martel, togradually move the country back to constitutionalism led to the election of EmileEddé by one vote; his rival, Bishāra al-Khūri, went into opposition. None of theministries that the weak Eddé was able to form could govern, so the Frenchcontinued to rule while making plans for a new stage in Lebanon’s constitutionaldevelopment.

In late 1935, the Quai d’Orsay made plans to conclude draft treaties with itstwo states in the Mandate, Syria and Lebanon. These involved new constitutionaldocuments for both countries, a full return to parliamentary government, andspecial rights and privileges for France. The concept devised by the ForeignOffice was modeled on the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930 through which (in 1932)Iraq became independent and gained membership in the League of Nations. Thetreaties encountered energetic opposition in France but were given an unexpectedboost by the election of Leon Blum’s liberal government in 1936. The draftswere agreed to, signatures obtained, and preparations made to grant a limitedform of independence to Syria and Lebanon. Although neither of the treaties wasever finally ratified by France, the Draft Treaty for Lebanon did go into effect inthat country and provided it with the essential constitutional structure thatgoverned the independent Republic after 1943.

Under the Treaty, Lebanon was to be sovereign, separate, and closely tied tothe French. Though not formally in control of the country, France would have aspecial status in the “Alliance” and would reserve for itself all the usualprivileges—supervision of the armed forces, the currency, and litigationinvolving foreigners. The French Ambassador was to take precedence over all


other diplomats, and the two countries were pledged to close cooperation inforeign affairs. Pending final ratification by France (which never happened) theFrench High Commissioner would have remained at his post with his powersunchanged.

Although the spirit of 1926 was still in effect, several structural changes wereinstituted at this time that left their indelible mark on the later Republic.

By far the most important of these was an agreement between the HighCommissioner and President Eddé that each of the Lebanese sects was to have fairrepresentation in the government. Annexed to the Treaty, this agreementamounted to strict confessionalism in practice. In 1932, Muslims had called for acensus of Greater Lebanon, thinking that it would lend substance to SheikhMuhammad al-Jisr’s candidacy for President. It was al-Jisr’s view, based onextrapolations of the last Ottoman census, that a new count would reveal aMuslim majority in the larger Lebanon that the French had created. Because theOttomans had seriously undercounted the non-Muslims in 1914, the Sheikh’sextrapolations proved to be mistaken. On the other hand, the size of the Muslimcommunity, which the 1932 census revealed, frightened many Christianseparatists.16 It also worried the French. Therefore, the agreement between deMartel (representing the French) and Eddé (representing the Christianseparatists) satisfied both parties. Its provisions were annexed to the Treaty andimposed on the Lebanese because both France and the Maronites wanted tocodify a separate Christian state in the Middle East. Unfortunately, Shihā‛s “give-and-take” on the part of the establishment had not brought coherence to thesystem but confessionalism. Once enshrined in the constitution of anindependent state, the structures of confessionalism would make it difficult forthe country to remain independent. Why should the Muslim majority (in Syria)want a confessional system? Thus, confessionalism would only protectChristians from a Muslim majority as long as help from the outside wasavailable. Keeping it available would mean dependence.

In July 1937, the High Commissioner issued a decree establishing a newChamber to consist of sixty deputies, two-thirds elected, the other thirdappointed, all on a proportional basis according to the 1932 census figures foreach sect. To strengthen the office, the French also extended the President’s termto six years. In September, Emile Eddé was again named to hold that position. Anew factor was a change in political orientation of some Muslim politicians. Inthe minority, relative to the al-Khūri faction, President Eddé asked a SunniMuslim, Khayr al-Din al-Ahdāb to form a cabinet. This Sunni Prime Minister seta precedent that was to become an unwritten rule for the future, namely, that aMaronite Christian as President of Lebanon would be balanced by having a SunniMuslim as head of government. The approach to confessionalism employed atthis time was later extended to all six of the major sects; an important cabinetpost had to be held in reserve for each of them.17

This broadening of the political base coincided with a broadening ofnationalist sentiment. Al-Ahdāb had been an ardent unionist, and by deciding to


join a government under the presidency of the foremost Maronite Christianseparatist, Emile Eddé, he signaled a change in orientation that was occurringamong several Sunni Muslim notables, e.g., Abdullah al-Yāfi, Khalid Shihāb,and (eventually) the al-Sulh brothers of Sidon, Riyād, Sami, and Taqi al-Din.18

They had begun to think of themselves as Lebanese, to identify with the fortunesof the country as a separate state. Their new spirit of cooperation came at anopportune time. Civil strife intensified in 1936 and 1937 because of announcedplans for the draft treaties as preparation for the independence of, not one, buttwo states. Tripoli was the hotbed of resistance, but violence and strikes eruptedthroughout the Muslim areas of Lebanon. Nationalists were incensed that thefinal result of French tutelege would be a Syria without Alexandretta orLebanon, a truncated Syria without natural outlets to the Mediterranean Sea. Byformalizing a separate client state, the French had made sure they could alwayskeep one foot in the door; their Christian clients would still need them.Independence might come, but the French would not have to leave.

WAR CLOUDS

During the last few years of renewed (but unratified) constitutional life, protestdied down as war loomed again in Europe. Lebanese politicians gained somepractical experience in parliamentary government, and while maneuveringamong personal cliques continued, the results were less disruptive. Several newtrends developed as political life under a better code of procedures and with lesscorruption made it possible to conduct almost normal administrative activities.

Political parties of various types had begun to appear soon after 1926,operating sometimes, but not always, within a Lebanese frame of reference.Some of these parties, such as the Constitutional Bloc of Bishāra al-Khūri andthe National Bloc of Emile Eddé, were simply personal political organizationscommitted to supporting the perennial candidates who founded them. Others,however, attempted to gain a broader appeal, whether on purely national issuesor those of an ideological character. Reacting to the strong-arm tactics employedby some of the Muslim bands who opposed the separation of Lebanon fromSyria, Pierre Gemayel (Jumayyil), a Maronite druggist from Bikfayyā, foundedthe Katā‛ib (Phalangist) Party. One of its purposes was to discipline andrejuvenate Christian youth and develop a sense of solidarity among the Lebanese.Wanting to rebuild the national character after a millennium of dormancy, theKatā'ib adopted some of the trappings of fascism which were fashionable at thetime. The Sunni Najjāda organization appeared soon after to counter Christiansolidarity with Muslim solidarity. The Lebanese Communist Party emergedduring this period as did the Syrian National Party of Antoun Sa’ada, with itsPan-Syrian doctrines. Kamal Jumblat (Janbalāt), the French-educated Druzechief, organized his Progressive Socialists, a part personal, part ideologicalparty. In addition, Lebanon played host to a number of small, store-frontorganizations, usually ephemeral and often linked to outside interests. Moreover,


many Lebanese, both Muslim and Christian, belonged to the Arab nationalist,unionist groups that were struggling both for independence and the retention ofLebanon as part of Syria. As ineffective as most of these organizations were,they did stimulate more people to engage in the political process than had everbeen involved before. The parties served to mobilize the Lebanese, assistingtheir efforts to seize independence when the opportunity came.

Other trends were developing; as, in Salibi’s words, “a new Lebanon emergedinto being.”19 Only the dead weight of its primordialism could stop it. One trendthat emerged after 1937 is especially instructive; its cultivation today might helprescue Lebanon from its present difficulties. This was the tentative, but partlysuccessful, effort by major notables to broaden their political bases in order to holdoffice, especially those of President and Prime Minister. The reward forabandoning strict confessionalism in one’s political appeal might be to winpublic office. Bishāra al-Khūri was more successful in formulating his programin this spirit than was his rival, Emile Eddé. The latter had attached himself soclosely to French indulgence on behalf of the Christian separatists that onceFrance had left, Eddé’s career was finished. In contrast, al-Khūri linked anumber of organizations across sectarian lines to mobilize support against theFrench in 1943. The electoral process worked best, in the later Republic, whenslates had to be devised that required voters to elect persons not of their own sectin order to be represented in the Assembly. Michael Shihā, whose daughter hadmarried Bishāra al-Khūri, continued, as a journalist, to promote the idea that thesects of Lebanon had to share power. Candidate al-Khūri attempted to develop this“constitutional” point, hoping to attract support from among Muslims as well asChristians.

France had promised the Lebanese independence and League membership bythe end of 1939. By May of that year, it was clear that Paris would not honor itspromise; too many politicians favoring French grandeur opposed such a move;and too much danger lurked nearby to make it safe. Military bases were beingreinforced throughout the Middle East, and the Lebanese were compelled torecognize that they were, once again, caught in the clutches of world events. TheHigh Commissioner, M. Paux, found it necessary to declare a state of emergencyin July 1939; in September, he suspended the Lebanese Constitution. No one, ofcourse, expected the rapid collapse of France in 1940. M.Paux was soon forcedto leave for France, and eventually the office was placed in the hands of GeneralHenri Dentz, previously an intelligence officer under General Serail and, oneassumes, partly responsible for the stupidity of French policies at the time.Stephen Hemsley Longrigg describes Dentz as an “uninspired but respectedAlsatian…a loyal Vichy follower and conscientious defeatist. His tenure ofoffice was destined to be uniformly unfortunate.”20

In 1940, economic conditions were harsh, and the Lebanese were terriblyapprehensive, fearing a return of the famine of 1915–16 and wondering whatwould happen to them this time. Germany had descended on Greece, andRommel’s Africa Corps campaigned against the British in North Africa. The


Italians possessed Libya, and Marshal Pétain’s collaborationist regime controlledSyria. The British, of course, had a military presence both in Iraq and Palestine.Some Syrians hoped that the Germans would become their liberators, and it waspopular to support them, especially during the first years of the war when theNazi machine seemed to crash through all the barriers before it. Others, however,were not anxious for a German triumph, believing that it would be easier to getindependence from a defeated France than a victorious Germany. ExperiencedLevantines, having little choice in the matter, decided to adopt a wait-and-seeattitude. Politicians in Lebanon ran in circles until the French, and later theBritish, imposed military restrictions on their activities.

What did happen was, perhaps, the least expected of all the rumoredpossibilities. In “independent” Iraq, Rashid Ali al-Gaylāni pulled a coup andattempted to move over to the German side. Connected to this event wereGerman demands that Marshal Pétain’s Syria be made available fortransshipment of military supplies, especially aircraft, to assist their new friendsin Iraq. Once Rashid Ali’s intentions were clear, the British attacked the Iraqisfrom their Habbanīyah base not far from Baghdad and put an end to the pro-German regime. As this episode was unfolding, however, and after much stallingon the part of the Vichy government, the Germans did finally get permission tomove some aircraft and munitions to bases in Syria, a threat which the British didnot take lightly. Once the tank battles against Rommel in North Africa had begunto turn in Britain’s favor, it was able to give attention to the possible pincercoming toward the Canal Zone from German bases in Syria. Thus, the Britishopened a campaign against the mixed French forces of General Dentz in Syria.21

The attack, launched from both Palestine and Iraq in June 1941, had to overcomean unexpectedly stubborn resistance from the Mandate’s (Vichy) forces andlasted for a little more than a year.

The difficulty of the British (and Free French) operation in Syria was due tothe Pétain decision that to save France from Hitler he would have to abide by theGerman-French armistice agreements. General Dentz remained strictly faithful tothat decision. Since General de Gaulle’s Free French Army was also involved inthe British invasion, it was believed that Dentz could be persuaded to changesides. General Catroux, formerly a governor in Indochina and a more seniorofficer, had left Pétain and gone over to de Gaulle. General Dentz, however,refused to consider this option, insisting that loyalty to France requiredobedience to those in command. He did not, however, make use of all theassistance that the Germans had offered, i.e., Stuka bombers against the attackingcolumns. The political hazards of doing so were obvious; saving Syria from theBritish might require handing it over to Hitler. Also at issue for the Vichygovernment were the Empire’s possessions in North Africa. The Germans hadwarned Pétain that if his soldiers in Syria opened the doors of the country to theBritish, Hitler would retaliate by taking Algeria and Morocco from France.General Dentz ended up by serving neither master very well. Briefly interned bythe British, he was eventually imprisoned in France where he died in 1945.


For the Lebanese, Dentz had been merely another colonial overlord. For theAllies he had stood in the way of their sealing up the porous underside ofEurasia. The Middle East, of course, became crucial in the war effort. Hitler hadattacked Stalin and, in so doing, provided the Allies with a way to defeat him. Bygiving Stalin supplies, Soviet soldiers could be used to destroy the Germanarmy. The Americans and British established the Middle East Supply Center anddeveloped a massive logistical network and supply “train” through the MiddleEast that routed goods from the coast of Syria, into Mesopotamia, throughPersia, and on to sustain the Soviet army along the Eastern Front. The people inthe area were employed in producing, warehousing, repairing, and shipping warmatériel. By 1942, they had been fully mobilized to help defeat the Axis.

Although military activity was the main event in Syria and Lebanon during thewar, politics did not remain at a standstill. Beirut was closed down by martial lawand nighttime curfews, but Damascus was left open. Most of the Francophilenatives sympathized with the Free French and, therefore, opposed the Vichyadministrators. Corruption and the black market, along with the hardships ofwar, provided everyone with plenty to complain about. In addition, there werethe quislings whom the French collaborationists employed to keep control. InLebanon, such was Emile Eddé, whose longtime commitment to France alwaysmade him useful. Strikes and violent protest in Lebanon forced Eddé out, and hewas replaced for a time by Alfred Naccache and finally by direct rule. Unrest inSyria was even worse, a continuation of the rebellion against French rule and athreat to the Allied war effort.

To receive as favorable a domestic reception as possible and, thus, aid the wareffort, the British insisted that a promise of independence for the peoples of Syriaand Lebanon be issued on the day that the invasion began. The wording of theproclamation (which led to later disputes) was a subject of negotiation betweenthe British and the Free French, one which had to strike a balance between themilitary situation in Syria and the political situation with General de Gaulle. Hewas not only difficult to deal with but, at times, had difficulty distinguishinghimself from his country. Countries are notoriously inflexible negotiators.

General Catroux, commander of the Free French forces on the scene, provedto have a reasonable view of the Syrian situation and, on receiving generalinstructions from de Gaulle, agreed with General Wilson, his British counterpart,on the following:

In the name of Free France,… I come to put an end to the Mandate and toproclaim you free and independent. You will therefore be… sovereign andindependent peoples…. Your independent and soverereign status will beguaranteed by a treaty in which our mutual relations will be defined. Thetreaty will be negotiated as soon as possible between your representativesand myself…a great hour in your history has struck: France declares youindependent by the voice of her sons who are fighting for the life and forthe liberty of the world.22


This proclamation was to be the source of much misunderstanding between theBritish and the French long after the campaign had ended in victory for theAllies. General de Gaulle insisted that the promise had been contingent onsubsequent negotiations in which the traditional interests of France had to betaken into consideration. On the other hand, his own delegate, General Catroux,had signed a proclamation that was printed on leaflets and dropped from aircraftonto the Syrians and Lebanese. What de Gaulle saw as a British scheme to easeFrance out of the Middle East was, in fact, a clear and unequivocal declaration ofindependence for the peoples of the Mandate. The year was 1941, and Britainhad not signed an armistice with Germany. The British military situation wasperilous; its resources stretched to the breaking point. Nor, by the spring of thatyear, had either the attack on the Soviet Union or the attack on Pearl Harboroccurred. Britain needed to wrap up the campaign quickly, not preserve Frenchgrandeur.

Moreover, the British were the main force in the invasion and occupation. Forthat reason, General Spears, forced to deal with de Gaulle on this issue, insistedon an adherence to the promise of independence. His compromise was to allowthe Free French to take over the administration of Syria and Lebanon muchsooner than had been planned. The Vichy forces of General Dentz (along withother personnel of the Mandate) were allowed to choose between joining theFree French or being repatriated to France. About two-thirds chose to go home.This allowance, agreed to by the terms of the surrender, so infuriated de Gaullethat he commanded his staff to exercise the full authority of France in theMandate as if no proclamation of independence had been made. He simply claimedthat any new status for Syria and Lebanon was subject to future negotiations forthe treaty he had called for. It was one thing to promise independence andanother to call for negotiations. The General’s purported “intentions” soundedlike a repeat of those voiced in 1936 when independence had been promised butnot delivered. The people of Syria and Lebanon had heard this before.

INDEPENDENCE

On the assumption that independence would be granted, British commandingofficer General Spears suggested a return to constitutional life in the Mandate, tobe followed, as soon as possible, by elections. The French gave grudgingagreement to this policy, and the political scramble was on. In Lebanon,President Naccache resigned, and France installed a caretaker cabinet toadminister the changeover. Much to the dismay of the British, the Frenchadvisors supervised the political process and election with the intensity of prewardays; a multitude of advisors watched every step that the locals took. Theprovisional ministry, under Ayyub Thābit, then attempted to enfranchise all theLebanese living abroad who had not yet adopted citizenship in the countrieswhere they resided, a move meant to ensure a French Lebanon. The British,meanwhile, were actively trying to encourage the Lebanese to resist such tactics


by the Mandatory personnel. General Spears openly called for elections,resulting in de facto independence for Lebanon.

Once Thābit was removed, the seats between Christians and Muslims wereredivided (thirty to twenty-five respectively); and, after very energeticcampaigning, elections were held. These were remarkably free and uncontrolled;moreover, while Emile Eddé’s supporters of the French won handily in theMaronite strongholds, Bishāra al-Khūri’s candidates won sizable majoritieseverywhere else. The newly elected Chamber met in September 1943, elected al-Khūri as the country’s President and Riyād al-Sulh as the Prime Minister. Thisgovernment, as well as the new one elected in Syria, presented identical notes tothe French Delegate General, M. Helleu, requesting changes in the constitutionthat would, in a word, confer independence on the two countries and transformthe French presence into what would be appropriate for an embassy. TheMaronite President and the Sunni Prime Minister declared that they were electedto lead the government of an independent and sovereign state, the Republic ofLebanon.23

Yet, there was never a single date during this period when Lebanon becameindependent, just as today the country is not fully independent. Independencefrom France came then, as it will again come (from Syria), through a protractedseries of events which galvanized the Lebanese against a common adversary.Having the protection of an additional outsider, Great Britain, also helped bringabout Lebanon’s moment of solidarity, a time when a variety of leaders workedtogether to make the most of the wartime opportunity. Moreover, as MichelShihā had hoped, all the sects shared in it.

On November 9, 1943, Jean Helleu returned from a consultation with deGaulle in Algiers and made it clear that the government’s request forindependence was premature; it would not likely take place until many years hadpassed. French responsibilities had not been fully rendered; more tutelege wasneeded. Lebanese response to Helleu’s announcement was clear andunequivocal. The Chamber voted the appropriate constitutional amendments indefiance of the French, and the vote was unanimous. The Delegate General thendecided to round up the leaders of the government and reimpose French control.On the 11th, he had them summarily rousted from their beds in the middle of thenight and carted off over the Mountain to the prison at Rāshayya. Again, theresponse was clear and unequivocal. A general strike paralyzed the country, andthe organized resistance was nearly unanimous. The Christian Katā‛ib and theMuslim Najjāda cooperated in leading the opposition to the French action. Twomembers of the cabinet, Habīb Abu Shahlā and Majīd Arslān, escaped to themountain village of Bshamūn and set up a temporary government. The patheticEmile Eddé, put in power by the Delegate General, governed no one. The actionby the Lebanese, backed by the British, completely isolated the French. At theurging of Britain and the United States, General Catroux was sent back to Beirutand given authority to resolve the crisis immediately. Within five days of hisarrival, Catroux had replaced the pre-emptory M.Helleu and given orders for the


release of President al-Khūri and his colleagues. The government immediatelyresumed its duties, and the Mandate, for all practical purposes, had ended. Onceagain, Lebanon had exerted itself for independence.

But the French had not entirely given up trying to maintain a special presencein Syria and Lebanon. There was still the possibility of gaining a preferentialstatus by means of the projected “treaties.” In May 1945, only a few days afterthe end of the war, a detachment of the Troupes Spéciales landed in Beirut toreinforce the French military forces still stationed in the Levant (as part of thewar effort). Syria and Lebanon again rose in protest, seeing the French action asan attempt to force unfavorable terms on them in the treaties soon to benegotiated. The British intervened, and the issue was put before the UnitedNations General Assembly at its first meeting in London. Although no formalresolution was ever passed, the debates indicated that nearly all the membersopposed France on this question. Isolated once again, the French were forced torelent. By April 1946, French troops had left Syria, and on August 31, 1946, thelast soldiers of the Mandatory left Beirut for Marseilles. France was finally gone,and Lebanon was free to make its own mistakes. In this, her politicians showedno hesitation.

By what measure do we judge the French Mandate in Lebanon? What were itssuccesses and its failures? Do we judge it a failure because Lebanon, at themoment, is broken and adrift? Or could we not argue that Lebanon’s presentdifficulties demonstrate the truth of the French assertion that its supervision wasstill needed long after it was compelled to leave. It could be argued, perhaps, thatit was because of the French approach to its development that Lebanon was notready for independence—that instead of trying to teach the country to walk, Francehad, too often, walked for it.

The grand project of the French was confronted by too many ambiguities toallow us much of an answer to these questions. Perhaps “antinomies” is the moreaccurate term. France was continually forced to adjust its interests to those of thehost population, to square Greater Lebanon with Mount Lebanon, unionistSyrians with separatist Lebanese, and military requirements with politicalrealities. It ended its stay in the Levant having left a tremendous imprint butwithout completing its mission. The French, with the help of the local population,were able to change things more than ways (though they changed both). No doubt,France was more successful in shaping Lebanese society than it was in shapingthat of the Syrians, e.g., nothing comparable to the confessional system createdby the French for Lebanon lived on in Syria. Yet, it may have, in the process,created an impossible political jurisdiction. In the long run, the processes ofsocial transformation begun by France, whether in schooling or banking, may bemore decisive than those that produced the political dramas. If so, then Francemay well have improved Lebanon’s prospects at becoming a modern state.

More than anything else, however, France may have simply tried to do toomuch, attempted too great a transformation. One principle of modern secularism,and the politics it makes possible, is that how we do what we do takes


precedence over what we do. This principle insists on the priority of means overends, of the instrumental over the substantive. The French, in Syria andLebanon, were consumed with the results that their grand project was to deliver.They spent huge sums of money and expended enormous talent and effort increating structures from which these results would emerge. They would create anew Syria and Lebanon in the French mold. But how? By molding them intomodern systems, of course. “But how?” is something that the people would haveto learn. It was the “how” of doing that the French were afraid to let happen.Doing, on the part of the Lebanese and Syrians, would surely have meantpracticing their own politics, their own business, their own regional relations. Itwould have led inevitably to the exodus of the Mandatory and her loss of power.As Machiavelli might well have pointed out, for France (in 1918) to come topower in Lebanon by way of the British meant that it was likely at a later time(1941) to leave in the same way.


4The independent Republic: 1943–1958

THE FRENCH LEGACY

As surveyed above, Lebanon’s independence from France came over a period oftime and through a series of troublesome events. From the Allied proclamationof June 1941, the arrest and release of the government in November 1943, andthe protracted diplomacy that rid the country of French forces in 1946, theLebanese demonstrated surprising talents in pressing their case before the world.They demonstrated both a degree of tenacity and an ability to finesse their waythrough the many problems they encountered. According to Walter L.Browne,Lebanon’s success in achieving independence “was a political miracle.”1 Yet inthe wonderful acts of winning independence—the strikes and protests, theintercommunal solidarity, the careful diplomacy—the effort to determine whatwas to be independent and how it was to be organized was lost. It was easier tooppose the French than to establish Lebanon.

There were several reasons why the Lebanese were able to postpone doinganything serious about the latter problem, i.e., facing up to their own(indigenous) dilemmas. The Wilsonian project, which the League had adopted,assumed that the Mandatory would prepare the people of the Mandate for self-government. In fact, the French could never quite bring themselves to decide onsuch a course; the grandeur of the Empire was too crucial for them. For thisreason, they had designed the systems in Syria and Lebanon to facilitate theirrule, not to assist their wards toward self-government. Greater Lebanon was toolarge to serve the Lebanese Christians, but it was just the right size to serve theinterests of the French in keeping their clients divided and weak.2 The electorallaw, as a corollary to the constitution of 1926, was designed by the French toserve in a similar fashion, i.e., to pit the Lebanese against each other so that theHigh Commissioner could act as an arbitor. Parliament was not created as anational institution to foster patriotism among the Lebanese. According toLowell Pinkerton, American Consul General, the French, along with somefrancophile Lebanese, were hoping “that this country and Syria might one day beintegrated into metropolitan France, as is Algeria, with direct representation [forthe peoples of Syria and Lebanon] in the French Chamber of Deputies.”3 Thus,

when the Constitution was amended by the al-Khūri regime in 1943, essentiallyall that was done was to remove the governmental mechanism France hadcreated from French hands and place it in the hands of the Lebanese. The colonialapparatus was in native hands, but it was still a colonial apparatus.

While the French had conceded some electoral, parliamentary, and executivepowers to the Lebanese during the Mandate period, these were only partial; and,as was the case with the Administrative Council of the Mutasarrifate, the outsidepower could always have the final say. Thus, in 1943, when Bishāra al-Khūri andhis Chamber took office, the fifty-five deputies possessed necessary butinsufficient legislative powers, and the President could virtually rule but withouta fully developed army and police force to enforce his authority. The FrenchTroupes Spéciales had been withdrawn before the Lebanese system had becomestrong enough to establish an adequate replacement. How would the Frenchsystem work without the French?

The answer was, “Only with great difficulty.” Indeed, modernist idealismcombined with traditional “feudal” politics to get things done, while a system ofpatronage was used to fill in for the absence of the Troupes Spéciales. Bishāra al-Khūri, by being especially adept at governing through patronage, set theprecedent. He conducted his programs and exerted his authority, such as it was,more through rewarding his supporters than by enforcing the law. As politicaltheorists have shown, it is much more expensive to reward for compliance thanto punish for non-compliance.4 Governing through patronage rather thanpunishment turned out to be politically expensive for Lebanon’s fledglingofficeholders.

Thus, with British assistance, the Lebanese had removed the French andinherited the facade of a democratic republic. Many students of Lebanon wouldbe wondering whether the partial amounts of freedom and democracy which thecountry had received would serve as a self-correcting process, ultimately leadingto a modern political system. Books incorporating such phrases as “improbablenation” and “precarious republic” testify to the scepticism which many scholarshave evinced toward the Lebanese question over the years.5 In the 1990s,journalists, writing about Yugoslavia, sometimes referred to the “Lebanization”of the Balkans. Was this term employed to symbolize an extreme form of“Balkanization,” or has Lebanon become the new paradigm for insolubledivision?6 The verdict on the French legacy is still out.

THE CONSTITUTION

A brief comment on the Lebanese “Constitution” may be helpful at this time.More than most countries, the Republic has made use of a partly written andpartly unwritten constitution. But we must distinguish between use of aconstitution and adherence to constitutionalism. Because a genuine commitmentto the latter has not yet developed in Lebanon, it is, perhaps, accurate to say thatthe country did make remarkable progress in establishing a “government of laws

76 THE INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC: 1943–1958

not men” but has ultimately fallen short of this ideal. During the best days of theRepublic, the “Constitution” has been formalistic and in dire need of change; inits worst days, it has been inoperative.

The essentials of the Lebanese Constitution, providing for the electoral system,the legislative and executive structures, and the organization of the courts andbureaucracy, was adopted from the document devised by the French Mandatorypower in 1926. A side-agreement to the constitutional program, agreed to atFrench insistence, was that all the religious sects be given fair and equitablerepresentation in the legislature. Adherence to this agreement resulted inLebanon’s characteristic confessionalism which, before the Ta‛if Agreement andSyrian occupation, allowed Christians six representatives in the Chamber forevery five that the Muslims had. Thus, the total number of members in thelegislative branch had to be a number divisible by eleven, and, before the Ta’ifAccord (1989), the Lebanese had convened houses of 55, 77, 44, 66, and 99members.

Another important element of the Constitution is the National Pact, (al-mithāqal-watāni), which represents both a political deal and an attempt to explainLebanon’s separation from Syria. In a speech by the veteran Sunni politician,Riyād al-Sulh, and given explicit acceptance by such Christian leaders as Bishāraal-Khūri and Henri Far‛ūn (Pharaon), the basic concepts of the Pact were firstmade public. The agreement, in short, was that Lebanon would be independentas a country but Arab in its foreign policy. The Muslims would agree to acceptthe separation of the country from Syria while the Christians would agree toallow the government to cooperate with the other Arab states in regional affairs.This meant that the Christians would have to let go of France and the Muslims,Syria. In addition, after much arduous diplomatic work by Henri Far‛ūn,Lebanon would become a founding member of the new association ofindependent Arab states, the Arab League. One additional, unwritten provision,stemming from Lebanon’s past confessionalism, also became part of theConstitution. According to this “informal” provision, each of the six major sects,the Maronites, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Sunnis, Shi‛ites, and Druze hadto be appropriately represented in the top echelons of government. Traditionally,this was further broken down to reserve the presidency for the Maronites, theoffice of Prime Minister for the Sunnis, and the office of Speaker of theChamber for the Shi‛ites. Sectarian qualifications have partly stuck to otheroffices as well. The army’s chief commanding officer has always been aMaronite; the Minister of Justice has often been a Greek Orthodox; and a Druzehas often headed the Defense Ministry. Administrative posts were also allottedaccording to sectarian proportions, leading inevitably to a bureaucracy burdenedwith superfluous personnel pro-rated among the sects. France intended thatLebanon’s Constitution should protect each of the separate communities fromany majority that might emerge. Constitutionally, the Lebanese were to bemaintained as a thoroughly segmented society.

THE INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC: 1943–1958 77

Although the Lebanese were never able to break through the eggshell that theFrench had left them in, they were able to peck away at it. In fact, they had ridthemselves of a cumbersome upper house even before independence was won in1943. Other amendments changed the number of electoral districts from five totwenty-six, the membership of the Chamber from fifty-five to (eventually)ninety-nine (before the Syrian occupation), and the country’s currency from theFrench franc to the Lebanese pound. The old system of mixed courts wasabolished, women were gradually enfranchised, and, in 1969, the Lebanese evenintroduced the “secret” ballot.

Many informal changes occurred as well, some quite positive, others just asnegative. On the positive side can be counted the good record the Lebanesecompiled in the area of monetary stability and economic growth. The Lebanesepound was a strong currency; Beirut was an entrepôt, a tourist center; it was aculturally open city; and Ras Beirut was a place of liberalism in an otherwisemore rigid and dogmatic Middle East. On the negative side was the almostunbelievable extent to which clientalism made a mockery of the electoral processand the functions of the legislature. Lebanon’s facade of a democratic republic wasused as a means for various members of the old clans and families to competewith one another for elite status. Instead of stimulating genuine politicaldevelopment, this competition (in Lebanon’s oligarchic society where holdingoffice meant so much) only made it easier for the elite to enlist the generalpopulace in its acquisition of more wealth and power. The overall effect of thecountry’s electoral feudalism was a politically impotent professional class alongwith a widened gap between rich and poor. Lebanon was developing but notquite quickly enough to keep afloat in the stormy Middle East.

THE FRENCH LEAVE

What Browne calls the “miracle” of Lebanese independence occurred under veryunusual circumstances. Promised independence in 1941, the peoples of Syria andLebanon (along with the British), pressured the French to make good their word.Paris reluctantly allowed “national” elections to be held, hoping they wouldresult in the election of Emile Eddé and a closeness to the Mandatory that wouldnot require any major changes in the French-Lebanese relationship.

Unfortunately for Paris, Bishāra al-Khūri organized his campaign on adifferent basis from what the French had expected from a Maronite. Born in thesouth central (mixed) district of the Jurd, al-Khūri was prepared to play politicsin the Greater Lebanon that France had created, to view Lebanon as bothChristian and Muslim. With colleagues from several sects, he was willing to seeksupport from all the communities. The Constitution required that all the sectsmust share in the responsibilities and benefits of nationhood and, in Shihā‛swords, balance the powers held by the several communities of the new state.With British support, al-Khūri made independence from France the essential issueand, in a competitive but manipulated election, put himself in position to be the


only person the Chamber could choose to be President. Chosen by the deputieson September 21, 1943, al-Khūri informed the the High Commissioner a monthlater of his government’s intention to amend the Constitution and effectivelyeliminate French prerogatives. Even in the face of General de Gaulle’sopposition, the Chamber met on November 8 and unanimously passed therequisite amendments transferring full powers to the al-Khūri government.

After the French, on November 11, suspended the Constitution and imprisonedthe President (and other Lebanese officials), al-Khūri’s politics began to work. Hehad made contacts throughout the country, and wellorganized strikes and protestserupted immediately. Katā‛ib forces assembled in Beirut to protest; were fired onby the French; and Pierre Gemeyel was arrested. According to the AmericanConsul, George Wadsworth, French forces also fired on a crowd at the AmericanUniversity of Beirut. Muslim women removed their veils at protest gatherings inBeirut and Sidon. Support for independence almost seemed unanimous; theSunnis, Shi’ites, and Greeks, even the Patriarch, called for the release of theprisoners and restoration of the government. General Spears, Commander of theBritish Ninth Army, broke off relations with the local French officials and on the14th hinted at military intervention. American diplomats in Beirut also gaveassurances that Lebanese independence would be recognized by their government.The governments of the Allied Powers couched their protests to the Free Frenchin Algiers in terms of the war effort; nothing must interfere with getting local,especially Arab Muslim, cooperation in winning the war. A few days later,British Minister of State, Casey, issued an ultimatum to the Free French inAlgiers (their wartime capital) to release the captive officials and restore theamended constitution.

Finally, the British, wanting to shift troops from the Levant to Europe, decidedthat they were about to inherit a messy military commitment. On November 17,they made known their intention to declare martial law within five days. Catrouxfinally arrived, took over, and released the government from imprisonment. Atfirst, only Bishāra al-Khūri was freed, but the British insisted that the Frenchrelease all of the prisoners, not as private persons but as officeholders. OnNovember 22, 1943, later declared Lebanon’s independence day, President al-Khūri was released and carried to parliament on the shoulders of the crowd.“Long live Sheikh Bishāra,” they shouted; “Down with Eddé!”

With the help of French foolishness and British determination to get on withthe war, the Lebanese, with six dead and forty wounded, gained theirindependence, taking charge of government functions on January 1, 1944. TheFrench in Algiers, though badly divided, had by no means given up, appointing adelegate general rather than an ambassador to the new state. In March 1944, acombination of Lebanese francophiles, clerics, some elements of the Phalange,and holdover Fascists from the Vichy administration were rumored to be ready topull a coup that would require French intervention so as to maintain order andprotect the war effort. Even one of their own, General Catroux, was supposedlytargeted for assassination. On April 27, as Joseph Karam was preparing to enter


parliament after winning a by-election, dissidents staged an incident where aFrench aviator was shot dead while a Maronite priest shot three local gendarmesin an apparent attempt to assassinate the Prime Minister (Riyād al-Sulh) and theother Muslims in the cabinet. Was this simply some “hotheads” acting on theirown, as the French claimed, or was it an attempt to foster Christian-Muslim striferequiring military intervention? The answer to this question has never beenentirely clear. De Gaulle’s Committee in Algeria was divided on Syria, andperhaps some French officials tried to use Lebanese dissidents to radicalize thesituation and bring France back to Lebanon.

De Gaulle, in Algiers and later in Paris, made additional attempts to forcematters toward a favorable position for France in Lebanon. He kept the TroupesSpéciales on the scene ready to join sympathetic Lebanese in an émeute(uprising) if the situation presented itself. More shiploads of troops were sent toBeirut, replacing some of those already stationed there and giving rise to freneticsuspicions that there would be a net increase in the total after each exchange. TheFrench also talked as if their “responsibilities” would not end until a treaty hadgiven them the guarantees they required. On a few occasions, French militarypersonnel (with sufficient cause) arrested local Lebanese without the governmentbeing able to intercede. Therefore, until international pressures finally resulted innegotiations that led to the withdrawal of the Troupes Spéciales (in 1946), the al-Khūri government had to begin its independence under adverse conditions. Itwas forced to take its first steps in self-government not knowing how long it wouldbe able to govern and, like all Lebanese governments, not sure what it governed.

DILEMMAS AT THE BEGINNING

Only three months had passed when, in May 1944, the cabinet of the fifty-five-member Chamber of Deputies offered its resignation. Though it was asked tostay, the problems it faced are instructive and symptomatic of things to come.These problems fall into three general categories. First were the French, whocontinued to act, as much as possible, as if they were still in power. Second wasthe patronage system that the President had used to achieve so much solidarity inso short a time. And third were the often uncontrollable local situations, endemicto Lebanon’s highland culture, on which the Lebanese government waspowerless to act. These abrasions could, of course, be stimulated by thepermanent undercurrent of religious strife in the society, but they also couldinvolve nothing more than traditional feuds between clans. One such brouhaha inthe north erupted at this time and illustrates how all three categories of problemsinterconnect.

The government had information that some personnel from the French SûretéGénéral had taken part in the March coup attempt. Since France still had a muchgreater force available to it than Lebanon could put in the field, the al-Khūrigovernment could not arrest those individuals bent on overthrowing it. Only theBritish Ninth Army could have forced the Troupes Spéciales (technically a


Lebanese force) to comply with Lebanese wishes, but to have done so wouldhave risked an international incident and hurt the Allied war effort. Lackingmilitary force, Riyād al-Sulh attempted the inevitable political substitute for it,patronage. Several by-elections, in both Mount Lebanon and north Lebanon,were scheduled for that spring, and the President sent his Muslim Prime Ministerout to these regions to try to influence the results. This gambit not only backfiredbut reverberated with even more incidents of discord in the mountains and valleysof Lebanon. On April 19, a shootout between the partisans of Zghartā and thoseof Bisharri took place in Tripoli, resulting in one dead and eight wounded,mostly bystanders. One month later, after the Zghartāites had moved to theirsummer homes in Ihden (a few miles below Bisharri), a pitched battle broke outbetween the two towns on the Jabal Mar Elias ridge which separates them. Withthe government unable to intervene, they ended up “turning the mountain ridgeinto an oriental battlefield in the best traditions of medieval Syria.”7 But this was1944, and both sides had carbines and a few machine guns. Even so, casualtieswere light (also in the medieval tradition), one dead from Zghartā and three fromBisharri. Sheikh Maurice Mu‛awad, of Zghartā‛s most powerful family, was theone killed from the Ihden side; and, unfortunately, his body was quitedisrespectfully mutilated. The feud would be continued.

This incident, begun with the French, ended with them, too. The InteriorMinister, Camille Chamoun, could not restore order and was forced to askFrance to do so with their Troupes Spéciales. While the French were able to stopthe Zghartā-Bisharri skirmishes in quick order, the real dilemma was notresolved. The new state desperately needed more police and better weapons. TheFrench would only sell the British Enfields they had on hand at five times thecost of their manufacture, obviously wanting to keep the Lebanese poorly armedand dependent on France. The al-Khūri government naturally preferred to buythe Enfields directly from Britain. General Spears then asked the United States,whose lend-lease enabled the British to arm the French, to allow him to sell theweapons to the Lebanese government. Agreement was reached and, once again,the French had been outmaneuvered. Yet, the colonial power was still on thescene and with troops.

Amid the usual charges of corruption and fraud, the al-Sulh government fellon July 1, 1944. George Wadsworth, American Consul at the time, seemed tothink that, rather than corruption, the real reason for this collapse, and manysimilar ones, was the Lebanese preference for the French mode of briefgovernment so that as many deputies as possible “may have their turn at aportfolio.”8 In the off-and-on periods of parliamentary activity up to that time(1926–44), only one cabinet had lasted longer than a year; this one had alreadygone nine months, two over the seven-month average. The Supply Minister andthe Minister of the Interior were competing mightily for supporters. President al-Khūri replaced his Supply Minister (Osseiran) with two new notables and sentthe Interior Minister, Chamoun, off to London as ambassador to Britain. For the


Prime Minister, the government had fallen; for the President, it was just a cabinetshake-up.

POLITICS AND THE SYSTEM

The national puzzle that Bishāra al-Khūri pieced together gave him a power baseof notables. These entered the Chamber and, when possible, headed the variousministries. The aura of having held office in the past plus the hope of doing so inthe future, added up to a great number of “proto-positions” for a patronagepolitician to distribute. Both the President, Bishāra al-Khūri, and his everavailable Prime Minister, Riyād al-Sulh, were without rivals in the art ofLevantine patronage. In examining al-Khūri’s modus operandi, it may be helpfulto review what the French bequeathed to the Lebanese in the way ofgovernmental machinery along with the politics that emerged from it.

As already mentioned, the Chamber was given the power to choose thePresident but not as a function of popular electoral preference. Lebanon’sconfessionalism and segmented society only sent independents and blocs toparliament, and these did not go to the public with identifiable national policies.Their concerns were zero-sum, and no single community could take a chance onpolicies having an overall impact on the country. The President, afterconsultation with leading members of the Assembly, chose his cabinet. Thecabinet was not able to act independently of the President. Together they coulddissolve the Assembly and often did. The Assembly, in theory, had the power toforce the cabinet to resign but could seldom put together the necessary coalitionof party groups and factions to do so. Once selected, the President could not beremoved from office by a vote in the Chamber, a constitutional feature thatcaused the Republic much grief throughout its history. The system was what theFrench, in 1926, wanted it to be, a part parliamentary, part dictatorial form ofgovernment.

There was, of course, an electoral basis for choosing the Assembly, but it hadneither a national nor a policy orientation. Therefore, the Lebanese did notdirectly choose their government; they could only play a role in a competitiveexercise that maintained a pluralistic and differentiated elite. Such a role was notunimportant, but a direct election for the chief of state might have forcedpoliticians to represent the whole country rather than some combination of itspieces. The members of the Assembly, in turn, did not come together to makepolicy but to choose policymakers. It was the President, with his cabinet, whoruled. When the President presided over the cabinet, it acted as a Council ofMinisters (majlis al-wuzarā‘), but when the Prime Minister chaired, it was aMinisterial Council (majlis wizāri‘). In the first case, highest policy concernswere taken up; in the second, only routine matters. While it is true that allpluralistic elites and cabinet-type governments behave in similar fashion, in theLebanese experience the weights almost entirely favored the power of thePresident at the expense of those who had to go before the voters to gain office.


The result was a kind of bureaucratic politics instead of the genuine legislativeactivity that characterizes representative government. The people of Lebanonwere unable to organize their politics in such a way as to gain control of thePresident because he was constitutionally placed so that he could manipulate theofficials around him and use the divisions of the country to suit his politicalneeds.

While the President was elected to a six-year term (not to immediately succeedhimself), deputies were chosen for four years. Between 1943 and 1964, Lebanonhad three Presidents and thirty-five cabinets. The average life of a cabinet wasseven months, the same during that twenty-year period as it had been under thetwo decades of French control. Not counting the chaotic situation of the 1980s,two-and-a-half years represents the longest life of a cabinet. That one, headed byRashid Karāmi, served under Fu‛ād Shihāb, a President who was placed in thatoffice as much by the American government as by the Lebanese electorate.Although Lebanon had thirty-five cabinets over this period, only a dozen Sunnisever contended seriously for the position of Prime Minister. Between 1943 and1980, appointments to this office went to members of just four families, the al-Sulhs, Salāms, Karāmis, and Yāfis, for forty of the fifty-three times it wasavailable. On sixteen occasions, a member of the al-Sulh family was named PrimeMinister; the Karāmis have held this office eleven times; Abdullah Yāfi, nine;and Sa’ib Salām, six.

The machinery of the government, in combination with kinship and communalties, resulted in other anomalies. Perhaps only two dozen or so families haveactually held power in Lebanon. Many of those represented in the first Chamber(1943)—the Arslāns, Jumblāts, Franjiehs, al-As‛ads, Eddés, Hamādahs,Karāmis, and Salāms—were also represented in the last (fully independent) one(1980). Membership in the Assembly tended to be kept in the family; often sons—once even a daughter -have succeeded the deceased.9 Da‛ūd Pasha, the firstMutasarrif, began the practice of installing the old feudal amirs into positions ofthe new state. Lebanon’s “electoral feudalism” (before 1980) was partly due tothe precedent he set. Bishāra al-Khūri testifies in his Memoires that certainpositions came to be considered waqf (mortmain) belonging to given families,e.g., House Speakership for Sabri Hamādah, the Defense Ministry for MajidArslān, and that of Foreign Affairs for the Taqlās.10

Much has been written about those who have inherited the old feudalprivileges in Lebanon, the za‛īm notables.11 There has been some disagreementon the part of scholars as to whether the zu‛āma should be seen merely asmodern-day feudal lords or as transitional figures in a developing democracy.Theorists of political development have sometimes used Lebanon as an exampleof “consociational democracy” and have emphasized the democratic features ofits “transitional” politics.12 Though this term is linked more closely to thecountry’s communalism and, in particular, its confessional system, it also takesthe zu‛āma into consideration as subnational leaders within the “consociational”system, i.e. as local leaders within Lebanon’s pluralistic society. Other students


of Middle East politics, including this writer, have been less optimistic aboutdemocratic development in Lebanon.13 Emphasis on the traditional elements ofits transitional politics suggests, perhaps, the term “electoral feudalism” as moreappropriate to the Lebanese case. To the degree that the traditional bosses havecontrolled the electoral process, feudalism has been the essential pattern. Whereelections have been genuinely competitive, allowing non-elite persons to holdpower, democracy has begun to take hold. Data on voting, representation, andelite membership have shown conflicting tendencies—a country which hadbegun to practice electoral democracy while still in the grip of its traditionalleaders, yet a country not quite able to achieve that ”critical mass” of popularcontrol to manage without them.

The zu‛āma fall roughly into three categories: “traditional,” e.g., the Arslāns,Jumblāts, al-As‛ads, and Hamādahs; “political,” e.g., the Eddés, al-Khūris, al-Sulhs, and Karāmis; and “militant,” e.g., organizers of the Phalange, Najjāda,Communists, and Syrian National Party and, recently, of the Amal, Hizbollah,and Lebanese Forces. These categories are not overly distant from those offeredby Samir Khalaf where he suggested three types: “feudal,” “administrative,” and“urban.”14 Although these persons, and their organizations, do not all fit a rigidpattern, they do share similar characteristics. The leader controls the organizationbelow him, often armed, and uses it to maintain his political position. Thisinvolves distributing patronage, direct governmental services, and payments forvotes. Power is marketed. With a few exceptions, the organization attempts tocontrol the political process only in his electoral district and does notoffer programs meant to appeal beyond the confines of his confessional ororganizational community. The za‛īm’s political approach is geared to thesegmented society in which he operates. His activities recapitulate the oft-mentioned “mosaic” that people discover in Lebanon.

When the Lebanese went to the polls, they chose persons to represent them inan institution that was more like an electoral college than a legislature. Becauseballoting could decide the major question of power only on the one occasionwhen it elected the President, this vote was very much worth trying to control or,if necessary, purchase. And, to be sure, the Lebanese found a way to controlvotes in the Chamber. In deciding important questions, such as the election of thePresident or Speaker of the House, the balloting

is conducted in such a manner as to confirm promises and concessionsmade outside the Parliament. In casting their votes, for example, Deputiesresort to the ingenious but devious practice known as “election keys” bywhich they enter the name of their candidate in a specific prearrangedmanner to confirm their predetermined commitments.15

In other words, a given person or group would refuse to support a candidateunless he was able to prove that his “secret” ballot was cast as promised. In aparliament managed through a strong party system, such a practice would


customarily be carried out by “whips” able to threaten loss of party support forany member prepared to defect. Because power is at stake and the process mustbe institutionalized, control of such votes is out in the open for all to see. Butloss of party support is not a threat in Lebanon, where blocs and coalitions comeand go according to the lists that politicians put together for local, rather thannational, balloting. So democracy in this instance is somewhat topsy-turvy. Thevotes in the Chamber, which are meant to be protected, lose their protection sothat those who control the votes can be protected. Secrecy in the Chamber isbetrayed so that those who control it can remain secret.

Michael Shihā and his candidate, Bishāra al-Khūri, were often quite concernedwith the political amoralism of the Lebanese. The President often complainedthat “holding office was everything” for the Lebanese; they thought of nothingelse. In an address given in 1928, al-Khūri bitterly complained:

As for us, we differ from others in that we are negative blocs. Opinionsmeet today to destroy what is present but part tomorrow, and we know notwhy. The party with us is the child of opportunism and the victim ofaimlessness at a time when the country awaits a plan or program to uprootsome of our evils.16

The fragmentation of Lebanon was reflected in the fragmentation of theChamber which was reflected in the fragmentation of its cabinet. The Presidentand Prime Minister were the only officials with much freedom of action.Although the President was the more powerful of the two—he could changePrime Ministers at will—the Prime Minister was not without power. He was in aposition to interfere with the distributions of patronage needed by the Presidentand could thereby render the latter ineffective. Moreover, as the above remarksby al-Khūri suggest, blocs were created simply for electoral convenience and,specifically, for the power to put together a cabinet and distribute ministerialpositions. Henry Pharaon, for example, organized the “Independence Party” in1946 solely for the purpose of defeating a Riyād al-Sulh cabinet. The slatecobbled together resulted in a bloc that was so diverse in interests that it couldnot even choose a chairman. According to Elie Salem, when asked by Presidental-Khūri to form a cabinet, each of the Sunni notables “suggested himself for thePremiership.”17

POLITICS AND THE ECONOMY

As could be expected of a new state, much of Lebanon’s first years wereinvolved with maintaining and institutionalizing the new order. Holding officewas crucial for prominent families, for, although the country had a laissez fairesystem, those who operated the economy were forced to maintain close linkswith the politicians. It was, after all, a Levantine setting, and the governmentdecided, to some extent, who was to be free to engage in free enterprise. Much of


the political climate was dominated by concern with French intentions, with thequestion of Palestine, with corruption and possible reform, and with the everengaging personal intrigues of the politicians.

As for the French, the Lebanese demonstrated vociferously in May 1945,when shiploads of new Troupes arrived; there were strikes and protests in Beirutas well as small-scale violence in Damascus. Ironically, the protests weredirected as much against the British as the French. Many Lebanese had becomeconvinced that a repetition of the aftermath of the First World War was about tohappen, and they were demanding that the British force the French to send asmany soldiers out as they were bringing in, i.e., that these were, in fact, shiploadsof replacements not additional forces. The question of Palestine also threatenedto be very destabilizing to the new Republic as, of course, it has remained to thisday. For many Lebanese, especially Arab and Syrian nationalists, this issue wasa matter of greater concern to them than the politics going on in Beirut. Forthem, it was axiomatic that the area south of Lebanon, which the Britishcontrolled, should achieve its independence and be handed over to its Arabmajority.

In 1947, when the United Nations was about to make its historic decision (forthe partition of Palestine), passions were raised to the breaking point. Smallbombs were set off at the American Legation, at the AUB compound, and nearthe wall of the Serail in Beirut. Members of the government made speeches anddeclarations strongly supporting the Arab cause in Palestine and attempted tocoordinate its policy with its neighbors through the auspices of the Arab Leaguein Cairo. But no matter how often Henri Pharaon claimed that Lebanon, thoughindependent, was Arab, there were many in the country who believed that whenthe most difficult sacrifices had to be made, Beirut’s bankers and politicians wouldnot be in league with the Arabs. The emotions aroused over Jewish claims inPalestine and the actions that sovereign Lebanon would take opened up, onceagain, the question of the country’s legitimacy and of the loyalties of its peoples.And just beyond loomed the question of Lebanon’s unique status as a Christiancountry. Would Maronites in the upper reaches of the Qadīsha valley makesacrifices for the Muslims of Palestine? With their links to Europe, would theyeven remain neutral?

Unfortunately, questions about corruption and reform were even morecomplicated. Almost everything needed reforming, and almost everyone seemedcorrupt. Individuals defended the validity of Lebanon’s traditions and, at the sametime, demanded modernization. They could also be selective about traditions aswell as modernity, often preferring new things to new ways. Clayton Lane,Commercial Attaché for the Americans during the period when the Allied wareffort was being brought to a close, gives an interesting account of a discussionbetween himself and Sami al-Sulh, Prime Minister in December 1945.

The Prime Minister had earlier complained, only half seriously, that theAmericans were placing obstacles in the way of Lebanese development. Becauseof the war, and Lebanon’s role in the Middle East Supply Center, the money


supply had increased astronomically without a corresponding increase in goodsto buy. Prices had so skyrocketed that the ordinary laborer could hardly buybread. Al-Sulh had come to the Americans because he trusted them and did notbelieve they harbored political designs on his country. The Lebanese wereindividualists, and those who had money were likely to use it only for their ownbenefit. They were also good merchants and could get the economy going but forthe chronic shortages. Would the Americans provide food and materials that wouldbring down the food prices? The Attaché had earlier presented the PrimeMinister with a list of projects he thought would help Lebanese economicdevelopment and wanted to know who in the government might be interested.Lane thought dollars would eventually be available to help build an airport, anew port in Tripoli, etc. Sami Bey also had his own list of public projects, but hewas alone; no one would help him. If the government did not receive suppliessoon, he would be forced to turn to the French. Since the restrictions in questionhad been imposed by the British, Mr Lane thought it “not a strong expression ofLebanese independence” to turn to the French or ask the Americans to try to getLondon to change its policy. Although al-Sulh was interested in what the Attachéhad in mind regarding development, his immediate concern was with bringingdown prices. He then left a list of specific articles that the government needed atonce: steel pipes, iron bars, road rollers, motor trucks, etc., none of which wouldseem to bring down the price of bread in the short term. As he was leaving, Mr Lanepromised to do his best to help, and the Prime Minister expressed his profoundappreciation.18

What is instructive about this incident is revealed in an addendum to thedispatch where the above conversation is recorded.19 Labeled as “secret”information, the Attaché felt it necessary to inform the State Department of hismisgivings concerning the Prime Minister, al-Sulh’s, list. Considering theeagerness of the Americans at this time to engage in foreign aid programs,Lane’s candor is especially significant. In his dispatch, he writes:

This conversation left a great deal unsaid. For instance, I could not ask thePrime Minister what he was doing to avoid the transfer of import licensesin the black market at the much higher rates there for dollars, thus causinghigher prices for imported American articles. There is reason to suspectthat he may be a party to this practice. Certainly some of his officials are,if reliable informants are not greatly mistaken.20

Unfortunately, this was only the tip of the iceberg of the Attaché‛s misgivingsabout Sami Bey and his colleagues. He continues:

The Lebanese Supply Department is under the personal supervision of SamiBey Sulh as Minister of National Economy. This Department collects a 30percent special tax on imported goods (decree No. 1771 of June 22, 1945)in addition to customs duties and municipal dues amounting to some 30


percent The declared purpose of this tax is to cover the deficit of theSupply Department. At the end of 1944, it was officially disclosed that theSupply Department’s budget showed a deficit of some 9,000,000 Lebanesepounds, of which 3,000,000 had been embezzled. The Secretary-Generalof the Department at that time (Emir Jamil Chehab) proposed that a localfirm of British chartered accountants be asked to examine theDepartment’s books. This was not done, for the declared reason that theauditors’ fee of 20,000 pounds would be excessive. The matter wasdropped.21

Clayton Lane notes that Sami al-Sulh’s Department collects its 30 percent tax “inkind” and that an ample supply of imported goods of the sort collected as taxes isavailable at inflated prices on the black market. Supplies of cereal grains werealso available on the black market at a time when the Supply Department’swarehouses were “sealed” to take stock of inventory. Import permits weredistributed only to a select group of merchants enabling them to sell their goodsat monopoly prices. The Attaché was of the opinion that many import-controllaws were passed for the sole purpose of boosting prices. In addition, somemerchants refused to take possession of goods they had imported, leaving themin the government warehouses. They felt unable to pay the ruinous fees and taxesto a competitor in the market. Clayton Lane ends his “Comment” with a list ofthe merchant families whose connections to the government gave them aprivileged position. Including such names as al-Khūri and Beydoun, the list readslike a Who’s Who of the Lebanese establishment. Only the old aristocrat, JamilShihāb, was trying to implement institutional norms.

This case is worth treating at some length because it occurred at the end of theSecond World War when soldiers were leaving, money was everywhere, andpeople had to contend with shortages and high prices. The government had onlyrecently gotten its independence; its politics were uncertain; old hostilitiesabounded; and lots of people clamored for reform. An ambitious reform programwas put forward at this time by Hamīd Karāmi, a veteran Sunni politician fromTripoli. He had taken the trouble to organize others behind his effort, and hisbloc, which included Alfred Naccache (Naqqāsh), Kamal Jumblāt, and HenriPharaon, was prepared to challenge the President on it. These reforms called for:

1 appointing and promoting government functionaries on a merit basis,2 reforming the judicial system to remove it from the field of political

patronage,3 decentralizing the administrative authority with longer tenure for lower level

officials,4 changing the electoral law to make the Chamber of Deputies more

representative,5 defining the powers of the legislative and executive more clearly to prevent

no-confidence votes from occurring on minor issues.


Though vague, these proposals might have led to genuine structural change.They were seconded somewhat by a manifesto issued jointly by the MuslimNajjāda and Christian Phalange (March 1946) attacking the government for itsadministrative abuses and calling for action. A lawyers’ strike, demanding higherpay and judicial reforms, was in its second month. There were even those in theChamber who suggested that the Lebanese switch to a presidential system,arguing that the French-designed constitution had been devised for a Mandateand was not suitable for a sovereign, independent state. Why stick to a systemdesigned purposely not to work?

The answer to that question, of course, was that under such a system thePresident, like the French High Commissioner before him, could rule by default.On the other hand, it could be argued that Lebanon was new and small. Therewere numerous foes, both inside and outside the country, ready to ambush thegovernment. The Lebanese needed a strong centralized authority; they needed aPresident who could wield power. The state needed his executive control exceptwhere it might interfere with the economy (and corruption). In those areas, handsoff; Lebanon was to be a “merchant” state.

POLITICS AND CORRUPTION

Although besieged on all sides at the time (1946), Bishāra al-Khūri did makeassurances to the reformers that he would treat their proposals seriously. Hepointed out that much of the government elite was in Paris negotiating with theFrench on the final terms of the latter’s military withdrawal. The representativesneeded the unity of the country to back them up. The President’s request for adelay was credible: the “outside” was threatening. The reformers’ insistence thatthe delay be brief in duration was also credible: the “inside” was about to comeapart. But governments are notoriously reluctant to negotiate their own demise,and this one was no exception. Al-Khūri hung on until his negotiators came backfrom Paris with their prize, namely, French recognition of Lebanon’sindependence. The lawyers ended their strike; conditions improved; a few monthswent by without scheduling the promised meeting to consider reforms; and inJune, the Sami al-Sulh cabinet was replaced by an even weaker one headed bySa‛adi Munlā. This government was so weak, in fact, that it worked tolerablywell, i.e., the President governed much as the French had in the past.

While the reforms that were demanded resembled many of those proposedover the next several years, only a few were ever adopted. Some changes, ofcourse, did take place: the mixed courts were abolished in late 1946; theadministrative corps was streamlined and partially insulated from personalpetitions; and a major public works program, building an international airport,was in the planning stages (some of which verged on the fantastic as severallandowner politicians tried to find ways to have the runways built on theirproperty).22


Politicians continued to call for changes. Sabri Hamādah, in October 1946,called for abolishing the confessional system altogether. Kamal Jumblāt, whosepolitics often belied comprehension, submitted a detailed proposal in May 1947for revising the electoral law to secure the secret ballot and eliminate some of themeans available to bosses for controlling elections. His proposal also called forreducing the size of the electoral districts so that, instead of a few large ones,each the size of a province (muhafiz), Lebanese would vote in many small ones(cazas), each the size of a district. Like other reform programs, these ran afoul of“Lebanon’s predicament.” First was the fact that the persons threatened by thereforms would have to institute them. Second, Lebanon had no national means oforganizing for major reforms. Third, major reforms called into question the veryexistence of Greater Lebanon as a state. From the point of view of the elite, itwas preferable not to have a state in the full sense of the term but to get on withdoing business in the traditional way.

AL-KHŪRI’S SECOND TERM

The main business at hand for Bishāra al-Khūri in early 1947 was to prepare fornational elections. It was the opinion of the American Consul at this time thatthere was no measure which al-Khūri would refuse to take in order to stay inpower. Yet, the barriers to his doing so were formidable. Corruption was flagrantand intrusive; newspapers clamored for reforms; and opposition to his continuingin office was widespread. Moreover, to be given a second term would requireamending the Constitution, and his bloc did not have the votes to accomplish it.Both opposition to his power and others who wanted to acquire it would bring al-Khūri up short. On the other hand, the opposition, though massive, was itself badlydivided, and the President had more instruments at his disposal to encouragethese divisions than had the “madding crowd” for putting them together.

The general plan in the 1947 elections was to make sure that enoughgovernment supporters were returned to the Chamber to amend the Constitutionand allow the President to be chosen for a second term. Besides specificpatronage pledges to individual deputies, al-Khūri promised to expand themembership of the Chamber by twenty-two seats. This offered “listmakers” allkinds of possibilities. It was also his intention to placate several oppositiongroups with initiatives only the President could take, e.g., allowing the return ofseveral exiled politicians who could hardly be counted upon to bring stability tothe state. Wanting to reduce the political potential of his (Christian) rival in theShūf, Camille Chamoun, the government, in exchange for support from theSyrian National Party, allowed its charismatic founder, Antoun Sa’ada, to returnto Lebanon. His speeches soon inflamed most Lebanese, especially theMaronites in the north. Emile Eddé was also allowed to return from Paris, and heimmediately took over the leadership of the National Bloc, demanding that hiscompatriots rid the country of the “fool” in Beirut. Finally, the government allowedFawzi Qawūqjī, former leader of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, to return from


Germany (where he had collaborated with the Nazis) and take up residence in hishometown of Tripoli. During the procession that greeted Qawūqjī‛s return, ashootout erupted between two of the city’s factions (led by the Muqaddam andKarāmi clans), killing twenty and wounding many bystanders.23

Although the battle seems to have erupted over a traffic dispute, theunderlying causes were well understood by the al-Khūri regime. The arrival ofQawūqjī was as favorable to the Muqaddams as it was, in zero-sum terms,unfavorable to the Karāmis. The regime would get credit from Syriannationalists, the Patriarch’s mountain dwellers, and anti-Zionist Muslims for thereturn of these three exiles while they, in turn, brought further divisions to theLebanese. How could Chamoun, Gemayel, Jumblāt, and Eddé find a way tocombine against the President? In the past, each had collaborated at times withthe others, but, essentially, they were rivals and appealed to conflicting interests.It was not difficult, therefore, for the regime to impose single lists on much ofthe voting public; this was preferable to the battles that were bound to break outin Jezzīn, Zahleh, and Tripoli. To be sure, allowing Eddé to come back to hisMaronite political base was a substantial concession and allowed the latter tolead the fight against corruption. But corruption seemed more attractive to theLebanese than French control. Bringing back Eddé, who was associated withFrench colonialism, was the means by which the “fool” arranged his oppositionto suit him. Having all of these rivals at work in Lebanon, splintering thesplinters into splinters, was to the President’s advantage. What was the danger inrunning against persons who could not win?

Even with the government’s excessive interference, the elections in 1947 didmanage to elicit a great deal of political activity, most of it consumed in the pre-balloting process of establishing the electoral lists. Since many of these weredevised in the absence of opposition lists, determining who would be includedwas tantamount to deciding who would be elected. It had been hoped that agroup of “giants” would collaborate and, from their safe districts, organize asufficient number of opposition lists to give the regime a real contest. Atriumvirate of Gemayel, Chamoun, and Jumblāt did begin to emerge as apossible group of the “worthy and best” to lead the country out of corruption.They were unable, however, to organize any reformist Muslim partners and alsofound themselves at odds over Eddé‛s candidacy. As one Lebanese commentatorput it, “The triumvirate began gradually to realize that while they might be‘worthy and good/they were also difficult and intransigent.”24

The election for the Chamber of Deputies (which would pick the President)was held on June 3, 1947 and received unstinting denunciation for the amount offraud and manipulation employed by the regime in making sure that itscandidates won. The majority bloc of government supporters won by an averageof 80 percent, hardly allowing Middle East observers to classify the election astruly competitive.25 Riyād al-Sulh, having gotten himself on the al-As‛ad list atthe last minute, was named Prime Minister of a government whose main goalwas to amend the Constitution so that the President could continue in office. The


two main founders of the state, partners in fashioning the National Pact, hadreturned to power but without much credibility. Kamal Jumblāt resigned his seatin protest over the way the government had managed the elections. Policemenand military personnel were angry at having been forced to do the dirty work.Most of the leading newspapers agreed on a letter sent to the Presidentannouncing their intention not to cover the sessions of the Assembly since it wasno longer representative of the people and should be dissolved. One oppositiongroup, calling itself the Union of National Liberation, attempted to convoke anassembly at Sofār in August but was prevented from doing so by the police.Archbishop Mubarak of Beirut was so incensed at being turned away from Sofārthat he issued a manifesto calling for civil disobedience against the fraudulentgovernment. Mubarak’s demands for reform were so radical that the Patriarch,who detested the President, even denounced them.26

A second attempt to convoke a meeting was scheduled for September 1947 inTripoli but did not finally bear fruit until the next November, when al-Khūrifinally received a delegation and agreed to hold a constitutional conventionwithin four years. There were informal discussions concerning a proposal to takea census in 1948 in exchange for a constitutional guarantee reserving thepresidency for the Christians. Professionals in Beirut recognized, however, that avague promise to act after four years had gone by meant that nothing would bedone to halt the corruption, so the press campaign against the governmentcontinued unabated. The President had succeeded in arranging his covetedsecond term but at the cost of not being able to govern.27

With the climate of hostility so pervasive, nothing much was accomplished bythe Chamber for the first six months of its term. The budget was discussed, butno action was taken. Groups published manifestos and reform plans; thepoliticians complained, but when Riyād al-Sulh challenged them to vote him outof office, no one in the Chamber uttered a word. The al-Khūri “sultans” socontrolled the deputies that only seven votes were cast against the unpopularconstitutional amendment that allowed the President to succeed himself. Beforelong, most of the members of the “opposition” were back at their deskscooperating with the government. Major events from the outside had contributedto the revised attitude. The United Nations General Assembly, on November 29,1947, had passed a resolution recommending the partition of Palestine. Agitationwas intense and deflected attention away from the President’s foibles. A fewbombs allowed the government to insist on the exercise of its full powers, andsince the worst outbreaks of violence came from the Muslim sections of thecountry, many Christian opponents of the regime took cover under its shell.Riyād al-Sulh was sent to Cairo to meet with the representatives of the ArabLeague, dispensing little tidbits, from time to time, concerning the “secret”measures that the Arabs planned to take.

Indeed, the uproar over external matters lasted long enough to give the regimea grace period of nearly four years. Although corruption increased, the economyimproved to offset the distresses. Lebanon did go through the motions of


assisting the Arab states in their badly coordinated moves against the Israelis, butthe activities of its irregulars in central Galilee were essentially passive. A shortcampaign by the Israelis during the third stage of the 1948 war quickly broughtthem home. The Arab boycott of Israel, and its extension to all firms whichexported to the Jewish state, proved a boon for Beirut, rapidly turning that city intothe major entrepôt for the eastern Mediteranean. New, inexpensive labor (andfuture problems) appeared when 82,000 Palestinians arrived as refugees. Thesewere desperate but also, in many cases, well trained. Although theirarrival resulted in many dislocations, as providing for and supplying the refugeecamps became a priority, the Palestinians also contributed their labor and skillsto Lebanon’s economic take-off. The reverberations from these events weremany and various, keeping most Lebanese busy trying to acclimate to the newsituation.

Not long after the Palestine debacle, there arose a new challenge to the regimefrom Antoun Sa‛ada and the Syrian National Party (PPS). As soon as he set footon Lebanese soil, Sa‛ada began making inflamatory speeches, both denouncingthe status quo and demanding radical change according to his Pan-Syrianprescriptions. Undoubtedly, he was prepared to begin with less than the whole ofSyria because, in early July, PPS forces began to attack military and police posts,apparently as part of a general move to overthrow the government of Lebanon.Attempts by the PPS to settle matters with the Phalange, its main authoritarianrival, had failed earlier and resulted in the usual casualties as well as the burningof a newspaper plant. With the assistance of Syria, Sa’ada was arrested on July 7and executed the next day. Other leaders of the Party were also rounded up,twelve condemned to death and six actually executed. The governmentimmediately took action to suppress other activities it believed were dangerous toits survival, locking up the Phalange headquarters, imprisoning criticaljournalists, and initiating a program of compulsory military training. Bishāra al-Khūri was able to begin his second term in September 1949, and after shaking uphis cabinet, the veteran politician from Sidon, Riyād al-Sulh, once more becamePrime Minister.

The al-Khūri government had, by now, become almost completelyauthoritarian in the conduct of its affairs. It routinely jailed journalists andsuspended their newspapers. Meetings of reformers would often be summarilybroken up by the police while, at the same time, the radical political parties wereoutlawed and their leaders jailed. The entourage around the President continuedto use the government in the customary way, for personal profit. Fortunately,elections were scheduled for April 1951 and offered some hope. CamilleChamoun had become a kind of opposition leader and was successful inpressuring the regime to form a caretaker cabinet to supervise “genuine” elections.With the membership of the Chamber increased by twenty-two seats, it seemedpossible to inject some new play into Lebanese politics.


THE CUSTOMS UNION

On the economic front, an indication of developments at this time can be seen inthe demise of the Syro-Lebanese Customs Union in March 1950. In 1943, whenthe two countries gained at least partial independence, they were forced toremain dependent on France for both their financial and trade relationships(although their continued linkage to the former colonial power affected themdifferently). Both currencies were tied to the French franc and, for a time,guaranteed against devaluation. As their own trade patterns broadened andFrance grew closer to the other West European economies, Syria and Lebanonwere forced to back their own currencies. Their ability to do so was, at first,problematic, requiring economic growth to make it possible. When Riyād al-Sulh, the Lebanese Prime Minister, and Sa’adallah al-Jabri, his Syriancounterpart, met in 1943 to work out their mutual relations, they decided thatthere was no better alternative than to maintain the customs union which theFrench had established during the Mandate period. In fact, when outside powerscontrolled the area, Beirut had served as the entry point for a kind of “Hanseatic”trade network covering the entire Levant.28 After independence and the loss ofPalestine, however, this network was broken up, and the economies of Syria andLebanon began to move in different directions. Syria’s nascent manufacturing, itwas argued, needed tariff protection while Lebanon’s indigenous production inthis sector was insignificant. But Lebanon could easily import cheaper goodsfrom other countries and flood Syrian markets with them. Beirut’s rapid growthas a financial center allowed the Lebanese to depend less on their own exportsthan was the case for the Syrians. For this reason, the Syrian economy wasvulnerable to Lebanese trading practices. Damascus terminated the union once itwas clear that the al-Khūri government would not alter its policies. Two weekslater, Lebanon closed its borders to all trade with Syria, causing a complete breakin economic relations between the two countries.

At the end of the year, Syria and Lebanon re-opened their border to trade but,in this case, on the basis of major restrictions demanded by the Syrians.Damascus not only placed the same customs duties on Lebanese goods thatapplied to other countries but also placed additional barriers to trade with thecountry. To prevent Beirut from simply re-exporting imported goods, the Syriansrequired that 50 percent of the combined value in articles coming from Lebanonmust be Lebanese in material and labor. The Lebanese, of course, retaliated and,although a series of interim trade arrangements were agreed to and extended fromtime to time, the two economies were never allowed to reinforce one another asthey had before 1950.

Politics, as might be expected, also intruded in this case. Damascus was hostto an almost comical series of military coups in 1949, and each of them cast itsshadow on Lebanon. The fanatic Syrian National Party, which had threatened thecountry, was thought to have taken its cues from the Syrian military. The leadersof the first two Syrian coups in 1949, Husni Za‛īm and Sami Hinnawi, had each


been shot when overthrown, and in both cases, Lebanon was at least indirectlyinvolved. When, in December 1949, Adīb al-Shishakli pulled the third coup ofthat year, he became the military strongman behind the new government and wasthought to be sympathetic towards the Syrian Nationalists. Given the PPSprogram for including Lebanon in Greater Syria, Beirut was understandablyconcerned about what might be happening in both countries.

It is interesting to speculate on “what might have been” if the two countrieshad preserved their customs union. It is clear that, in the short term, Lebanonbenefited from linking itself to world trade and finance at the expense of itsdomestic production. The prosperity and political interdependence, though, thatcould have resulted from a larger market, one that included Syria, is what the twosocieties genuinely needed. But the market, with its laissez faire principles, wasnot allowed to tug at the politicians. Once Shishakli took control of the Syriangovernment in 1951, that country embarked on a series of programs thatincreasingly placed its economy under state control. This trend has never beencompletely reversed. Where Syria has leaned toward a command economy,Lebanon has leaned toward a“commercial polity,” i.e., for the latter, businessmenand bankers have called the shots. The record also shows that Beirut, whilecontinuing to work on its trade problems with Damascus, put much more effortinto forging ties with countries all over the world, especially those which favoredfree trade. In the long term, however, this emphasis proved politically costly.Lebanon’s free-for-all economy grew but did not provide enough public goods tomaintain itself. Far too many people were unable to share in the bonanza. Thecountry’s different approach, for better or for worse, also isolated it from theparoxysms of Arab socialism while allowing it to act as a banker for traditionalregimes. Not sufficiently Arab and never revolutionary, Lebanon was cast in therole of a pariah and did little to convince its neighbors otherwise. It is hard not towonder, wistfully, if Syria, with free trade, might have steered clear of socialismwhile Lebanon, having a stake in the hinterland, might have used its connectionsthere to save itself.

THE GENTLE COUP

After the events of 1949–50, Lebanon’s government rapidly became even morecorrupt and isolated. The President’s brother, Salim, freely used patronage andpolice to improve his position relative to Camille Chamoun. The President’s son,Khalīl, was a major conduit through which bribes were exchanged for contracts:LE 10,000 to put up an apartment building, LE 30,000 to build the airportterminal, etc. According to George Britt, “A seaside runway had been extended,contrary to engineering advice, for 600 metres northeastward, into the holdings ofdeserving friends.”29 In addition, the border with Israel to the south had beensealed while trade with Syria was only a trickle of what it had been. Lebanon’sTammany Hall politician not only had solidified the opposition but also had justabout exhausted the patience of his honest friends and associates. It has never


been clear why al-Khūri allowed corruption to reach such levels during hispresidency.

Lebanese were reluctant to blame their President for the shortcomings of hisrelatives and close associates; he had, after all, succeeded in leading them toindependence. But several major events, some of them aftershocks of theprevious year, took place, leaving al-Khūri without his customary ability to rigthe game. It soon became reasonable to suggest retirement.

The first of these events was the elections scheduled for the middle of June1951. The run-up to the elections resulted in three persons killed and twentywounded in a ruckus between Kamal Jumblāt’s supporters and Sheikh Salim al-Khūri’s police. A former Prime Minister, Sami al-Sulh, was shot during anelection meeting in his home, and two citizens were killed and three othersinjured during the balloting itself. Pre-election violence totaled seventeen deadand over fifty injured. Balloting resulted in a working majority for thegovernment but under different conditions from before. Though not withoutmanipulation, these elections were considerably more competitive than those in1947. Winners received, on average, a little more than 60 percent of the votes in1951 compared to about 80 percent in 1947. There were twenty-two moremembers of the Assembly to try to control, stretching patronage somewhat. Mostimportant, a so-called “Socialist Front” emerged as a popular opposition whichincluded Chamoun and Jumblāt, as well as representatives from the NationalBloc, the Katā‛ib, the Najjāda, and even the Syrian National Party. Theprincipals in this group had nothing in common except opposition to the al-Khūriregime. They were able to sponsor rallies in several of the towns, rousing thecrowds and increasing anti-regime sentiment beyond anything the governmentcould counter.

The second of these events was that Riyād al-Sulh, having survived anassassination attempt in March 1950, was gunned down in the summer of 1951while on a diplomatic mission to Amman. (The Syrian National Party had finallyavenged the death of Antoun Sa‛ada.) Thus, for al-Khūri, the players hadchanged. Besides al-Sulh, others of the old political establishment died duringthis period: Emile Eddé in September 1949, and Hamīd Karāmi in November1950. The loss of Riyād al-Sulh was especially damaging to the President, for hecould no longer count on this leader of the Sunnis to help him shuffle cabinetpositions. To be able to distribute cabinet positions and rotate people ingovernment was the key to power in Lebanon, one that al-Khūri had developedinto a fine art. But beyond tactical considerations, Riyād al-Sulh had maintainedhis credibility with the Arab-Islamic elements of Lebanon. He could move inArab circles throughout the Middle East. Kamal Jumblāt and Camille Chamouncould not have mobilized the crowds to bring down Bishāra al-Khūri had Riyādal-Sulh remained at his side.

Journalists, lawyers, businessmen, and soldiers had all mounted protestsagainst the government during the previous year, and on September 15, 1952, athird event weakening the government occurred. The shutters on the shops were


closed, and a general strike began in response to an appeal from the SocialistFront. A week earlier, Sami al-Sulh, the Prime Minister, had resigned in responseto criticism from the opposition, and the President had appointed an“emergency” cabinet to take over for an interim period while he tried tonegotiate his way out of the mess. His attempt to squeeze through the bars byrequesting Sa‛ib Salām to head a cabinet was met by an uproar. The general strikecompletely paralyzed the country, and a group of fifteen deputies formallydemanded the President’s resignation. A delegation of top officials, including theCommander in Chief, Fu‛ād Shihāb, then went to the President and asked him toresign. On September 18, President al-Khūri did resign, placing Shihāb incontrol until the Chamber was able to elect a new President. Five days later, onSeptember 23, 1952, it chose Camille Chamoun to be President. After severalunsuccessful attempts, he was able to form a government with Khalid Shihāb asPrime Minister.

CAMILLE CHAMOUN

The new Prime Minister asked the Chamber for full powers over a six-monthperiod to give him time to put through a complete program of reforms. Thisrequest was granted almost unanimously, and within a month, Khalid Shihāb wasable to announce the dismissal of 300 civil employees as a step towardstreamlining the government. In all, ninety decrees were issued, giving Lebanonan independent judiciary, defining the administrative duties of the civil servants,liberalizing the press law, and extending voting rights to women. One of thechanges which progressives had counted on, the long-sought increase in thenumber of electoral districts, was also accomplished. The Chamoun governmentpassed an electoral law which increased the number of voting districts from fiveto thirty-three, twenty-two for single members. At the same time, the Chamber wasreduced from seventy-seven to forty-four members, giving citizens a much betterchance to force the politicians to compete for their votes.

Outsiders were impressed by the vigor with which Chamoun pursued hismodernization program. Several agreements were signed with the United Statesfor technical assistance in agricultural development, irrigation, and hydroelectricpower. Allotments of large sums for development projects were regularlyannounced, and the government was able to negotiate an interim economicagreement with Syria. By the time Khalid Shihāb had offered his resignation inApril 1953, the Chamoun regime had set the country on a course towardeconomic take-off. This was undoubtedly its most noteworthy accomplishment.

Camille Chamoun, however, was afforded only a brief honeymoon; once the“cabinet of decrees” was gone, he discovered that it was impossible to governwithout the “notables.” Criticism had begun even before he was able to form agovernment. As the Shihāb administration prepared to complete its work, thelocal vultures hovered nearby to pounce on the government. The demands, infact, came from all directions—from the left, that reform had not gone far


enough, and from the right, that it was unraveling the system. Even beforeChamoun had put together his first “establishment” cabinet (May 1, 1953) theconflict among traditional rivals and factions was in full swing. In the Jabal Amilregion of south Lebanon, clashes broke out between partisans of the Front andthose of the traditional Shi’ite za‛īm, Ahmed al-As‛ād. Fourpersons in the villageof Badghāni were killed during conflict between the Jumblāt and Arslān clans.The Syrian National Party resumed its activities in Marjayoun while Syria closedits borders with Lebanon after three Socialist-Ba‛thist politicians (AkramHawrāni, Michel Aflaq, and Salah al-Din Bitār) fled to sanctuary in Beirut. Andthis was during the honeymoon. After the first regular government was formedwith Sa‛ib Salām as Prime Minister, real trouble broke out.

This trouble, at least initially, did not come as increased domestic violence;that remained at customary levels. The problem was that Chamoun had nosizable support of his own nor any means of building it without returning to thepatronage politics of his predecessor. His British and American friends couldhelp but only with strings attached. Those who put him in power had only agreedon the necessity for change; they had not agreed on what change. As it turnedout, they were so divided and, in some cases, politically inept, that the newPresident was forced to depend on the old politicians for his government. Manyof these were Destourians, i.e., drawn from al-Khūri’s “Constitutionalist”entourage.

Chamoun’s first attempts to form a cabinet illustrate the dilemma he faced.The reformist but mild-mannered Abdullah al-Yāfi was the President’ dent’sinitial choice to form a government but was prevented from doing so whenKamal Jumblāt demanded six cabinet posts, enough to control the government.As leader of the left wing of the Front, Jumblāt had offered a ten-point reformprogram and insisted that the recent public outcry was a mandate for itsenactment. But satisfying the Druze leader would have meant losing most of therest of the reform group, not to mention the parliamentary old guard who werestill the majority in the Chamber. Two other Sunni notables, Sa‛adi Munlā andRashid Karāmi, also tried their luck but could not bridge the incompatibilitiesthat the situation presented. The Khalid Shihāb “cabinet of decrees” that finallyemerged was born of desperation.

In April 1953, with the first round of reforms completed, the Khalid Shihābcabinet resigned, and President Chamoun turned to the old guard for agovernment. The first of these was led by Sa‛ib Salām, who was almostcompletely occupied with the problem of trying to bring about a trade agreementwith Syria. While the President visited foreign capitals, the Salām government,and its successor under al-Yāfi, struggled with both the Syrians and the oilcompanies for better financial terms in their respective agreements. Chamounreally needed a success on the economic front; his leadership depended partly onthe claim that he possessed international clout. The difficulty with the Syrianswas finessed by means of interim agreements, but negotiations with the IraqPetroleum Company never gave the President the victory he had hoped for.


Moreover, the reforms, while far reaching on paper, were only partlyimplemented, especially after the modernist cabinet failed in 1953. ManyLebanese citizens had exerted themselves to get rid of the French and, ten yearslater, the al-Khūri government, but the old politics continued.

Elections, held in June, were more competitive and less corrupt than in the pastbut resulted in only a few new faces in the Assembly. Without dramatic changesfrom either the reforms or the electoral process, Chamoun was confronted withthe indictment by Jumblāt and the left that nothing had changed, that the strugglehad been for naught. At the same time, he was in no political position to satisfyall the vultures hovering near the cabinet waiting their turn. Even though heeventually turned to using patronage, his cabinets lasted, on the average, only sixmonths, as compared to nine months for those of his predecessor.30 Certainly afighter, President Chamoun energetically promoted new policies but was unableto reform or work with the system.

COLD WAR ENTANGLEMENTS

The elections of 1953 signaled a new round of reforms, but opposition to theregime also increased. This increase was only partly due to the heat of thecampaign which offered its usual, though not excessive, abrasions. Onecandidate (and feudal boss) from the Akkār region, Muhammad Abboud, wasgunned down in Beirut over a political dispute with his cousin. A few bombingincidents occurred; election meetings were broken up; others were banned; and afew communists and nationalists went to jail. The opposition, however, begancoming from a new quarter, and it not only neutralized the revived effort atreform but became increasingly sectarian in its emphasis. Lebanon, it wasasserted, not only needed domestic reform; it must also be unflinchingly Arab inits international relationships.

The question of Lebanon’s Arab credentials became a hotly contested issuesoon after Gamal Abdul Nasser consolidated his power in Egypt in 1954. Thegradual military withdrawal of the British from the Middle East occurred notbecause London believed the new systems in the area could be left alone to enjoythe splendors of independence but because the cost of maintaining its presence wasprohibitive. In preparing for the inevitable, Britain had proposed theestablishment of the Middle East Command as a means of cooperating with its“friends” in the area’s defense. These, whether General Nuri or King Farouk,would have undoubtedly gone along with the idea, were it not for theincreasingly radical persuasion of the Arab public. Anti-imperialism, anger overIsrael, and the attractiveness of socialist schemes combined to undermine thecredibility of the status quo in the Middle East. The governments of Egypt andIraq, therefore, felt they could not risk a new arrangement with the British, andthe MEC proposal failed.

But the Americans, thoroughly anticommunist, globe-trotting, and not yetwearing the imperialist label, were willing to try their hand at alliance-making in


the region. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State in 1952, was committed both tocutting the budget and getting tough with the Soviets. The solution to thiscontradiction, according to his military advisors, was to switch from a strategy ofdefense to one of deterrence. The Eisenhower administration would contain theSoviets by implementing the Radford Plan, with its “sword-shield” concept.Under this plan, American nuclear might would “shield” the free world from itscommunist adversaries (using the “massive retaliation” doctrine) whileAmerica’s “friends” on the periphery of the Soviet landmass would employ the“sword” with the conventional arms it gave them to defend their independence.For this reason, the Americans nearly tripped over the departing British in theirzeal to line up the Arabs in MEDO, a Middle East NATO to defend againstSoviet power.

MEDO (Middle East Defense Organization), as it turned out, was a non-starter. New leaders, like Nasser, were loathe to bring in the United States sosoon after they had gotten rid of the British. Moreover, why choose sides in theCold War? In a corridor like the Middle East, the Arabs could keep the doorsopen at both ends so that if one of them closed, they could turn around and goout the other. The Syrians led the way with a deal in 1954 that got them a few(German) tanks from Czechoslovakia. After a coup had ousted Adīb al-Shishakli, Syrian parliamentary activity was restored and reasonably freeelections held. These brought a significant bloc of Ba’thist-Socialists into thelegislature who helped move the country to the left and made it palatable forGeneral Shuqayr to open the Eastern door just a crack.31 Nasser’s morecelebrated “Czech arms deal,” which brought him a large consignment of Sovietequipment, took place the next year, a time when the Syrians also received ashipment of Soviet T-54 tanks. In the meantime, the Lebanese had learned of theoriginal deal when one of the huge crates, on its way to Damascus, was“accidentally” dropped on the dock in Beirut, revealing a tank. It is believed thatPresident Chamoun’s reconversion to anticommunism dated from this event.

When both the MEC and MEDO proposals failed to gain Egyptianacceptance, Dulles decided to seal off the Middle East from the Soviets with aNorthern Tier of friendly states. First, Turkey concluded a bilateral agreementwith Pakistan; then Turkey and Iraq signed an agreement; Iran joined, and finallyBritain. Iraq received the prestige for being the host for the Baghdad Pact (laterCENTO) that was established as a result of these deals. Though conceived andsponsored by the American Secretary of State, the United States never joined.Unfortunately, the Pact was only partly defensive; its major purpose was to actas a conduit through which the member states might receive American arms, fewof which would ever be directed toward the Soviets. Debate at the time suggeststhat the Pact was also a means by which one set of American policymakers couldexplain to another how they had sealed off the strategic Middle East withouthaving to pay blackmail to Nasser and his nationalist friends.32

As it turned out, the Soviets managed to leapfrog the Northern Tier when theysold arms to the Egyptians and Syrians. In all the run-up to these events—the


discussions for alliances and arms, the questions of true allegiance—Lebanonwas caught in the middle. Even worse, President Chamoun was caught with hispants down. At the delicate moment (April 1955) when the Turks were signingup their neighbors to these American-inspired pacts, Chamoun and his PrimeMinister, Sami al-Sulh, were in Ankara to discuss the Middle East situation.(Only a few weeks before, the Israelis had conducted unusually harsh raids againstEgypt in the Gaza Strip while Turkey had carried out “exemplary” maneuversnear the Syrian border.) The joint statement delivered at the end of theirdiscussions proclaimed that the policies of Turkey and Lebanon were in perfectharmony. The Lebanese had been invited to join the Baghdad Pact but refused,citing their responsibilities to the Arab nation. Earlier, the President had issued astatement that contained all the proper references to Lebanon’s traditionalneutrality in Arab affairs. Chamoun had covered himself, yet his meetings withthe Turks had been represented in such a positive light that some observerswondered if Lebanon had decided to take sides. As Professor Michael Hudsonexplained,

If the President was pursuing a policy of neutrality, this statement(concluding the talks) certainly did not have a neutral tone in the opinionof many Lebanese. Instead, it appeared to be a gesture of approval for theBaghdad Pact; a slap at Syria, which was at the time in serious conflictwith Turkey; and a gesture of defiance to President Nasser, whosediplomatic coup in the Soviet arms deal had captured the imagination ofthe entire Arab world.33

It is likely that Chamoun did not want to take sides but saw radicalism emergingon all fronts. Moreover, he was not governing a country that could take sides butone where half the population wanted to join the Arab side, as personified byNasser, while the other sought protection from it. The Lebanese also inhabited a“corridor” but not one where it was safe to leave the doors open. Thus, Chamoun,like any experienced politician in the Middle East, was hedging his bets.Lebanon was neutral but might need help.

None of these incidents by themselves brought on the polarization of attitudesthat came to a head in the civil strife of 1958. After 1955, however, opposition tothe regime intensified again and became increasingly polarized on a sectarianbasis. The reasons for this deterioration are complex and involve forces and eventsboth inside and outside the country. Camille Chamoun did not cause the problemsbut he was also not able to master the situation once the breakdown began.

In 1953, as reviewed above, the desire for reforms had come from nearly allsectors, from Muslims, Christians, Lebanonists, modernizers, and radicals. Theprevailing view blamed the political system for Lebanon’s problems andassumed that its reform was the first step toward their solution. Indeed, the initialchanges effected by the Chamoun administration were accompanied by anunprecedented period of economic growth. Prospects were excellent, especially


for those who could link up to the modern world. Those who could do so were morelikely to be establishment persons than people from ordinary walks of life, but,most important, they were more likely to be Christians than Muslims.

What is necessary to recognize in this complex matrix of problems is thatMuslims in Lebanon at this time could hardly conceive of moving up in statusand wealth through pursuits outside the political sector. Although such movementwould have been difficult enough for anyone in the country—as crucial asholding office and having connections were—yet a sizable group ofprofessionals, mostly Christian, was emerging in Lebanese society. As long asRiyād al-Sulh was a major factor in the system, the sectarian imbalance couldremain muted. Without this remarkable Sunni politician, and his (musical chair)associates, the al-Khūri apparatus would not have been able to keep GreaterLebanon together. On the other hand, once he was gone, the structural reality ofthe system the French had created was clear for all to see. The real power allottedto the Muslims, especially in the office of Prime Minister, was only a little morethan zero. The House Speakership allotted to the Shi‛ites added almost nothingsubstantive to it. Muslims were allowed to share in the status the regimedistributed, but that was about all. Riyād al-Sulh often complained, as did hiscousin, Sami, that real power resided with the President’s “sultans” and that thePrime Minister only functioned as a “whipping boy” for the (Christian) regime.President Chamoun did not even have a Riyād al-Sulh. Thus, the opposition wasto coalesce around the demands of the Muslims for more administrative posts aswell as for more public facilities, especially in education, where there were farfewer opportunities in private institutions for them than for the European-oriented Christians. As the crisis deepened, Sunni complaints about the lack ofpower in their sector of the confessional system broadened into a more diffuse sortof opposition, into a willingness to defy the system itself.


5The civil war of 1958

TOWARD CIVIL WAR

One mark of the defiance that developed among Muslims during the latter yearsof the Chamoun administration was the attention they paid to the exciting figureof Gamal Abdul Nasser who was, in his own way, a defiant person. His picture,displayed prominently in homes and shops, communicated the strong feelingspeople had for Arab independence and national revival. For many of thesepeople to remain loyal, Lebanon and its President had to pass the litmus test; theyhad to give no encouragement to those who opposed the Arab cause. Remainingneutral in deed might have satisfied this requirement, but in the emotions letloose by the events between 1956 (Suez) and 1958 (UAR), a neutral attitude wouldhardly have sufficed. Yet many Lebanese, even some Muslims, were afraid ofthe Arab cause, at least as personified by Nasser. The state apparatus wasdeveloped and maintained to protect the one Christian country of the MiddleEast. Several militias had been organized to help keep the country Christian andseparate, and they were available to help a beleaguered President whose ownarmy, drawn from Greater Lebanon, might not remain loyal to him.Unfortunately, events on the outside along with grievances on the insidecombined to pull the Lebanese apart. Only a strong Muslim component of agovernment willing to share power could have kept the population together andloyal to the state.

There were three major episodes shaking the Middle East between 1956 and1958 that required careful and sensitive policymaking by the Chamounadministration. These were the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Eisenhower Doctrineinitiated in 1957, and the formation of the United Arab Republic in 1958. In eachof these episodes, the Lebanese government felt vulnerable to dangers from bothinside and outside the country. In each case, it was forced to walk a politicaltightrope to stay out of trouble. Also, as each situation developed, mistakesturned out to be cumulative, i.e., initial mistakes compounded later ones. Worstof all, as so often happens in the Middle East, an interstate conflict becamepersonal—in this case, a struggle between Presidents Nasser and Chamoun. Ifexamined carefully, the civil war of 1958 also reveals the fact, well understood

by game theorists, that bad play in a conflict by one side may elicit even worseplay by the other.

It is appropriate to begin with the Egyptian President since Chamoun’sdeparture from the Arab orientation called for by the National Pact was aresponse to Nasserism and not simply his own initiative. On the other hand, whatKamal Salibi calls Chamoun’s “courageous intransigence” made an early debutand soon became a policy for others to contest.1 Therefore, it is also necessary tosee the two Presidents make their political mistakes in tandem.

Gamal Abdul Nasser did not adopt Arabism as his international creed duringthe first few years of his rule following his coup in 1952. He struggled toconsolidate his power and acquired a moderate record as a reformer (especiallywith his land redistribution programs). Nasser’s international stature developedrapidly after he negotiated the British withdrawal from the Canal Zone in 1954,bought arms from the Soviet Bloc in 1955, attended the Bandung Conference asa neutralist the same year, and then seized the Suez Canal in 1956. Hisconversion to Arab nationalism, more a response to Syrian precedents than to hisown conceptions, occurred as a function of these diplomatic triumphs. CamilleChamoun, as already mentioned, experienced a rude shock in 1954 when ashipment of Eastern Bloc tanks destined for Damascus was unloaded in Beirut.The Syrian radicals then received more tanks and were “officially” placed underSoviet protection in 1955. Egypt received Czech arms at that time, and Nasser’spolicies began to loom large as an Arab, not merely Egyptian cause. It was notdifficult for the militarily weak Lebanese to believe that this new force mightsweep them away. In spite of Nasser’s denials of any such intention, he couldhave let it happen. After all, the grandeur that had come his way had literallyfallen into his lap. Why not let Lebanon fall into his lap as well?

Nasser’s neutralism, highlighted by the Czech arms deal and his preemptoryrecognition of communist China, so rankled John Foster Dulles that he renegedon the American promise to finance the building of the Aswan Dam. On July 26,1956, two days after he learned of the Secretary’s decision, the EgyptianPresident surprised everyone by nationalizing the Suez Canal. Israel, in collusionwith the French and British, invaded the Sinai on October 29, and its twoEuropean partners intervened the next day. Nasser blocked the Canal withsunken ships, pulled his forces back, and waited for the Russians and Americansto stop the war. Khrushchev threatened, Eisenhower fumed, and the three attackershad to withdraw. The Egyptian President then capitalized on his good fortune byputting even more emphasis on Nasserism, i.e., the drive for Arab unity andindependence.

These dramas placed President Chamoun on the cusp between Arabism andLebanonism. Having had many years of international experience and flanked byan international diplomat in Charles Malik, Chamoun postponed making thedifficult choice between Nasser and Eden and called the Arab states to anemergency conference in Beirut. By the time this meeting was convened, onNovember 13, the Suez intervention had been called off. The resolution, drafted

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by the President himself, was unanimously agreed to by the conferees. Its pointswere appropriate to the situation, calling for withdrawal, referring to theaggression of the perpetrators, and congratulating the Egyptians and Nasser fortheir Arab patriotism. Camille Chamoun was on top of things: he had taken theinitiative, requested Arab solidarity, brought the Arab ministers together, anddominated the conference. He could even congratulate himself; there was aspecial credibility in having Christian Lebanon take the lead in condemningWestern imperialism.

Moreover, the Christian President had managed to avoid breaking off relationswith either Britain or France, the only Arab state not to have broken off relationswith at least one of the two former colonial powers. Chamoun had successfullyfinessed Lebanon’s domestic schizophrenia; both personalities had beenassuaged, and he had shown himself to be properly Arab without jeopardizingLebanese linkages with the West. Or had he? No sooner had the representativesof the Arab states gone home but Chamoun’s Sunni ministers, Sa‛ib Salām andAbdullah al-Yāfi, handed in their resignations, bringing down the government.This was a course of action they had promised to take if the President tried to getthrough the crisis without breaking off relations with Britain and France. Theirhonor was at stake, and Chamoun could not have it both ways.

At first it seemed that he could. Professionals everywhere were congratulatingChamoun on the dexterity with which he had handled the ticklish situation. Hecould argue that maintaining relations with Britain and France now made sensebecause it enabled Lebanon to be an Arab voice that the Europeans would listento; it would help rectify the unfortunate consequences of their foolhardy attack.Lebanon could be an instrument in getting justice for the Arabs. This rationaleappealed to the logic of the situation but not to its politics. Justice for the Arabswas about the last thing on Nasser’s mind; he was plumping to win over Arabhearts as he overcame their enemies. Egypt’s victories were clear evidence that hewas doing so. The Mandate of Heaven was in his hands—one reason, besideshonor, that the Sunni notables felt they had no choice but to bring the governmentdown. Their constituents were also in Nasser’s hands, and he could bring themdown.

For Chamoun, the cabinet’s resignation seemed to relieve him from anotheraggravation, having to deal with Nasserism in his own government, an influencethat the Egyptian Ambassador worked hard to maintain. But the advantage toChamoun was only short-term. Nasserists outside the government, withgrievances to exploit, were in a position to organize against the President,bringing about an action-reaction cycle that further polarized the country. FromSuez on, Chamoun found himself increasingly on the defensive. The oppositiongained strength, and he began to listen more and more to the other side, theChristian status quo. Its message. was that Lebanon would either be swallowedby Nasser or by the communists in Syria. Perhaps, the Lebanese ought to findsome way to play a role in America’s global strategic program and, in exchange,get protection for the country. That is what the King of Iraq and the Shah of Iran

THE CIVIL WAR OF 1958 105

had done. President Chamoun told his colleagues on several occasions, “Ourtime will come. The Russians and Egyptians are busy among the people. We willnot be able to resist without strong support from the West.”2 If there was a wayto get protection (as Iraq and Iran had gotten it) without joining the BaghdadPact, Lebanon should do it. Unfortunately for Camille Chamoun, the Americansthought of a way: it was called the Eisenhower Doctrine, i.e., military help forstates in the Middle East threatened by Soviet communism.

If, in Nasser’s mind, Chamoun’s allegiances were suspect after the Suez War,they were made crystal clear in March 1957 when Lebanon tacitly accepted theEisenhower Doctrine in exchange for military assistance. The militaryemergency was finished; General Fu‛ād Shihāb had resigned his post as DefenseMinister and returned to command the army; and Sami al-Sulh, whose honor wasnot at stake, had replaced al-Yāfi and Salām on the Sunni side of the street,taking over the Ministries of State and Defense. The new Prime Minister, inApril, received parliamentary approval for the cabinet’s decision to cooperatewith the United States for mutual defense against communism and then hunkereddown with his friends to prepare the country for elections. The new Chamberwas to have sixty-six members, twenty-two more than the one elected in 1954.By the time the election campaign began in May, the opposition had coalesced intothe (mostly Muslim) National Union Front while the Chamoun regime hadturned to authoritarian techniques, banning Egyptian newspapers, intimidatingthe opposition, and breaking up their rallies.

The National Union Front campaigned on a platform that called forcooperation with the Arab states; rejection of military aid which compromisedLebanese neutrality; and opposition to a constitutional amendment that wouldallow Chamoun to seek re-election. Government security forces broke up anumber of rallies, killing seven and wounding over sixty people. Among theinjured was Sa‛ib Salām, who was now the most prominent politician openlyidentified with the Egyptian point of view. America was coming through with botheconomic and military aid while the government approved a law authorizingdetention of any journalist whose writing was considered offensive to thegovernment. The elections, held in July 1957, were not strictly controlled, butvictories were often purchased, sometimes costing as much as $155 per vote. Theoutcome, even with a vigorous opposition, was never much in doubt; the al-Sulhgovernment won forty-six of the sixty-six seats that were at stake. Severalprominent members of the opposition, al-Yāfi, Salām, and Jumblāt, weredefeated even though, normally, they commanded strong majorities in theirdistricts. This election was conducted in a fashion similar to the one of 1947 andproduced a similar result, loss of public support for the President and adetermination to oust him from office. Ironically, it did not take the opposition aslong to replace President Chamoun as it had taken candidate Chamoun to removePresident al-Khūri. The corrective process in the second case, however, requiredcivil war and an American military intervention.


Soon after the July elections, the government prepared a bill allowingpreventive arrest of newsmen; the newsmen went out on strike. The governmentthen accepted a compromise bill, and the strike was called off. A few days later,two newspaper publishers were jailed for insulting the President; the PrimeMinister requested emergency powers from the Chamber to arrest anyoneconsidered a threat to the country’s security. All the while, shipments of militaryequipment began arriving at Beirut port, thanks to Chamoun’s adherence to theEisenhower Doctrine. These arrivals somehow coincided with governmentreports of a wave of sabotage and subversive activity directed by Syria. Indeed,several Lebanese policemen were killed trying to intercept smugglers bringingarms across the Syrian border into Lebanon. The President attempted to call aconference of the Arab states to deal with subversion from Syria but got nosupport from Nasser. Charles Malik, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister, said at theUnited Nations that the Arab states should not make alliances with communismand went on to defend his government’s claim that the Lebanese were beingindirectly assaulted by the Soviet Union through its patrons in Syria.

Clearly, by late 1957, the opposition was mobilized to damage thegovernment. Each day saw an attack on its representatives in the outlyingdistricts while bombs increasingly wreaked their havoc in Beirut. The Chamounregime countered with tighter control over the dissident areas, deportingthousands of Syrians and extending curfews over the Palestinian camps. Todemonstrate its toughness, the government also prepared indictments againstsome 400 members of the opposition for illegal political activity during the recentelection campaign that the Chamounists had, themselves, rigged. Includedamong the (NUF) opposition to be tried were three former Prime Ministers, Sa‛ibSalām, Abdullah al-Yāfi, and Hussein ‘Uwayni.

Attacks by government supporters on the persons and property of members ofthe opposition also intensified. A bomb explosion killed three Syrians in January1958, and the Prime Minister’s home was the target of a dynamite attack in May.Many charges and counter-charges were made during this prewar period ofstruggle, and at least two governments fell before open rebellion finally broke out.Though there were several issues involved, the main one driving thegovernment’s behavior was a concern for its own survival. It sought non-interference from Syria and Egypt (the UAR after February 1958) as well asacquiescence from those who demanded reform and a share of power. While theopposition battle cry called for neutralism in Arab affairs, the driving forcebehind their activity was to do whatever was necessary to prevent the Presidentfrom engineering an election to a second term. Taking a pro-nationalist stancewas a means by which the old aristocrats could get help in ridding themselves ofChamoun. But if they could get help, so could he. All the world could be used tostage the Lebanese drama.


THE WAR OF 1958

Although organized action against the government had already been occurringsince March, the event that set off the full-fledged civil war was the murder (May8, 1958) of Nasīb al-Matnī, editor of the Daily Telegraph. A Maronite Christian,al-Matnī was harshly critical of the President and, in his last newspaper article,had suggested Chamoun resign. Besides his criticism of the government, thispublisher was also in favor of strengthening Lebanon’s ties with the recentlyformed UAR, claiming that strict adherence to the National Pact was essentialfor the multicommunal Lebanese. Letters found on his body revealed that he hadbeen warned either to halt his opposition to the regime or be killed. He was afavorite of the NUF, lending some credibility to their claims that they only soughtadherence to the constitutional processes which the Chamoun government hadflagrantly violated. It was generally assumed that al-Matnī had been assassinatedby government supporters and that the President had decided to stay in power atall costs. The country was shaken, and the national struggle began.

The National Union Front called for a strike and demanded the immediateresignation of President Chamoun to be followed by the establishment of acaretaker government. Beirut’s newspapers began a three-day moratorium onpublishing, and the opposition met to plan its military moves. On May 9,violence broke out in Tripoli, resulting in thirteen dead and over a hundredinjured during three days of rioting. Fighting between political factions thereworsened the situation. A few days later, the barricades went up in Beirut; rebelstraded fire with Lebanese soldiers, and six were killed; the government imposeda curfew and closed the Damascus road; and attacks near the border resulted indamage to the IPC pipeline and the killing of customs agents. Stacks of tireswere burnt in the Beirut streets to hamper the government’s ability to moveforces into rebel areas. The army, itself, refused to enter these mostly Muslimsectors of the city for the purpose of destroying the rebel strongholds, decidingrather to simply defend government buildings and those areas violence had notbroken out. The government then accused the UAR of having instigated therebellion and informed the British, French, and American Ambassadors thatLebanon was under attack from abroad. It was not long before the government’sterm “abroad” meant any area beyond the confines of the Presidential Palace.

Lebanon, at this time, never experienced a full-scale civil war; even thenational strike was only partially adhered to. The country merely broke downinto its partly communal, partly feudal constituents, into the shattered mosaicthat it always becomes in bad times. Both control over people and the fightingamong them remained local, mostly separated and uncoordinated. The oppositionwas, itself, the usual ad hoc collaboration between persons of divergent interestswho could not have governed the country. It could only try to create chaos andbring down the government, not take power itself. The government, too, wasbadly divided. Although many of its supporters believed that Chamoun wasresisting the wildfire of Arab nationalism which, under Nasser’s leadership,


seemed likely to sweep through the Middle East, others, entirely committed to anindependent Lebanon, believed that the government’s policies were at fault. Themost conspicuous division was between the President of the Republic and theCommander in Chief of its army. General Fu‛ād Shihāb had already complainedabout the move toward cooperation with Western defense policies before the warbegan; now he refused to commit the army to a strategy that might save theregime while destroying the country. He knew that if the army were to try to putdown the rebellion, it would, itself, disintegrate. By holding the army together,he held a vestige of the Republic together.

The war continued throughout the summer as part violence and part politics,and Lebanon remained the arena where the policies of outside powers clashed. Ofcourse, Lebanon has historically acted as a venue for the powers’ geostrategiccampaigns. The war was a brief but normal tragedy for the Lebanese. FahimQubain, in his book on the Lebanese crisis, writes that it could almost have beendescribed as a “comic opera.” In his words:

There was something unreal about the whole affair—a succession ofscenes taken virtually in toto from Ruritania: an army that would not fight;opposition leaders officially declared “rebels,” with warrants out for theirarrest, blandly walking the streets of Beirut in broad daylight with no onelaying so much as a finger on them; pitched battles between the army and“rebel” forces stopped, so that army trucks could bring water to the rebelsand move their wounded to hospitals; a president virtually a prisoner in hisown palace for over two months; a parliament that could not meet;opposition leaders, each with a private army of his own, establishingvirtually independent government in his locality—levying taxes andadministering justice; and a crisis that was long on bitter words, but shorton actual casualties.3

There was also, in Qubain’s words, “a grimmer aspect” to the war.4 A smallminority on both sides seemed to care little about what was happening to theircountry—innocents killed by stray bullets, women and children maimed bybombs, desperately needed infrastructure blown up, the country in financial ruin,shops closed, tourists gone, and sectarian animosities once again inflamed.Qubain evokes the horror and disdain felt by many Lebanese when he writes:“while a tempest in a tea-pot was bringing the world to the brink of atomicholocaust, the politicians on both sides, bargained, held conferences, and issuedstatements.5 The “atomic” dimension in the 1958 crisis was made evident by theeventual American deployment that had to take the possibility of a Sovietresponse into account. Short-range Honest John missiles were actuallydispatched to Beirut, though not deployed, and some of these were armed withtactical nuclear warheads. Moreover, the content of Egyptian and Syrian mediatransmissions as well as some of the American decision making indicates theshallowness of character on the part of so many of those involved—a


shallowness not confined to the Lebanese. On the day that the United States putits military on worldwide alert and made the decision to intervene in Lebanon,the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Nathan Twining, toldPresident Eisenhower that the Russians would not dare intervene because “if theydo jump us, if they do come in, they couldn’t pick a better time (for us), becausewe’ve got them over the whing whang and they know it.”6 With that kind ofadvice prevailing, it is no wonder that President Eisenhower was unenthusiasticabout taking action in accordance with his Doctrine.

While this period of civil strife in Lebanon remained mostly a series of local,uncoordinated outbursts of violence, forcing its peoples to withdraw to theircommunal cocoons, there was one force that sought to occupy Beirut militarilyand remove Chamoun from power. This was the Druze militia under the leadershipof Kamal Jumblāt whose clan was nominally attached to his ProgressiveSocialist Party (PSP). Jumblāt’s militia had already skirmished against theLebanese army a month before the war broke out in earnest, and it was animportant element in the opposition’s plans to force the President to resign. Armshad been smuggled in from Syria, and “friends” of the UAR cooperated inkeeping Jumblāt supplied. Although Syria did not intervene directly, it is evidentthat a number of Syrians, especially Druze from the Hawrān, did join to fightwith the PSP militia.

On May 13, the Druze attacked, and nearly captured, the summer palace atBeit al-Din. Unable to take it, they made another attempt two days later butfailed and were driven back toward Mukhtāra, the Jumblāt ancestral home and“base” for the PSP movement. Government police and military forces weresupplemented both by Na‛im Mughabghab’s Syrian National Party (PPS)fighters and also Majid Arslān’s Druze militia, the Yazbak rival to Jumblāt.Qahtān Hamādah, a Shi‛ite chief from the northern Biqā, also contributed somemen to the government coalition early in the Shūf campaign but then withdrew.Holding Beit al-Din, government forces were soon able to launch a counterattack,trying to cross the Barouk river to take Jumblāt’s home base, Mukhtāra, but fellshort. A lull in the action ensued while the Druze uqqāl (religious sages)mediated between the Arslān and Jumblāt factions. These two factions reachedan agreement, and Arslān withdrew his 300 men from the government coalition,remaining neutral during the rest of the war. The Druze (PSP) force then turnedits attention toward the many Christian villages in the Shūf, taking them one-by-one in a quickly executed flanking operation to the right of the government’sposition. First Batlūn, near Fraydis, and finally Ayn Zahālta fell to the PSP. (AtFraydis, government forces were bombed by their own airplanes and sufferedboth losses and further defections from the coalition.) At this point, GeneralShihāb intervened with the Lebanese army, drove the Druze out of Ayn Zahālta,and made an agreement with Kamal Jumblāt that froze the situation for bothsides. Shihāb was prepared to use government forces to stop the opposition butnot defeat them.


Two weeks later (late June), Jumblāt launched his last major drive against thegovernment, attempting to take the hills southeast of Beirut as a means ofthreatening the international airport, located on the coast directly below. On June30, 1958, the rebels captured the radar facility but could not hold it. For the nextfive days, they fought government partisans for the ridges overlooking thesouthern outskirts of Beirut (and the airport), taking, then losing, such villages asAināb, Qabr Shmūl, and Shimlān. A very large coalition of supporters, includingthe army, finally drove the Druze from Aināb and Shimlān, and, on July 4, struckthem at Qabr al-Shamoun, forcing Jumblāt to retreat into the Shūf mountains.Each side charged that the other had been assisted by foreign soldiers, Syriansand Palestinians for the PSP, Iraqis and Jordanians for the government. Chamouninformed the ambassadors that the war in the Shūf was a UAR-sponsoredattempt to overthrow the government. In the same mode, Jumblāt complainedthat his coalition partners conducting operations in Beirut had acted to preventhim from invading the city. As the PSP was approaching Beirut, getting to withinten kilometers of the city, opposition forces there suddenly ceased attacking thegovernment. This released 2,000 men for use against Jumblāt’s few hundred, andthe battle for the high ground was lost. The Druze leader later claimed thatmembers of the opposition (National Union Front) such as Abdullah al-Yāfi andSa’ib Salām were not willing to share power with his Progressive Socialists. Amore likely possibility is that the outcome at Shimlān was due to the same factorthat had earlier driven the Druze from Ayn Zahālta, namely General Shihāb. Hewas willing to prevent the rebels from winning even if he was unwilling to crushthem.

Although the Druze campaign in the Shūf was the only sustained militaryeffort on the part of the opposition that actually threatened the regime, manyother areas in Lebanon were racked by violence and lost to government control.Most of the border area with Syria was beyond the reach of the government,making it easy for arms to be smuggled in. In the southern Biqā and Wadi al-Taym, nationalist forces destroyed roads and bridges and generally prevented thearmy from intervening. In the Ba’albek and Hermil regions, the opposition, fromthe outset of hostilities, kept the government from maintaining any permanentcontrol. The area was also never controlled by the National Union Front but onlyby such local chiefs as the Hamādahs, al-Aryāns, and Haydārs. Some Christianvillages were left unmolested, but others, as PPS (Syrian National Party)strongholds, were attacked. One such village, Nābi Uthmān, the location of aclandestine PPS radio station, was entered and destroyed.

The forces of the Chamoun regime held some pockets in the country; somewere controlled by local chiefs; other areas remained unmolested throughout thewar. The government had an army camp south of Ba‛albek at al-Sheikh Abdullahand, though besieged, managed to hold it. Other areas, such as the Akkār regionin the north; the Jabal Amil in the far south; and Sidon, with its Apple District(Iqlīm al-Tuffah), were held by local bosses, some of whom recruited soldiersand offered assistance to the opposition movement. Most, however, simply


organized their own administrative apparatus and employed their own forces tomaintain it.

By far the greatest amount of violence occurred in Tripoli, and it was bothcontinual and lethal. Lebanon’s second city actually had its own civil war inaddition to the struggle between the Chamoun regime and the National UnionFront. While both the Sunni and Maronite communities were rent by factionalism,the fighting that erupted on May 9, 1958, the day after al-Matnī’s assassination,soon took on a sectarian character. The opposition forces were led by formerPrime Minister Rashid Karāmi, whose base centered on the old city inhabited by40,000 Sunnis. Their attempt to demonstrate, following worship at al-MansūriMosque, had been opposed by government security forces, setting off the riot thatbegan the war. The PPS also maintained a force of over a thousand, well-armedsoldiers in Tripoli, mostly Christian. Once the rebellion began, they took to thefield in support of the government against the mostly Sunni opposition andfought their own sectarian war.

At first, the rebels in Tripoli were able to hold their own against thegovernment side, controlling the old city and its port at al-Mīnā. Karāmi acted asthe unofficial leader of the rebellion in the north and coordinated his politicalmoves with those of other rebels. Halba in the Akkār region was taken; theairport at Qlie‛āt was under seige. The Maronite Frangieh clan in Zghartā,though not fighting with Sunnis in Tripoli, supported the opposition movementagainst Chamoun. Unlike the rest of the country, fighting in Tripoli was almostcontinual from May through August of 1958. During late June and early July, theLebanese army moved heavy armament into the struggle and beseiged the rebelsat the port of al-Mīnā. Heavy damage was inflicted on Tripoli, especially by themajor firepower that the government directed at the old city and the port. Therebels managed to get a truce as early as July 2, but it did not remain in force forlong and skirmishing continued for another month. In fact, hostilities in Tripolidid not end until Chamoun was out and the leader of the opposition, RashidKarāmi, became Prime Minister in the Shihāb government that followed. Incontrast to other sectors of the war, the Lebanese army had been involved in theTripoli fighting from the beginning and, with other Christian militias, hadmanaged to contain the rebellion.

Very little actual fighting occurred in Beirut proper; certainly no militarygroup led an assault from one area to capture another. In the Lebanese capital,the war was one of barricades and bombs. Opposition leaders openly negotiatedand conferred with government, army, and embassy officials. Sniper fire keptrebel-held areas such as the Basta Quarter off-limits to anyone not “officially”allowed in. Yet Beirut was also the seat of the Chamoun government, and, in thisSunni city, the President was surrounded, a prisoner in his own palace. The oneserious threat to actual physical takeover had come from the Druze attempt tocapture the hills overlooking the airport south of the city. It was at this time,between June 28 and July 4, 1958 when Chamoun’s personal fortunes seemedmost bleak.


Not only were the Druze within ten kilometers of the city at this time but alsomajor areas, both in Beirut and the country beyond, were either in rebel hands orbeing contested. Tripoli, Sidon, Tyre, the Shūf, the Akkār, and the northern Biqāwere resisting the government, which was subject to sporadic attacks elsewhere,e.g., on the Damascus road and in Wadi al-Taym. Government forces controlledonly eighteen kilometers of the border with Syria, and both of its airports werebeing threatened. The President was not only opposed by nearly all Muslims butby the Christian politicians of the National Front and the Constitutional Bloc aswell. The Patriarch, Paul Ma‛ūshi, opposed him, and even Bishāra al-Khūri wastrying to sound like a replacement.

The radio war was hardly less frightening. Egypt and Syria broadcast nonstopdenunciations of Chamoun, calling for his resignation or worse. One especiallygenteel program from Damascus regaled the Arab nation with a soap opera thatdramatized exactly how Chamoun might come to his end in a military coup. Itwent so far as to portray the sounds of the rebels crashing into the President’soffice, Chamoun’s cries for mercy, and the shot that, by killing him, broughtnational brotherhood to the Arabs.7 President Nasser, with his characteristiclogic, even suggested to Sa‛ib Salām that Lebanon ought to join the UAR as ameans of safeguarding its independence. The government-controlled press in theUAR, by its choice of what news items and commentators’ opinions to report,also encouraged the rebels to overthrow Chamoun. Lebanon’s President wasclearly vulnerable to the nationalist and revolutionary psychology beingescalated by the Nasserists.

Chamoun responded to this period of the crisis in several ways. He first triedto persuade General Shihāb to make greater use of the army in suppressing therebels. On this matter, the General heeded his own counsel and wisely kept to apolicy that distinguished between the interests of Lebanon and those of itsPresident. Unable to receive full cooperation from his General, Chamoun thenbegan distributing the American arms that were pouring into the country to“volunteer” militias, principally the PPS and the Phalange. Aware of thePresident’s long-standing ties to the former, the Patriarch was furious. ThePhalange had begun as a semi-fascist outfit, and the PPS program called for themerging of Lebanon into a Greater Syria. This was hardly the way to defend anindependent Lebanon. But it did fit into another approach which Chamoun beganto employ, namely, to seek support on the grounds that the war was sectarian andrequired a strong President to protect Christians from Muslims. Both thePhalange and the PPS (in 1958) were predominantly Christian in organizationand membership. They would fight for Chamoun against the Muslim opposition.

But the President’s key move was to call on the Americans for protectionunder the aegis of the Eisenhower Doctrine. He only needed to discover a“communist” threat, not something difficult for either Chamoun or theAmericans to find. On June 17, 1958, when Chamoun’s fortunes were at theirlowest point, the Lebanese government received a pledge from Secretary of StateDulles that the United States was ready to use troops, if necessary, to preserve


Lebanese independence. The Soviet Union vetoed a Security Council resolutionwhich would have sent a United Nations police force to Lebanon. The UN had,however, sent an Observer Corps, UNOGIL, to try to determine whether or notthe country was being subjected to outside intervention. Its initial report (July 3)was not favorable to Chamoun’s claim that widespread infiltration of arms andpersonnel from the UAR (Syria) was taking place.8 This lack of evidence made itdifficult to invoke the Eisenhower Doctrine. It allowed the United States a basisfor avoiding a commitment to Chamoun, an implication made clear by theAmerican President’s own statement, on June 18, that he would be guided byUNOGIL’s findings. The truth, in this case, was a great distance from therhetoric. Many in the Eisenhower administration, including the President, werelooking for a way to avoid crusading in Lebanon on behalf of Camille Chamoun.At the same time, they could hardly have been surprised at the inability of a fewUN personnel to locate and count smugglers and infiltrators operating in themountains of the Anti-Lebanon. Why then, in July, did the Americans (in theirpolicy statements) suddenly discover these infiltrators and much more, e.g.,Nasserist machinations, armed intervention, and a communist threat to theindependence of Lebanon?

On July 14, 1958, Abdul Karīm al-Qāsim (General Kassem) led an armoredbattalion into Baghdad, overthrowing the pro-Western Iraqi regime and killingits Prime Minister and royal family. King Hussein of Jordan, only recentlyplaced on the throne, was also being threatened by a coup. One of Kassem’scomrades in the Iraqi takeover, Abdul Salem al-Aref, was known to favorimmediate union with Egypt and Syria. Arab nationalism of Nasserist inspirationwas also a factor in the threat to Jordan although, in this case, it was complicatedby the fact that Palestinians, with their own grievances, were the majoritycommunity in Hussein’s kingdom. Without question, Nasser’s fortunes, backedby the Soviets, were moving too rapidly against Western interests. The UnitedStates could hardly sit still while the other “superplayer,” unopposed, moved hispieces onto the four center squares. On the next day, some 3,600 AmericanMarines came ashore on the beaches of Beirut. Lebanon’s civil war had becomean international crisis, and the Americans had decided to intervene.

THE AMERICAN INTERVENTION

The 1958 military intervention in Lebanon is often cited as one of the best-managed operations of its kind, both in military and political terms. The firstbattalions were able to put ashore within hours of receiving their orders, andadditional troops joined them within a short time until total manpower on theground eventually numbered over 15,000 military personnel. It was an operationrequiring the coordinated efforts of all the branches of the American military,and it also had to be conducted in conjunction with a British intervention inJordan. Only a single American soldier was lost to enemy fire (after the missionhad achieved its purpose), and not one Lebanese life was lost to American


firepower. The politician who called in the force, Camille Chamoun, was easedout of office by it; moreover, to some degree, power was actually transferred tothe opposition. In other words, the overall effect of the American interventionwas not merely to reinforce the status quo; it helped end the fighting whilebringing about real political change. This episode seemed such a picture-perfectoperation that it became a model of how “great power” (under internationaldirection and control) might be used to police small conflicts.

In fact, a careful investigation of the operation reveals that it was anything butpicture-perfect in its planning and execution. A military historian, RogerJ.Spiller, of the Combat Studies Institute, has written a fascinating account of the1958 intervention.9 His revelations show, more than anything else, how difficultsuch operations are to conduct as well as how little the tactics actually employedat the scene correspond to the plans drawn up to guide those who must carrythem out. Moreover, Spiller’s review indicates how difficult it might be for anyforce (without incredible luck) to engage in a successful police action inLebanon. Looking at this operation, as well as everything that could have gonewrong with it, may also help us understand the problems of civil strife in thatcountry.

At the time orders were given for the Marines to land in Lebanon, a complexof forces from the Sixth Fleet and by airlift were available to the Americangovernment. The fleet, in separate dispositions, numbered seventy-seven vessels,including three aircraft carriers. In addition, airlift could bring a sizable army infrom American NATO forces in Europe. With refueling, fighter-bomber aircraft(to augment those aboard the carriers) could be flown quickly to the area fromtheir bases in the United States. An immense armada of military forces was,therefore, available to undergird American policies in the Middle East area of“containment.” Whether or not these could be coordinated to becomeoperationally effective was a question that had not been answered by the time theLebanese civil disturbances had broken out in 1958. A further question also neededan answer even as it does today. Would it be possible to use such forces to servethe political objectives for which they were dedicated?

It is important to recognize the ad hoc character of the military capability thatwas eventually deployed in Lebanon in 1958. As outlined above, the Eisenhowerplanners had switched the United States to a strategy of deterrence whereAmerica’s nuclear “shield” would protect the world from the communist menacewhile its allies defended the perimeter with their own conventional capabilitiesthat American aid programs would make available. The dilemma was thatAmerica could not insure that its allies’ political objectives coincided with its own.It might end up spending a lot of money on local conflicts that had nothing to doeither with the Soviet threat or America’s own interests.

While foreign policy experts worried about the problem of incompatiblepolitical objectives, military specialists were concerned about a more parochialmatter. Did not the “doctrine of massive retaliation” make Americamusclebound? If other countries were not willing to use their forces for the


objectives America’s global vision considered vital, how could America respondat all? It could hardly use nuclear weapons against Syrian arms smugglers or amyriad of other small, local military challenges the Cold War was bound topresent. No doubt America’s nuclear weapons, and the strategic doctrine itattached to them, deterred the Soviets; they also deterred America.

Strategic theorists such as Brodie, Wohlstetter, and Kissinger had led the wayin criticizing the “massive retaliation” doctrine, but the Pentagon also hadmisgivings about the Radford Plan (the popular name for strategic doctrineemployed by Eisenhower). General Ridgeway, soon after leaving Korea, calledfor a rapidly deployable military capability, and the Pentagon was given the taskof developing a Strategic Army Corps. Operation Bluebat, the code name for theinterventionary force that was sent to Lebanon in July 1958, was an assortmentof operational units which military planners hoped could be put together andpunched in for combat readiness at a moment’s notice. The expansion ofNasserism in general and the Iraqi coup in particular required an Americanresponse. The Soviet Union seemed to be doing politically what it could not domilitarily; it seemed to be on the way to becoming the dominant power in theMiddle East. Responding to the Lebanese civil war and to Camille Chamoun’spolitical difficulties was quite secondary to trying out the new interventionarycapability. Operation Bluebat was partly an exercise to see whether or not itworked, to prove to the politicians that the new strategic doctrine wasappropriate.

One can almost imagine force planners, with their maps, moving the severaloperational units around as if they were looking for chess combinations. The seaarmada would allow the Marines to get in first to establish a beachhead whilenaval units provided mobility and cover. An airlift of soldiers and supplies wouldalso begin to move toward a forward base for staging; additional airpower, ifneeded, might come from anywhere in the world. Various military units, basedthroughout the world (to establish an American presence), could thus be rapidlycombined into a composite force to put out a “brushfire” before it became amajor conflagration. Carried out on a global scale, it was an ambitious program,one which, in the end, seems to have threatened both the United States and theSoviet Union with bankruptcy. The genesis and implementation of OperationBluebat was characteristic of American foreign policy at this time. Unfortunately,as Walter LaFeber pointed out in his study of the Cold War,

The problem would always be less a proper choice of the military meansthan a wise understanding of the objectives. In postwar American foreignpolicy, the debate over the nature of the Communist threat usually laggedbehind the debate over which weapons to use against the threat.10

It is, of course, in the nature of military matters, as with all action, that one mustdecide before knowing everything that needs to be known; the soldier cannot letdecision making be completely “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”


Certainly, the American military intervention was conducted in anything but a“picture-perfect” fashion. Although the units involved had been on alert statusfor nearly a month, too many of them were engaged in regular military activitiesat their permanent bases to be able to pick up and leave at a moment’s notice.Once orders for the mission were issued, it proved impossible to launch all thoseearmarked for duty into a coordinated operation. Several of the ships scheduledto arrive first were, at the time, off location and heading to port for repairs. Onefighter squadron was prevented from leaving by a blocked runway, and the crewsof the aircraft substituted for it had not been trained for the type of engagementtheir mission called for. One of the twelve crashed on takeoff; seven landed enroute; and only four made it to Turkey nonstop as planned. Much of the rest ofthe air component of the interventionary force operated seriously behindschedule. In one instance, transport aircraft arrived at their forward base ahead oftheir air cover.

The airlift from France and West Germany was also problematic. In at leastone case, the last truck of a convoy had to be loaded first, forcing those who hadgotten to the airport early to wait for the last one to arrive before they couldbegin loading. The United States had not received clearance from severalcountries for overflight, preventing the spacing of arrivals from taking place asplanned. On July 16 and 17, 1958, hundreds of aircraft were closing in on Adanaair base; some had to go into holding patterns awaiting their turn to land.According to several critics, so many planes were forced to remain on the groundat the same time that it would have required only a few enemy strikes to have puta halt to the whole operation. Once Bluebat was on the ground in Beirut, over 10,000 soldiers were camped in an area of less than four square miles. Ammunitionand machinery were stacked in rows along the runways at the airport waiting forone landing mishap to destroy everything. With soldiers and supplies packed in,as they were during the first few days, even a few bombs from an enemy wouldhave spelled disaster. Doubtless, the ultimate success of the operation was due,more than anything else, to the fact that it met no military opposition.

There were a few additional blips on the radar screen of American militaryperformance on this occasion. Most units were using maps made by the Frenchin the 1930s; only a few had updated versions drawn by the British in 1957.Marine, air force, and army units were not using the same radio frequencies. Ascheduled, though inexplicable, parachute drop at Qlie‛āt airport north of Tripoliwas called off for lack of photographs of the drop zone. Because thereconnaisance aircraft dispatched from Adana did not have the proper equipmentto take such photographs, the echelons earmarked for the north had to be packedin with the others at Beirut. Some soldiers were sent to the area without theirorders, others without their equipment, and still others without a clear idea ofwhat they were to do or whose orders to follow. The Twenty-fourth InfantryDivision in Germany was so cannibalized by the operation that, had anemergency arisen in Europe, it could not have played any role in its primemission.


One of the more intriguing problems that emerged during this exercise was thelack of a joint commander for the operation. One week into the interventiondemonstrated the need for an American Land Force Commander (AMLANFOR)who, on Admiral Holloway’s request, was duly provided. However, during theprevious nine months of planning for such contingencies (one month of it on alert),no decision had been made for such a commander. Perhaps, for political reasons,the Joint Chiefs had not wanted to decide whether it was to be an army or Marine“show.” Indeed, it turned out to be a diplomatic show, one whose success tendedto conceal the many errors Americans made in conducting the military operationthat backed it up.

When Lieutenant Colonel Hadd, making the initial landing, led his Marinebattalion onto “Red Beach” south of Beirut, he hardly knew what to expect. Norcould he have known. The situation was extremely fluid with several personspursuing different strategies. No one was sure what might happen. His orderswere clear: move up on the beach a few hundred yards and then, if possible, secureand take control of Beirut’s international airport. His four rifle companies madeit ashore, but their supplies failed to follow because their LSTs (landing craft)had hit a sandbar a short distance from the waterline. They managed to establisha beachhead even earlier than their orders had required but with only part of theassigned contingent. Within minutes of deploying, Colonel Hadd received wordfrom the American Ambassador, Robert McClintock, requesting that he re-embark and come around to land at Beirut port. The Colonel refused to complywith this demand, having strict orders from his commanding officer to take thebeach. He realized, of course, how dangerous it would be to act outside theformal command structure; additional military moves, at that moment, werebeing carried out under the assumption that his group was engaged in achievingits objectives according to plan. Therefore, Hadd secured the beach and,unopposed, took control of the airport. There, with the cooperation of itsadministrative personnel, his men were soon able to reopen the airport to civiliantraffic. Having met their primary objectives, patrols were detailed, and thebattalion bedded down for a calm first night in Lebanon.

The next day was surely one of the most difficult non-combat engagements theMarines have ever fought. The problem was that the players in this affair all haddifferent interests to be served by Colonel Hadd’s battalion. PresidentEisenhower knew enough about military matters not to want to put forces inLebanon, but his Doctrine said he had to (or it would be a dead letter). Secretaryof State Dulles was worried about the expansion of communist influence, butunfortunately, while he was right about the communists, he was wrong abouteverything else. The Joint Chiefs had the Russians over the “whing whang” andneeded to see if they could muster a rapid deployment force out of existingstocks. (The American Congress, at the time, was enamored with the idea ofgetting tough with the Soviets while cutting the budget.) General Shihāb under-stood the delicacy of the situation and did not want a detachment of AmericanMarines tracking through the Basta Quarter on their way to the port. Camille


Chamoun had heard that some of his army officers were considering a coup andwanted the Marines to hurry over to the Palace and save his neck. AmbassadorMcClintock was sending his operatives hither and thither trying to retie theGordian Knot. And poor Lieutenant Colonel Hadd, he couldn’t tell the differencebetween a rebel and an official of the government. As far as he knew, his buddieswere running the point for a large force that was going to seal off the roadsleading into Beirut and protect Lebanon from a Syrian invasion. Fortunately,most of his colleagues in the American armed forces were caught in a holdingpattern over Adana airbase and couldn’t join in the carnival until it was all over.Otherwise, he might have been ordered to take his men out among the mulberrytrees, according to plan, and never made it back to witness his country’s victory.

The next day was pivotal, and actions taken at that time decided the war. By mid-morning it was obvious to those in command that nobody in Beirut knew what todo. A back-up battalion had come ashore earlier and allowed Colonel Hadd’smen to move north toward the port area. At eight o’clock, General Wade (theAMLANFOR) arrived, gave orders for Hadd’s column to begin moving at nine-thirty, and then drove to the Embassy for a conference with General Shihāb andAmbassador McClintock. There, Wade discovered that Shihāb was still opposedto the Americans moving into Beirut proper and was concerned that an incidentmight lead to hostilities between his soldiers and the Marines. (Some of Shihāb’sofficers, two days earlier, had discussed pulling a coup.) On his way back fromthe embassy, General Wade saw that, indeed, several Lebanese tanks had formeda roadblock. The Lebanese soldiers, at that point, readily explained that theywere under orders to stop the Marine column but were unsure whether or not thismeant opening fire.11 It was clear to Colonel Hadd that a hand signal would notbe the same as cannon fire from a tank. What then transpired is best left toProfessor Spiller’s own words:

Wade sped on to the airport, where Admirals Holloway and Yeager (thecommander of the Fast Carrier Strike Force) arrived shortly. As Hadd’sbattalion finally began moving toward the city, the two admirals and theMarine general decided to go to the embassy. Unknown to them,Ambassador McClintock and General Shihab were on their way to theairport themselves, and the two offical cars passed each other en route. Theambassador’s car gave chase and caught up just at the roadblock, whereHadd’s battalion now faced the Lebanese tanks. There ensued animpromptu conference, where arrangements were made to have theLebanese army escort the marines into town (studiously avoiding anycontact with the Basta) and thereafter to insure that the American andLebanese military forces cooperated as much as possible in theiroperations. This done, Hadd’s battalion moved out once more, but this timewith Lebanese jeeps at intervals in the American column, the whole thingled by two official cars containing the American ambassador to Lebanon,the general in chief of the Lebanese army, the American task force


commander, the commander of the Fast Carrier Strike Force, and thecommander of the Marine task force. It was one of the more unusualpolitico-military processions in American history, and its progress markedthe passing of the crisis.12

The conference between gun barrels at the roadblock, almost comical in onesense but critical in another, could not have been better staged to wage peace. Itnot only allowed the two armies to join in establishing a military presence butalso prevented General Shihāb from appearing to have been one of thoseresponsible for it. For the operation to succeed politically, his ability to remainneutral was essential.

Although this event was the turning point of the crisis, the Americanintervention was only in its second day. The massive airlift to Adana had onlyjust begun, and the full weight of the army’s arrival was not to be felt untilseveral days had passed. They did, however, come to Beirut, and it was soon tohost 15,000 troops in the pine groves, to have an airport lined up with planes, andseventy-seven warships just off shore. Yet the script had been written and almosteveryone followed it. As The Economist commented:

Now that [the Americans] have established their bridgehead in Lebanon—and effectively secured the country from a Syrian invasion that never was—the best course might be to sit down with some ice packs and think out arealistic objective for the operation.13

The objective of the United States in Lebanon in 1958 was similar to its overallobjective throughout the Cold War: to protect that part of the political status quowhich was friendly to the West from coming under the control of a hostile powerand to make sure that whatever change did take place did so gradually andwithout threatening the balance of power. Once encamped, however, a “realisticobjective for the operation” was simply to play it by ear (as the Lebanese did).When it was clear that there was no threat of a hostile takeover, just getting outwith as little damage as possible became the objective.

On the military front, the large force managed to maintain a fairly delicatepresence. American soldiers almost never fired back at the sporadic sniper fire theyattracted from the Muslim areas of Beirut; their patrols often pushed out into thecountryside ten or twenty miles and were treated more as a novelty then amenace by the local populace. At the outset, the intervention received its share ofinvective from the journalists and politicians who were hoping to overthrow theChamoun regime. As one would expect, those who wanted a Nasserist solutionwere never to forgive the United States for its action. But, as the politics began totake shape (under the gun), it became apparent to many Lebanese that theAmericans had not come to do Chamoun’s bidding. Nor had they intervened toguarantee Christian control of the state as the Phalangists had hoped. As for theopposition, the Americans gave it little cause for alarm. Almost all of the


interventionary force remained outside Beirut for the duration of its stay. Only afew troops were allowed into the city, mostly to guard American and Britishfacilities. General Shihāb placed his troops as a buffer between the Americanpositions and the areas held by the opposition. By late summer in 1958, four-manpatrols, each with two Americans and two Lebanese, were carrying out policingfunctions among the civilians. No American was ever given any jurisdiction overLebanese citizens, and the few confrontations that took place between the twowere settled by discussion. The Americans lost eight soldiers in the operation butonly one to hostile fire. Sergeant James Nettles was killed by a sniper on August2 while driving through Beirut in a jeep. Another soldier, on August 22, waswounded by a sniper’s bullet but survived. Opposition areas, especially the BastaQuarter, were strictly off-limits to the American military; they were kept thatway until negotiations yielded a settlement and the departure of the inventionaryforces.

The Marine Corps was given the most difficult assignment, guarding thecrucial port facilities directly in the shadow of opposition territory. They wereasked to dig in rather than shoot back. Colonel Hadd recounted how difficultsuch a policy was for the individual Marine:

When a youngster lands all prepared and eager to fight and finds himselfrestricted from firing at a known rebel who he sees periodically fire in hisdirection and in every instance restrains himself from returning fire, it isfelt that this is outstanding and indicates good small unit discipline.14

American soldiers, however, were not the only ones who displayed restraintunder pressure. Lebanese had to deal with an influx of foreigners and thearrogance that it entailed, namely, that only geopolitics had made themimportant. People and politicians alike had to put up with momentous decisionsbeing made without their consent. Yet, within three weeks of the landing,American soldiers were able to visit Beirut during free time between noon andeight o’clock where they shopped and dined, some-times placing the kubiz‛ammi, (local flat, round bread), on their laps, thinking it a napkin. Often, whensoldiers wandered out of bounds, they were lectured (about Antara, Arabs, andAmerican policy) and escorted to safety. Americans were not disliked; they justseemed uncomprehending.

On the political front, which was not completely divorced from the military,things went even more smoothly. Ironically, it helped that the Americans, onceon the ground, recognized immediately that the problem was different from whathad been advertised. They were greeted by an isolated President Chamoun, mademore so by their intervention; by an appallingly unenthusiastic General Shihāb,who had to be won over; and by no clear-cut mission determined by oncomingenemy forces. The military, in fact, had to deal with the Lebanese population,essentially a political problem. It even helped that several prominent politicians,some of whom were counted on to support the rescue, in fact denounced it and


called for the Americans to leave forthwith. Notables such as Adil Usayrān,Shi‛ite Speaker of the House, and Emile Bustāni, a prominent Maronite deputy,spoke passionately in this vein, attracting additional neutral supporters. None ofthese psychological factors could have possibly countered the sheer weight ofmilitary force that the United States had brought in, but they did put some playinto the politics by preventing the situation from completely polarizing. It turnedout to be so fragmented that American negotiators were never faced with havingto serve two masters. Rather they could appeal to (and consult with) fifty.

President Eisenhower sent a special representative, Robert Murphy, toLebanon to work out a political solution. He conferred with President Chamoun,then consulted with the Patriarch, Ma‛ūshi, Ambassador McClintock, andGeneral Shihāb. Within a few days, he had held substantive talks with most ofthe opposition leaders as well as the heads of the various religious sects. Whilethe UN, refusing to have any dealings with the Americans, brought in additionalobservers, Mr Murphy continued to talk with other opposition leaders, even themilitant rebel, Kamal Jumblāt. Apparently, he was able to convince most of themthat the United States favored no particular candidate for the presidency and thatit welcomed holding elections in Lebanon as soon as practicable. The Speaker,Usayrān, whose opposition to the American action had made him optimallyneutral, took the lead in bringing the sceptical back to the Chamber. Heannounced that elections for a new President would take place in the Chamber onJuly 31, an eventful two weeks after the first Marines had come ashore. Thesewere duly held, and Fu‛ād Shihāb, on the second ballot, was elected Lebanon’sthird President by a vote of forty-eight to seven. In celebration, the governmentfired a twenty-one gun salute, and in the Basta Quarter the rebels also fired theirweapons in rejoicing. For American power and diplomacy to have brought abouta transfer of power, cheered by both sides in the recent civil war, was quite anachievement. Roger Spiller called his account of the American intervention:“Not War, But Like War.” The reason it had not been war “but like war” wasbecause it was politics.

WINDING DOWN THE WAR

Camille Chamoun insisted on serving out his full term, so Fu‛ād Shihāb did nottake office until September 23, 1958. More troops were still being added to theAmerican force several weeks after the question of the presidential successionhad been settled. In fact, a shipment of seventy-five tanks and another of HonestJohn missiles, neither really wanted by the officers on the scene, arrived aboutthe time the American forces were preparing to depart. Sporadic bombing andshooting, however, did continue, and several members of the oppositionpromised to begin the revolution all over again unless the Americans began toleave. On August 4, Rashid Karāmi ordered a ceasefire in Tripoli; soon after,joint patrols by the Americans and Lebanese brought greater calm to the centerof Beirut. In early September, shops were opened, clandestine radio stations shut


down, and some weapons given up. The chiefs of fifteen clans in the Ba‛albekand Hermil regions announced they would support the new government andasked General Shihāb to send in forces from the Lebanese army to restore orderin those areas. The conflict was winding down.

Political activity, though abrasive, gradually returned to familiar patterns asthe Americans arranged meetings between former adversaries such as KamalJumblāt and Pierre Gemayel. Evidence that conditions in Lebanon were returningto normal was provided on September 7, when an armed struggle broke outbetween the Duwayhi and Frangieh clans in the town of Zghartā. Three werekilled and six wounded as clan once again replaced sect as the focus ofcontention in that region. Conditions in the north were, at least, recognizable.

On September 23, a reluctant General Shihāb was sworn in as President whilehis predecessor stepped down. The next day, Shihāb appointed Rashid Karāmi tohead a cabinet made up almost entirely of members of the opposition. All butone of these had either fought on the rebel side, such as Karāmi himself, or were“anti-Chamoun” neutrals. While such asymmetry was politic from an Americanpoint of view, dispelling fears that the troops had been brought in solely tomaintain the status quo, it rankled the pro-government side. This was an issuethat came to the surface almost as soon as the Karāmi government was sworn in.

In a speech before the Chamber, President Shihāb outlined the immediateobjectives of his administration. These were as follows:

to establish law and order in all parts of Lebanon, disarm all privateLebanese groups, revive the economy and rebuild the country’s utilities(damaged in the war); to improve relations with the neighboring Arabcountries, and, most importantly, to press for the prompt withdrawal of allforeign troops from Lebanese soil.15

In broad outline, these were objectives that were satisfactory to most Lebanese;his candidacy and his program had been thoroughly canvassed long before hiselection by the Chamber on July 31. The problem was not the program, or evenits director, Fu‛ād Shihāb; it was the distribution of top government positions asthe vehicle for its conduct. In this instance, the complaint was not merely greedover patronage but, rather, the implication that the rebellion was legitimate, thatthe Chamoun government had been in the wrong all along. Although the divisionbetween supporters and opponents of Chamoun had not broken strictly alongsectarian lines, the fighting, for the most part, had. A few Shi‛ite and DruzeMuslim fought briefly on the government side, but almost no Christians foughton the side of the rebels. While the political opposition to Camille Chamoun camefrom many quarters, the actual fighting saw Muslims pitted against Christians orMuslims against the Lebanese army. It is significant that when Chamoundistributed military equipment received through the American (EisenhowerDoctrine) aid program, arms had been given only to Christian militia groups. Themake-up of the cabinet, while devised to bring the opposition back into the


government, seemed (to some Christians) to imply that it had been wrong tofight on the government side. Pierre Gemayel declared that he could not supportsuch a government.

There ensued what has been called the “counter-revolution” of 1958, a rumblethat had actually begun a few days before the new President was sworn in. OnSeptember 19, Fu‛ād Haddad, an assistant editor of the Phalangist newspaper, al-Amāl, was kidnapped. It seems clear (now) that this kidnapping was merely oneof many which occurred as the opposition and pro-government camps foundthemselves conducting a campaign of such acts over a period of several weeks.What social scientists call “hostility-reaction formation” seems to have set in sothat one attack called for a retaliation ad infinitum. The Haddad kidnappingespecially raised tensions. Pierre Gemayel called for a general strike andmarched his followers into Beirut for a protest demonstration. Once the Karāmicabinet was announced, he wrote a signed editorial in al-Amāl, demanding achange in the government’s make-up. The protest strike soon attracted otherChristian political groups to the Phalangist cause and threatened the Shihābgovernment with an armed rebellion from the other side. It is worth noting thatthis storm erupted at the very time that the Karāmi cabinet was being formed andbefore it could even announce a program. It is perhaps no coincidence that the“counter-revolution” reached its height at a time when, according to the UNObserver Corps, infiltration from Syria had virtually ceased and the last of theAmerican forces were departing Lebanon.

In early October, violence broke out in various places from Beirut to Tripoli.Two Phalangists were killed in clashes with the Lebanese army; five Christianwomen were injured trying to enforce a blockade of roads leading into Beirut;and one person died and about thirty were hurt in further clashes, the worst ofwhich were in Tripoli. The Prime Minister offered his resignation, but PresidentShihāb refused to accept it. The Phalange, led by Gemayel, and the NationalBloc, led by the Eddés, made it clear that they had enough votes in the Chamberto prevent the Karāmi cabinet from governing. Sa‛ib Salām, Kamal Jumblāt, andHenri Pharaon, on the other hand, insisted that Karāmi stay on; the PrimeMinister, himself, refused to reshuffle his cabinet. On October 13, at least fourpersons were killed in a new outbreak of violence in Beirut, including Wadi al-Sulh, nephew of the former Prime Minister and a former official in the Ministryof Public Works under Chamoun. Matters had gotten topsy-turvy in Lebanon; theformer opposition was now “pro-government” while the old pro-governmentforces made up the new “opposition.” It would have been economical, at thistime, simply to have divided up the political system into “Red” and “Blue”parties and held elections.

Instead, Ambassador McClintock resumed making the rounds, talking to allthe majors, and finally offering a three-point proposal of his own for thereconstitution of the government. Although the Ambassador had virtuallygoverned Lebanon during late July and early August, all sides were in uproarover his suggestions, claiming that his actions were gross interference in the


affairs of the country. Like the military intervention, this additional outrage hadthe effect of bringing the conflicting parties together. President Shihāb arrangeda meeting between Karāmi and Gemayel at his office, and later he arranged forGemayel and Jumblāt to discuss the political situation. The President also gaveserious thought to forming an emergency (military) government to take controluntil tempers cooled down more. This prospect, plus the Ambassador’sindiscretion, along with the renewed outbreak of violence on October 13, 1958,seemed to bring the politicians to their senses. They began to talk about a “deal.”

The next day, October 14, a four-man cabinet was formed, divided equallybetween the former opposition, “new government” side and the formergovernment, “new opposition” side. Rashid Karāmi, leader of the revolt inTripoli, became Prime Minister and was in charge of five ministries; HusseinUwayni was the new Foreign Minister and held three ministries; Raymond Eddéreceived interior and two additional portfolios; and Pierre Gemayel made hiscounter-revolution pay off by taking over four ministries, including that of publicworks. This “Cabinet of Four” lasted for nearly a year before it resigned, andwhen that happened in October 1959, it was merely reconstituted in an expandedform. Even the Chamounists gave the “Four” their approval. On October 17,1958, the Chamber met and approved the government by a unanimous vote. Onemonth later, it passed a bill allowing the government, for a period of six months,to issue decrees in most areas without reference to the Chamber, i.e., to ruleLebanon through direct executive authority. Once the new formula was agreedon, that there would be “no victor and no vanquished,” politics and society veryrapidly returned to normal. As Fahim Qubain put it, “The crisis ended onOctober 14,” the day when the “super” cabinet was formed and Gemayel’scounter-revolution ended.16


6The best years: 1958–1970

BACK TO NORMAL

On October 15, shops reopened in Beirut. Curfew regulations were relaxed thenext day; bulldozers leveled barracks amid preparations to airlift all theAmerican troops out of Lebanon. Streetcars were once again running; wives andchildren of embassy personnel were allowed to return; the United States offeredto resume economic aid; and the United Nations Observer Group announced thatits work was completed and would withdraw. The Karāmi government asked theLebanese to return to peace, saying a new era had begun. The ambassador fromthe UAR was asked to stay; the ban on Syrian newspapers was lifted; charges,put before the UN against the UAR were dropped; and amnesty was declared forthose political prisoners who had been incarcerated for fighting on the rebel side.By early November 1958, the government was forced to intervene betweenDruze and Christians in the Shūf; put down an uprising of looting (early December)by rebels in Tripoli, where no deaths were reported; and monitor the Duwayhi-Franjieh feud in Zghartā, where people died regularly. By winter, Lebanon hadgotten back to normal.

The good news was that the cabinet did not request an extension of its powerto rule by decree after its authority to do so expired in June 1959. Thegovernment also was able to appoint new governors for Lebanon’s fiveprovinces, expand the cabinet from four to eight, and gradually lift all curfew andpublishing restrictions. President Shihāb met with President Nasser of the UAR,and the country’s foreign relations demonstrated a renewed emphasis of the Arabpoint of view, especally regarding Israel. The Chamber voted to increase its sizefrom seventy-seven to ninety-nine members, and elections were scheduled forJune-July 1960. The Republic had survived.

Though outbreaks of violence continued sporadically, the number of incidentsdiminished. During the first half of 1959, at least ten major incidents werereported, decreasing to just three for the last half of that year. Instances ofviolence continued to decline in 1960, totaling eight, most of which took place inconjunction with the elections of that year.1 Violence increased to fifteeninstances in 1961, culminating in an attempted coup by the PPS on December

31.2 The government was able to get control of the situation in short order,however, and overall violence declined in 1962 to four incidents. For a picture ofthe record of violence in terms of the incidents counted for the years 1947–62,see Figure 6.1.

Figure 6.1 Incidents of violence: 1947–1962


Note: All figures for incidents of violence based on information from the “Chronology”for Lebanon, Middle East Journal, for the relevant years

THE BEST YEARS: 1958–1970 127

Fu‛ād Shihāb did not flinch from using both his security forces and the armyto keep order and must be given credit for the rapid decline in violence andsteady progress toward a normal state of affairs that occurred during the first fewyears after 1958. He also established the political basis for Lebanon’s mostenduring period of economic and social development, the fifteen years between1960 and 1975.

As for the United States, its intervention was due more to the geostrategicproblems the Middle East poses for outside powers than to any responsibility itfelt to help a government in trouble. For Rome, London, or Washington, theproblem was the same. No hostile power may be allowed to control the strategiccenter. What is remarkable about the American intervention is that it did notleave Lebanon worse off than it had been before the Marines landed. The troopsgot in and out without causing a major calamity. Perhaps this lucky outcome wasdue to the fact that the Americans, finding no army invading Lebanon, wereforced to look for something useful to do. What they settled on was to standaside while midwives assisted in the birth of a new regime without killing themother. While, happily, it is true that the United States stood aside, it should beremembered that it did so massively, i.e., with such available force that it couldafford to keep its cool.

THE SHIHĀBISTS

The person who, more than anyone else, gave leadership to the new era whichPrime Minister Karāmi had proclaimed was Fu‛ād Shihāb. As President after1958, he embarked on an ambitious program of public works and limited politicalreform. He did not overtly challenge the ancien régime but sidestepped it, usingthe Deuxième Bureau (the country’s investigative police organization) to makesure that government edicts were carried out. This organization gradually beganto act independently and not always constitutionally; its powers also began toundermine the traditional privileges of the za‛īm class. Trying to develop theinfrastructure for a modern state, Shihāb had to struggle against the zu’ama, whostubbornly resisted the loss of their influence and traditional prerogatives. Evenso, during the Shihābist period of power (including the terms of both Fu‛ādShihāb and Charles Hilū), the Shihābists administered a time of unprecedentedeconomic growth and development in Lebanon. These were the best years of theRepublic.

On July 31, 1958, the Lebanese Chamber of Deputies, by a vote of forty-eightto seven, elected General Shihāb to be President of the Republic. As has oftenbeen remarked, Fu‛ād Shihāb was an outsider in Lebanon’s politics. He made apoint of being honest, straightforward, and independent in his dealings withpeople, making no effort to conceal his disdain for politics and politicians.Although, in his politics, he was no wallflower, he also seemed uninterested inseeking power and the personal advantages that came with it. Moreover, Shihābwas a genuine Lebanese patriot. Both modernizers and radicals of all persuasions

128 THE BEST YEARS: 1958–1970

“were drawn to General Shihāb because he appeared to share with them a wishfor order and clarity in political life, whatever the substantive goals might be.”3

Once he was President, the General could no longer remain the neutral outsideracting as a corrective influence in his country’s politics; he had to play politics.Because the traditional political alliances had been shattered by the 1958 conflict,his initial instinct was to govern with neutrals and professionals, trying to avoidas many of the traditional zu‛āma as possible. Unfortunately, those that could notbe ignored were mostly Muslims (on the left) and were insisting on Lebanon’sreturn to the Arab fold. Many, in fact, had been among the insurgents fightingCamille Chamoun. Following the counter-revolution, led by the Katā‛ib andPierre Gemayel, Shihāb was forced to bring some of those associated with theChristian point of view into the government, making its membership less pro-Arab and less neutralist. The cabinet, eventually enlarged to compensate for thecommunal balance forced on the reformers, once again came to be dominated byneutralists and technicians. It turned out to be even less the politicians’ clubwhen reshuffled to preside over the 1960 elections. In this election, themodernist candidates won so handily over the old-guard Chamounists, thatShihāb could now turn to the country’s own institutions to help him run thecountry.

With even stronger support from the new Chamber following the 1960elections and having a sufficient political base to carry out his reforms, GeneralShihāb decided to resign. He argued that his mission of national reconstructionhad been successfully completed and that the Republic could proceed alongconstitutional lines without him. Sa‛ib Salām had been named Prime Minister,heading a large cabinet of eighteen ministers who represented a large variety ofregional and sectarian rivalries. From the General’s point of view, the Salāmgovernment indicated that all the factions in Lebanon were ready to participate inits national life. His work was done. Whatever the General’s motives, his dog-in-the-manger tactic, from a Shihābist point of view, had the desirable effect on thepublic. All sectors of opinion voiced their dismay at the prospect of having theirsuffering servant leave his post so prematurely. Within a few hours of theannounced resignation (on July 20, 1960), the General was persuaded to retractit. A demonstrated outcry for his leadership and a resignation letter in his pocket,Fu‛ād Shihāb’s power was never greater; he could demand, despite every effortof the Lebanese to prevent it, that his country be reconstructed, that Lebanon, inspite of itself, find a way to survive.

Given his mandate and an Assembly less dominated by the old feudal lords,President Shihāb believed he could both allow Lebanese politics to return tonormalcy and vigorously push reconstruction and reform. As earlier mentioned,violence had receded to its normal levels, and a large number of Lebanese hadcome to recognize that their country could not be taken away from its Arabconnections without courting disaster. Support for a pro-UAR connection duringthe 1960 campaign was strong but not so radical as before. The anti-UAR stanceof many Christians had also moderated, and only a few Chamounists had been


returned to the Assembly. Therefore, while he continued to execute theparticulars of his policy through the Deuxième Bureau, Fu‛ād Shihāb opened upthe political process to the whole range of politicians by including every sectorof influence in his first cabinet after the 1960 election. Besides choosing veteranSunni politican and rebel, Sa’ib Salām, to be Prime Minister, Shihāb includedDruze rivals, Majid Arslān and Kamal Jumblāt in his cabinet along withMaronite rivals, Pierre Gemayel and Suleiman Franjieh. Other familiar names,Majdalāni, Taqlā, Khūri, and Skāf received posts; all communities, including theArmenians, could feel represented. The cabinet was a smaller version of theChamber itself, representing Lebanon’s pattern of small blocs along withlegislators elected as independents. It would work as long as the Shihābists couldgovern and the Deuxième Bureau could keep the various opposition sectors incheck.

The membership of the Assembly, following civil war and elections, is itselfinstructive. Of course, the communal breakdown was already decided by theconfessional system, but, even so, new trends could be seen. The membership, aspart of the healing process, had been expanded from sixty-six to ninety-nine.Thirty-four of the previous Chamber’s members were not returned; in all fiftynew members took their seats. It was a younger Assembly than the one elected in1957 and less dominated by traditional landowners. This legislature was notorganized to carry out a national program. About 72 percent of the memberswere elected as independents while the rest were divided up among five blocs,those of the Phalanges (Pierre Gemayel); the National Bloc (Raymond and PierreEddé); the National Liberals (Camille Chamoun); the Constitutional Bloc(former President al-Khūri); and the Progressive Socialist Party of KamalJumblāt. The Muslim Najjāda movement also won a single seat, causing it tofunction as an independent. As political scientist Jacob Landau stated,

one finds that many…deputies of…the Lebanese Chamber arepredominantly competing individuals who perennially propose themselvesor are pushed forward by local notables and are not permanently linked(with very rare exceptions) to any pre-existent organization which decideson a unified program of action. This would seem to apply, as a rule, evento most new faces in the 1960 Chamber. After entering the Chamber, manydeputies join in loose parliamentary groups without much inner discipline.4

In fact, politics soon returned to the party groupings and communal sectorstypical of Lebanon before 1958. What was different was that, under Fu'ādShihāb, the politicians had to share power with the army.

President Shihāb admired General de Gaulle and President Gamal AbdulNasser, sharing their disdain for the hucksterism and incompetenceof politicians. Thus, when Shihāb took special pains to restore Lebanese politicalactivity and include all sectors of opinion in his first post-election cabinet, hewas not opening up the country to democratic government. The Lebanese, he


was certain, were not capable of pursuing a vigorous policy of reform andreconstruction. He would let the country’s political engine run without putting itin gear; while the politicians played their old games, he would rule. On the otherhand, important work had to be done to save liberal democracy in Lebanon (eventhough it would hardly be a liberal democrat saving it). For the Shihābists, theroot of the problem was not just the sectarian rivalries; it was the “haves” againstthe “have-nots”. While the politicians argued, the General’s reformers would usetheir own bureaus and councils to remedy the underlying causes of Lebanesedissidence. The government would offer programs that brought benefits to themany rural, expecially Muslim, citizens previously ignored. And if zu'āmapolitics blocked reforms, the army could step in to implement them.

To do so, President Shihāb used his cabinet of “giants” to maintain a“coalition of oppositions” which, though it could not govern, could contain thosetendencies that went too far toward favoring one interest at the expense ofanother.5 Thus, Shihāb, through the remainder of his term, received the benigncooperation of the Maronite Katā‛ib, the Armenian Tashnāq, the Assads of southLebanon, the Jumblāt bloc in the Shūf, the Constitutionalists, several Sunninotables in Beirut and Tripoli, and Suleiman Franjieh in the far north. Otherimportant independents, both Christian and Muslim, joined the coalition fromtime to time as competition dictated. It was a coalition of “oppositions” becauseits members continually had to decide whether or not to cooperate with personswhose policies they vehemently opposed. The Katā‛ib could work with theiropponents because they wanted some social reform for Lebanon and more powerfor the party. Jumblāt, the Progressive in the Shūf, could stay on just to be in aposition to denounce the government’s programs as not enough. Franjieh, thetraditional conservative in the north, also had ambitions and could be used tobalance the fiery Jumblāt. Assads balanced Hamādahs in the Shi‛ite communitywhile Sa‛ib Salām seesawed with Rashid Karāmi as Sunni Prime Minister. Byrefusing to allow this mix-and-match coalition to fall apart (even to the extent ofpermitting Kamal Jumblāt to both resign from the government and take part in itat the same time), Fu‛ād Shihāb was able to govern largely undisturbed for the restof his term.6 Several of these personages quarreled bitterly with one another;accusations were rife; cabinets were shuffled; but the Shihābists went on withtheir work. Thus, under their influence, Lebanon enjoyed reasonably effectivepresidential government from 1958 through 1970.

While leaving the Assembly to its own devices, President Shihāb initiatedseveral innovations in executive government. Mention has already been made ofhis use of the Deuxième Bureau intelligence organization. With it he kept tabs onthe administration of the Shihābist system, forcing obedience to administrativestrictures where such had not been traditionally forthcoming. The Bureau wasable not only to intervene directly in the lives of individuals but also to gatherand use information against them. Perhaps the most valuable innovation that theShihābists developed, though, was a “personal political organization quiteunconnected with the traditional political system.”7 President Shihāb established


a top circle of advisors who owed their loyalty only to him and functioned as akind of “executive council” to oversee the establishment of an orderly andeffective administration. Each of these “professionals” could be dispatched tosolve problems and check on traditional abuses. Among these, Elias Sarkis, theChief of Cabinet; Louis-Joseph Lebret, a Jesuit priest; Jean Lay, a militaryengineer; Shafīq Muharram, a technical advisor; and Georges Haimari, head ofthe Customs Council, worked especially closely with the President to helpimplement his program. Lebanon’s “Attaturk” had his own “best and thebrightest” working for the Republic.

The army was also present and able to bring its influence into the bureaucracyand, vicariously, into politics. President al-Khūri had tried to manipulate thetraditional political system, and President Chamoun had tried to replace it.President Shihāb, by contrast, had put himself into position to ignore it. Whilehis close associates, both civilian and military, were moderately committed to theideals of liberal democracy, they were far more committed to modernization ofthe country. From their point of view, entrepreneurs could bring prosperity toLebanon if, and only if, the country could be made to work. It could work, infact, only if reformed. To do so meant supplanting the power of the traditionalclans with the power of the state’s institutions, e.g., the administrativetechnocrats, the intelligence (secret police) apparatus, and the army.

As for the army, it is difficult to assess just how much influence over policyand administration it wielded. It was, after all, Fu‛ād Shihāb’s army, andcontained within its ranks a number of his close associates, people he genuinelytrusted. As in other Middle East systems, the army served as the mainmodernizing agent for many young men, especially those from the lower classes.Some among the army’s young professionals had enjoyed a more modern highschool education than those from other sectors of the country; some had gone toEurope for military training. Thus, it is clear that the Shihāb regime did call uponthe army to provide it with some of the no-nonsense professional staff it neededto manage its programs and keep the lid on sectarian strife. The army’s presencewas felt everywhere, and its influence, though discreet, was clearly manifest atelection time. More than one sure winner at the polls, e.g., Raymond Eddé in Jubayland former President Chamoun in Dayr al-Qamar, suffered improbable electoraldefeats as a result of the army’s presence. Although it went beyond the boundsof propriety when engaged in politics, the army’s involvement in corruption wasminimal. There were reports that, in many cases, one had to pay the right peoplein the army to have licenses and contracts expedited, but such incidents wereprobably not as widespread as rumors claimed and never developed into a majorscandal.

It was the stated preference of President Shihāb that the army have a limitedrole in government. Lebanon’s “liberal democracy” was not to imitate Syria andIraq. General Shihāb had kept the army out of the 1958 civil war and had to bebegged to accept the presidency. Moreover, too direct a role by the army, with itsMaronite officers, would have reintroduced the sectarian factor, undermining


much of what the Shihābist reform program was attempting to accomplish. Oneof its main goals was to return to the Arab fold in regional relationships; anotherwas to distribute benefits and opportunities to the many Muslims who had notgained from Lebanon’s previous period of economic growth. The army couldplay a role, but only in the context of a liberal, not praetorian, state. According toShihābist mythology at least, the soldiers were supposed to stay in their barracks.

An event that made it difficult for the Shihāb apparatus to adhere to the mythwas the attempt by the PPS on December 31, 1961, to pull a coup. Several high-ranking officers close to the President were kidnapped, including Lieutenant-Colonel Abdel Kader Shihāb (commander of the Beirut garrison). There is someevidence that several of the old-guard politicians were prepared to cooperate withthe rump group had it been successful in neutralizing the army. For its part, thearmy wasted no time in coming to terms with the dissidents. Thousands ofLebanese were arrested, prominent politicians were denied passports, and amilitary presence at public functions was intensified. Prominent army officerscampaigned openly for the Shihābists, trying at first to mobilize support to havethe Constitution amended and General Shihāb elected for a second term. Later,when their attempt failed, they organized an effort to defeat, on their home turf,those politicians who could challenge the Shihābists for the Presidency.

Following the 1961 coup attempt, and especially during the run-up to theelection in 1964, many politicians were unhappy with the measures the armytook to stifle dissent. Not only was the Ministry of Defense out campaigning, butthe Deuxième Bureau was extremely active in protecting the regime from itcritics in the press. Lebanese were hardly unfamiliar with corruption andgovernment intervention in elections, but this had usually been done through theregime’s operatives and its none-too-efficient police. During the “undisturbed”period of Shihābist rule, open discussion was severely limited by the darkshadow of military guardianship. Just as the politicians were frustrated with theGeneral’s discipline, the soldiers were understandably impatient with thepoliticians’ squabbling. The former could see no alternative but to force Lebanonto become modern, liberal, and democratic; the latter could not understand howthe country could become democratic by undemocratic means.

Fu‛ād Shihāb, himself, was not completely free from the contradiction. Hefavored reform, reconstruction, and redistribution of wealth for the Lebanese,and he was also committed to their Constitution and to the democratic pluralismit framed. But the General could hardly effect the needed changes withoutsupporters, without individuals willing to slog it out in the trenches. These didnot come from the traditional elements of the political system, not even from itsrebels. It was the army and the new professional class (including businessmen)who shared the President’s commitment. He was trapped between depending onthe traditional political system (with the threat of more crises) and imposingmilitary rule (with less chance to salvage constitutional democracy). Indeed,President Shihāb tried to steer a middle course.


In attempting this middle course between too much and too little militarycontrol, it is clear that the personal organizations which the President developedto pull the Lebanese, kicking and screaming, out of their traditional past alsodamaged the institutions he wished to protect. Fu‘ād Shihāb’s personal exampleof not seeking office and not aggrandizing power did help restrain his supporters,even those in the army. By focusing attention on development and social justice,he intended to divert the Lebanese from their more primordial instincts, believingthat the common goal of rebuilding and redistributing would cause them to riseabove their traditional communal conflicts. To his credit, Shihāb did exhibitsufficient political skill to maintain a coalition of unlike politicians in thegovernment long enough to carry out his reforms. According to the Americanpolitical scientist Michael C. Hudson, he provided “the impetus for a moderatesocial-democratic grouping, which, if ever realized, could (have provided) hissuccessors with a stable and dynamic structure for combating Lebanon’spolitical troubles.”8 Yet, the question remains whether or not any group otherthan the Shihābists could have made use of the new structures they created and,indeed, whether or not anyone but Fu‘ād Shihāb could have made them work inLebanon.

One of the things that did work after 1958 was the economy; Lebanonembarked on a path of steady growth with financial stability. In tandem with thisgrowth was the expansion of government. Under President Shihāb, theexpenditures of government more than doubled between 1958 and 1964, fromabout $182 million to $473 million. The economy, however, grew faster so thatthis increase did not amount to a doubling of public sector as a percentage ofLebanon’s GNP. Where it had amounted to almost 14 percent of the GNP in1958, it had become more than 23 percent of it in 1964. Obviously, the countrywas able to pay for the reforms and reconstruction that Fu‛ād Shihāb demanded.Generally, a modern, non-socialist country will have a public sector thatengrosses over a third of its GNP. Lebanon was becoming modern, though notindustrialized, and it was not socialist. Under President Shihāb, it did seem to beestablishing the infrastructure for a modern society.

Especially sizable increases in the government budget occurred in the areas ofeducation and public works, a 452 percent increase for the latter between 1958and 1964. Both interior and defense sectors received sizable increases as well.Some of Shihāb’s most impressive achievements were, surely, resuming theLitāni Project (a hydroelectric and irrigation scheme begun before the 1958 civilwar), digging the Qarūn Reservoir, developing a social security program,allowing union organization, extending roads and electricity to the rural areas,and administering the Green Project whereby poor farmers received new(Mexipak) seed strains and agricultural assistance. The shortfall in the Shihābistachievement lay in the fact that much of the Lebanese political establishmentwas never sold on the reform program. Most of the old politicians were neitherinvolved in it nor committed to it.


It is not accurate, however, to suggest that Fu‛ād Shihāb ignored thepoliticians altogether. After the original “youth” cabinet failed, he enlisted Sa‛ibSalām along with a balanced menu of established politicians. Raymond Eddé ofthe old National Bloc soon quit, but Pierre Gemayel did not. Sa’ib Salām becameestranged from the President after 1961 and was replaced by Rashid Karāmi, thewealthy Sunni notable from Tripoli. And Kamal Jumblāt, with all his quirks,remained an essential element of the Shihābist political formula. He espousedmodern socialism while closing down stereo clubs and striptease acts, most oftenas Minister of Interior under Presidents Shihāb and Hilū. Since each of thesethree majors, Karāmi, Gemayel, and Jumblāt, possessed their own politicalorganizations (and military forces), including them in the government was, forShihāb, tantamount to ruling the country through three regions. Unfortunately,none of the three fully represented his region. Many citizens were left politicallyunrepresented and remained to be controlled by the second government, that ofFu‛ād’s army and security personnel. However, by simplifying Lebanon’sdivisions and allowing them to find political expression and status in the system,the Shihābists were able to begin building a modern infrastructure for Lebanonwhile preventing its communards from tearing the country apart over the details.

Data on the number of reported “conflict incidents” compared with thenumber of announced “public programs” occurring during President Shihāb’s sixyears in office throw light on his overall political performance.9 Averaging about4 “reported” incidents annually during the five Chamoun years before the civildisturbances, the number of incidents rose to 11 in 1957 and 148 in 1958. It fellto 13 for 1959, stayed at approximately that figure for the next two years, andthen dropped to just one incident for the year 1964. It continued at this fairly lowlevel during the presidency of Charles Hilū until 1969, when the number ofconflict incidents jumped to 23 (see Figure 6.2). On the other hand, the Chamounadministration averaged only two announced “public programs” per year duringthe five-year period it was in office prior to the 1958 civil war. It is, in fact, fairto say that the Chamoun performance in this regard was even weaker thanaverage since there were no public programs announced in the years 1956–8.Beginning in 1959 with just two such programs, the Shihāb government pushedthe number up to ten in 1960 and averaged about eight new programs a yearafterwards. The Hilū government (1964–70) continued to start up new programsat only a slightly lower pace until the 1967 June War stopped it dead in its tracks(see Figure 6.3).

These data hardly indicate a causal relation between public programs andincidence of conflict other than the obvious fact that large-scale projects cannotbe carried out during periods of serious civil disturbance and/or assault fromoutside forces. During the Shihāb years, however, when the number of publicprograms began to rise, the number of violent incidents began to fall. Bycontrast, during the last three years of the Chamoun presidency, when conflictbegan to rise dramatically, no new public programs were announced. There


probably is a correlation between the two factors, one especially noticeableduring the first few years (after 1970) of the Franjieh presidency.

Yet, there was so much more to Lebanon’s problems than could be measuredby data on programs and conflict. There was the intriguing case of Dean (‛amid)Raymond Eddé, the problematic character of Kamal Jumblāt, as well as theenigmatic behavior of Fu‛ād Shihāb himself. Unfortunately, each of thesepoliticians (and others) wanted to be the president; each would have tried torepresent the whole country as if it were simply an extension of his local“canton.” Of these notables, Chamoun, Gemayal, Karāmi, Salām, Jumblāt, Eddé,and Shihāb, only the latter possessed operative reflexes appropriate for the whole




country, a sense of the plural chaos that had to be managed if Lebanon were tofunction. For the others, Lebanon was only the larger ground on whichcommunal interests were played, a place to fight for a preferred distribution ofbenefits and to prevent others from getting them.

Figure 6.3 Announced public projects: 1958–1969


Note: All figures for public projects based on information from the “Chronology” forLebanon, Middle East Journal, for the relevant years


During the 1958 civil war, many rebels undoubtedly hoped that Lebanonwould be drawn into the new Arab state which Egypt and Syria were forging.Other establishment Muslims undoubtedly felt that Chamoun and the Christianelite were operating a “company store” that required them to remain second-classcitizens. Moreover, by resisting pressures to cooperate with the new Arabism, theChristians were prepared to reinforce their superiority and use outsiders toenforce it. The Christians, on the other hand, had among their members thosewho recognized the need to concede benefits, in terms of both wealth andregional attachment, to the Muslims but were loathe to do so under assault fromNasser. Other, more traditional Christians simply believed that PresidentChamoun and the Americans had saved them from being taken over by Soviet-supported Pan-Arabism.

The truth is probably located somewhere between these two extreme points ofview. The American-Shihābist outcome did not rescue Lebanon from an invaderbut did help avert a massive shift in the regional balance of power towardNasserism. There is, of course, no possible resolution to the argument betweenthose who want Lebanon to belong to the Arab states and those who wantLebanon to protect them from the Arab states. The selection of Fu‛ād Shihāb didnot resolve that dilemma; it did give Lebanon some additional time to work onits internal problems, an outcome acceptable to those who wanted Lebanon to beboth Arab and independent.10

This explains why the General, when he took over in 1958, bent overbackwards to promote a balance of interests representing the whole of GreaterLebanon. The Muslims, in the main, gave him support, taking a political miracleas nothing more than their just due. In contrast, the reaction of the Christiansranged from scepticism to hostility. Why should these rebels be rewarded fortrying to wreck the most prosperous Arab state in the Middle East? Why was itwrong for President Chamoun, a democratically elected president of anindependent and sovereign country to take those measures needed to protect itfrom the assault of outside powers?

What was wrong, of course, was that Lebanon was wrong. A modernindependent country in the “Western” state system cannot sustain itself for longwithout sharing the benefits of statehood with all segments of its society. Thereis no state that does not have to wage a constant struggle to meet thisrequirement. Lebanon’s elite not only refused to wage the struggle, it hardlyrecognized its existence. In addition, those for whom the struggle was wagedwould, when given the chance, also seek to dominate. The Muslim ethospromotes reciprocity only as a concession by the strong to the weak, by God’summa to the dhimmis.

As a concession to the Phalangist-led “counter-revolution” of October 1958,Fu‛ad Shihāb’s first working cabinet had included both Pierre Gemayel andRaymond Eddé for the Christian side and Rashid Karāmi and Hussein ‘Uwayni(Head of the Islamic Council) for the Muslim side. Following some resignationsand new elections, Sa‛ib Salām and Kamal Jumblāt were added. Thus all the


major players, except Camille Chamoun, had taken part in President Shihāb’sregime. One could imagine a managed rotation in which all could have been partof a reform program where, after several years of isolation, even CamilleChamoun had returned to public life to contribute his international experiencefor Lebanon’s benefit. With eighteen years of stability and progress, underShihāb, Hilū, and either Sarkis or Eddé, Lebanon (one supposes) could haveweathered the tremendous strains of the 1970s and gradually learned the ways ofdemocratic politics and republican government. A great number of ordinarypeople could be alive today, and the “giants” remembered as “fathers of theircountry.” One “giant” might still be alive, and four active and energetic “sons ofgiants” also. But the story took a different turn and did not work out this way.Why not?

Raymond Eddé, whom Kamal Salibi refers to as a “Jeffersonian Democrat,”departed to oppose the Shihābists, making a tacit linkage with former PresidentChamoun who, as soon as he left office, had begun to organize his ownopposition party, the National Liberals.11 Did the ‘amid (Dean) expect Shihāb totransform Lebanon into a Jeffersonian democracy overnight? Jefferson, when inpower, behaved more like Kemal Attaturk than like the author of the Declarationof Independence. Were Shihāb’s methods so undemocratic as to demand that anEddé, as a matter of conscience, return to his home base in Jubayl and oppose thegovernment from there? Shihāb’s and Eddé’s views on democratic reform wereprobably as close as those of any of Lebanon’s major politicians. Did the Dean’sown ambitions outweigh the needs of Lebanon? Why turn to Chamoun to opposethe General? Shihāb also would someday be a former President; why not work withhim for the Republic while putting oneself in a position to hold that office andcontinue the reforms?

Sa‛ib Salām was also an essential component of the reconciliation formula andheaded the government from August 1960 to October 1961. It is claimed thatSalām and Shihāb differed over style and method. In choosing between the twoSunnis, Salām and Karāmi, it was obviously easier for the Shihābists to workwith the latter. His base of power was in Tripoli and did not interfere withGemayel’s locus of activity. On the other hand, the constituencies of Salām andGemayel met in Beirut and even overlapped near the seat of government (wherethe contest was not so much for votes as for holding demonstrations and bringingprivate forces into the political equation). Shihāb probably should have madegreater efforts to see that Salām was not politically injured and kept in reservefor useful rotation with Karāmi. The President needed to maintain a manageablecompetition between these two Sunni notables because he needed both, as wellas their constituencies, to be dependent on him.

Instead, the zeal of the Shihābists in the army and Deuxième Bureau went farbeyond political sense, and they helped unseat Raymond Eddé in Jubayl (for abrief time) and assisted the Gemayals’ rather permanent defeat of Raymond’sbrother, Pierre, in Ashrafīyah. Kamal Jumblāt was allowed his quirks andvanities and did not pose a serious challenge to the President, many of whose


policies he approved. Indeed, an active Jumblāt was valuable to both Shihāb andGemayel as an effective counterweight in the Shūf to the still ambitiousChamoun. Both men were in competition for the same votes on themultisectarian lists.

It was with Sa‛ib Salām, however, that the Shihābists made their most seriousmistakes in the Lebanese political game. In trying to weaken his power in Beirut,they helped youthful Sunni gang leaders organize against Salām; even someradical Palestinians may have been financed for this purpose. Perhaps, forShihāb, this was one of many concessions made to Nasser, who could never stopmeddling in Lebanon. More likely, helping Salām’s opponents was a way topunish him for refusing to cooperate as well as a way to divide an alwaysdangerous bloc of “Arab” sentiment. Finally, a weakened Salām was also notwithout its advantages for Rashid Karāmi who, throughout the greater part of theShihāb and Hilū presidencies, held onto the premiership. He could exchangeplaces with Abdullah al-Yāfi more comfortably than with Sa‛ib Salām. On theother hand, what was valuable for Karāmi was not necessarily good politics forPresident Shihāb and his reform program. He needed a strong Sunni notable witha Beirut constituency. Only Sa’ib Salām fitted that description.

In addition to all the political maneuvring, there was the personality of Fu‛ādShihāb himself. He was different from the many military leaders who havediscovered that they could save their countries for democracy only by governingthem undemocratically. The General was determined to hold elections and returnthe country to its constitutional practices. He was determined to return thecountry to the politicians, people he in fact detested. To do so was the mostimportant item on his agenda. Like many strong leaders attempting to modernizetheir societies, however, General Shihāb would have preferred to restore thecountry to the politicians of his choice. Why give it back to the very fools whohad earlier torn it apart?

Unfortunately, succeeding in this area of his agenda required being able toplay politics with astuteness. Injuring Raymond Eddé, whose views were not farfrom his own, was not wise politics. But, taking aim at Sa’ib Salām was evenworse. Eddé might pose a challenge to the Shihābists, but he would never roardown from the Mountain with a militia in an attempt to overthrow a ChristianPresident. Salām, and his friends, might roar! No doubt, the coup attempt on thepart of the PPS had unnerved the Shihābists. But their agenda, and the properagenda for Lebanon, necessitated several balancing sources of power from theMuslim communities as well as from the Christians, e.g., Eddé balancingGemayel, Salām weighted against Karāmi, and Jumblāt containing Chamoun.Such a political strategy, had the Shihābists adopted it, might have helpedprotect Lebanon against the unweaned adventurers who later moved to the front.


PRESIDENT CHARLES HILŪ

In late 1963, as politicians began to prepare for the 1964 parliamentary elections,the inevitable question loomed large. Would Fu‛ād Shihāb allow the Constitutionto be amended and be the Nahjist (methodist) candidate for President?12 Whilethe Lebanese Constitution stipulated that the incumbent President could not be acandidate for that office once his six-year term had expired, it was easy to amend,necessitating only a simple majority in the Chamber of Deputies. The firstPresident of independent Lebanon, Bishāra al-Khūri, was well into his secondterm when forced to leave office; Camille Chamoun was the beneficiary (andvictim) of a campaign to allow him to succeed himself; and, without fail, theNahjists conducted a similar campaign on behalf of President Shihāb. The man,himself, exhibited (at least for the public) a notorious lack of desire to continuein that office; he did not need to be President to hold top status in Lebanon.Indeed, being President, and having to muck about with the “politicians,” tookaway some of the luster from his persona as his country’s premier patriot.

General Shihāb was also reluctant to allow his reform agenda to becomevitiated by a return to “politics as usual” in Lebanon. It was rumoured that hewould agree to be a candidate if two-thirds of the newly elected deputies votedfor him. Unfortunately for the Nahjists, the opposition had come together for the1964 elections to pose a united front. Loose linkages had been forged betweenCamille Chamoun, Raymond Eddé, and Sa‛ib Salām, with the additional blessingof a former supporter of General Shihāb, the Patriarch, Ma‛ūshi. Promoted inGhassān Tuwayni’s newspaper, an-Nahār, this coalition did unexpectedly well inthe 1964 elections, overcoming the strenuous efforts of the Nahj to deprive it ofvotes. Although the coalition was far from having a majority, it could deny theShihāb promoters anything near the two-thirds vote in the Chamber that thePresident felt he needed to continue in office. Recognizing an organizedopposition and less than overwhelming support, Fu‛ād Shihāb wisely announcedthat he would not seek a second term. In September 1964, the President leftoffice and retired to private life, perhaps his intention all along.

While Shihāb’s refusal to run was regarded as a victory for the coalitionopposing his machine, it also pointed to another, more difficult problem. Whowould be able to gain enough votes in the Chamber to become Lebanon’s fourthPresident? The Nahjists had enough votes from the great number of splinterblocs and independents to elect Shihāb but not enough to get a majority for anyother candidate. The parties inside the coalition, on the other hand, had cometogether only to stop the President; they could never have agreed on one of theirown to replace him. It was, after all, a coalition of convenience, one which, withthe inclusion of Salām and Chamoun, amounted to a coalition of enemies.Moreover, none of the coalition’s organizers had any chance of becoming acandidate. Pierre Gemayel controlled a Phalangist bloc of five votes, but the restcould muster a bloc of votes only through deals. For this and other reasons, themajor notables of the opposition were excluded from consideration.


Gemayel certainly wanted the post, doggedly refusing to withdraw hiscandidacy even when faced with no support outside his own party. But electing himwould not have been so different from choosing Shihāb. He had his own partyand militia, organized hierarchically with himself at the top. The more modernprofessionals of Shihāb’s organization could not have accepted the semi-fascismof the Phalangists; the old politicians, especially those in the coalition, could nothave accepted party rule. In addition, Gemayel did not have a broad base ofsupport throughout Lebanon. While his movement had gained strength since itsfounding in the 1930s and had played an important role in Shihāb’s reformprogram, it had not grown substantially at the ballot box. Its emphasis onhierarchy and discipline, its “Lebanonist” nationalism, its concept of thecountry’s Christian character, and the methods it used against opponents werehardly popular among the freewheeling Lebanese. The leader, himself, had lostsome popularity by playing along with Shihāb’s conciliation of the Nasserists,both Egyptian and Lebanese. Although respected for his courage and patriotism,Pierre Gemayel, by the time of the 1964 election, had attracted almost as manyenemies as had Camille Chamoun.

Thus, when it came time to choose a new President, Lebanese politiciansfound themselves searching high and low for a compromise candidate, someoneacceptable to both the Nahj and the coalition. Their search resulted in thecandidacy of Charles Hilū, a former journalist, sympathizer with the Chiha-al-Khūri view of Lebanese politics, and holder of several portfolios in previouscabinets. Ironically, Hilū had been one of the five founders of Gemayel’s Katā‛iborganization (although he left soon after its partly fascist character becameapparent).13 Recipient of a deal between the Nahj and the coalition, the newPresident would surely continue the Shihābist program and, for the oldpoliticians, not be strong enough to challenge them in the future. Having been afloating member of several political groups, e.g., a member of Henri Pharaon’s“Third Force,” Hilū had no following or political apparatus of his own. At thetime, he seemed to be the political analgesic the two camps were looking for.

Charles Hilū was sworn into office on September 23, 1964 after havingreceived ninety-two of the ninety-nine votes in the Chamber the month before.Even though he had not been a major politician, he was by no means an emptycipher in Lebanese public life. He had served all three of the previous Presidentsin important posts. His career, in fact, had been that of a non-controversial publicofficial. He emerged from his undramatic past to become President and left thatoffice in the same way, without fanfare. No grand events occurred withinLebanon during his term, and he made no historic decisions. Yet Charles Hilūaccomplished something quite rare in the Middle East and totally unique inLebanon: he was constitutionally elected to be chief of state (without civil strifeor military intervention) and left office after his successor had beenconstitutionally elected in the same way (without the use of force). Moreover,when Suleiman Franjieh replaced Hilū in 1970, the change represented a genuinetransfer of power, one in which new political forces superceded their


competitors. Although such a case is rare in the Middle East, it did happen oncein Lebanon.14 Charles Hilū came and went peacefully.15

Taking office in September 1964, the new President made it clear that heintended to continue the Nahjist policies of his predecessor. He commuted thedeath sentences of the 1961 insurrectionists to life in prison, pardoned allconvicted journalists, and did not allow government interference in a by-electionfor Jubayl (Byblos) that returned Raymond Eddé to the Chamber.16 PresidentHilū also allowed Nasser’s appointment to the newly created PalestinianLiberation Organization, Ahmed Shuqayri, to train guerrillas on his retreat inKayfūn, a Shi‛ite village just above Suq al-Gharb southeast of Beirut. Hilūsignaled his willingness to keep Lebanon “Arab” when, as one of his firstofficial acts, he attended an Arab summit on Israel’s plans to divert Jordanianand Lebanese water for its own use. According to Hilū’s critics, it was at thissummit where the country’s sovereignty was initially compromised. PresidentHilū, it seems, began his term with Shihāb’s heart but not his teeth.

Conditions inside Lebanon, in 1964, were perhaps never better. The newPresident continued the Shihābist policy of investing in Lebanon’s infrastructure,and conflict remained at a controllable level. Yet, the Middle East environmentwas rapidly becoming radicalized and dangerous. Looking at the whole six-yearperiod, the number of conflict incidents between 1964 and 1968 averaged aboutthree per year and then increased sharply in 1969 and 1970. The number ofannounced public programs between 1964 and 1968 averaged about six per yearand, as one might expect in the wake of the June War, decreased sharply in 1969and 1970 (see Figure 6.4). The major period of conflict before 1969 occurred in1967 when the Israelis attacked Egypt on June 6. In Beirut, there wereoverturned cars, burned fuel storage facilities, and a few cosmetic attacks onthose citizens, especially Americans, brought to their embassies for evacuation.17

Otherwise, Lebanon’s police only had to deal with the usual assassinations,election clashes, clan battles, and student demonstrations. As for development, itwas announced that new schools would be built in 633 villages. The LitāniProject began generating electricity, Beirut port was improved, tourism wasbooming, and the Green Project continued.

The country was a beehive of activity. During many long treks through thecountryside in 1965–6, both south and north, this writer was able to see, firsthand, bulldozers excavating new terraces above Sidon and vast new tracts ofapple tree plantings in the highlands between Tannourine and Besharri.Everywhere, new roads and bridges were being built. Villagers, in severalinstances, showed their excitement at having just gotten (or expecting to get)electricity. There was plenty of hustle. In one case, a man had just dug a trenchacross the main highway to extend an irrigation system to his banana acreage tahit,i.e., below the road. There was an awful jam of cars, trucks, and school busseshalted by his project. His response to an inquiry as to why the local police werenot on hand to direct traffic was evasive, but, evidently (ya‛ani), he could dig theditch, lay the pipe, and repatch the road before the police arrived to interrupt his


private initiative. He had, after all, gotten a head start on them by starting to dighis trench during the middle of the night!

In the Levant, to be an uncharismatic, workaday professional like Charles Hilūevoked a sense of weakness. The environment of conflict began to push againstLebanon’s borders, and Hilū’s lack of a countrywide political base tended towork against him. His historical non-existence is partly due to his dependence onthe Shihābist machine and its enforcement mechanisms, the army and thesecurity police. The dualism created in the Lebanese system by having these

Figure 6.4 Incidents of violence and public projects: 1964–1970



organizations operate alongside the governmental apparatus became a criticalproblem for the President. Unlike Shihāb, Hilū was not in close touch with thepersonnel in either organization. As was often reported, Hilū‛s Prime Ministerswere often seen going to and from consultations with Fu‛ād Shihāb rather than withtheir President. It was commonplace in Lebanon, at that time, to hear people saythat Shihāb made all the decisions. Such talk was no doubt an exaggeration, butit further undermined President Hilū’s ability to assert his authority when thedomestic situation began to deteriorate after 1967.

DETERIORATION

Charles Hilū’s initial problems, as so often happens with Lebanon, came fromthe political environment in nearby states. In 1963, radical Ba’thist regimes hadcome to power in both Syria and Iraq. Nasser, a slightly tarnished figurefollowing the demise of the UAR, was still receiving delegations seeking Arabunity and was very much involved in Lebanese affairs. Palestinian guerrillaorganizations grew in size, number, and prominence as the refugees began toassert their independence of the Arab regimes. They were beginning to asserttheir own nationalism both in Jordan and Lebanon while receiving arms toconduct operations against Israel. As for the Israelis, they were also engaged in anew assertiveness. Israeli plans to acquire a larger portion of the scarce water inthe area were some of the most publicized secrets in the Middle East. Israel notonly intended to divert water from the River Jordan, threatening toharm irrigation in the West Bank, but also had designs on the Litāni river.18

Lebanon was in the fight whether she wanted to be or not.The policy of the Hilū government, when asked to join with other Arab states

in stopping Israel’s quest for water, was to reject calls for (Arab state) troops tobe placed on Lebanese soil and ask for additional military supplies instead. Aquiet border with Israel was an important strategic asset for a country likeLebanon that wanted to be left alone. Militarily weak and especially vulnerablein the south, the country could not afford to get in trouble with Israel. Whowould help it? Syria, at that time under the control of radical Arab socialists,could hardly be expected to help; moreover, the friend in Syria might turn out tobe worse than the enemy in Israel. The Americans might help Lebanon againstoutsiders broadly defined as “communists,” but Israel would never fit thatcategory. Similarly, at Arab summits, during this period, the leaders seemedmore intent on testing each other’s zeal than on taking serious measures toconfront Israel. Carefully resisting any proposal that might bring “friendly”troops to Lebanon’s territory, Hilū did agree to join a special Command throughwhich those countries bordering Israel would defend themselves. No assistancewould be forthcoming without an explicit request, so Lebanon’s independencewas well protected. Or was it?

Hilū’s Shihābist approach was certainly the correct policy toward Arabism; infact, the United States and Egypt were quietly cooperating in maintaining


Lebanese stability. But it was not necessarily the right approach to Israel. Thedoor had been opened a crack to commit Lebanon to the struggle against theIsraelis, one that neither Israel nor the Arab states could necessarily control.Romantic nationalism from the Ba’thists was to combine with a new Palestinianassertiveness that even got Nasser in deeper than he intended. The mix ofLebanese communities was inexorably, almost inevitably, drawn into the fracas.The origins of the destruction of Lebanon are to be found, not in the events ofFebruary and April 1975, but in those of 1965–6, two years in which those wholived and worked there firmly believed that the country’s future was assured.

The conversations in south Lebanon, during the winter and spring of 1967,were full of the talk of war. Some Palestinians at Ein al-Hilweh camp weresaying that it would start in July. Zeal often got the best of sense. Newly trainedPalestinian guerrillas would force the hand of the Arab states which they said“[would] be like one against the enemy.”19 But this time, the Palestinians did nothave to depend on the other Arabs; they would be leading the struggle. TheAmerican Sixth Fleet would be helpless against Palestinian guerrillas armed byPan-Arab socialist regimes committed to the war. Israel was only strong becauseof the American support it received; without that support Israel would disappear.In fact, guerrilla war, so successful in China, was being applied against theAmericans in South Vietnam. As for Lebanon, only the south was important;what the north did hardly mattered. The Palestinian fighters seemed unaware thatwhat happened in the south would concern Lebanese in the north.

The loose talk of young radicals, of course, must not be confused with thecalculations of political leaders. Certainly, in 1965–6, not many Palestinianslooked to their own organizations for salvation; they were, in fact, verydisappointed in most Arab leaders, including their own. One opinion, oftenexpressed, was that these were all just politicians caring nothing for the realproblems of the refugee. It was still commonplace to meet a Palestinian fromJordan who, when asked his nationality, would reply that he was Jordanian. Butthere was also a new excitement in the camps. Nasser was in Egypt, Ba‛thists inSyria and Iraq, Soviet arms arriving, and Palestinians had their own militaryorganization. Palestinians were ready to control their own destiny.

Then a series of events occurred which converted Palestinian sceptics intobelievers. These often analyzed events are roughly as follows: Israel planned todivert Jordan and Litāni water, the new Palestinian political and militaryorganizations sprang up, the Arab states suffered defeat in the 1967 war, andPalestinian guerrilla operations intensified. Then, both the Arabs and the Israelisbegan to retaliate against the greater militance of the Palestinians. The usualexplanation is that these events led to a polarization of Lebanese society, thedisintegration of the government’s authority, and civil war.

An event, not usually emphasized in these accounts, may well have begun the“hostility-reaction formation” that brought on the protracted civil chaos thatwracked Lebanon for nearly two decades. Late in the evening on May 16, 1966,Kamal Mroweh, publisher of al-Hayāt newspaper, was assassinated at his desk in


his office. Though not a traditional conservative, Mroweh had been extremelycritical of the wave of Pan-Arab Nasserism then sweeping the Middle East andexpressed his concern at the freedom of activity allowed some of the high-levelofficials of the newly created PLO. His newspaper, naturally, was the mediumthrough which these concerns and criticisms were expressed. From the evidenceintroduced at the trial of those convicted of murdering Mroweh, it is clear that hewas killed because someone wanted him silenced.

He was gunned down by a Nasserist, Adnān Sultāni, an employee at IntraBank who was in league with Ibrahim Kleilāt, the man who had gotten him hisjob at the bank. Kleilāt, who had recruited two additional persons to assist in thecrime, also worked at Intra.20 The details in the planning and carrying out of thisassassination were intricate, and most of the conspirators escaped apprehension.At the time, it was believed to have been Egypt’s doing; this is what theperpetrator, Adnān Sultāni, was led to believe by Ibrahim Kleilāt, the oneaccused of instigating the crime. But Kleilāt did not flee to Egypt as he had saidhe would but rather to France. The silencer used on the handgun was made by alocal craftsman and did not possess the specifications called for by the Italianmanufacturer. More-over, although all the conspirators were residents of Beirut,their family ties were to areas of Lebanon not especially under the influence ofNasser’s operatives. Clearly, the gunman himself was set up, leading to thesuspicion that the true origins of the conspiracy were different from the oneexpressed. The ambiguity, in this regard, simply multiplied the number ofconspiracy theories available for Lebanese to consider.

Whatever the political basis for the crime, and the possibilities are many, someof the trail led directly back to Intra Bank. Were there competing Lebanesefinanciers, aided and abetted by the Deuxième Bureau, who came to the view thatthis Palestinian bank was not only too big and powerful for Lebanon but also aTrojan Horse from which the country could be attacked? Were al-Hayāt andIntra Bank the initial victims of the civil war in Lebanon?

While the assassination of Kamal Mroweh caused only a brief stir in Lebanonand hardly worried people that the stable and prosperous system was in trouble,its reciprocal, the collapse of Intra Bank did seem to threaten calamity. OnOctober 15, 1966, the bank’s officials announced that it would have to close,having insufficient liquidity to cover the demands of its depositors. Following apanic the next day, a bank holiday was declared, and soon after, Yusuf Baydās,the Palestinian founder of Intra, charged that he had been victimized byLebanese who wished to control his companies. He also pointed out that, whilethe government was able to stop the panic, its Central Bank had refused to cometo his aid with financial assistance even though Intra Bank’s total assets inproperty were far in excess of its current liabilities. Later in the year,irregularities were discovered in Intra’s books, and the Lebanese governmentordered the arrest of the bank’s founder, auditor, and several of its managers.Yusuf Baydās, however, remained in Brazil during the crisis, eventually fleeingto Switzerland. Elias Sarkis, later President of Lebanon, was put in charge of the


Central Bank and was able to contain the financial crisis. Intra Bank, on the otherhand, was destroyed as a Palestinian enterprise, and Baydās, its founder, diedbefore he could be extradited for trial in Lebanon. His death may have, indeed,been to the advantage of the Lebanese government, helping hush up a murkybusiness linked to several states and movements in the region.

The Amir of Kuwait, who spent his summers in Lebanon and opposed theradicalism then sweeping the Middle East, may also have had a hand in bringingdown the Intra Bank. Leftist journalists in Lebanon making this accusation werearrested and, in at least two cases, their newspapers expired. The Kuwaitis, witha large stake in the Lebanese economy and frequent lenders to the government,were certainly capable of waging economic war against their Middle Eastadversaries. Whatever the case, soon after Intra Bank, and a few other banksclosely linked to it, were reorganized, the crisis petered out just in time for theSix Day War of 1967. Beirut, however, never regained its former financialprominence in the world. For many, its political and business practices weresimply too questionable.21

The contextual reasons for the failure of Intra Bank were many and various.Baydās’s financial empire was overextended, vulnerable, and without adequateconnections in the Lebanese establishment. Intra was largely Palestinian indevelopment and management; it had aroused the envy and concern ofLebanon’s financial elite and may have also threatened Kuwaiti interests. But theimmediate cause of the bank’s collapse was simply that members of Lebanon’sestablishment “[conducted] a carefully engineered run on the bank”21 putting theIntra management at the mercy of the Central Bank of Lebanon.

The suddenness of the crisis, the delayed reaction of the Lebanesegovernment, and the ease with which the Central Bank was able to halt the paniconce it did intervene are just some of the reasons for suspicion that Intra wasintentionally brought down. It was dangerous banking, and a large number ofpublic officials must have been involved in the conspiracy. But this was Lebanon,where communal solidarity was much stronger than any concern for the state.Palestinians did not really belong nor, unfortunately, did many of their Lebaneseco-religionists. When these two “non-peoples” eventually combined, Lebanon,like Intra, collapsed.

The effect of Intra’s collapse was not primarily on the young radicals who hadunrealistically explained how the next war would start and end. The effect,though not immediate, was to convince non-establishment leaders, most of themMuslim, that Lebanon was laissez faire only for the members of the club. Thereforms and the careful concessions to Arabism were all for naught. Shihābismwas not able to ensure fair play in the economy, even by Levantine standards.Minds were now set; the Palestinians and their sympathizers had no real friendsin Beirut. It should be recalled that Intra was Lebanon’s largest bank; it hadplayed a major role in establishing Beirut as a financial leader in the MiddleEast. Intra had branches all over the world and was especially prominent inParis. While the Lebanese were able to walk away with the remains of the


carcass, they had actually lost something more valuable than the demise of acompetitor. They had lost an important basis for moderating Palestinianbehavior. Successful Palestinians not only would have made Lebanon seem morehospitable for that community, but also would have helped give the financialestablishment greater leverage over those who might have wanted to assault thestate. One tenth of the population then inhabiting Lebanon was Palestinian. Eventhough they were not citizens of the country, Palestinians needed to have a stakein its economy. They were already a major (and exploited) part of it, and YusufBaydās was an example of a way out of dependency. Institutions like Intra Bankrepresented an alternative to violence as a way for Palestinians to survive theirstatelessness in Lebanon.

But, unfortunately, there was another alternative for Palestinians: nation-alismand revolutionary armed struggle. In 1966, the camps were still under the tightcontrol of Lebanon’s security police although, as those on the scene could see, theabsence of major trouble from the refugees was due more to their lack oforganization than to the presence of Lebanese soldiers. But the talk had a newstridency, and it represented two new conceptions of how things were going tochange. First, the Palestinians, themselves, were to be a part of the revolution;second, the Arab states would soon join ranks to act together against Israel andimperialism. The conservatives of the Arab world not only saw delegationstraveling to Cairo to discuss Arab unity with Nasser, they saw all this activity asradical, socialist, and Soviet supported. Some of these may have completed thepicture by imagining that Intra Bank had become a Trojan Horse for the fedayeen(commandos), a financial giant to underwrite the revolution. Kuwaiti andLebanese conservatives may have believed that it had been protecting a hive ofconspirators while threatening disaster with its overblown expansion. In eithercase, there would be trouble. It made sense, therefore, for the conservatives topre-empt the threat and send their own warning.

Once the cycle of violence begins and “hostility-reaction formation” sets in,carrying decision makers in its wake, no one among the various combatants isable to say, “Good heavens, we were wrong; we will change our ways!” Rather,each side looks for allies and additional resources. In the Middle East, there is nolack of these as outsiders continually try to use insiders to act for them, whetherfor mischief or for weakening their opponents. Inside the Middle East, Lebanonunhappily resides on the strategic pivot of the global balance of power—not theoptimal venue for grandstand plays. Before the Shihābists (under Hilū) coulddeal with the new brand of local leftists and militant Palestinians, outside events,once again, tripped them up and began to shipwreck the Lebanese.

THE JUNE WAR OF 1967

On June 5, 1967, the Israelis attacked Egypt, wiping out its air force and pushingEgyptian forces from the Sinai. Syria and Jordan also entered the war and, withtheir aircraft neutralized, were forced to give up sizable chunks of territory: for


Syria, the Golan Heights and for Jordan, the West Bank. Even Iraq, technicallyat war with Israel but not engaged in this case, saw its air force destroyed on theground. This action taken by the Israelis so weakened the moderate Iraqigovernment of Abdul Rahman al-‛Aref (and Prime Minister Bazazz), that it wasoverthrown the next year by the Ba’thists (of Hassan al-Bakr and SaddamHussein). The June War was a disaster for the Arabs. The Egyptians, Syrians,Jordanians, and Palestinians lost territory while the radicals, so ready to go towar, found out how unprepared they were to fight one.

Charles Hilū had managed, for the most part, to keep out of the war,and Lebanon was the only country bordering Israel that did not lose territory.But an Arab loss to Israel had never been beneficial for the Lebanese; itdestabilized the country’s delicate communal balance, making it vulnerable tocivil strife. This crushing blow delivered to the Arab states tended to strengthenthe sentiment for a Palestinian nationalism separate from Pan-Arabism. WhereArab regimes had failed, Palestinian organizations might succeed. But, like otherpeoples, the Palestinians also lived within territorial jurisdictions—in Gaza, theWest Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. If their own organizations were tosucceed, the Palestinians would have to launch their struggle from other peoples’states. The attempt to organize military operations from Lebanese soil began in1968 and became a serious problem after King Hussein drove the PLO out ofJordan in 1970. Jordan could deal with its Palestinian threat because KingHussein had an army loyal to him; Lebanon could not so easily employ its armyfor the same purpose. The Lebanese government, itself, was divided on the issueof whether or not to assist the Palestinians. There was great sympathy for theircause; but there was even greater risk in accommodating it.

Lebanon stayed out of the 1967 war; Palestinians living in Lebanon were alsonot much involved. Yet, following this conflict, Lebanon was sucked into themaelstrom and not as an innocent bystander. The assassination of KamalMroweh and fall of Intra Bank demonstrated that the Lebanese, along with thePalestinians in their midst, had already been involved. In accommodating theguerrillas, the Lebanese had also gotten themselves entangled with the Israelis.

PALESTINIAN INVOLVEMENT

In June 1965, Israel claimed that three persons came across the Lebanese borderand blew up a house. Soon after, a small group of Palestinians were arrested byLebanese soldiers for attempting to cross over into Israel from Lebanon, and oneof these, Jalāl Ka‛wāsh, a resident of Ein el-Hilweh camp near Sidon, died whileunder detention. The government claimed Ka‛wāsh had committed suicide, butPalestinians and their sympathizers claimed he had been tortured by agents of theDeuxième Bureau. Leftists in Sidon and Tyre joined Kamal Jumblāt in callingfor an investigation while students led several demonstrations.

The public outcry against the Deuxième Bureau was joined by no less than theconservative politicians who were preparing for the national elections in 1968


and hoping to join forces to oppose the Shihābist candidate for President in1970. Interrupted by the Intra Bank crisis and the June War of 1967, thismovement against the security police regained momentum in 1968–9. Finally, in1969, President Hilū took the first steps to reduce the Bureau’s power. (SuleimanFranjieh, in 1970, was to abolish it altogether.) While the opposition hadsuccessfully undermined a main-stay of Shihābist power, it had also begun tocripple the most reliable organ of executive force in the country. When thePalestinian militias challenged the Lebanese establishment for control of thesouth, the government had already been shorn of its primary enforcement agency.Without the Deuxième Bureau, the government could only call in the army forpolicing the camps. Unfortunately, unlike the Bureau, the army was threatenedby communal divisions. It could not protect the country from outside invasion; itcould not protect the government from an internal threat. The Lebanese armycould only act as one of several factors in the politicial system.

The episode involving Jalāl Ka‛wāsh was only a small beginning to whateventually grew into widespread guerrilla operations in south Lebanon. Before1967, most of the activity was directed toward organizing and training on anexperimental and limited basis. Immediately following the June War, however,the pace of Palestinian activity in Lebanon increased dramatically. It was mixedin with the leftist politics of the country and included a number of Christians,some in leadership positions.23 Originally a secret society of emigré Palestinians,al-Fatah emerged as the leading militia both in Jordan and Lebanon. Fatah gainedsome initial glory by imposing major losses on the Israeli army during a punitiveraid by the latter in March of 1968. This action, at the West Bank village ofKarameh, resulted in much greater losses to the Arab defenders than to theIsraelis. Even so, with the help of Jordanian artillery, the guerrilla defenders hadmade a stand. Their action gave them credibility; it also stirred the hearts ofthose Palestinians living in the camps. Thousands lined up to join the variousguerrilla groups as Palestinian nationalism began to compete with Arabism forthe allegiance of the refugees.

In February 1969, Fatah was able to get Yasir Arafat elected Chairman of thePLO, replacing Ahmed Shuqayri, thus beginning his long-term control over it. Amélange of organizations remained, including the Palestinian Liberation Army(PLA), whose four brigades were distributed in the Arab countries. Other smallergroups have been in and out of the PLO, depending, to some extent, on Arafat’srelationships with various Arab regimes. During the two years between the JuneWar and Arafat’s election, however, control of the movement was still up forgrabs. Because the PLO under Shuqayri had its headquarters in Beirut, Lebanonwas the arena where this competition was waged. Recruiting, demonstrating,training, and conducting military operations were means employed both toexpand the movement and to gain control over it. While Palestinian militants atthis time were experiencing what Helena Cobban has called “the joy of flying,”they had not yet gone very far toward institutionalizing their movement.24 InJordan, Palestinians had some political involvement in the regime, but in


Lebanon, they lived and conducted operations on foreign soil under a governmentnot their own. There, the guerrilla movement exploded onto the scene whereothers, unfriendly to their cause, were living. Even for those who supported them,Palestinian activities were a burden; for those who did not, they were a threat.Would the PLO respect Lebanese sovereignty? Even if it agreed to do so, couldArafat control the Palestinians?

The assassination of Kamal Mroweh and the collapse of Intra Bank had beendislocating for the Lebanese; the 1967 war was even more so, but the governmentcould have weathered these difficulties had it not been for the new Palestinianpresence. In fact, following the June War, there was nearly six months ofcomparative calm in Lebanon, and the Nahjists seemed to be getting back to theShihāb program of developing the country’s infrastructure. In the spring of 1968,however, the first tremors of the future earth-quake were felt. Elections werescheduled for the end of March and the usual caretaker government establishedto conduct them. An alliance was formed between the National Bloc of Eddé, thePhalange of Gemayel, and the Liberals of Chamoun to collaborate on winningenough seats in the Chamber to prevent a Shihābist from becoming President in1970. Called the Triple Alliance (al-Hilf al-Thulāthi), this grouping combinedmany of those who had worked against the Shihābists in the last election but, inthis case, with a notable addition. Pierre Gemayel, with his Katā‛ib Party, hadagreed to join. The purpose of the Alliance was to beat the Nahj, and they woulddo so by raising the issue around which all Lebanonists could rally, the newprogram of the Palestinians. To what extent should the Lebanese support it? Or,as the Hilf contended, had the commandos become so dangerous that the stateneeded to place them under stricter control?

Undoubtedly, this stand by the Hilf was an entirely legitimate andunderstandable one for them to take at the time. Lebanese would eventually haveto face the issue of having, within their midst, an emigré organization developingits own political apparatus and entangling Lebanon in its military operations.Yet, what was easy to recognize was that the organization that had taken uponitself the task of protecting Lebanon was almost entirely Christian in itsmembership. The Hilf had not attracted a single Muslim notable to lend prestigeto its efforts against the commandos (although several, including Sa‛ib Salām,were prepared to vote with it against the Shihābists). Muslims seemed overlyenthusiastic about the Palestinian guerrilla effort. Christians were of severalpersuasions but, in terms of Lebanon’s independence, felt especially concernedthat the guerrilla movement

[was a] Trojan Horse which the radical parties in the country—theCommunists, Ba‛th Socialists (the Arab nationalist socialists who werenow in control of Syria and Iraq), and other ideologists opposed to theLebanese establishment—were already making expert use of to subvert theLebanese system.25


Although it was true that many more Muslims than Christians were activelysympathetic with the Palestinian cause, few of the former would have beenprepared to help them in conducting military operations. Yet, the simple need tocontest an election and find an issue for that purpose was used to implicate theMuslims and became a wedge to drive Christians and Muslims apart. Like allserious issues in Lebanon, it opened up the question of what Lebanon was andwould be in the future. What was properly a national issue became the usualinter-communal conflict.

The Palestinians’ response to these trends in Lebanon, the Arab country thathad offered them the best opportunity, was to overplay their hand. This wasunfortunate because, with a modicum of restraint, the Palestinians could surelyhave organized themselves into a genuine political force before serious resistanceset in. Having insisted on Lebanon’s Arab approach to regional issues, Fu‛ādShihāb and Charles Hilū continued to make the rounds of Arab capitalswhenever crises arose both inside and outside his country. They were determinedto make Lebanon work. But for it to work, it would have to support the one out often residents of the country who were Palestinian.

Shihāb and Hilū had also kept tight control over the refugee camps.Undoubtedly, the Nahj also inhibited the freedom of its political adversaries andhad become deserving targets of the counter-organizational strategies whichthese employed. Yet, those of the Christian right who, in the 1965 Ka‛wāshaffair, had joined others in undermining the regime’s ability to police the camps,were preparing to bring it down for failing to do so. Had the Palestinians notbeen awash in the glories of Arab nationalism and (Maoist) people’s war, theycould have worked at organizing themselves instead of reorganizing Lebanon.That the centrists in the Palestinian movement were aware of this problem andwanted to avoid injecting themselves into Lebanese politics is clear. But, as hasalways been the case with them, their leadership could never consistentlyprescribe and carry out Palestinian policies. Not able to enforce their policiesamong the various free-floating groups that made up the Palestinian movement,they did not find it essential to come up with workable ones. Better to continuallysnatch at opportunities.

Although the situation began to heat up in 1968, it remained controllable. Theelectioneering was rather closer to the democratic model than had ever happenedbefore in Lebanon. President Hilū had extracted most of the teeth from theDeuxième Bureau and was not even the subject of rumors concerning a secondterm. The man was so clean as to be nonexistent.

The scene was soon to change, however, as Palestinian activities increased andthe Hilf began to rally its communities to the rescue of the region’s onlyChristian sanctuary, Lebanon. The 1968 electoral saga began on March 23 andended on April 7. Although the Nahj emerged with the largest bloc of supporters,the number was far from a majority. The Triple Alliance, on the other hand, wona smaller bloc of committed votes but was almost at parity with the Shihābistswhen antigovernment independents were counted. The election had indicated


some sentiment to overturn the Nahjists and even more to begin taking stepsagainst the Palestinian-Arab Nationalist nexus that seemed to be developing inthe country. Bashing the enemies of the state turned out to be more popular thansolving the problems of the state.

Both during the elections and soon after, demonstrations broke out over theissue of support for the commandos. Lebanon, in that year, had given one of itsown as a martyr to the Palestinian cause. Khalil al-Jamāl, a Lebanese enrolled inthe Palestinian movement, had been killed in a guerrilla operation. He was givena public funeral, at which time the various Palestinian militias appeared in fulluniform and showed off their armor. No doubt the “joy of flying” had begun tooverwhelm whatever thoughts of discretion Palestinian leaders entertainedduring this period, and their theater soon attracted attention from unfriendlyplaces. The Hilū government responded to the electoral success of the Hilf bytrying to return to the previous policy of keeping the Palestinians under tightcontrol. The Deuxième Bureau was once again charged with exercisingsufficient vigilance in the camps to curtail Palestinian operations and keep themfrom inflaming the always-volatile divisions in Lebanon. But trying to reimposethe previous regimen was not possible. The Hilf gambit to use the Palestinianissue to improve its political stock attracted opposition from Kamal Jumblāt as wellas from several prominent Muslim clerics. Now, it seemed, the Palestinians hadfriends, socialists from Jumblāt’s PSP and important notables from the Sunnireligious establishment. Lebanon could become an valuable element in the newPalestinian movement.

There were incidents. Students demonstrated against the government for betterfaculty wages, but the intensity of the action seemed to indicate that leftists wereseeking a confrontation. Camille Chamoun was wounded in an assassinationattempt; Christians in Tripoli, protesting the exploits of radicals in that city,incited a clash in which several were killed; and cabinets failed regularly astensions mounted. It was then the Israelis’ turn to overplay their hand. OnDecember 30, 1968, Israeli commandos conducted a raid on the Beirut airport,destroying thirteen Arab-owned passenger aircraft, those of Najīb Alamuddīn’sMEA airline. This action was taken, ostensibly, in retaliation for the Arabhijacking of an El Al plane to Algiers, but it also sent a message to the Lebanesegovernment: either control the Palestinian guerrillas or suffer the consequences.In the end, the consequences were far different from the particular outcome theIsraeli cabinet must have hoped for. Rather than strengthening the Christiansagainst the Muslims and the Lebanonists against the Palestinians (and theirallies), it began the long slide into chaos in Lebanon and the country’sdestruction.

While the Israelis were racing madly to be as indiscreet as possible, Abdullahal-Yāfi wanted to make sure he had not been outdone in this regard. Heannounced in November 1968 that Palestinian commando activities were“legitimate” and that he favored removing all restrictions on guerrilla action. Hewent on to say “all of us in the government are united in the belief that Lebanon


should remain an Arab state supporting its Arab brothers in all fields.”26 ThePrime Minister’s statement, along with similar public pronouncements, had theeffect of committing other prominent Sunni politicians to this position, tyingtheir hands and embarrassing President Hilū. Therefore, at the very time thePresident’s security personnel were trying to reassert the government’s authorityover the refugee camps and put an end to across-the-border guerrilla operations,Lebanon’s Prime Minister was insisting that these Palestinians should be allowedthe greatest freedom of action. Once again, Lebanon was drifting along undermore than one government.

As pointed out earlier, conflict in Lebanon rose sharply throughout 1969,partly as a backlash to the Israeli raid and partly as a result of the growingdivision between the Lebanonists and Arabists on how to deal with thePalestinian militias and their attacks on Israel. Some twenty-three majorincidents of armed violence were reported during the year, beginning withstudent demonstrations and culminating with a series of clashes between theLebanese army and various guerrilla groups. One of these, al-Sa’iqa, was closelyaligned with Syria and not under PLO control. Thus, when the latter tried toarrive at an agreement with President Hilū over control of the militias, it wasclear that the Lebanese needed more than Arafat could deliver. Arafat’s initialposition on this issue was as follows:

while the Palestinian groups were pledged not to interfere in the internalaffairs of any Arab country, they would not “sit idle in the face of anyattempt aimed at liquidating the Palestine question and revolution.”Further, the organization expressed its determination to carry outoperations from every country bordering on Israel.27

This PLO position was somewhat gratuitous since, in all cases except Lebanon,the governments bordering Israel that hosted Palestinians and tolerated theiractivities also placed them under strict control. Approximately one year later, inSeptember 1970, King Hussein would find it necessary to conduct a militarycampaign to drive out the Palestinian guerrillas in order to protect Jordanianindependence. The other Arab states not only controlled their Palestinians butalso treated them with extreme suspicion, recognizing that the commandos hadterritory to acquire not to defend.

THE CAIRO AGREEMENT

Both sides, the Lebanese government and the PLO, held talks in an attempt towork out an understanding and prevent further clashes between the commandosand the army. The PLO and their Lebanese supporters were calling for non-interference by the militia groups in the country’s internal affairs in return fortheir own freedom to conduct military operations against Israel. After five days oftalks between the PLO and the government in May 1969, talks that were


adjourned without agreement, President Hilū issued a statement saying thatLebanon would prevent those “not responsible to the Lebanese people”28 fromtaking actions that compromised the country’s sovereignty and could serve as apretext for Israeli reprisals.

President Nasser of Egypt also supported the right of the Lebanese governmentto exercise reasonable constraints on Palestinian guerrilla activity. But Syria,controlled at this time by an extremely radical Ba‛thist regime, was stoking thecoals. Damascus helped its Sa‛iqa group try to impose its presence on severalLebanese villages and towns in the southeastern section of the country near theSyrian and Israeli borders. When the Lebanese army attempted to stop theseactions, the Syrians helped the Palestinian commandos resist and threatened tointervene on their behalf.

The problems were not only military; the political situation also deteriorated.Demonstrations developed into clashes as rebellion broke out in the usual centersof dissidence, in south Lebanon, Beirut, and Tripoli. The young—those attractedto such organizations as the Arab National Movement, the Communists, and theBa‛thists—were active in undermining Lebanese authority. But they were alsoable to attract Muslim support as Christian resistance spread and voiced itsintransigent demands. Thus, the Syrians and their radical friends were able toundercut any deals that the centrist leaders of the PLO might have wished tomake while the Hilf and their clerical friends refused to cooperate with whateverconcessions their President might have agreed to. Neither side could deliver.

Some genuine attempts to cool the fires of righteous anger were made duringthese months of escalating militance. Rashid Karāmi followed al-Yāfi as PrimeMinister in early 1969 and tried to distance himself from an open-endedcommitment to the Palestinian cause. President Hilū, himself, insisted thatLebanon support the commandos as long as they remained obedient to itsgovernment. The Hilf made a similar declaration, reaffirming its support but onlythrough means “determined by Lebanese authorities.”29 The PLO also declaredits readiness to seek a practical solution to the problem. In the meantime,however, Kamal Jumblāt took a different political stance and let go with anambuscade of rhetoric on behalf of socialism and Palestinian liberation, reapingthe expected collateral damage in the Christian areas. Emile Bustāni, commanderof the Lebanese army, also tried to bring matters to a head by launching a majorcampaign against the guerrillas in southern Lebanon. Prime Minister Karāmi,who supported the right of the Lebanese to exercise authority over thecommandos, could not support such massive means to secure it and resigned.Pierre Gemayel announced that the Palestinians had agreed to depart Lebanon,and Arafat, blindsided by the leak, indignantly denied such a deal was in theworks. By the end of October 1969, the guerrillas and the Lebanese army were atwar.

Unable to make political headway within the country, the Lebanese andPalestinian sides traveled to Cairo to get Nasser’s help in ending the bloodshed.The Lebanese and Palestinian delegations, the former led by the Chief of Staff,


Bustāni, and the latter by the PLO Chairman, Arafat, were able, on November 2,to negotiate the Cairo Agreement of 1969. It resulted in both a ceasefire and anaccord on the rights of the Palestinians living under Lebanese authority. For theLebanese side, the accord called for the Palestinians to be subject to Lebaneseauthority in their activities outside the camps and, thus, unable to conductoperations against Israel without the permission of the Lebanese army. The quidpro quo to this concession was an agreement by the Lebanese government toconcede its authority inside the camps to the various Palestinian organizations.The Palestinians would be allowed to govern themselves, but only within theircamps. It was not difficult to draw the conclusion that Lebanon was prepared toallow the creation of Palestinian “Bantustans” within its borders.

While most segments of the Lebanese establishment concurred with thisresult, and some even appreciated Egypt’s solicitude for Lebanon’s predicament,many Christians were uneasy with the compromised sovereignty the agreementseemed to entail. However, of the major players in the Hilf, only Raymond Eddérefused to sign on to the Cairo Agreement, warning repeatedly that it was aprescription for disaster. On the left, the Cairo Agreement seemed to escalatemilitance. Revealing fully his sense of history and love of the old Lebanon thathis forebears had played so prominent a role in, Kamal Jumblāt, the Minister ofthe Interior during the final months of the crippled Hilū presidency, announcedon December 31 that the Parti Populaire Syrien (PPS), the Arab NationalistMovement (ANM), the Communist Party, the Ba‛th Socialist Party, and the ever-fighting Tashnak and Hentshak (Armenians) could resume operations. His actionallowed the leftist radicals to take dead aim on the Cairo Agreement; it amountedto a frontal assault on Lebanon. Whereas the Cairo Agreement had left manyLebanese Christians feeling nervous, soon after, with Jumblāt’s help, they wouldbe scared out of their wits.

In spite of the Cairo Agreement, the fighting between the Palestinian militiasand the Lebanese army continued. By the summer of 1970, there were not onlysporadic demonstrations on behalf of the many communal and regionalpersuasions but also the emergence of a serious refugee problem. By July, it wasestimated that nearly 25,000 Shi‛ite villagers living in the south had moved north,most of them to the slums of Beirut. Kamal Jumblāt, who, early in the year, hadunleashed all the radicals for political tumult, was now proposing that citizens beasked to apply in advance for permission to demonstrate; they would be requiredto state the time and purpose of the demonstration, and the routes to be used tobring down the government. In addition, the majority of those participatingwould need to be able to show that they had fixed addresses in Beirut. Oneassumes that others would have had to try to influence the government fromsome location outside the city, perhaps from the high slopes of Mount Sannine orthe mountain ridge above the airport.

In fact, they had already begun. On March 25, 1970, commandos,accompanying the body of a guerrilla killed by hashish smugglers the daybefore, got caught in a traffic jam in the village of Kahhalah (on the Damascus


road). The ensuing clash with the Christian villagers and the army left two deadand several others on both sides wounded. The Palestinian convoy, on its returntrip from Damascus, clashed again with the Kahhalah villagers, losing six of itscommandos in the firefight. Additional clashes occurred on the outskirts of Beirutas the Phalangists fought elements of the PFLP militia. Pierre Gemayal’s son,Bashir, was captured but later released through government intervention. Thenumber of violent incidents increased rapidly following this last event as thePhalangists began to make it their mission to oppose the Palestinian commandos.

Before Charles Hilū‛s term had ended, major groups on both sides had gottenout their guns. Not only had the Shihābist development program come to a halt,but conditions in Lebanon had started to deteriorate, especially during theaftermath of the 1967 war. What began as an attempt to overcome the Shihābistorganization developed into a conflict with its “Arabist” strategy and, relative tothe Palestinians, the compromising Cairo Agreement that resulted from it.Although the origins of containing Palestinian radicalism pre-date the June War,it was PLO guerrilla activity following that war which transformed covertcontainment into overt hostility. Palestinian activities, conducted by a multitudeof separate groups not subject to anyone’s control, confronted Lebanon with itsage-old, unresolved problem. Who belongs to that state; whose Lebanon isgoverned from Beirut?

Moreover, the one person who might have answered this question, Fu‛ādShihāb, was underplaying his hand when all the other politicians wereoverplaying theirs. He had insisted on a genuine free election (1964) and wasdetermined that the Chamber should choose a new President as called for by theConstitution. That would be the General’s victory. The other leaders, however,were interested in their victories—over Nasser, over the Palestinians, over thebourgeois bankers, and over the opposition communities. The General’s stand-in, Charles Hilū, was an accommodating man and a professional, but he was a“lame duck” as was, perhaps, his mentor. Yet, in late 1969 or early 1970, a“deal” might have been possible; there were still plenty of positives to balance themany negatives in Lebanon’s condition. But this was a time when Lebanesepoliticians were making their pre-election bids for the presidency, when winningthat office precluded any “deals” that might have meant winning for Lebanon.The events of 1967–9 served notice that while the 1958 civil war had been calledoff and a new course charted, the country’s wounds had not completely healed.


7Toward civil war: 1970–1975

THE ELECTIONS OF 1970

With Jumblāt’s stricter measures for controlling demonstrations on the books,the Chamber of Deputies prepared to elect a new President; Hilū’s term wouldend on September 22. In late July, the Phalangists nominated their founder,Pierre Gemayel, to be their party’s candidate for the office. Camille Chamounwanted to announce his candidacy but felt it necessary to await Fu‛ād Shihāb’sdecision whether or not to run. A few wags, noting the degree of influencewielded by the former President during the six Hilū years, suggested that theincumbant ought to try for his first term. As it turned out, Fu‛ād Shihāb made hisfinal decision on August 5 not to seek the presidency, and Chamoun announcedhis candidacy a few days later.

The Shihābist candidate for the office was Elias Sarkis, director of the CentralBank and a man known both for his professionalism and integrity (although he wastouched by the Intra Bank affair). Because Gemayel, Chamoun, Eddé, and evenJumblāt all coveted the presidency for themselves but could not get the votes,they endeavored to contain the front runner, Sarkis. While the votes of the Nahjplus independents would have sufficed to elect the retired Fu‛ād Shihāb (had hedecided to be a candidate), not all of these deputies could be counted on to votefor Sarkis. In fact, he was opposed by some of the Shihābists themselves. Havingbecome the compromise candidate at the last moment, Sarkis was not wellpositioned to augment his strength. Thus, the 1970 election was wide open.

Unable to give the power to one of their number, the Hilf decided to back arelative outsider, Suleiman Franjieh from Zghartā in north Lebanon, a man whohad been shoved into the limelight after his more illustrious brother, Hamīd, hadhad his political career prematurely ended by a stroke in 1957.1 SuleimanFranjieh, a rough and ready scion of his clan and several times elected to theChamber, held a cabinet position as Minister of Economy at the time. Themaneuvring was intense, and the Chamber required three ballots before it couldgive any candidate a majority. On the first vote, Sarkis was the front-runner butwithout enough votes to win. The second ballot had to be thrown out because ahundred votes were cast by the ninety-nine-member Chamber. On the third

ballot (August 17), by a vote of fifty to forty-nine, the Chamber elected the leastpromising candidate, Suleiman Franjieh, to be the fifth President of Lebanon. Itwas a fateful choice.

The balloting for the election of the President of Lebanon in 1970, like the1954 election in Syria, was a paradigm of Levantine politics. True to the “size”principle, the major politicians, with their blocs of votes, tried to be pivotal, i.e.,to position themselves to cast the deciding vote.2 On the first ballot, Elias Sarkis(the Shihābist) received forty-five votes; thirty-eight went to Suleiman Franjieh(from his own Central Bloc and the Hilf except Gemayel); Jamīl Lahoud got fiveof the eight votes Jumblāt controlled; Pierre Gemayel was in with ten votes; andAdnān al-Hakim (a Sunni candidate) had one vote cast for him. The invalidatedsecond ballot had provided a test of the shifts, and the third ballot gave Franjiehhis one-vote margin over Sarkīs. In the final maneuvring, Sarkis got two votesfrom the Jumblāt bloc, one from the Gemayel bloc, and the al-Hakim vote to addto his original forty-five votes. Franjieh, on the other hand, received nineGemayel votes plus three switched from the Jumblāt bloc to add to his first-ballot total of thirty-eight votes. The Shihābists had been stopped, and theweakest member of the opposition put in power.

Much of the politics that went into the defeat of Elias Sarkis is easilyexplainable. The organizers of the Hilf could see that the Palestinian militiaswould become a threat to Lebanese independence both by suborning those readyto rebel and by dragging the country into conflict with Israel. Each of them, ofcourse, hoped that he would come out of the sweepstakes as President but, if not,at least break up the Nahj in order to be able to gain that office at a later date. Interms of the externalities of the situation, Franjieh was also a slick choice as thecompromise candidate. He had not joined Chamoun against the Nasserist rebelsin 1958 and the “Arab” side remembered him as a Maronite notable who had notconfined his loyalties to the Christian community. Because Fu‛ād Shihāb hadfavored one of Suleiman Franjieh’s local rivals, René Mu‛awwad, in hisadministration, Franjieh was prepared to oppose the Shihābists in the 1970election. In fact, he had recently formed his own militia to confront thePalestinians and leftists in Tripoli, not far from his clan headquarters in Zghartā.

Franjieh, however, had not joined the Hilf but, instead, had linked up with theSunni politician, Sa‛ib Salām, and the Shi‛ite za‛īm, KamalalAs‛ad, in an ad hocarrangement called the Central Bloc. This combination, it was hoped, wouldattract an all-Lebanon basket of constituencies. More-over, by staying off thecounter-organizing coalition, Franjieh could be supported by the Hilf as anoutsider whose strength would not alter the relative distribution of power amongits members. Of the four Maronite candidates who might have been able todefeat the Nahj—Chamoun, Gemayel, Eddé, and Franjieh—only the last wouldnot be able to use his office to develop a political base. That Suleiman Franjiehalso could not govern was hardly the point. He would be the safe choice, and hecould win.

160 TOWARD CIVIL WAR: 1970–1975

Pierre Gemayal’s behavior, though opportunist, was also understandable interms of Lebanese politics. He and his organization had, for the most part, givenits support to the Nahj and had been rewarded with important cabinet posts. Yethe considered the Phalange to be on the front line of resistance against thePalestinians and was much more ready to employ strong measures than Hilū hadbeen. His militia was already engaged and his political position, while notexplicitly anti-Arab, was unequivocally Lebanonist. The Hilf had promised tovote for him if he could get Shihābist support. But the Nahjists waited for Fu‛ādShihāb himself to make up his mind and when, at the last minute, he declined,most of them went with Sarkis. Gemayel was then left with only his own votes,nine of which finally went to Franjieh, mainly on the ground that the latter wasgearing up to fight the militias.

Camille Chamoun had promoted two rivals, Gemayel and Franjieh, as a meansof building a political base against the detested Shihāb. This was an essentialfirst step in his own attempt to regain credibility as a candidate. At first glance, itwould seem that the 1970 election was a success for Chamoun. Its outcome hadweakened the more powerful of the two rivals he had promoted, Pierre Gemayel,and balanced him with an inept mountain dweller, Suleiman Franjieh, who couldhardly fathom the intricacies of regional and international politics. Indeed, theformer President had won a personal victory; only Lebanon had lost.

But how does one account for Kamal Jumblāt’s behavior in the 1970presidential election? On the first ballot, five of the eight votes he controlled wentto the PSP candidate, Jamīl Lahoud; two votes were cast for Sarkis and one forFranjieh. On the final ballot, the Jumblāt bloc split evenly between Franjieh andSarkis, but the switch of three votes to Franjieh gave the future President a one-vote margin. To allow this outcome, Jumblāt had to vote against the organizationthat had done the most to introduce reforms in Lebanon, presumably what“progressive” in Progressive Socialist Party stood for. For this result, he had toturn out the government apparatus that had made him its most recent Minister ofthe Interior. In order to elect Franjieh President, Jumblāt had to vote with hislongtime political rival (in elections and wars) Camille Chamoun. Moreover, invoting for Franjieh, this grand philosophe of the Sorbonne was making the mostparochial politician in Lebanon its President, a man whose vision was as narrowas Jumblāt’s was broad. It is difficult to come up with a satisfactory explanation—Jumblāt could have been being fair, giving an equal number of votes to bothcandidates; he could have been being pivotal, extracting the most for his votes;and he could have been working to weaken the system, the reconstitution ofwhich would be necessary if his ambition to be President was to be fulfilled.

According to Meir Zamir, Jumblāt’s switch can be explained by a number offactors. He had been influential under Hilū but, as Minister of Interior, hadclashed with the revived Deuxième Bureau and the army. Zamir speculates thatJumblāt did not wish to see the Shihābists succeed with progressive reforms norentrench their power at the expense of his own ambitions. At the time of theelection, he remained uncommitted by supporting his own candidate rather than

TOWARD CIVIL WAR: 1970–1975 161

by helping the Shihābists generate the strong support they needed. This leftJumblāt with a free hand, supporting Jamīl Lahoud rather than declaring eitherfor or against the Shihāb organization. Fu‛ād Shihāb’s late decision not to runmade Jumblāt’s maverick role even stronger, allowing him to hold the balancebetween the Shihābists and their opponents. If Zamir is right, then Jumblātseemed to vote against his own political persuasion in favor of an extremelyremote outcome for himself in the future. His democratic credentials must besuspect as well. A poll, taken at the time (1970), indicated that only 2.8 percent ofthe Lebanese would have voted for Franjieh to be their President.3 In the 1968election for the Chamber, Lebanese seemed to have sent a signal for a change,and the deputies were as free as politicians had ever been in the Levant to bringit about. Instead, they connived and played games.4

The one-vote majority for Suleiman Franjieh was immediately hailed in thelocal press as a strong vote for the people.5 It was anything but that. Rather, thevote was the culmination of an organized reaction to Shihābism by those whowere losing to its reforms and who had already acted to undermine itseffectiveness. The General’s national orientation was lost to personal ambition.Not that the Shihābists acted in a blameless fashion; far from it. But they hadbeen serious about moving Lebanese politics and government out of the bazaarand into public institutions. In trying to untie the hundreds of Gordian Knots thatmake up the Lebanese system, Fu‛ād Shihāb had put together a quasi-governmentin addition to the traditional unworkable one. He had made use of westernizedprofessionals, the Deuxième Bureau, the army, and some helpful outsiders—Americans, Egyptians, French, Swiss, and Kuwaitis. Shihāb also wanted to makethe Lebanese system work in an Arab context, knowing that it could neversecede from the Arab world.

President Hilū and Elias Sarkis (his major administrator) shared the Shihābistview of Lebanon’s need for both independence and valid ties to its Arabneighbors. Neither, however, possessed the forcefulness or political base tomanage the contradictions that these two needs invariably brought to the surface.After the blows of the 1967 June War, the Palestinians pushed themselves to theforefront of radical causes. Almost completely free to operate in Jordan, theypursued the same objective in Lebanon. The Hilū regime began to look for somehelp that Fu‛ād Shihāb had not made use of, help from De Gaulle’s France.Surely the new opposition to the Nahj from among the conservative Christianscould not object to this ally?

Unfortunately, France, in 1968, was better at declaring its independence of theUnited States than at helping Lebanon with its Palestinian problem. Thus, underHilū, Lebanon’s relations with the United States and Egypt cooled somewhat,just at the time when the former was seeking the latter’s help in trying to achievea partial settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Nasser had listened to severalproposals from Washington and, while cautious, was willing to explorepossibilities. But the radicalized Palestinian organizations would have nothing todo with such feelers, and they had two friendly regimes, Iraq and Syria, as well


as their own militias, to help them resist American-Egyptian initiatives. Theywould have to be contained in both Jordan and Lebanon before Nasser could act.As long as the Palestinians carried the banner of militant anti-imperialism,Nasser could not look after Egypt’s own interests by fraternizing with theimperialists. He, and the conservative Arab regimes, had needed a strong Hilū tocontain Palestinian radicalism. President Hilū, however, was not strong and hadturned toward France. For this reason, the Shihābists’ American and Egyptianfriends were initially pleased to see a political reorientation in Lebanon thatmight do there what King Hussein was about to do in Jordan, namely, get controlover the Palestinian militias.

SULEIMAN FRANJIEH

On September 23, 1970, Suleiman Franjieh took office as Lebanon’s fifthPresident. His initial rhetoric was appropriate to the situation his country founditself in. In an address to the Chamber of Deputies, he promised that hisadministration would endeavor to to

strengthen the ties…with Arab states…on the basis of mutual respect forthe sovereignty and system of each state…and that Palestine is a holy landfor all Arabs, and Lebanon will always strive for the owners’ right toreturn.6

Unfortunately, Franjieh was challenged to make good on his rhetoric even beforehe could form a cabinet. On October 5, a plane bringing a band of ArabLiberation Front guerrillas from Baghdad landed at Beirut airport. According tothe Cairo Agreement, such a contingent of Palestinians could not enter Lebanonby air but must come by overland routes through Syria. Therefore, its passengerswere not allowed to disembark, and the plane spent most of the day stalled on thetarmac awaiting a resolution of the matter. For a time, one of the airport officialswas even held hostage. The new President held his ground, however, and theplane was eventually forced to return to Baghdad. In his first test, Franjieh haddealt firmly with the Palestinian radicals, but it was obvious that “strengtheningties” with some of the Arab states was going to require more than goodwill fromBeirut.

On the day of the airplane incident, President Franjieh named Sa’ib Salām tobe Prime Minister, and a week later, a new “youth” cabinet was formed. Kamilal-As‛ad, once again, became Speaker so that the core of the new regime nowincluded the three notables who, as a means of competing for power, had initiallycome together to form the Central Bloc. It was called a “youth” cabinet becauseof the number of young, professionally-oriented reformers composing it.Ghassān Tuwayni, editor of al-Nahār, was named deputy Prime Minister incharge of education; Henri Eddé was put in charge of public works; Emil Bitārreceived the portfolio for public health; and Elias Sāba took over the Finance


Ministry. Sa’ib Salām was not young, but he was of the right politicalattachments to symbolize renewal. He claimed that the new government wasprepared to “carry out a revolution at the top” that would “avoid a revolutionfrom below.” Indeed, Salām and his colleagues were in earnest and began tomove faster toward reform than their head “clansman” could tolerate. Over thefollowing few months, one after another of the regime’s spirited reformers foundit necessary to resign from the government as the old zu‛āma leaders and the newforces of radicalism increasingly interfered with their efforts. As the “youth”cabinet disintegrated, Franjieh became more isolated.

As it had for Franjieh himself, trouble for the Salām cabinet began at once,even before it could get settled in. While the number of violent incidents wasdown substantially, from twenty-three in 1969, to ten in 1970, and only four in1971, a tremendous spate of strikes broke out to beseige the Salām government.Within a month of the establishment of the “youth” cabinet, strikes broke outamong students over educational reforms; among ordinary people in the Akkārand Hermil regions over lack of government services; among taxi drivers,government administrative personnel, bank employees, and telephone operatorsfor higher wages and better working conditions; and among merchants overhigher duties placed on imports. In all, about fourteen strikes broke out betweenNovember 1970 and December 1971. The number and timing suggest thatconcerted action was taken to undermine Franjieh’s “reform” Cabinet, actionthat was perhaps organized by the left.

While the radicals were assailing the Salām government, so were thetraditionals. Their first victim was Elias Sāba, a close associate of SuleimanFranjieh, who was trying to introduce a six-year development plan for publicinfrastructure. His program would have required more taxation, much of whichwas expected to come from new levies on imports. The Lebanese MerchantsAssociation led the protests against Sāba’s reforms, and, at an emergency cabinetmeeting, his import taxes were canceled. Sāba offered to resign but waspersuaded to stay on until May 1972. A few days later, Henri Eddé resigned fromhis post as Minister of Public Works and, in the interim, was replaced by theacting Minister of Agriculture, Kamal Khūri. Ten months later, when one of thebright stars of the “youth” cabinet, Ghassān Tuwayni, finally gave up, Eddéreturned to the government to take over the education portfolio. Given nogenuine support for reforms and beseiged by a multitude of studentdemonstrations and strikes, Henri Eddé was again forced to leave after less thantwo months in office.

Also making a quick exit was Dr Emile Bitār, Franjieh’s Minister of Health. Hiscase is, perhaps, most illustrative of the terrible trap the new government founditself in. A member of a new group of professionals, the Democratic Party, hewas determined to force a price reduction on medicines, many of which weremaintained at artifically high prices by a Lebanese pharmaceutical monopoly.Strong protests by the monopolists, some close associates of Suleiman Franjieh,stopped Bitār’s initiative. Crucial pharmaceuticals were suddenly unavailable; yet


the President refused to act. The Salām government was attempting reforms; theFranjieh government was protecting the status quo. Once again, there seemed tobe two governments in Lebanon.

Caught between these two social forces, one traditional, the other reformist,the two governments began to go their separate ways. The world outside was, ofcourse, not leaving Lebanon to find her own way during these months. Radicalnationalism from nearby states was contributing to Lebanon’s internal discord.After the Cairo Agreement, the Palestinians had agreed to go underground, butnot all the commando groups obeyed PLO Chairman Arafat’s directives. YasirArafat and Sa’ib Salām held a series of meetings, trying to work out theparticulars of guerrilla conduct, but neither man had the power to deliver his sideto an agreement. It was at this time that the war between King Hussein and thePalestinian movement was winding down in Jordan. There were few guerrillaincidents in Lebanon at this time, but the PLO was probably playing for time asmany Palestinian commandos were coming through Syria into Lebanon, havingbeen driven out of Jordan. This was an ominous development for Franjieh andhastened the exit of the Prime Minister, Salām’s, reformers.

Capital was flooding Lebanon, heightening the establishment’s greed evenbeyond its usual levels; the clouds of Middle East war were on the horizon. Atthe same time, Palestinians were arriving in great numbers, and the two trendscombined to bring about an impossible political situation. Purchase of imports,booming construction, and rising inflation brought hardship to the lower classes.In the south, as the Palestinian fighters arrived and space became increasinglyscarce, many (mostly Shi‛ite) villagers moved north to become squatters nearBeirut. In 1970–71, the gap between the two Lebanons was never greater.

Suleiman Franjieh, turning his back on reform, decided to take a hard line.First, he removed the last Shihābists from the Deuxième Bureau and beganputting together his own security organization. Much of the administrative corpsof the government was similarly purged of Shihābists, and by the time the armycommander, Jean Nujaym, had lost his life in a helicopter accident, most of thearmy was led by Franjieh’s chosen officers. At the very time the President haddecided to clamp down on the multitude of anti-state forces in Lebanon, he hadlost the experienced security personnel he needed to accomplish this task.Stocked with his own favorites, the intelligence apparatus began to flounderbadly, while a series of bomb explosions made it seem that every radical group inthe country could operate with impunity.7

Parliamentary elections were held in April 1972, returning thirty-nine newdeputies to the Chamber, most attached to traditional political groups. Therewere some exceptions, however, as a radical Ba‛athist won a Sunni seat inTripoli and a Pan-Arab Nasserist won a similar seat in Beirut. Both of these winswere seen as favorable to Franjieh since the new Sunni representative from Tripolicame at the expense of the President’s local rival, Rashid Karāmi, and the newone from Beirut reduced Sa‛ib Salām’s number of supporters. It wascharacteristic of Lebanon that the President’s stock went up when that of his


Prime Minister went down. The elections did not bring about any developedopposition to Franjieh in the Chamber, nor did they give him any real support.

In May, shortly after the elections, martial law was declared following theshooting of three policemen in Mount Lebanon. Soon after, Sa‛ib Salām resignedbut headed a new cabinet that was patched together two weeks later. This cabinetlasted nearly a year as conditions worsened and violence increased. The patternof bombings did not seem to serve any sector of influence, suggesting thepossibility of sabotage from the outside. Jordan was especially suspect, but theevidence was inconclusive because the intelligence operation had been shattered,first by the Hilf then by Franjieh. After decreasing to only four incidents ofviolence in 1971, conflict incidents moved back up to eleven in 1972 and on upto twenty-three in 1973. Lebanon still had a government, but the situation wasbecoming increasingly tenuous.

In early 1973, the usual number of clashes and demonstrations was occuring,though notably few involving border crossings into Israel. For their part, thePalestinians were concentrating on consolidating their bases of operations withinLebanon. Two events, however, took place that spring which revealed Franjiehgovernment’s lack of control. General Emile Bustāni, former chief of theDeuxième Bureau, suddenly fled to Syria where he was granted asylum. Alongwith several colleagues, he had been involved in corruption during his years atthe Bureau and was fleeing his day in court. Shortly after his escape, in fact,Bustāni was tried in absentia on charges of corruption and convicted. A formerintelligence chief was hardly the gift Lebanon wanted to bestow upon its Syrianrivals at this time. The Syrian advantage was soon felt. As if by magic, the moreradical Palestinian militias began to assert themselves: two bombs ata newspaper office and an armed attack on an army checkpoint. With Bustāni inDamascus, Lebanon’s intelligence system compromised, and an upsurge inPalestinian operations, it was clear that Franjieh lacked the resources to makegood on his government’s commitments. Moreover, as the situation worsened, thePresident’s political responses became more and more partisan, rechargingsectarian animosities.

The government’s weakness was all too clear to Yasir Arafat, who keptstalling on his promise to agree to the deals that the Prime Minister, Salām, keptoffering. The disarray in Lebanon was also clear to another party, the Israelis. Ifthe Lebanese government was unable to control those residing in its territory,Israel would force a showdown. Thus, on April 10, 1973, the Israelis conductedtheir second major raid into Beirut, landing their own commandos in the city andassassinating three Palestinian guerrilla leaders. It was a daring act and broughtthe Salām government down.8 Clashes broke out as Lebanon experienced anuproar of accusations about who was to blame. Students blamed the UnitedStates; others blamed the Palestinians. Some even felt that Israel was the culprit.The army explained that it had not been informed of the raid until it was too latebecause the Lebanese police thought that it was nothing more than a disputebetween Palestinians. Embarrassingly candid, the army’s admission at this time


suggests what Lebanon was really like. The country’s police could notdistinguish mayhem from the usual chaos. And this in a society whose economyhad never been more prosperous, in a city whose banks were bulging withmoney.

President Franjieh’s answer to the Israeli raid was, of course, not to confrontIsrael or fire his own army commander, General Ghānim, but to redouble hisefforts at consolidating power. He began by turning to Amin al-Hafiz, a lowerranking Sunni politician from Tripoli, to form a government. On April 25, 1973,the very day that former President Shihāb died, a cabinet of relative unknowns,headed by al-Hafiz, was appointed. There was some hope that the new PrimeMinister’s associations with the Nahj and Rashid Karāmi, as well as with thePalestinians, might be an asset in dealing with the upheaval that had come in thewake of the Israeli action. But the President was sticking his head in the sand ifhe thought he could get the crucial support he needed from the oppositionwithout having to make any concessions to it. Franjieh had wanted Salām onboard but as weak as possible. Now, in an emergency, he would have Karāmi runthe government without appointing him Prime Minister. The Nahj, which he hadincapacitated, would somehow keep things going. Such tactics had worked tokeep Franjieh at the head of his clan; surely they would help him as President ofLebanon.

DETERIORATION AND VIOLENCE

Only two days after the appointment of the al-Hafiz cabinet, radical Palestiniancommandos began a new round of disruptive acts. Police arrested three men withexplosives trying to board an Air France jet; an additional bomb was found set toexplode at the airport; four members of Fatah were discovered carryingexplosives near the American Embassy. A kidnapping of Lebanese army officersoccurred; their abductors demanded the release of the arrested Palestiniansaboteurs. On May 2, the army intervened, shots were fired, and a new round offighting between the Palestinians and the Lebanese military began. There wereceasefires; these were broken. The Prime Minister, al-Hafiz, resigned, but hethen stayed on. The President met with Arafat, but radicals undercut him—onesplinter from the left, one from the right.

The Israelis had succeeded; a little prick on the Lebanese body politic, and,without fail, Arabs would rage against Arabs. The Sunni establishment wouldnot cooperate as long as Franjieh’s puppy dog remained Prime Minister. Theradical PDFLP and PFLP would not cooperate with Arafat as long as the PLOChairman was willing to return to negotiations. A ceasefire, with an agreementconcerning the Cairo Agreement, was worked out, but the bitterness was set.Lebanon’s establishment believed that the commandos were determined toundermine the country’s sovereignty, and the PLO was convinced that theLebanese were preparing to liquidate the guerrilla movement. It was a terribletrap. As Kamal Salibi says:


While the Muslim Lebanese leaderships were neither willing nor able tojoin the Christian Lebanese leaderships in a common stand against thecommandos; while the radical parties and factions in the country put theirfull force behind the commando movement; while Syria was determined,by one measure or another, to frustrate any attempt on the part of theLebanese Republic to vindicate its sovereign prerogatives; and while eventhe conservative Arab States, which had an interest in seeing thecommando movement in Lebanon curbed, hurried to offer their mediationand confuse the issue every time Lebanon tried to do what they themselvesalso wanted; the tough-minded Suleiman Faranjiyya was no more able todeal effectively with the complex commando issue than his mild anddiplomatic predecessor [had been].9

As Salibi recognizes, Lebanon had a multitude of enemies, some whomasqueraded as “helpers” of one community or another. Certainly, many ofthese did not have the interests of the Lebanese at heart; but, with its sectariandifferences and communal divisions, Lebanon was also its own worst enemy.

Unfortunately, Franjieh turned out to be a lot like Lebanon’s communards. Hecould make deals better than he could make friends. Such is often the case insocieties where ethical relativism is prominent. Deals depend on the veryconditions of friendship and mutual interest that make them necessary as asubstitute for force. Suleiman Franjieh could not deal with many of those whoseinterests had to be satisfied to make the state work, particularly as regards thePalestinian takeover in the south. He could only plead with his opponents toagree to respect the sovereignty and independence of his state.

Salibi speaks of the prerogatives of a “Republic,” but Lebanon was not quitethat. The power of the Prime Minister and the Chamber of Deputies was notstrong enough vis-à-vis the President (once selected) to produce republicangovernment. Too much of the politics underlying the government was geared tothe age-old Christian-Muslim struggle for dominence. Too much of the politics ofthe Lebanese establishment was directed toward its own interests to the exclusionof other interests. For example, the Republic spent money on the Litāni Dam tobring electricity to Beirut without spending the money to finish the project, aninvestment that would have brought water to the farmers of the impoverished andunderdeveloped south. Politics and private enterprise continued to beindistinguishable as the cleavages in Lebanon’s society began to hint at “doubletrouble.” More and more, it was obvious that the distinction between poor andrich was parallel to that between Muslim and Christian. Lebanon’s grandees hadmoney to spend on the state that Fu‛ād Shihāb had struggled to rebuild andreform but spent it on themselves instead.

Reform and development at a standstill, Palestinians provoking and Israelisretaliating, President Franjieh then turned to cabinet making. The Amin al-Hafizcabinet survived just a little more than two months before it fell, prompting thePresident to call on Taqi al-Din Sulh to form a government. The Prime Minister,


Sulh, was a member of a prestigious Sunni family but possessed nothing of apolitical base. The “clan leader” refused to face political reality. He refused toacknowledge the fact that he needed the other wing of the government to helphim rule.

During the rest of 1973 and the first six months of 1974, sporadic fightingbetween the commandos and the Lebanese army erupted. In December 1973,serious riots broke out in Tripoli and Beirut over rising food prices. Franjiehattempted to get Sa’ib Salām to come to the rescue but on terms the formerPrime Minister could not accept. Therefore, in late October 1974, the weak Taqial-Din Sulh was replaced by the even weaker Rashid al-Sulh. This tidy bit ofsniping on Franjieh’s part was aimed at reestablishing a connection with KamalJumblāt, Rashid’s electoral patron who was in the forefront of anti-governmentcauses. On the one hand, it seemed sensible to try to bring Jumblāt back into thesystem; on the other, doing so by means of Rashid al-Sulh was seen as an act ofdefiance toward the Sunni establishment. Sunni politicians saw it as nothingmore than clever footwork on the part of the President to avoid having to dealwith the genuine opposition.

The political situation continued to deteriorate. As noted above, there had been11 major conflict incidents in 1972, increasing to 23 in 1973 (in the wake of theIsraeli raid on Beirut), but the number went back down to a more manageable 10conflict incidents in 1974. In 1975, however, the number of conflict incidentsjumped to 83 and, in 1976, it went on up to 171 as the struggle escalated to all-out civil war (see Figure 7.1). As in the past, war and the rumors of war shutdown the investment in social infrastructure. Although the number of announcedpublic programs averaged about one per year during the period between 1971and 1976 (see Figure 7.2), it has often been asserted that not a single reformprogram was passed, funded, and actually implemented during the Franjiehpresidency. To his credit, President Franjieh had tried to institute a “youth”cabinet of technocrats at the beginning of his term, but the traditional bossesundercut their attempts at reform.

The Franjieh presidency took off during boom times in Lebanon; yet it wasbeset by extraordinary challenges. First and foremost among these were the twinproblems of Israel and Palestine, the former with its use of interventionary force,the latter with its operations within Lebanon. But these difficulties, as bad as theywere, were not the cause of Franjieh’s downfall. He was brought down by thesame counterpunching from the left and right in Lebanon that had been theundoing of the Nahj and had won him the presidency. By 1974, while Franjieh wasfumbling along with non-Prime Ministers, Jumblāt was organizing a newcombination of radicals on the left, and Raymond Eddé joined with Sa‛ib Salāmand Rashid Karāmi to confront the President from the establishment side.Gemayel and Chamoun were still prepared to give Franjieh support, but both hadagendas which precluded coming to his rescue.

During the several months of late 1974 and early 1975, there was, it seems,one last chance to work out a relationship between the PLO moderates and the


Lebanese government. President Franjieh had held numerous talks with PLOleaders; with Rashid al-Sulh he had established a channel to their mostprominent domestic supporter, Kamal Jumblāt; and the new Tripartite Coalition(Tahalūf al-Thulāthi) of Karāmi, Salām, and Eddé had not yet become a politicalforce. In addition, the United States and Egypt were actively courting Syria’ssupport for a settlement with Israel. President Sadat’s initiative in the YomKippur War of 1973, his “victory” over the Bar-Lev defenders, had enabled himto move away from the Soviets and toward closer cooperation with the




Americans. With Gerald Ford’s blessing, Secretary of State Kissinger wasactively pursuing the Syrians in 1974–5, hoping to persuade them to deal withthe Israelis in return for having the Golan Heights given back at a future date. ButKissinger returned without success.

Had it been possible to coax Syria into cooperation with Egypt during theperiod between the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1976 civil war in Lebanon,one can imagine the emergence of a moderate Palestinian wing making anagreement with the Lebanese in order to be in a position to negotiate for a West

Figure 7.2 Announced public projects: 1970–1976



Bank state. But no such settlement process got off the blocks. RadicalPalestinians undercut moderate Palestinians, which had the effect of undercuttingthe Syrians as well, and Israel also cooperated with the effort to prevent asettlement by undercutting the Americans. President Sadat lost patience with theintricacies involved in wooing Syria and decided to deal with the Israelis on hisown. The Egyptian President went to Jerusalem (November 1977) and on toCamp David (September 1978). The Syrians returned to their previousconfrontational posture.

By this time, the Palestinians were so embroiled in radical Muslim affairs thatit was, perhaps, impossible to get them to constrain their activities according tothe wishes of the Lebanese government. Besides the Tahalūf, one must count thelinkages that Kamal Jumblāt had put together as a force favorable to thePalestinians and against the regime (even though Franjieh had patronized theDruze chief with his appointment of Rashid al-Sulh as Prime Minister).Jumblāt’s ambition to be President necessitated that Lebanon have a newconstitution and perhaps a revolution to make it possible. He had, therefore,made new alliances with fellow rebels, mostly Sunnis but not of the traditionalestablishment. Jumblāt had recruited such supporters as Farouk Muqaddam inTripoli (leader of the October 24 Movement), Ibrahim Qulayāt in West Beirut(founder of Independent Nasserists), and the redoubtable Sidon Nasserist,Ma‛rūf Sa‛ad (several times elected to the Chamber of Deputies from that city). . Each of these Sunni radicals (in 1974) was even more supportive of thePalestinian cause than Jumblāt himself. In fact, the only Muslims who mighthave helped contain the Palestinians for Suleiman Franjieh belonged to thedetested opposition. Far from helping the President with this dilemma, theJumblāt-Sulh connection only served to legitimize the Palestinian position inLebanon and further weaken him.

An additional factor in the rebel mix was the Shi‛ite Imam, Mūsa al-Sadr,founder of the Movement of the Deprived (Harakāt al-Mahrumīn). He had beenthe subject of considerable courting by such political factions in Lebanon as theKatā‛ib, the Tahalūf, and even the Jumblāt-Sulh wing of the government. TheImam’s speeches combined pathos with militance; his people had been oppressedand should take up the sword to resist those forces that had reduced them to suchconditions. Even though the Imam did not emphasize bloodletting, he preachedthat “arms were an ornament to men and that his people should resort to force ifnecessary to redress the wrongs done to them.10 Yet, the Shi‛ite community herepresented was willing to be Lebanese and conduct its struggle within thecommunal system. Al-Sadr, for example, made a point of reassuring theMaronites on several occasions that, even with reforms, the presidency wouldalways be reserved for them. While the Imam, himself, eventually vanished inAugust 1978 during a visit to Libya, the movement he founded continued as theAmal and other Shi’ite organizations. Courted by several Lebanese politicians,though not with the seriousness he deserved, Mūsa al-Sadr might have becomethat last added weight to a minimally winning coalition that the Lebanese


establishment needed to save itself. They did not bring him into a reformprogram, and neither was saved.

By the beginning of 1975, matters had seriously deteriorated in Lebanon, butthe country was still possible. The Liberals (PNL) of ex-President Chamoun andthe Katā‛ib of presidential-hopeful Gemayel were still officially conciliatory onthe question of Palestinian rights; the radicals still had a channel to thegovernment open to them; the Eddé candidacy, by means of the Tahalūf, wasorganizing but already had attracted enemies; money and opportunity wereeverywhere; and the Americans were trying desperately to push the variouscombatants toward a settlement. Unfortunately, the outside-inside mode ofpolitics in Lebanon had also attracted a lot of weaponry to the Connecticut-sizecountry; everyone was armed to the teeth. While there was still formalacceptance of the Cairo Agreement, hostility among the Christians to thePalestinian presence was on the rise. Along with the money coming to Lebanoncame rising prices, hurting the underclasses who had no immediate access to thenew wealth. Violence was also generally on the rise, some of it purely domestic—in Tripoli, in the Akkār, and among the habitually feuding families in Zghartā.Bombings and assassinations were becoming a regular occurrence (especially inBeirut) as regimes in the region sent hit men to dispose of their opponents takingrefuge in Lebanon. Yet, Lebanon was still possible; that is, until the Israelisconducted an especially ferocious raid on the south in January 1975. A war hadbeen slowly developing in the south; clearly the Lebanese government waspowerless to stop it.

MOVING TOWARD WAR

The quickening pace toward war was stimulated by a number of incidents, noneof which was serious enough by itself to engage the Lebanese in the madnessthat followed. Near the end of January 1975, the Israelis, looking for Palestiniancommandos, conducted a major raid into the southern border region. The Lebanesearmy tried to crack down and clashed with the guerrillas who, in turn, firedrockets into the military barracks in Tyre. After Yasir Arafat blamed the dissidentPFLP faction for the incident, Pierre Gemayel openly criticized the PLO andcalled for it to gain control over the “anarchy” prevailing in the organization.Arafat attempted to make peace with Gemayel only to have Camille Chamounissue a statement that seconded the Katā‛ib criticism and suggested that theLebanese government was rapidly losing control in the south. Not to be upstagedby Chamoun’s National Liberals, the Phalangists (Gemayel) submitted amemorandum to President Franjieh calling for a national referendum on severalimportant issues including, most dramatically, the continued presence of thePalestinians in Lebanon. Although the government did not act on this initiative,the fact that it was made (as the militias rushed to purchase arms) indicated thatthe Katā‛ib had decided to confront the Palestinians.


The tinder only needed a match. In late February 1975, trouble broke out inSidon over a controversy about fishing rights which had been smoldering forseveral months. Camille Chamoun headed a new concern, funded by Lebaneseand Kuwaiti capital, that had been licensed for commercial fishing along thesouthern coast of Lebanon. The Proteine Company, as it was called, was to be anupscale enterprise using modern equipment and a mechanized fishing fleet. Thelocal fishermen, still working the waters much as they had for thousands of years,were afraid that the new company would take most of the fish and destroy theirlivelihood. Although some protections against such an outcome were offered, theissue was soon politicized into a struggle between the mainly Muslim poor ofSidon and the mainly Christian rich who were to operate the ProteineCompany.11

On February 26, a protest march led by the redoubtable Sidon rebel Ma‛rūfSa‛ad was halted by local police and elements of the army; the standoff soondeteriorated into a riot. Shots were fired, a soldier was killed, and several of thedemonstrators were wounded, including their leader, Ma‛rūf Sa‛ad, whodied afew days later. Like magic, thousands demonstrated in Beirut and Tripoli thefollowing day, and the government responded by temporarily removing thegovernor of the southern region where Sidon is located. Although the issue hadto do with the grant of an exclusive license to Chamoun and his businessassociates, it soon became a test of the government’s authority in south Lebanon.

On March 1, the army was preparing to remove roadblocks that the fishermenhad set up on the coastal highway just south of Sidon when they were fired upon.During the two-day clash that followed, seven soldiers and at least nine civilianswere killed. Several others were wounded as the army was subjected to a rocketattack from militia elements, some of whom were Palestinians from the nearby Einel-Hilweh refugee camp. New demonstrations broke out on March 7, duringfuneral processions held for Ma‛rūf Sa‛ad, and, along with strikes, continuedthroughout most of the month. Leftists demanded that army Chief of Staff,General Iskandar Ghānim, be dismissed and that the army be reorganized to giveMuslims equality with Christians in making military decisions. Although thesituation became calmer near the end of the month, none of the more radicaldemands of the rebels concerning fishing rights and the army had been met. Thegovernment of Rashid al-Sulh stayed on while President Franjieh refused to fireGeneral Ghānim.

Part of the problem was that radicals, having little interest in the plight ofSidon fishermen or Beirut slum dwellers, were vigorously trying to set fire to thetinder that, thanks to the neglect of the Lebanese establishment, was strewnabout all over the country. Another part of the problem, however, had to do withthe changing character of the army and Franjieh’s use of it. Supposedlysubordinate to the Lebanese government (and its cabinet), General Ghānim had,in fact, ignored Prime Minister al-Sulh’s (tentative) instructions during the Sidonencounter, and acted, instead, according to the wishes of President Franjieh. Inclose consultation with the latter, the General had personally directed some of


the army’s actions in Sidon. This unilateralism was seen by the Muslims as anaffront to their community, a sign that the Lebanese army would no longerremain neutral in intercommunal disputes. It was establishment, not radical,Muslims who most strenuously insisted on the resignations of the PrimeMinister, al-Sulh, and General Ghānim. The Muslim elite saw that thecombination of Palestinian militias and Lebanese leftists would not only threatenthe Christian establishment but also hurt them. Were the army to join thePresident and the Christian militias in gaining the upper hand over the rebels inthe south, what little power they had would surely vanish.

While there is dispute concerning who fired the first shots during theconfrontation in Sidon, it is clear that the army’s intervention widened the breachbetween Muslims and Christians. Before a ceasefire and an end to the strikes couldoccur, General Ghānim’s troops had to vacate the city. The plea by the Muslimestablishment for a reorganization of the army was not just a demand for itsneutrality but a reminder that an army acting exclusively on behalf of Christianinterests would destroy the National Pact. The army’s intervention in Sidon hadnot only been questionable, but the issue that led to it also smelled of corruptionthat was vintage Lebanese. Camille Chamoun’s company had been given theexclusive right to fish along the shore in south Lebanon.12 Did Chamoun, withhis millions, and the Kuwaitis, with their billions, need to monopolize the coastalwaters and put local fishermen out of business? Moreover, why was theLebanese army firing on its own citizens when it was not even able to protectthem from Israeli raids?

These are the kinds of questions many citizens were asking, especially thoseimmediately affected by the government’s decision to set up its friends in thefishing business. Moreover, voices on the left and from among the Palestinianswere loud in their denunciation, not only of Lebanese capitalists but also of thearmy’s new role as protector of Christian interests. Kamal Jumblāt managed toget some of those most angry to heed his call for calm and try to keep the closestthing to one of their own, Rashid al-Sulh, as Prime Minister, but the Muslimestablishment was adamant in its opposition to what both wings of thegovernment were doing. Soon after Ma‛rūf Sa‛ad’s death, the Higher MuslimCouncil met and withdrew its confidence in the Prime Minister, calling for hisresignation. Another group of prominent Muslims, including six former Premiers,closed ranks and issued a statement demanding the reorganization of the armyunder a Command Council made up of an equal number of Muslims andChristians.

On April 13, Pierre Gemayel was participating in the consecration of a newMaronite church in Ayn al-Rummānah, a suburb southeast of Beirut. While theservice was taking place, members of his militia guarding the approaches to thechurch stopped an automobile with a covered license plate and, after anargument with its occupants, forced it to take another route. A few minutes later,a second car appeared, its license plate also covered. This vehicle was able toforce its way through the roadblock, and its occupants began shooting in the


direction of the church entrance, killing four people including three Phalangists.Later that day, a bus carrying Palestinians back to Tel al-Za‛tar camp from aparade commemorating a previous commando operation was stopped byPhalangist gunmen, and all its passengers were shot dead. It is not clear thatthose who killed Pierre Gemayel’s retainers were, in fact, Palestiniancommandos, nor has it been established that the Palestinians on the bus were armedand on their way to Ayn al-Rummānah to cause further trouble. But a smallmassacre had been answered with a larger massacre, and the next day, fightingerupted between the Katā‛ib and Palestinians in Beirut.

Strikes and skirmishes, in characteristic fashion, also erupted in the usualscrimmage areas of Sidon, Tyre, and Tripoli. The various splinters of theNational Movement conferred, and Kamal Jumblāt called for the dismissal of thetwo Katā‛ib ministers as well as the dissolution of the party. Yasir Arafat askedfor the intervention by the Arab heads of state to prevent those working to dividethe Palestinians and the Lebanese from succeeding. The Secretary General of theArab League, Mahmud Ryād, was able to facilitate a ceasefire on April 16, but afew skirmishes continued, bomb blasts were exchanged, militia members werekidnapped, and cabinet resignations were tendered. The Prime Minister, Rashidal-Sulh, was the target, and he finally resigned on May 15, 1975, claiming thatthe Phalangists had been responsible for the outbreak of war and that Lebanon’sgovernment must be reformed to give Muslims a greater share of political andmilitary power.

Just as the Palestinians and Muslim radicals had overinflated themselvesfollowing the battle of Karameh (1967) and the subsequent Cairo Agreement(1969), the Christian conservatives began, at this time, to entertain puffed-upnotions of how they were going to regain their traditional dominance. Because theLebanese look to the outside as much as to the inside when they encounterpolitical problems, we can again search beyond the country’s borders for someof the reasons why the Christians so blithely marched into intercommunalconflict and, as in 1860, were so manifestly confident of winning.

Lebanon’s Christian establishment had always enjoyed an international statusbeyond its real power. Charles Malik, often Foreign Minister, had cut aconsiderable figure at the United Nations as a moderate and anticommunistArab. He was also a friend of several US Presidents, notably John F. Kennedyand Richard Nixon. He, along with other Lebanese, could persuade the UnitedStates to take a special interest in the country as long as doing so served ananticommunist purpose. By 1975, however, important changes had occurred inthe Middle East. The most significant, of course, was that in the aftermath of theYom Kippur standoff, Anwar al-Sadat ousted the Soviets and began to alignhimself with the conservative Arab states led by Saudi Arabia. He alsomaneuvered Egypt into a much closer relationship with the Americans. Each ofthese parties had its own reasons to fear the growing popularity of the Palestinianmovement, its sponsorship by Syria, and its tendency to undermine establishedregimes. The Palestinians, protestations to the contrary, acted with a great deal of


independence, partly by design and partly because no one controlled all thefactions of their movement. The United States wanted them restrained; theEgyptians wanted them to do nothing to provoke the Israelis; and the Gulf stateswanted them militarily subdued. The conservative Arabs were quietlyencouraging the Christians of Lebanon to take care of their Palestinian problemas King Hussein had taken care of his. Therefore, with the army no longerneutral and the Christian warlords able to employ their own militias, thePhalangist “adventure”13 must have seemed well worth embarking upon.Lebanon, after all, was their country, and neither the Palestinian commandos northe indigenous radicals seemed willing to recognize it. As in 1860, the Christians,amply provoked, set out to defeat their enemies. Also as in 1860, they were surethat outsiders would help them win the war even if they lost the battles.14

THE MILITARY CABINET

Soon after Rashid al-Sulh resigned, fighting between the Phalangists and thePalestinians resumed in Beirut, mostly in the suburb of Dikwānah, east of Aynal-Rummānah and near the large Tel al-Za‛tar refugee camp. After four days offighting, at least twenty-eight were killed and more than a hundred injured.Franjieh conferred with a number of notables trying to find someone for PrimeMinister who would cooperate with General Ghānim and himself as before, i.e.,without getting in the way of the President. The Muslim establishment insistedon a big name, either Sa‛ib Salām or Rashid Karāmi. Instead, the President trieda new tack, at least new for Lebanon. He appointed a military cabinet headed bya non-political Sunni, General Nur al-Din al-Rifā‛i. All of the posts except onewere taken over by generals; only the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was headed bya civilian (who was also Frangieh’s personal friend). But the military cabinetcame too late and, without an army, could not do much to stop the escalation ofhostilities. By May 1975, the fighting had spread to the refugee camps andinvolved others besides Palestinians and Phalangists. A communist militia wasengaged; a Shi‛ite militia (the Knights of Ali) committed terrible atrocities; andChamoun now gave Gemayel his support. Spokesmen for the Maronite monasticorders and the Maronite League (an establishment organization) soon followedsuit.

One of the reasons Franjieh chose General al-Rifā‛i to head his cabinet at thistime was that the other Sunni notables were at loggerheads with Jumblāt overwhat to do about the Katā‛ib (Phalangists). As punishment for its role in the Aynal-Rummānah massacre, Jumblāt wanted the Party isolated and refused to votefor any government that included its members. The more Jumblāt blamed theKatā‛ib for the outbreak of civil strife, the more the Christians rallied to itssupport. Pierre Gemayel, for his part, would have accepted Rashid Karāmi, and(privately) the Muslim establishment would have welcomed him. But PresidentFranjieh, for personal reasons, refused to call on the Sunni leader from Tripoli toform a government. With several stalemates operating at the same time and


events getting out of hand, Franjieh decided to cross up the politicians by askingthe generals to govern.

The Brigadier Prime Minister, Nur al-Din al-Rifā‛i, lasted all of three days.Many Lebanese might have welcomed a strong hand at this time, especiallythose with a stake in the system, but the Muslims could hardly agree to it. Intheir eyes the military, under General Ghānim, had ceased to be neutral; the armywas at its lowest repute. The Muslim establishment, in fact, was so incensed, thatit was able to coalesce behind Kamal Jumblāt and Sa’ib Salām in total oppositionto the President’s latest attempt to bypass them in the formation of agovernment.15 It took only a day or so for the Tahalūf (the triumvirate of Eddé,Karāmi, and Salām) to make an open declaration against Franjieh’s move,signifying, with the inclusion of Eddé, that leaders from both the Muslim andChristian communities opposed it. The action of the Tahalūf, however, was notenough to slow down the slide toward civil war. While it helped get the generalsout and a Karāmi cabinet in, the transformation from maneuvering politiciansand militia commanders into intercommunal conflict had begun. Many Lebanesewere entirely disgusted with their leaders; few were actually fighting in the war;but when shots were fired and bombs exploded, they began to take sides. Like allpeople, they were forced “to be or not to be” and chose on the only basis theyknew, that of religious sect.

On May 28, five days after Franjieh surprised Lebanon with his militarycabinet, Rashid Karāmi was chosen to form a new cabinet, a task that took him amonth to accomplish. This six-member cabinet consisted of the following:Rashid Karāmi, Prime Minister and defense; Camille Chamoun, interior andpublic works; Ghassān Tuwayni, information and planning; Adil ‘Usayran,justice and agriculture; Majīd Arslān, health and industry; and Philip Taqlā,foreign affairs and tourism. Essentially, it was made of persons from the oldestLebanese establishment. Three of these men, Arslān, Chamoun, and ‛Usayran,had served in the country’s first cabinet after independence in 1943. Chamounhad been President.

It was a safe group—perhaps too safe because the new cabinet excluded twoof the major players in the war, Kamal Jumblāt of the Progressive Socialist Partyand Pierre Gemayel of the Katā‛ib. The former, allied with the leftists and thePalestinians, agreed to be left out of the new cabinet as long as the Sheikh wasalso left out. Both, however, needed to give their support to the new governmentfor it to have any chance of stopping the violence. Jumblāt was prepared to giveit his support; Gemayel was not. It was hoped that Franjieh would use hisinfluence to persuade the Phalangist leader to change his mind, but the Presidentrefused. He was not about to help a cabinet survive that had been formed againsthis will. Moreover, Jumblāt’s support would not have meant that all the leftistgroups indirectly linked to him would do his bidding. The Druze leader was stilladamant that the government consider his own program of reforms which, ifenacted, would have radically altered the Lebanese power structure. Thus, whatmight have been a credible cabinet for bringing life back to normal in Lebanon


was made weak from the outset by Franjieh’s indifference to its work and by theabsence of its two powerful non-members, Gemayel and Jumblāt. The latterstayed out with the leftists and Palestinians he could not control while the formerstayed out to build up his forces (which eventually escaped his control). ThePresident, for his part, was as interested in what the Phalangists could do tofurther his aims as he was in what his cabinet could do. The Republic, as is oftenthe case, was saddled with two governments that could not agree. But, unlike theperiod when the Constitution was developed, it was also without a French HighCommissioner who could step in and break the stalemate. Arms were pouringinto the country for use by the various militias, Muslim and Christian alike, tobreak it by force.

Karāmi’s six-member cabinet was such that it could not reform the Lebanesesystem, but it could negotiate and arbitrate until the informal apparatus of theestablishment worked out the customary deals. Although violence had continuedwith an appalling regularity (since the Sidon clashes of February 1975), full-blown civil war had not yet broken out. Even while the militias were arming andthe wealthy were moving their belongings out of the country, there seemed to betime to work out a settlement. Many assumed that if major fighting broke out, itwould be used to emphasize the political demands made by those who werecompeting for power and would not last long. Outsiders, especially those fromthe Arab world, also had a stake in who won or lost in Lebanon. Even thoughthese regimes competed for power and influence through various proxies in thecountry, they would never let it be destroyed. How could the Arab world getalong without Beirut?

A few social scientists, e.g., Halim Barakat, Michael C.Hudson, Fuad I. Khuri,and Michael W.Suleiman, thought otherwise and, seeing the ominous clouds ofwar on the horizon, warned of dire consequences should the government refuseto heed the call for reform.16 One member of the establishment who also saw thedark side of Lebanon coming was Amir Maurice Shihāb, a descendant of theformer ruling family of Mount Lebanon. This longtime head of Lebaneseantiquities and former director of the Beirut Museum told Jonathan C. Randal, acorrespondent for the Washington Post, that when the shooting first broke out hehad expected the conflict to last for twenty-five years. Fearing the worst, he had,early on, taken great pains to move the most valuable treasures of the Museum toa secret place for safekeeping. Other than members of his own staff, only thePresident of the Republic knew the location.17

During the summer of 1975, the fighting in Lebanon was mostly sporadic. Aceasefire held throughout most of the summer—as ships brought ammo in andtook furniture out—but the political climate was bad. Of the eighty-three“conflict incidents” counted in 1975, only eight occurred between the formationof the new cabinet in late June and the major escalation that began during themiddle of September. Kamal Jumblāt was giving the cabinet some time todeclare itself for reform, and Pierre Gemayel had some representation in thecabinet through the Interior Minister, Chamoun. Moreover, Franjieh’s


indifference to Karāmi was not yet outright obstruction, and the latter was able,in several instances, to use the army to stop the firefights that broke out. Therewere a few moments during that summer when it looked as if the emergencycoalition might be able to restore order and begin the process of reconciliation.What happened, and why did it fail?

On June 23, 1975, at a time when it seemed as if Karāmi was about to puttogether a credible cabinet, Sunni religious leader Sheikh Hassan Khālid calledfor abrogation of the National Covenant. The next day fighting broke out inBeirut (after nearly three weeks of calm). On July 1, the day after Rashid Karāmiwas finally able to form a cabinet, he announced his mission to restore law andorder and sent army units to occupy those neighborhoods where fighting was theheaviest. On July 2, a radical Palestinian group abducted a US Army colonel,Ernest Morgan, and freed him only when food was distributed to the poor in themostly non-Christian districts of Beirut. On August 17, Gemayel’s Katā‛ib Partyended its annual conference with a partly conciliatory statement; however, it alsocalled for the unequivocal reduction of the Palestinian militias in Lebanon, anaction which Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs supported. d.

At this time, Secretary of State Kissinger was busy trying to facilitate aninterim Sinai agreement as well as other temporary agreements on the Golanregion and the West Bank. Although only partially successful, such attemptsinitiated an especially nervous diplomatic period in the Middle East. Combinedwith the hope that the Palestinian issue would truly be addressed was the fearthat Egypt would try to get the Sinai back by dealing separately with the Israelis.Oil money went to the Lebanese Christians, and they were encouraged to keepthe Palestinians in check.

A week after the Katā‛ib conference, a fight broke out between a group ofChristians and Shi‛ites in Zahleh that soon escalated into an exchange of heavyweapons fire between the Christians of the town and the Muslims of Sa‛d Nayil,a nearby suburban village. Both Phalangists and Palestinian commandosparticipated in the fight. A week later, on September 2, 1975, a traffic incident inTripoli ignited a communal clash between that city’s Muslims and the Christiansof Zghartā. The usual pattern of retaliatory activity occurred, culminating in thecapture of a bus by the Phalangists and the execution of twelve Muslim passengers.This set off a battle between the Muslim militias of Tripoli and the Christianmilitia of Zghartā. Additional raids and bombings were launched against GreekOrthodox Christians in Tripoli and against Maronite villages in the Akkār regionnortheast of the city. By setting up the roadblock that had led to the initial fracas,Maronite gunmen had been pushing the fight from the start t.

The Christian side then asked for intervention by the army. The PrimeMinister, Karāmi, recognized the need for sending the army to Tripoli but wasunwilling to do so as long as it was commanded by General Ghānim, a man whowas not trusted by the Muslims to be neutral. President Franjieh, on a prolongedvacation at Ihden (symbolizing his frustration with the chaos in Beirut and hiswillingness to let matters deteriorate), was finally persuaded to take a helicopter


to B‛abdā Palace and participate in a cabinet meeting. A decision was made toreplace General Ghānim with General Hanna Sa‛īd and to send the army toseparate the Muslims and Christians in Tripoli. The cabinet made its decision onSeptember 9; the army took up positions to enforce a ceasefire on the 10th, andon the 11th there was trouble.

Muslims claimed that the army was favoring the Christian militias and becameespecially incensed when it killed thirteen members of Farouk Muqaddam’smilitia who were preparing to move against one of the Maronite groups. Thenext day Jumblāt called for a general strike to start on September 15, an eventwhich was expected to precipitate violence. It did. Karāmi was able to getJumblāt to call off the strike, but too late. On the day the strike had beenscheduled to begin, heavy fighting broke out between Muslims and Christians onthe Ayn al-Rumānah-Shayyah front at the eastern edge of Beirut. Two days later,the Phalangists brought their heavy weapons up to the eastern edge of the Burjsquare in Beirut and bombarded the main souk for four days, destroying much ofthe non-communal shopping area in the center of the city. More ceasefires werecalled, attempts made at mediation, and councils of national reconciliationestablished, but the fighting on many sectors blazed on. The Maronite militias,the Phalange, the PNL, the Maronite League, the Guardians of the Cedars, andothers combined into a Christian force that ringed Beirut and kept forcing theissue as Karāmi and establishment Muslims tried to get the war stopped. A SunniNasserist militia, the Murābitūn of Ibrahim Qulaylāt, asserted its presence in theRas Beirut area, and the fighting soon moved into the hotel district. Heavybombardments alternated with kidnapping sprees during ceasefires; sniperactivity was constant. Leftist radicals and Maronite diehards cooperated indestroying Beirut, the last of the great Levantine cities. In the fall of 1975, theDragon slew Lebanon.

THE UNDERCUTTERS

Once the crisis began to build, a discernible pattern of behavior occurred, onewhich inevitably occurs in a fragmented society like Lebanon. While someLebanese tried to stitch the old pattern back together, others made statements ortook actions that undercut the attempt at reconciliation. Radical Muslimsundercut establishment Muslims; revisionist Christians undercut the moderateson their side. In a strange way, radicals on opposite sides cooperated with eachother to prevent the peace. The fact that there are so many sources ofundercutting among the Lebanese prevents many people from trying to help. Thetraffic jam of accusations and counter-accusations always seems greater than thestrength of any one political sector to put poor Humpty Dumpty back together.

This pattern of undercutting is illustrated by the number of cease-fires agreedto and then broken during this phase of the war. On January 14, 1975, duringheavy fighting in Beirut as well as in Tripoli, the Prime Minister, Karāmi, metwith PLO Chairman Arafat and negotiated the sixteenth ceasefire since the war


had begun in April. Near the end of the initial civil war period (November 1976)and under Syrian occupation, Lebanon experienced its fifty-third cease-fire. Bythat time, ceasefires had become nothing more than a tactical device.

This on-and-off style of fighting led many to question whether or notLebanon’s conflict should be termed a civil war. Journalists covering the waroften observed that the participants seemed more serious about killing thanwinning. The war seldom had any recognizable fronts, only islands of combat. Itwas destructive, often bestial, but essentially just a rougher form of Lebanesepolitics. It was fought between factions residing in the old city states andcommunal centers. Coalitions formed, but member organizations usually actedindependently. Two of the highest ranking officials, President Franjieh and theInterior Minister, Chamoun, took part in the deliberations of the governmentwithout halting their personal militias from undercutting the government.Militias fought for future bargaining positions; at the same time, their“uncontrolled elements” simply stole property. The only coherent militaryactivity where forces campaigned along a recognizable front, taking and holdingterritory, was that of the National Movement (PSP and PLO) in March 1976(finally halted by the Syrians). Most of the time, the Lebanese were too selfish tofight a genuine civil war.

It required more than “undercutting,” however, to keep the war going. Themajor political organizations, led by such well-known politicians as Chamoun,Gemayel, and Jumblāt (to name but a few), fueled the fires at various times,depending on how the political situation affected their interests. But at key times,when no sector of influence had much chance of advancing its cause and everyinterest seemed to cry out for peace, someone found a way to trigger aresumption of hostilities. In fact, doing so was embarassingly easy. It was duepartly, of course, to the great number of groups engaged in the fighting, to theconfusion that resulted from a “traffic-jam” of contenders. There was also a greatdeal of aimlessness, kids swaggering along with kalashnikovs, gangs bent onplunder, and professionals paid to keep hostilities going. But the crucial push toresume fighting usually came from the “undercutters.”

The worst offenders were the radical, “rejectionist” Palestinian militias e.g.,the PFLP, PFLP-GC, and PDFLP, etc. Funded by Iraq, Libya, Syria, and others,these were the least susceptible to control by accessible leaders. They may havepushed the Sidon affair to the point where shots were fired, and one of theirnumber may have also been responsible for shooting Pierre Gemayel’sbodyguards at the Ayn Rummānah church, the event usually cited as havingprecipitated the war. Often working with the “rejectionist” Palestinians and ofsimilar political persuasion were the radical leftist Lebanese groups. These canbe generally classified as Arab nationalist, Syrian nationalist (the PPS), andcommunist, with most belonging to the first category. Not necessarily Muslim inmembership, such groups with their militias and gangs fought on the side of theNational Movement and against the (Christian) “isolationists.” They wereideologically set to overturn all conventional solutions since, for them, any return


to the status quo was retrograde. Although, for tactical purposes, these radicalscould back away from confrontation, they were often the first to return tohostilities once it was clear that the opposing side was not willing to makesignificant concessions. In fact, it is likely that many of the operations that thesegroups planned and carried out were not meant to help one side make gainsagainst another but to prevent both sides from reinstating any confessionalformula. It seems reasonable to assume that their ideological commitments as wellas their patrons’ interests precluded cooperation with any species of the oldsystem. Such groups had the maximum freedom to undercut.

The major political organizations, like the Progressive Socialists and theKatā‛ib, also did their share of undercutting. In this second category werepoliticians whose legitimate aspirations for power were either denied them by theconfessional rules of the game or, if in office, by the immobility of the systemthey participated in. As mentioned above, President Franjieh remained at hissummer residence in Ihden until September 8, two weeks after the battles inZahleh and Tripoli had triggered a new round of civil strife. Refusing to come toBeirut earlier in the summer had helped the President undercut the new PrimeMinister, Rashid Karāmi, while building up his own Zghartā Brigade, a Maronitemilitia led by his son, Tony. Suleiman, the clan leader, was determined not onlyto prevent Karāmi from “saving” Lebanon, as many establishment Muslims andChristians were hoping, but also to be competitive in the military game with hisrivals in the Maronite camp, the Phalangists. Thus the President was undercuttingKarāmi while protecting himself from being undercut by Pierre Gemayel.

Gemayel maintained a constant, almost institutionalized, undercuttingoperation. At those times when the Katā‛ib’s cooperation might have contributedto restoring order, Gemayel would repeat ad nauseam his party’s position that hecould not join in the reconciliation process until all the violence was halted.Elements of the Phalange would then initiate or escalate the violence to makesure that this condition was not met. Recall also that it was the Phalange whichwas responsible for the major escalation of the war when, on September 17, itsforces bombarded the central shopping district of Beirut. They took this action,not as a means of “winning” the war but of trying to undercut the establishment’sattempts to patch things together, specifically to force Rashid Karāmi to either callout the army or persuade an outside power to intervene. Either of these outcomesmight have helped retrieve Maronite hegemony.

Former President Chamoun, with his own PNL (Tigers) militia, also hoped toforce the Muslim establishment to make use of the Maronite-led Lebanese army.He was caught between his Druze rival, Jumblāt, and his Maronite competitor,Gemayel, and was never the last added weight that would have stopped the war.Like the other major players, he was casting militias more than casting votes andhad to keep up with the competition. However, unlike Gemayel and Jumblāt,Chamoun, as Interior Minister, was able both to participate in the Karāmi cabinetand to undermine its efforts.


Finally, Jumblāt also undercut the system. Wanting to be President andneeding change in the confessional formula to achieve this goal, he also needed apower base, an all-Muslim one that extended far beyond what the Druze couldoffer. Jumblāt’s alliance with the Palestinians, even when their activities hadinjured the host country far beyond reason, tended to under-cut the attempts ofhis political rivals in the Muslim establishment to gain a rapprochment with theChristian “isolationists.” As mentioned, Jumblāt always insisted that action betaken on his own reform program as a condition for his cooperation, even at timeswhen such insistence precluded any and all negotiations whatsoever. Hisundercutting helped reinforce Gemayel’s undercutting. By making the politicaldecision to go on the offensive in late March 1976, the Druze leader alsosuccessfully undercut Syrian attempts at mediation. Jumblāt was, in fact, sosuccessful militarily in preventing mediation that the Syrians invaded Lebanon,pushed his forces backwards, crunched his Palestinian allies, and then saw to itthat he was murdered. Had his coalition, the National Movement, been able to haltits offensive before it threatened to completely overwhelm the Christians, itmight have been able to pre-empt the Syrians and take the initiative for acompromise political arrangement in postwar Lebanon. Instead, its efforts, andthose of its Palestinian allies, were wasted in trying to “win” in the Levant, aplace on the globe where insiders cannot win. The result was a series ofinterventions by the Syrians and Israelis that has reduced these intrepid warriors,as well as their Christian opponents, to a“marginality” which some believe willbe permanent.18

THE ISSUES

Undercutting, of course, was not the cause of the war; it was only a strategem forthe various parties to use in a multicommunal conflict to defend their positionsand keep the conflict going when its conclusion would have threatened thosepositions. There were deep and abiding issues that separated the Lebanesecommunities in this war, issues that were simplified into Christian and Muslimsides soon after President Franjieh tried to avoid the politicians with his militarycabinet.

These issues fall into two categories. The first involves power: most moveswere made to protect or advance the power of a specific politician or militiacommander. While this point seems obvious, it is important to remember that nomatter how reasonable and workable a political concession might seem to the“objective” observer, such an offer would need to meet the power needs ofspecific individuals before it could be taken seriously. Had the conflict actuallybeen reduced to a two-person dyad, as the Muslim-Christian division seemed toindicate, meeting such needs might have been easier. But, rhetoric and passionsaside, the real conflict was n-adic (not dyadic); there were too many parties tosatisfy. One might get the flood sandbagged at one place along the levee only tosee the water ooze out somewhere else.


The second category of issues had to do with the positions the various partiesstated when attempts were made to coax them to come to the negotiating table.Although these declared positions were inflated for purposes of futurebargaining, they also contained a core of the claim that was being asserted. Thesedeclared policy positions do not tell us much about the real contest for power,but they do reveal why that contest could not be waged peacefully.

Consider first the declaratory position of the Franjieh presidency, namely, thatthe Palestinian guerrilla organizations had to submit to the authority of theLebanese government and, if they did not, the Lebanese army would controltheir activities. Most students of this conflict, even those sympathetic to thecause of the revisionists, have agreed that this was hardly an unreasonabledemand on the part of the Franjieh administration. This position not only wasconsonant with the usually understood norms of the state system but also wasdeemed appropriate behavior from the “guests” to the host country. Yet, Lebanonfell short of being a “nation state” on one crucial dimension, the loyalties of itspopulation. Abstractly, gaining control over the Palestinian commandos was alegitimate policy for the Franjieh government to pursue, but implementing such apolicy verged on fantasy. Trying to do so tested the people’s loyalty to the state,to its independence on the one hand and its “Arabness” on the other. This wasthe question of the National Pact all over again. To avoid going back to thisparadox of Lebanon’s creation, it was essential for Franjieh not to make thecommandos the sole issue of his presidency. Considering the large number ofother issues, as well as the fact that this one was so divisive, the governmentshould have looked for a way to deal with the Palestinians as part of a package ofreforms. A “package” would have taken precious time, but it would have offereda greater number of trade-offs to use in getting political support for what would,in any case, require a long and difficult military effort. Undoubtedly, bypunishing the Lebanese for Palestinian raids launched from south Lebanon, theIsraelis had made the situation desperate for Franjieh. His constituency wouldblame the Palestinians as much or more than the offending Israelis. ThePresident should have seen that if his policy were to succeed, he would need allthe Lebanese communities to support him. Unfortunately, in attaching himself socompletely to the cause of Lebanon’s independence, he alienated those whosecause, in local matters, was narrower and, in regional matters, broader.

The overall policy position of the Katā‛ib was more complicated than that ofthe President even though its declaratory position remained simpler. Blessed andburdened with a comprehensive program, it was ideologically prepared todemand more transformation than the semi-feudal Lebanese system could haveabsorbed. Its “God, Country, Family” approach to the nation emphasized theuniqueness of Lebanon as a cultural factor down through the ages, a pluralistinheritance, and the importance of the individual in creating a modern state.Katā‛ib ideology considered Lebanon’s Arab character as only one dimension ofthe country’s timeless cavalcade of civilizational contribution. This dimension,like all others, benefited from the separation of Lebanon from the other countries


in the Middle East, enabling it to continue its unique role in the area. PierreGemayel’s “Lebanonists” would have to fight to maintain their selfhood; theywould need to be organized, disciplined, and strong.19 The party was prepared todefend this Phoenician-Christian island in the Middle East, claiming not to behostile to the majority Arab-Islamic culture of the region but determined also notto be absorbed by it. For this reason, the Phalange wanted to protect Lebanonfrom both Arab and Syrian nationalism as well as to transform Lebanese societyfrom its semi-feudal condition to that of a modern state. To accomplish its goals,the leaders of the party naturally sought political power.

In keeping with its general program, the Phalangists were second to none indemanding that Palestinian activities be severely restricted to whatever wascompatible with the sovereignty of the Lebanese state. Even though it pushedlong and hard on this issue, the Katā‛ib consistently displayed greater flexibilitytoward the PLO than did other Maronite organizations. Its militia, of course, alsoled the struggle against the Palestinian militias, both to defend the Lebanon ithoped to lead as well as obtain the power to do so. Pierre Gemayel, the party’sfounder, was especially concessionary in his public statements concerning thePalestinians; he wanted to be President of the Greater Lebanon which France hadbequeathed to the Lebanese, not of the much smaller Marounistan that might havebeen militarily extracted from the mess. To hold power over the largerjurisdiction required that he respond to Muslim needs as well as Christian, thusnational, rather than purely parochial rhetoric was called for.

Rhetoric, however, did not necessarily signify behavior. In the case of theKatā‛ib, its bite was often worse than its bark. The leitmotiv for the Party’sdouble track approach was its continually reiterated statement that it wasprepared to negotiate only when the violence was halted. Yet, as mentionedabove, Phalange forces would regularly recommence hostilities when it appearedthat the violence might be contained. The real meaning of the Phalangiststatements was that they would not be prepared to take part in negotiations untilthe war had ended in their favor. The American CIA had funded the Christians inthe 1950s, and US arms were shipped to the Phalangists in the 1970s. PierreGemayel had taken the lead in forcing issue with Sa‛ib Salām in 1973, wideningthe breach between the Christians and the Sunni establishment. PresidentFranjieh assisted in this strategy by appointing weak Sunni Prime Ministers andfinally, adding insult to injury, appointing a military cabinet. The eagerness withwhich the Phalangists pressed the issue by force in 1975, at Ayn Rummānah inApril and with the bombardment of central Beirut in September, indicates thatthey expected violence to end with the Christians in a militarily ascendantposition, one which would have given the (Christian-dominated) government afree hand to deal with the Palestinians on its own terms.

But how would the violence be halted? It is well to recognize, as JonathanRandal has shown, that the Phalangists were not merely pressing the issue withthe Palestinians and the Arab left but also with the outside world.20 Phalangistscould argue that if Israel served as America’s “strategic aircraft carrier” in the


Middle East, surely Lebanon was its “economic aircraft carrier.” Once the warreached a certain point, would not the United States intervene militarily tocontain the radical Arabs and preserve Lebanon for the Christians? Moreover,after the war, would not the Phalangists be ascendant among the Christians?Phalangists could easily imagine a Gemayel in the President’s office, finally ableto preside over the transformation of their “unique” Lebanon into a modern state.

The Phalangist strategy possessed an internal logic but required too many otheractors, both inside and outside Lebanon, to cooperate if it was to work. There isno evidence that the United States ever considered Lebanon’s economy asessential to its interests in the Middle East. Contending with Brezhnev in theCold War, the Americans hardly had time to deal with the “strategic aircraftcarrier” that the Israelis supposedly provided; they could not put major decision-time and resources into Lebanon’s mess. Moreover, the free world’s economicfulcrum lay south-east of Lebanon, in the Gulf region. Inside Lebanon, the otherMaronite politicians, who would have to cooperate with Gemayel to make thisstrategy work, had their own ambitions. One was the sitting President; the other,Camille Chamoun, had both been President and had reason to be wary ofAmerica’s “projects” for Lebanon.

Camille Chamoun also wanted to be President. The above scenario, however,would not have helped his chances unless a deadlock required a compromisechoice. Even in the unlikely case that the Americans would have taken action torescue Lebanon, they would not have wanted as divisive a person as Chamoun inpower. They would have likely preferred a Shihābist who would pursue policiessimilar to those that had helped the country recover from the 1958 civil war. Notas strong as his two main rivals, Gemayel and Jumblāt, Chamoun had becomelittle more than an entrepreneurial politician, a Maronite za‛īm in the south muchas Franjieh was in the north. The former President was an establishment figure;he ran a political party, the National Liberals; his son commanded a militia, theTigers; and he was involved in numerous “business” projects. But his politicalfuture required that he be attached to something larger.

During the first civil war period, from June 1975 until Elias Sarkis becamePresident in December 1976, Camille Chamoun was Minister of the Interior and,therefore, part of the Karāmi cabinet attempting to end the hostilities and restoreorder. During most of this period, his own militia was actively engaged in the war,either against the Palestinians or against the radical Nasserists fighting for controlof the hotel district in Beirut. Fairly independent at first, the Tigers were“integrated” into the Maronite coalition during the fall of 1975. Like Gemayel,there were instances where Chamoun would vote to end the violence while hismilitia was instigating it. His declaratory position was that Karāmi, as PrimeMinister, should call out the army to intervene as it should have done in 1958when, as President, he (Chamoun) faced insurrection. For Chamoun, the pointwas not to use the army only against the renegade Palestinians, but to use it alsoagainst all those elements of the population who refused to accept theconfessional distribution of power that had made Lebanon the “liberal” exception


in the Arab world. That the army would have assisted the Christian side and/ordisintegrated, as it eventually did, was beside the point for the former President.A government without an army to enforce its will is no government. Those whostood in the way of the government using its army to uphold its authority were inrebellion. Thus, Chamoun could take cover in this position and play a waitinggame, hoping that either the “rebellion” would be put down or outsiders wouldintervene to restore the traditional confessional arrangements of the Lebanesesystem. Camille Chamoun always insisted, as he surely believed, that it was notrebels within Lebanon who caused the problem, but the “foreigners” like thePalestinians and Nasserists who hoped to realize their schemes at Lebanon’sexpense. Protect Lebanon from these, and the country’s citizens would be able tomaintain their plural traditions. Protected, Lebanon could play its historic Arabrole in the free world.

Kamal Jumblāt was a complex person, a living set of contradictions. He wasromantic, reformist, moralistic, and thoroughly Levantine; he was also forced tooperate in a problematic political environment. The tall, Sorbonne-educatedleader of the Druze, latest scion of the most venerable feudal clan of thatcommunity, wanted to reform Lebanon without detaching its peoples from theirtraditional way of life and their heritage. Jumblāt could hardly be faulted forimagining that if Lebanon had become a genuine democracy, his program wouldhave appealed to the poorer classes and gained him the high office he felt was hisdue. But the confessional system which guaranteed him a local base of powerand automatic influence in national affairs also denied him the top spot. This notonly seemed unjust to him, personally, but also unfair to those classes of thepopulation he believed would benefit from his program. When, time and timeagain, those whom Jumblāt helped gain power, e.g., Camille Chamoun, ignoredhis reform program, the Druze leader realized that it would never be takenseriously by the establishment and that he could do little more than causetrouble. As maverick troublemaker, he was a natural.

While in the cabinet during the Hilū presidency, Kamal Jumblāt did not favorgiving the Palestinian commandos the freedom of action they demanded. Afterthe Black September events of 1970, when the main body of guerrillas wasforced out of Jordan and settled in south Lebanon, the Progressive Socialistsbefriended them and gave support to their cause. Jumblāt had a militia, led theProgressive Socialist Party, and was heir to a body of devoted followers. His ownleftist politics was naturally compatible with the main sentiments of thebeleaguered Palestinians. Both the PSP and the PLO had been unjustly deniedtheir right to political power. Though not formally allies, many Palestinianscooperated with the members of Jumblāt’s National Movement (coalition) andfought along side them in various skirmishes of the civil war. It was not until thespring of 1976 that Jumblāt’s National Movement was able to translate itscompatibility with the Palestinians into a partly coordinated military effortagainst the Christian militias. Though successful, his campaign was undercut bythe Syrians when, with American and Israeli blessing, they intervened in


Lebanon on the side of the Christians. As in 1860, the Druze won the battles butlost the war.

Did Jumblāt view his close association with the Palestinian cause as a lastchance for his place in the sun? Did he cast a wistful eye toward their militarycapability and, adding it to his own, see it as the means by which he might turnthe tables on the presumptious Maronites? Certainly Jumblāt’s declaratoryposition would not have ruled out such a scenario. His position insisted onchange and was put forward in terms of “Five Demands.” These called forabolishing the confessional system; redefining the powers of the variousbranches of the executive; reforming the electoral system; reorganizing thearmy; and removing the restrictions that prevented some of Lebanon’scommunities from enjoying citizenship in the country. Jumblāt insisted that hisdemands be placed on the legislative agenda as a condition for cooperating withthe government. Obviously, the Druze leader’s reform program called fornothing less than a complete overhaul of the Lebanese system. That the onlyalternative to civil war was radical change needed to be stated forcefully, andKamal Jumblāt did so. But like the other za‛īms, he refused to help save Lebanonunless given much more than he could expect to get out of the mix of competingclaims. Not that his main opponents were much given to reciprocity; they werenot. Yet Jumblāt’s own association with the Nasserist cause would hardly havegiven them (or those of more moderate persuasion) any confidence that he wouldgive reciprocity in return. Unlike the “mountain dwellers” of Marounistan,Kamal Jumblāt was capable of perspective and might have helped halt the slidetoward disaster. Perhaps he, too, was enticed by the 21 prospect of a militaryoutcome that would have allowed him to participate in the Lebanese governmentfrom a position of strength. One is reminded of the instructions for playingmusical chairs: “While the music is playing, everyone should march in a circle,but when the music stops, everyone should sit down in the chair.” The beststrategy is to keep the music going until you are as close to the chair as possible,unless, of course, you can get somebody to come in and steal the chair.

OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AND MILITIAS

Besides the five key political figures surveyed above, there were many others“marching in a circle” and “keeping the music going.” Most were politicallysubordinate to either the coalitions or countries they belonged to.

Led by the cleric Imam Mūsa al-Sadr, the Shi‛ites beganto organize, firstunder his Movement of the Deprived (Harakāt al-Mahrumīn) and later as militiasand paramilitary “committees” such as those of the Amal and Hizbollahorganizations that became prominent after the first civil war period. Mūsa al-Sadr’s “Movement” was not bent on the destruction of the Lebanese Republic butsought both to get more representation for the Shi‛ite community in the country’spolitical system and to receive more equitable treatment, economically andsocially, from the landlords and moneyed elite who, it was claimed, kept the


poorer Shi‛ite classes in their desperate condition. Though generally allied withwhomever opposed the Maronites, the Shi‛ites often found themselves in apolitical crossfire. Mūsa al-Sadr, like Kamal Jumblāt, was positively for changein the system, but he was neither Nasserist nor unequivocally leftist. Moreover,there were instances when Shi‛ites found themselves struggling with thePalestinian commandos, going so far as to cooperate, from time to time, withIsrael. Various factions of the Shi‛ites also fought each other over turf, not unlikethe traditional behavior of the Druze and Maronites in Lebanon. One cannoteasily generalize about the various Shi‛ite groups since they have been dividedboth ideologically and regionally. Perhaps the one declaratory position on whichthey all agreed was to oppose the use of outsiders to maintain Christianhegemony in Lebanon. Obviously, some Shi‛ite factions did not view either Iranor Syria as “outside.”

Several militias that participated in the war during its various phases emergedfrom the Sunni population. These fought in different areas of the country,sometimes in conjunction with the anti-establishment forces, sometimes onlylocally over communal issues. In addition, they tended to identify themselves interms of nationalism or an ideology not tied exclusively to the Sunni sect.Although these groups came from Sunni communities, they did not necessarilyfight for the Sunni sector of interests as played out in Lebanon’sconfessionalism.

Three of these militias deserve our attention. In the south, Mustāfa Sa‛ad led amilitia called the Popular Nasserist Organization that controlled Sidon and theadjacent coastal area. Like his father, Mar‛ūf Sa‛ad (shot during the fisherman’sstrike), Mustāfa represented the Arab nationalist viewpoint that dominated thepolitics of Sidon’s Sunni community. With some support from Palestinians livingin the large Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp nearby, Mustāfa’s forces were usuallyable to hold their own against the government. Sidon reverted to a diminishedform of its city state status of old. Operating locally for the most part, Sa‛ad’sNasserists did conduct the operation that defeated Chamoun’s forces at Damour(in 1976) and destroyed the former President’s seaside villa at al-Sa‛diyyātjustsouth of the town.

An upstart rival to Beirut’s Sunni politicians was the Independent NasseristMovement led by Ibrahim Qulaylāt. Located in the western and southernsections of the city, Qulaylāt’s militia was a potent force in the struggle againstthe Phalangists in the hotel district. His troop, along with smaller gangs ofCommunists and Ba‛thists, kept up their end of the sniping and kidnappingwhich made it impossible to conduct normal business and government operationsin Beirut. They joined the Palestinians in sweeping the Christians out of the cityin March 1976, but were displaced by the Syrians at the end of the year.

Also belonging to Jumblāt’s National Movement was Farouk Muqaddam’sOctober 24th Movement, headquartered in the northern city of Tripoli. Long abastion of Sunni strength, that community was surrounded by different sects:Greek Orthodox in the Kūra district south and east of the city; Maronites to the


east and north; and a few Alāwis in the city and to the north. Moreover, therewas a large Palestinian establishment in Tripoli with its commando organizationbased near al-Mīna northwest of the city. Named for an assault by the Lebanesearmy against the Palestinian commandos on October 24, 1969, FaroukMuqaddam’s militia worked more closely with the Palestinians than did any ofthe other Lebanese groups. For a long time, the Muqaddam family had led amajor faction of the Sunni community in Tripoli and, bolstered by the guerrillas,was able to undercut Karāmi’s traditional base of support in that city. TheOctober 24th group spent most of its effort in maintaining the traditional strugglewith the Zghartā Maronites and in keeping the army from gaining secure controlof the north. With a newly forged attachment to Jumblāt’s coalition,Muqaddam’s force could, on call, initiate an eruption in Tripoli and furtherundercut Karāmi’s effectiveness as Prime Minister. On several occasions, theOctober 24th militia raided Maronite villages in the Akkār region of the far north,but its main military effect was to neutralize Franjieh’s forces.

Though the upstart Sunni militias were small, and never a single coordinatedmilitary force, their activities were especially damaging to those trying to stopthe war and restore order. They were rivals of the traditional Sunniestablishment, the one group that had the most to lose from a continuation of thewar. In June 1975, many Christians and Muslims alike were hoping that RashidKarāmi, the Sunni Prime Minister from Tripoli, could save the country. Themilitia chiefs from the Sunni community, however, were anti-establishmentpoliticians, self-made men who competed with those Sunnis in the government.Thus, the Sunni representation, needed in the Lebanese system for balancing theMaronites, had no muscle. Karāmi, who had no private militia (as did Franjiehand Chamoun), was put in the unenviable position of heading a governmentwhose army sometimes fought on the side of his opponents. Certainly, none ofKarāmi’s Sunni colleagues on the left was about to give him military support.Without independent forces to put in the field, the Sunni Prime Minister was lefttwisting in the wind while less moderate parties and factions hammered at eachother.

In addition, there were numerous splinter groups, most of which were tied toeither the “progressive” National Movement (mostly Muslim) or the“conservative” Lebanese Front (mostly Christian). Of these, a few were merelyfronts subsidized by foreign governments as vehicles for their input; others wereconnected to parallel Palestinian organizations; and still others were adjuncts ofvarious religious groups. Many of these, e.g., the Lebanese Ba‛thists, the PPS,and the PFLP, parented additional factions, and in a few cases these splinteredinto even more factions.

In the National Movement (in addition to those already mentioned) were suchgroups as the Lebanese Communist Party, the Organization of CommunistAction, the Syrian Nationalist Party (PPS), and the Quwwāt Nasir militia of theUnion of the Forces of the Working People: Corrective Movement. Just as theMurabitūn was allied with Ahmed Jabrīl’s PFLP General Command, so too was


the Socialist Arab Labor Party, that assassinated US Ambassador Meloy, anadjunct to the parent PFLP of George Habash. The Syrians possessed their “Front”with groups such as the Organization of the Ba’th Party, a (PPS) SyrianNationalist faction, and the Progressive Vanguards (to name a few). Iraq also hada Ba‛thist faction in Lebanon, the Arab Socialist Ba’th Party, led by Abdul Majīdal-Rifā‛i. The Palestinians, especially the smaller organizations, were involved inthe war from the outset. The PFLP and its two stems, the (PFLP) GeneralCommand and the (PDFLP) Democratic Front, had played a large role inescalating tensions early on, and in this they were joined by the Arab LiberationFront and the so-called Popular Struggle Front. Each of these was also supportedby a foreign paymaster who sought access in Lebanon.

The Lebanese Front (Kufūr), in addition to the Katā‛ib, National Liberals, and(Zghartā) Marāda Brigade already surveyed, included a number of other militiasattached to a religious institution or a local religious community. Within theFront were the Guardians of the Cedars, the Congress of the Lebanese Orders ofMonks, and al-Tanzīm, a small but well-organized militia of the MaroniteLeague. These were attached to the Maronite Church itself. Allied to the Frontwere several local militias such as the Lebanese Youth Movement of Dikwāna,(a suburb of Beirut); the Muqaddamīn Brigade of Besharri; and the MountainBrigade of Rayfūn (Kisrawān). The Akkār region had a small militia led byChristian army officers of that area, and Zahleh, of course, had its rather sizabletown forces, some of which were led by a Maronite, Elias Hrāwi, later to becomePresident of Lebanon and to be very much under Syrian influence. Both theNational Movement and the Lebanese Front also inherited portions of theLebanese army after it finally disintegrated in 1976. The Lebanese Arab Armyunder Ahmed al-Khātib played a role in Kamal Jumblāt’s mountain offensive inthe spring of 1976, and Major Sa’ad Haddad (followed by Colonel AntoineLahoud) established the South Lebanese Army (SLA) soon after the Syriansintervened in 1977, allying himself with Israel. During these years, the numberof separate military groups in Lebanon; a country the size of Delaware, averagedwell over forty.22

Generally, these splinter groups were the most incendiary of all the parties tothe conflict, continually disrupting the periodic efforts of the larger organizationsto conduct negotiations with the government. Undoubtedly, they were sometimesused by the major militias to sabotage the latter’s own public commitments toceasefires, concessionary statements, and other gestures of compromise.Sometimes, in Lebanese politics, the left hand pretended not to know what theright hand was doing. At other times, the “left hand” really did not know.

Moving through a number of stops and starts, the first period of the civil warlasted from the fisherman’s strike in Sidon, February 1975 to the Syrian-sponsored ceasefire and Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA) intervention in thelatter part of January 1977. After the so-called “fifth round” of these three yearsof war, a ceasefire was called that went into effect on December 15, 1975 andcontinued into the early weeks of 1976. Much of downtown Beirut had been


devastated, the hotel district, the bourge, the area of government offices, and theold souq. Numerous suburban villages, refugee camps, and shantytowns on thefringes of Beirut had suffered damage. War had also gone to Sidon, Tripoli,Zahleh, and to a number of the coastal towns in between. Although muchphysical damage had been done, the Republic had not yet been destroyed. ThePresident remained in office; a ceasefire had generally held after mid-December;and elections were scheduled for the next year. Perhaps the politicians andmilitia commanders would hold their fire, waiting to see what the electoralprocess would produce at the end of 1976. Perhaps the new President would farebetter. After the yearlong war ended in December 1975, the one thing mostordinary Lebanese agreed on was that the fighting had to stop, and the ceasefirehold.


8Civil war and intervention: 1976–1982

THE CIVIL WAR OF 1976

With the ceasefire of December 14, the “fifth round” of civil war in 1975 cameto an end. Hostilities dropped sharply, and many hoped that the war had finallyground to a halt as nothing more than a stalemate seemed conceivable. Indeed,the firefights in downtown Beirut did end for a period, but, otherwise, the nextround came quickly on the heels of the last. Several factions, especially thePhalangists and the Chamounists, were determined to eradicate the mostintrusive of the rebel holdings. On the day that the ceasefire (in Beirut) went intoeffect, a Phalangist militia unit in Antilyās attacked a communist element of theRejection Front at the nearby Shi‛ite slum of Herāt al-Ghawārīna just a few milesnortheast of Beirut. Both sides attacked Lebanese security forces in Tripoli;hostilities also continued in Zahleh. Other bothersome peninsulas of rebelterritory extended out to the large refugee camps in East Beirut, and thePhalange, almost immediately, began to blockade the Tel al-Za‛tar and Jisr al-Basha camps. By January 14 1976, the Phalangists had taken the largelyChristian Dubayah camp, and on the 19th, they were able to wipe out the lastresistance in the Karantīna district near the port, killing many of the poor Muslimsthere and removing the others. The leftist rebels, for their part, beseiged al-Jiyyeand al-Damur, and these were taken by January 20. As already mentioned,Chamoun’s fortress estate at S‛adiyyāt was overrun and destroyed just four dayslater. It was clear that both sides could play the game of removing the pawnsfrom the board.

On the 22nd, President Franjieh announced that an “all-embracing politicalsettlement” had been agreed to and a ceasefire, the thirty-third, would go intoeffect.1 Although intermittent bouts of fighting and kidnapping continued, theceasefire (in terms of major battles) continued to hold for about two months.Although given some support by Washington and Paris, Syrian mediation takingplace at this time was viewed with great trepidation within Lebanon and innearby capitals. Warnings also came regularly from Israel, and Jerusalem openedits borders to those in the far south of Lebanon who wished to escape theviolence. Clearly, Syria and Israel were competing for influence in Lebanon.

While Syria was actively mediating between Lebanese factions, Hafiz al-Assad began sending Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA) troops under hiscontrol into Lebanon. Syria claimed to be trying to end the civil war and restoreLebanese stability, but, obviously, it was also extending its influence as much aspossible, playing it by ear as opportunities appeared. As Lebanese notablestrooped to Damascus to confer with Assad, the Syriancontrolled PLA waspatroling Beirut and taking up positions in the Biqā. In the Akkār region of thefar north, clashes, perhaps instigated by Syria, broke out in the isolated Maronitevillage of al-Qubayāt. Syrian-led PLA troops were sent to that spot to end thefighting after thirteen persons were killed. With Rashid Karāmi reportedly underSyrian influence and the Franjiehs and Assads long engaged in a variety ofrelationships, it was not difficult for Damascus to take the initial steps for afoothold in Lebanon.

Like Syria, Israel moved at this time to penetrate Lebanon with its influence.The Israelis began a policy of open borders with some of the small Maronitevillages in the far south that wished to have contact with the few Maronites stillliving along the border in northern Israel. This program was just one step in astrategy of supporting those dissidents in south Lebanon who would eventuallycooperate with the Israelis in the creation of a buffer jurisdiction, i.e., the stripunder the control of Major Haddad’s South Lebanese Army.

Even though the Lebanese conferred with Assad, the Foreign Minister, AbdulHalīm Khaddam, mediated, and the PLA patrolled, Rashid Karāmi was still notable to form a government (January 1976). The Higher Military Committeeconvened; it adopted some security measures; but it did not get the necessarycooperation from the various militias to begin imposing the government’scontrol on Lebanon. The chiefs were still playing “wait-and-see.”

In addition to the partial intervention by the Syrians, there was another newfactor in the Lebanese equation. The initiative by the Maronite right against theMuslim slum quarters of Herāt al-Ghawārīna, Dubayah, and al-Karantīna wascombined with the beginning of a major siege, to last for seven months, againstthe large Palestinian camps of Tel al-Za‛tar and Jisr al-Basha. As intended, thissiege brought the Palestinian main force units into the war. With Syrian-sponsored PLA units in town and Franjieh on the fence—he was only partlycooperating with the Phalange—the addition of Palestinian forces might wellhave tipped the balance in favor of the Muslim side. How apparent this was todifferent sectors of influence is hard to discern. What is apparent, however, isthat the civil war began to favor the Muslim side. A new trend in the strugglewas that all and sundry tried to lead the recently strengthened Muslim side while,at the same time, the military position of the Maronite right began to unravel.Moreover, this new period of war was complicated by the fact that there werenow at least five different designs competing for the future of Lebanon: a pro-status quo, a rightist, a leftist, a Syrian, and an Israeli. With the involvement ofthe last two, the war in Lebanon ceased to be a civil war.

CIVIL WAR AND INTERVENTION: 1976–1982 195

During the two months of “fighting truce” that had brought some calm todowntown Beirut, Karāmi had been attempting to employ the army to maintainthe ceasefire and extend its control into the warring districts. However, CamilleChamoun, the Interior Minister, tended to use friendly army units, sometimestransfering them to the Security Agency he controlled, to assist his own rightistcause. The most flagrant example of this practice occurred during the operationby the National Movement against Damour and Chamoun’s palace just south ofthat town. Chamoun, contrary to Karāmi’s express orders, had called in the smallLebanese Air Force to stop the leftist assault (itself a response to the rightists’clearing operation against the Palestinian camps). Karāmi called PresidentAssad, and the PLA forces began to move into Lebanon. After months offrustration at being called upon for operations that assisted the Christian sideagainst their Muslim counterparts, lower ranking soldiers, mostly Muslim, begandeserting the Lebanese army—a move that Fu‛ād Shihāb had always feared.

On February 3, 1976, Lieutenant Ahmed al-Khātib, the son of a PSP deputy,issued a declaration stating the program of his Lebanese Arab Army (LAA),which demanded amnesty for deserters and sectarian balance in the control andemployment of Lebanon’s military forces. On March 5, Christian troops fromJunieh mutinied and demanded to go to the Akkār region to fight for their co-religionists who had been attacked in al-Qubayāt. Three days after, Muslimsoldiers took control of Beaufort Castle and declared allegiance to the LAA of al-Khātib; garrisons were seized in Rāshayya, in the far south along the Israeliborder, in Tripoli, and in the northern Biqā district. What was most fearedhappened; Lebanon’s army began to disintegrate. Some detachments simplywent over to the side of their co-religionists, either by joining the LAA or theLebanese Front, while a few units remained intact and their soldiers loyal to thecentral command. Many individuals simply went home to sit out the war.

Of the units in the regular army still intact, one in particular played aninteresting, if not bizarre, role in restarting major hostilities. On March 11, thecommander of the Beirut military garrison, General Abdul Aziz al-Ahdāb, whorepresented a non-leftist Muslim influence, went on television, declaring a stateof emergency and proclaiming himself the military governor of Lebanon. The“television general,” as he was called, may have been unique in military annalsin his attempt to seize a non-government. Ahdāb said that, upon the resignation ofPresident Franjieh, he would lift the state of emergency. This the Presidentrefused to do. Ahdāb, for his part, seemed to have received the tacit support fromthe Christian leadership of the army as well as from some of the Phalange. Atfirst, they may have believed that it was necessary for Franjieh to go and evenmore convenient to have a Muslim commander administer the coup de grâce. OnMarch 13, over two-thirds of the Assembly’s members signed a petitionrequesting that the President resign. Once again, he refused to countenance theidea. Though equivocal, Hafiz al-Assad also resisted attempts by many of theLebanese establishment to get his help in forcing Franjieh from power.Damascus may have wanted the President out but did not want to divide the

196 CIVIL WAR AND INTERVENTION: 1976–1982

Christian community in attempting to bring it about. Franjieh’s own supporters,the ultraconservatives in the Maronite camp, and some of the Phalange alsoresisted the General’s ultimatum (and the parliamentary petition). Thus, whenAhdāb’s column moved toward the palace, Syrian troops and Palestinians underSyrian command stopped it.

Before a convergence of interests could be consolidated, Kamal Jumblātmanaged to effect a liason between Ahdāb of the regular army and Khātib of theLAA.2 Their combined forces then proceeded to bombard the presidential palaceat B‛abdā on March 25, forcing Franjieh to abandon it and move to an office inSuq Mikhayīl just south of Junieh. General Ahdāb continued to play a minor rolein the military situation in central Beirut where his troops guarded the ParliamentBuilding but, otherwise, he was absorbed by the coalitions to which he wasattached. Two months after, on May 21, 1976, Ahdāb resigned as militarygovernor of Lebanon, a post so little recognized that it could hardly be said tohave existed. Others on the revisionist side, Ahmed Khātib, Kamal Jumblāt, andYasir Arafat, then commanded the scene.

Following Ahdāb’s “television coup,” it was the Muslims’ turn. On March 13,contingents of the Lebanese Arab Army (LAA), the Druze militia (PSP), and thePalestinian Resistance (PRM) forces launched a series of coordinated attacks forthe National Movement (LMN) which succeeded in pushing the Christianmilitias backward. Army garrisons, then attached to the LLA, moved to take keyposts in the south around Marjayoun and Khiam; local Lebanese and Palestinianmilitias, loosely attached to the LMN, moved against the Zghartā Christians;Major Ahmed Mi’mari’s troops advanced in the Akkār region; Zahleh wassurrounded; and Resistance and Nasserist forces attacked Phalangist positions inthe hotel district of Beirut. A second line of attack, led by the Druze militia, wasopened up from the mountains southeast of Beirut, having as its goal the seizureof the Damascus highway and the key mountain towns in the Matn. With theaddition of increased firepower from army arsenals and mainline Palestinianforces, the new LNM offensive resulted in the heaviest fighting of the entire war.

After a series of attacks and counterattacks during the last week of March, LMNforces took the tall buildings of the hotel district, driving the Phalangists fromcentral Beirut. The city’s government district was taken, B‛abdā Palace bombed,and even the “Maronite capital” of Junieh was shelled. Eventually, the Christianside in Beirut was pushed back into the eastern portion of the city and Ashrafīyahnearly cut off. At the same time, the mountain offensive took Aley and movedagainst the Maronite suburban village of Kahhalah on the Damascus highway.Jumblāt called for Franjieh to resign and, though beseeched by many (especiallyin the Syrian government), refused to call a halt to his offensive. He is reportedto have said that the other side had ruled for 140 years; “it is our turn.”3 Clearlythe Christian side was trapped in various parts of the country, and the majorstrategy of the LNM operation was to cut East Beirut off from the Maroniteheartland in the Matn and Kisrawān to prevent partition and be in the best


position to dictate terms for future reforms. Jumblāt had finally put himself intoposition to win the 1958 civil war.

The high point in the Muslim advance came during the first week in April,1976 when the LNM was able to push the Katā‛ib and the (Christian) Fayadīyahgarrison (led by Colonel Antoine Barakāt) out of the village of Kahhalah andmove up the ridge overlooking Sannine to capture a whole line of towns on thedoor step of Marounistan. Jumblāt’s forces were, at this time, in control of awide area of Mount Lebanon, manning artillery positions on the heights above theinternational airport at Kafr Shīma south of Beirut all the way to similarlycommanding positions from Ayntūra, Metein, Douar Choueir, and Ba‛abdātnortheast of the city. They also held the Damascus highway up to its highestpoint at the pass near Dahr al-Baydar. Jumblāt could now hope that his militaryposition would force the issue of Franjieh’s resignation and his replacement by agovernment prepared to enact reforms.

Such was not to be the case. Hafiz al-Assad did not want a victory for theradicals in Lebanon, certainly not one that would augment the power andprestige of the Palestinians. Nor did he want the Christians to take it on the chin,confirming their worst fears of being subject to Islam and Arabism. While theAlawite ruler in Damascus favored an early departure for Suleiman Franjieh, hewas adamantly opposed to the use of force to achieve this end. Thus, the politicsthat would have likely emerged in Lebanon from Jumblāt’s military position didnot suit Assad’s own plans for the country.4

The result was one of the most terrible periods in Lebanese history. The“conflux” of events is nearly incomprehensible. For five months the warcontinued, taking a terrible number of casualties, most of them noncombatantvictims of shelling and sniper fire. Syria, already involved with its PLA andSa‛iqa forces, tried to get Jumblāt to agree to a truce. Jumblāt, angry at Syrianopposition, first refused to meet with Assad. When he did meet with him onMarch 27, he tried to persuade the Syrian President to let him “win.” Later, theDruze leader agreed to a truce under conditions and, still later, to stop fightingwhile the election campaign was being held. Meanwhile, without formallyintervening, Syria moved small numbers of its own regular army into the country;some were sent up the highway toward Dahr al-Baydar, others to key junctionsnear Zahleh and Marjayoun.

Yasir Arafat had also not formally committed his forces to the leftist side,though many Palestinian fighters were openly engaged in the offen-sive. Hafizal-Assad attempted to pry him loose from the LNM coalition, threatening to cutoff his supplies, while the PLO Chairman tried to get guarantees that theindependence of his movement would not be curtailed. Although the two leaderswere able to come up with several joint statements, neither was able to make anagreement stick.

After the second week of April, 1976, the lines became fairly fixed as the twosides settled down into exchanging salvos of death. While Jounieh, Ashrafīah,the port, Ras Beirut, and the international airport often came under


bombardment, and the destruction swung back and forth between lines, neitherside was in any military position to actually control territory as an invasion forcemight have done. The new offensive simply changed the actors in the tragedy;new and different people were kept hunkered down by weapons fired from newand different positions. In Beirut, the sniping, looting, and kidnapping continuednot as an aid to winning but merely as a struggle for turf.

One positive result from General Ahdāb’s on-again-off-again coup was aspeeding up of the process of selecting a successor to Suleiman Franjieh. Whilethe latter did not resign, he did allow the election for his replacement to occurearlier than constitutionally called for so that the new President would be able towork on the settlement process before formally taking office, an uncharacteristicact of statesmanship his part.

As the war continued, Elias Sarkis and Raymond Eddé became the two maincompetitors, the first a candidate of the Maronite militias and Syria, the secondpreferred by the National Movement and much of the old establishment. Truceswere called but only partially complied with; negotiations went apace; variousand sundry conferred with President Assad; but when the election was held, itwas clear that Syria meant to control it. Special envoy L.Dean Brown alsoarrived to provide an American blessing to the event. In lieu of the unusableParliament Building, the election took place (under mortar fire) at the EsseilyVilla in Beirut near the National Museum. On May 8, Sarkis was duly elected bya vote of 66 to 0 with 3 abstentions cast. Approximately a third of the members(mostly supporters of Eddé) protested Syrian and American interference byboycotting the session that chose Lebanon’s sixth President.

Although Kamal Jumblāt, with conditions, offered to cooperate with Sarkis, itwas clear that the President-elect had little room to maneuver. On the eve of theelection, the Syrian controlled PLA had helped the Phalangists in launching anew offensive aimed at dislodging the LNM from its positions on the mountainridge overlooking Kisrawān. The Druze leader was also being squeezed out.With the election of Sarkis and overt assistance to the rightists, Syria had clearlychosen to do more than contain the conflict and offer its mediation. Hafiz al-Assad had decided to intervene on the Christian side.

Jumblāt’s response to the Syrian-supported counteroffensive was to send oneof Fatah’s main force brigades into the struggle and to formally place the PLO,LNM, and LAA under a joint command. On May 12, a coalition (headed byJumblāt) known as the Joint Forces was established and committed to formalcooperation in defending the military gains of the spring offensive and resistingthe Syrians. With these new Palestinian troops, the LNM (Joint Forces) was ableto blunt the Christian counterattack and even pushed ahead toward the resorttown of Farāya in Kisrawān.

Some among the Christian groups also had their misgivings about the amountof Syrian firepower that was creeping into Lebanon. They were making discreetcontacts with the old Sunni politicians and Palestinian centrists. Even Sarkis wasaccessible; after all, he had been a member of the Shihābist establishment and


enjoyed good relations with Rashid Karāmi. Indeed, opposition to Sarkis fromJumblāt and the moderates was not due to a strong preference for Raymond Eddébut due to their resentment of Syrian intervention on the side of the “ultras” inthe Maronite camp. They opposed Sarkis because he was Syria’s man. But werenot also some Maronites afraid of the Syrians? Perhaps a “deal” could be struck,one that would deal the Syrians out.

On May 19, Kamal Jumblāt did, in fact, meet with Elias Sarkis and was givena proposal that the Druze chief said deserved “study and an answer”5. Althoughthe fighting (including an assassination attempt on Raymond Eddé) raged on,Sarkis continued to make contacts. General Ahdāb, as mentioned above, wasinduced to resign his self-appointed position as military governor, and Sarkisconferred (on May 27) with LLA commander, Ahmed Khātib, along with severalMuslim religious leaders. The President-elect had also scheduled a secondmeeting with Kamal Jumblāt for the 26th, but it had to be postponed due to asudden intensification of the shelling in the suburbs of Beirut. Sarkis was takingthe initial steps toward bringing about a reconciliation while others, not ready forit, were undercutting his attempts.

President Sarkis did meet with Ahmed Khātib on the 27th, but he was unableto hold a previously postponed meeting with Kamal Jumblāt on the same day.Unfortunately (by a strange coincidence), Linda Atrāsh, Jumblāt’s sister, wasassassinated on that day in a Phalangist-held area near the Green Line dividingthe Muslim and Christian forces in Beirut. The meeting again had to bepostponed. Although, according to the Gemayels, the Phalangist gunmenresponsible for her death were later arrested, this event, like many similar ones,seems to have been carried out to prevent Sarkis from working with theLebanese leaders to end the war. A week later, Bashir Gemayel met with KamalJumblāt to express his condolances on the death of Linda Atrāsh, and they seemto have talked about a wholly Lebanese solution to the conflict. In an interviewgiven two weeks later, the younger Gemayel claimed:

We were in the middle of negotiations when the Syrian militaryintervention took us by surprise. To my mind we (the warring partiesin Lebanon) were on the verge of reaching an agreement when Syriantroops intervened and reshuffled the cards.6

According to Bashir, Kamal Jumblāt had also expressed the opinion that theLebanese leaders were making progress on a settlement when the Syrian moveshipwrecked their efforts.

It is possible that the chiefs could have used Sarkis as a means of burying thehatchet, but, even so, the process would have been long and difficult without acredible means of enforcement. Sarkis had no army to watch over the multitudeof groups fighting one another. It seems more likely that the Christianconservatives, including Pierre Gemayel, were stalling until the Syrians arrivedand rearranged the balance of military positions in their favor. Allowing the


Syrians to intervene would have been advantageous to the conservatives in theshort run, and the short run was generally as far as they could see. Certainly,Hafiz al-Assad had invested too much by 1976 to let the Lebanese make asettlement that cut him out.

The full-scale invasion by the Syrians into Lebanon took place on May 31,1976, ostensibly to end a savage bombardment of two Maronite towns, Qubayātand Aandqāt, located in the northeast corner of Lebanon. For some time,intermittent clashes had been occuring in this area, and in this instance, the mandoing the shelling was Ahmed Mi‛mari, a former major in the Lebanese army.His brigade joined the LAA when the army split up, and he was, therefore, alliedwith the National Movement. When Hafiz al-Assad broke with the LNM in lateMarch, Mi’mari had followed him and was supposedly allied with Syria at thetime of the attack. The picture is cloudy, but suspicions run deep that this attack,especially its massive character, was a pretext for the Syrian move. After a fewdays of bombardment, the Maronites of the town requested aid from Damascus,and troops poured into Lebanon from Syria. An armored column of 2,000 movedup the Biqā Valley toward Qubayāt; another large force pushed its way to thepass at Dahr al-Baydar, setting up across the way from an LMN detachmentalready there; and a third column headed south toward Marjayoun in preparationfor an attack on the leftist forces in Sidon. Assad’s previous militarycontributions had only been enough to make him a competitor in Lebanon; afterMay 31, 1976 he was to become a controlling factor.

Lebanese relationships, which had begun to show signs of settling, wereshaken up once again. Syria cautiously but consistently augmented its militarystrength in the country until it eventually reached more than 30,000 soldiers.Israel warned Syria about the indefinable “red line”7 in Lebanon but gave theUnited States permission to give Syria the go-ahead for the intervention. Couldthe situation have become more confusing? Marounistan had persuaded theUnited States to get permission from Israel to allow the Syrians to interveneagainst the LNM revisionists in Lebanon. Palestinians were put in a terrible bind.Syrian-led Sa‛iqa troops and the Hittīn brigade of the PLA (under Syrian control)were now used directly against those independent Palestinian forces that hadjoined the LNM. Jumblāt, with PLO backing, simply refused to withdraw fromhis positions in the mountains until the Syrians left. The Christian “loyalists,” onthe other hand, began to receive more and more shipments of arms from Israeland prepare for their own offensive. Syria and Israel were now cooperating toprevent the leftist-Palestinian combination from winning in Lebanon, somethingnot easy to explain during a thirty-second television news segment.

The war continued throughout the summer and fall of 1976, its islands ofcombat causing unimaginable losses in life and property. By the end of the year,nearly 30,000 Lebanese and Palestinians had been killed; another 65,000 hadsuffered injury; 700,000, over 80 percent of them Muslims, had been evictedfrom their homes; and a like number, mostly Christians, had left the country. By1980, Lebanon had seen its population decrease by at least half a million.


Within a week of the Syrian intervention, Christian loyalists issued astatement supporting the move. The Muslim side established a joint commandthat formally brought all the Palestinian groups into the war except for al-Sa‛iqa.Clashes almost immediately broke out between the PLO and Sa‛iqa, and beforelong the latter was driven from the camps to its stronghold at the airport.Afterwards, these Sa‛iqa forces, along with others on the left linked to Damascus,were integrated into Syrian military operations under Syrian command.

On June 8, Syrian forces were pushed back from Sidon after losing eight tanksin an attack on LMN positions in that city. Moving back to the heights aboveSidon, the Syrians settled for periodic shelling of the coastal area, eventuallydestroying the Zahrāni oil terminal and a major source for LNM fuel supplies.The Syrians also lost some armor when they attempted to force the LNM backfrom its positions on the Beirut-Damascus highway. Having encounteredunexpectedly stiff resistance in Beirut, in Sidon, and along the mountain ridges,Assad decided to employ his forces more cautiously against the LMN.

Damascus also decided to ask the Arab League to assist, and it both mediatedand sponsored Arab contingents to take on peacekeeping roles in Beirut. Ratherthan press against the entrenched positions of the leftists up in the mountains, theSyrian forces lifted the LMN siege around Zahleh as a prelude to a rightist attackon the Palestinian refugee camps. The leftist encirclement of Zahleh hadprotected the camps; the city was held hostage against a possible Maroniteassault against those Palestinians domiciled in the eastern suburbs of Beirut. Nowwith Zahleh under Syrian protection, the refugees were vulnerable. At this time,many Western countries began evacuating their embassies as the danger signalsincreased. Camille Chamoun’s PNL militia then initiated an attack (June 21) onthe Tel al-Za‛tar camp with its 30,000 inhabitants. Although unsuccessful atfirst, the Chamoun gambit eventually paid off when his men were joined byother Maronite forces, including the Katā‛ib, and Palestinian resistanceweakened. Tel al-Za‛tar, aswellas Naba’a and Jisr al-Basha camps, finally fell onAugust 12, 1976.

This setback for the Joint Forces was overwhelming, both materially andpsychologically. Operating with the LNM, the Palestinians had become adecisive component of the force opposing the Syrians, both in Beirut and in themountains. With people and supplies cut off and no help from other Arab states,it was only a matter of time before the tremendous advantage in firepowerarriving from Syria and Israel would tip the scales against the Joint Forces.Although negotiations were occurring as the siege continued, especially thoseaimed at getting Arafat to withdraw his forces, the essential strategy of theSyrians was to gradually but relentlessly close in on the leftists while theChristian militias gained control over as much territory as possible.8

Throughout the confusing summer, numerous ceasefires had been announcedbut with almost no effect on the conduct of the war. The Syrians were simply bidingtheir time while the Christians beseiged Tel al-Za‛tar. Ceasefires worked out bySyrian or Arab League mediators, usually with the PLO or leftist gangs (needing


to quit long enough to get paid) only provided the ascendant Christians with timeto consolidate their holdings. An attempt was also made to “Arabize” the Syrianenterprise. As early as June 10, the Arab League had agreed to send a tokenpeacekeeping force to Lebanon to “replace” the large Syrian force there. SaudiArabian military personnel sponsored by the Arab League did take up positionsin Beirut, where they were almost immediately fired upon, but these, even whenoperating with a contingent from Syria, did little to limit the military operations.

One of the reasons the Tel al-Za‛tar camp was finally taken (after the Jisr al-Basha camp and Shi‛ite slum of Naba‛a had fallen earlier) was that thePalestinian High Command, in the deployment of its own forces, had not givenmaximum priority to its defense. While flying from capital to capital in the Arabworld, engaged in high visibility politics, Arafat had asked the Tel al-Za‛tarinmates to be martyrs for the greater cause. Whether they wanted to or not, manywere.

Incredible as it may seem, Suleiman Franjieh, throughout this summer ofcalamities, still doggedly held on to his office. Finally it came time to inauguratethe new President, Elias Sarkis. However, it was unsafe to convene the Chamberin Beirut, so the Speaker, Kamal al-As‛ad, agreed to hold the ceremony inChtaura, a small town near the key military crossroads of the Biqā and easilywithin Syrian gunsights. The inauguration, under heavy guard, took place onSeptember 23, 1976 with only sixty-seven of the Deputies attending, nearly halfof them driven in from Damascus. Rashid Karāmi, Pierre Hilū, Kamal Jumblāt,and Raymond Eddé refused to honor this Syrian project with their presence.

Once again, this time as President, Elias Sarkis began making the rounds toseek a general ceasefire and organize negotiations for a settlement. PLOChairman Arafat declared a unilateral ceasefire and said he would withdraw histroops once an agreement had been reached. Arab League envoy, Sabri al-Khūli,also announced (October 4) that talks between the major parties were underwayand claimed (October 9) that the military officers of Lebanon, Syria, and the PLOhad agreed on the technical details of a ceasefire. For the tripartite agreement,Arafat, Sarkis, and Assad needed to sign.

Of the three, only the President of Syria was stalling, and for good reason.Once his man had been inaugurated the President of Lebanon, Assad beganincreasing the military pressure, this time with many more troops at his disposal.While Lebanese and Palestinian leaders were talking, his forces took several ofthe mountain passes east of Beirut, and on September 29 entered Ayn Tura.Hammāna, nearby, had already been lost, and the Syrians seemed to be preparingto attack the main LNM stronghold at Aley. In fact, the final Syrian offensivehad begun. With the Arab League trying to get the chiefs together fornegotiations, Hafiz al-Assad employed a series of rapid military movesalternating with ceasefires to make the most of the Syrian presence.

Wanting to dislodge the Joint Forces from the mountains carefully, the Syriansfought and negotiated at the same time. Talks were held at Chtaura between thePLO and the Syrians, where the Arab League envoy sought tripartite talks


between Assad, Arafat, and Sarkis. Kamal Jumblāt was now urging France tointervene, and the Saudis were considering bringing all and sundry to Riyadh fora conference. On October 1, regular units from the Lebanese army joinedPhalangists in a Christian offensive in the mountains but were unable to makeany headway toward capturing Aley. After a ceasefire agreement, worked out atChtaura, had been reached, the Syrians began an offensive against Sidon in thesouth (on the 12th) and opened a second front against leftist positions at Aley (onthe 13th). The left imposed severe losses on the advancing Syrian and Christianforces, especially at Bhamdoun, where the combatants engaged in house-to-house fighting.9 Meanwhile, Arafat telephoned Prince Fahd to get the Saudis tointervene. At the Saudi’s request, the PLO and the Syrians put a ceasefire intoeffect on the 15th, and leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Kuwait, Lebanon,and the PLO met in Riyadh on the 17th. The representatives at the Arab summitsigned a peace plan calling for a ceasefire and placing a 30,000-man Arab forceinto Lebanon to supervise the truce. Although officially under Sarkis’s control,this peacekeeping force was largely made up of Syrian armor and amounted to anArab acquiescence to Syrian power in Lebanon. Though badly mauled andseparated, the Christian militias, by means of the Syrians, had also won.

Although skirmishing between the gangs in Beirut, among Palestinian groupsin various locations, and between Christians and Muslims in the south continued,the ceasefire began to take hold. During December 1976 and January 1977,Palestinian and Lebanese units turned over their heavy weapons to thepeacekeeping forces; Syrians began manning checkpoints on the Damascus roadas well as in both East and West Beirut. Though punctuated by bombings andassassinations, the port and some banks reopened, and, on December 9, 1976, anew, no-name cabinet was formed with Salim al-Hoss as Prime Minister.

The only major fighting, at this time, was happening in the south, where animportant realignment was in the making. Israeli armed and trained Christianmilitias were engaged in driving their Muslim (mostly Palestinian) opponentsfrom the towns along a strip between Tyre and Marjayoun. The Syrians, whileissuing a statement refusing to bow to Israeli pressure, withdrew their troopsfrom the posts they held furthest south, including those they held near the GreekOrthodox center of Marjayoun. They also resumed supplying Palestinians in theArqoub region between Sidon and the Litāni river. The second major period of warhad died down, but the issues that had led to the fighting were still beingignored. Instead, the parties concentrated on maneuvering for power and position,making moves which were likely to lead to more strife in the future.

With nearly 100,000 persons either dead or injured and over 700,000 evictedfrom their homes, the war had been costly. Moreover, the addition of Syrian andPalestinian forces in 1976 caused the war in that year to be far more destructivethan in 1975. Unlike the previous year, the fighting in 1976 involved sustainedperiods of artillery bombardment. Many more areas of the country had come underfire and for a longer period of time. In 1975, at least 82 major incidents ofviolence occurred; the number rose to 171 in 1976. As could be expected, given


the war conditions, no major reforms or public works programs were announcedduring the two-year period.

THE WAR COMPLEX

In a sense, at the beginning of 1977, the war had ended but not the fighting. Bombscontinued to explode, assassinations were carried out, and hostilities in southernLebanon actually intensified. Yet, it is correct to say that the (main) civil war hadended because, after 1976, Lebanese were not pitted against other Lebanese towin control over the whole Republic. Instead, they fought to carve out a piece ofthe country either for themselves or as proxies in the regional competition forstrategic control. After 1976, for example, outsiders would not have allowed theLebanese chiefs to come together and settle their differences even if they hadbeen politically capable of it. Thus, from 1977 on, the Lebanese foundthemselves even more trapped in regional conflict than before.

Rather than civil war, such as had occurred when the Phalangists occupied thehotel district or when the LNM conducted their mountain offensive, the fightingoperated at five different levels:

1 acts of violence2 turf battles3 proxy wars4 intercommunal wars5 state wars

These are hardly distinct categories, and many mixes have occurred, e.g., proxyacts of violence, state involvement in intercommunal conflict, and state-sponsored turf battles. The main feature of this complex pattern of conflict wasthat it offered no possibility of conflict resolution. No group, no side, nocoalition could win; they could only keep themselves from losing or some othergroup from winning.

The first of these types, “acts of violence,” were generally carried out either astit-for-tat acts of revenge/punishment or simply as a means to keep the war going,i.e., to prevent negotiations from succeeding. On January 3, 1977, the war “over”and a ceasefire in place, a bomb exploded near the Phalangist headquarterskilling sixteen people. The party’s supporters called a strike, people marched,and positions hardened. On March 16, Kamal Jumblāt was assassinated (withtwo others) while returning to his home in Mukhtāra. Druze fighters killed morethan sixty Christian villagers in revenge. This type of activity continuedthroughout 1977. Syrians, Israelis, Palestinians, or Iraqis could have planned andcarried out one or the other of these deeds, as could have “rightists,” “leftists,” orfactions of either. Indeed, it is clear that this level of warfare could not have beenended through a Lebanese settlement by itself but required an overall regionalsettlement as well.


The second level of fighting, “turf battles,” became the preponderant mode ofstruggle after the end of the civil war (proper) and the intervention of the Syriansand the Israelis. Especially notable in this category were the many strugglesbetween factions within the same community whose vulnerability to nearbycommunities would seem to have precluded their fighting one another. Early in1977, the Syrian-sponsored Sa‛iqa guerrilla group fought several pitched battleswith other Palestinian guerrilla factions, especially with the PFLP GeneralCommand. At other times mainline Palestinians of the PLO fought against thoseof the Rejection Front. Struggles for turf between rival Palestinian gangs alsoregularly occured within the Palestinian camps themselves. Turf battles, pure andsimple, became much more serious for the Lebanese after 1978. Eventually, allthree major Maronite militias, those of Franjieh, Gemayel, and Chamoun, foughtone another for turf, as did, somewhat later, the Amal and Hizbollah groups of theShi‛ites. It was, of course, not difficult for outsiders to lever such factions intointernecine struggle; they competed not only for turf but also for the favor oftheir arms suppliers.

The “proxy war” category must allow for various sub-types since it was notalways clear who was whose proxy when groups were trying to use each other.Perhaps the most clear-cut examples of proxy fighting were engaged in by suchgroups as the Arab Liberation Front, the PFLP General Command, and theSa‛iqa guerrillas. The ALF was composed of an indeterminant mix of Iraqis andPalestinians and was as ready to fight for Iraqi interests against its Syrian rivalsas it was to fight for any identifiable Palestinian or Arab nationalist cause.Libyan funding of the rejectionist PFLP-GC was often used to place severelimitations on Yasir Arafat’s political options. Zuhair Muhsin, when notvacationing on the French Riviera, proxied for Syria, often against otherPalestinian proxies. When, for example, Major Ahmed Mi’mari bombardedQubayāt and Aandqāt on May 29, 1976, it is likely that he was acting for Hafizal-Assad, i.e., undercutting the LNM so that the Syrians could initiate a full-scaleintervention into Lebanon.

But if Syria was determined to have proxies, so was Israel. Major Sa‛adHaddad, even if fighting for his own turf, was obviously useful to the Israelis asa proxy and unable to integrate his interests with that of other Maronites or witha newly reconstituted Christian Lebanon. In late 1977 and early 1978, the Israeliswere so opposed to a settlement in Lebanon that if the Lebanese had offered thegovernment of the whole country to Major Haddad, he would not have beenallowed to accept. Here is a case where a leader’s role as a proxy outweighed hisrole as a patriot.10

Of course “intercommunal war” remained prominent in the Lebaneseimbroglio. Its importance, however, lessened as the civil war itself fragmented intoa “zillion” subsidiary conflicts. Still, small matters continually showed thatChristian-Muslim emnity was the fundamental basis for conflict. The Christianscooperated with Syria as long as Syria acted on their behalf but turned onDamascus as soon as it was clear that Assad was not going to reimpose Christian


supremacy. Thus, the Maronite side never cooperated with Sarkis or Assad inimplementing the new, more balanced confessional formula agreed to onFebruary 14, 1976. No progress could be made, in 1977, toward creating a trulynational army; and the Christian side, including Sarkis, refused to take stepstoward treating both Muslim and Christian renegades from the army in the sameway. To fight on the LMN side, Ahdāb and Khātib had to leave the Lebanesearmy while Hanna Sa‛id and Sa‛ad Haddad could remain in the army whenfighting on the Christian side. When Kamal Jumblāt was murdered, the Druzereflex was to gain revenge by massacring nearby Christian villagers rather thanpunishing the Syrians who had likely perpetrated the deed. No mention is madeof the Palestinians “raiding” Khiām, a Muslim town, when they recaptured itfrom Major Haddad’s militia. But when they took a Christian town, Ayn Ibl, it wasraided and looted. The primordial attachments continued to define the struggle.

Throughout its long history, outsiders have coveted Lebanon. In thislong period of civil strife, “state wars” in the region have been pivotal indetermining the fate of the Lebanese. To admit this fact is not to subscribe to theposition usually given by Lebanese themselves for their civil war, namely, that itwas a result of foreign plots and intrigues. The Lebanese must recognize thatthey pulled down their own house on top of themselves. But outsiders have alsomade it difficult for them to crawl out from under the rubble and rebuild.Nascent Palestine, Israel, Syria, and Lebanon itself have all fought “state wars”in the country. Other states in the region, e.g., Iraq, Egypt, and Saudi Arabiahave struggled for influence, while outside powers such as the United States andSoviet Union have also been involved in the country’s fate. Since one of thestrategies often pursued by those fighting the war was to persuade outsiders tointervene, we must look at “state wars” as partly invited. It can also be arguedthat the Lebanese would find it impossible to fight a purely civil conflict in thehyperstrategic Middle East.

The first “state war” was between Lebanon and the Palestinians. It took theform of special rules and status that made the refugees more vulnerable thannecessary to exploitation by the political and economic establishment. This warchanged after 1967 when the Palestinians began to organize in earnest and,especially after 1970, when the PLO fled Jordan (following Black September)and set up its quasi state in south Lebanon. Though not the only cause of thecivil war, it was the status and independence of the Palestinians that caused theChristian side to be so obdurate on the question of political reforms. Led byPierre Gemayel, the Maronites refused to accept a balance between Muslims andChristians as long as the former could hope to add Palestinian power to theirnumbers. Moreover, the Palestinians, with support from some Muslims, couldlever the Republic into war with Israel. The civil war blew into a hurricane whenthe state of Lebanon found itself unable to control the nascent Palestinian stateand when the army was unable to maintain its monopoly of force in competitionwith Palestinian militias. The civil war of 1975–6 began as a war between twostates located in the territory of one state, that of Lebanon.


Syria, Egypt, and Israel, to name the worst offenders, have meddled inLebanon’s domestic affairs almost since the inception of the Republic in 1943. InSyria, both Arab and Syrian nationalists subscribed to the view that Lebanonshould be reattached to the motherland; followers of Nasser wished the Lebaneseto support Egypt’s nationalist and anti-imperialist stance; and it is no secret thatsome of the pioneers of Zionism coveted Lebanese territory south of the Litāni aswell as the water from that river. It is also clear that many Israeli “ultras”continue to have designs on this territory and its waters at this time. Thus, theambitious, with lean and hungry looks, stare across Lebanon’s boundaries from alldirections.

The incidence of “state wars” is not hard to identify; the cases are transparent.Not counting previous occurrences in 1948 and 1958, the Palestinians beganintervening after 1967 and the Israelis, overtly, after 1968. Syria’s movessomewhat paralleled those of the Palestinians but became formal and open inearly 1976. Syria, of course, has kept both troops and allies in Lebanon since thattime and has conducted major operations in the country against both Muslimsand Christians. It has also fought both the Palestinians and the Israelis inLebanon and, in ousting the quasi government of General Michel Aoun, foughtand defeated the Lebanese army. Overt military incursions by the Israelis beganto occur regularly after 1976. In addition to the military activity supporting theSLA enclave state in south Lebanon, the Israelis have carried out two majorinvasions, the first in March of 1978 and the second in August of 1982. Althoughthe Palestinians were the targets of both invasions, the poorer classes ofLebanese in the south were victimized as much by these military engagements.

In the “war complex” that had Lebanon in its grip, no organization had thepolitical support or military strength to invade and control territory. The manygroups, in loosest coalition, only kept up the punishment, the interminable tit-for-tat. The Phalange, especially under Bashir Gemayel and his Lebanese Forces,made a strong bid to become the dominant force, to make him the strong leaderthat so many people hoped for. Even those Lebanese who were repulsed by thethought of Lebanon’s chief “Don” being accorded the “Mandate of Heaven” cameto believe that he might save the country, that he was ruthless enough to cutthrough the mess. But that hope, or hallucination, was later blown to bits at thePhalangist headquarters in East Beirut.

The above classification of the several modes of war taking place in Lebanonomits perhaps the most significant one of all. This level of war, in the mostgeneral sense, is that which pits Lebanon’s many and various soldiers against hercivilians. The tragedy for ordinary people caught up in the strife was that they,more often than military personnel, were the targets of the combatants. ThomasL. Friedman in his book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, refers to this mode as the“silent civil war.”


[This war] pitted all the Christian and Muslim militiamen who benefitedfrom Lebanon’s chaos on one side [against] all the Lebanese civilians whosuffered from that chaos on the other.11

This dimension of the civil war features what Elias Sāba has identified as the“war society”12 fighting to preserve its interests against the nonbelligerantcitizens of Lebanon. According to Friedman, this “society” developed during thefirst decade of the war,

as the militias became not only private armies representing the interests ofdifferent religious communities but also vehicles for the social and economicadvancement of the members of the Lebanese underclasses.13

Many of those who remained in the country, especially in Beirut, during the severalphases of the war have written poignant testimonies about having to deal withthe “punks with kalashnikovs,” a surrealistic mix of the medieval and modern.As individuals, they were merely holding little patches of territory in the mostprimordial fashion, but as members of the “lowerarchy” under orders, they hadgone from village nonentities to people in control. Many of the rag-tag elements,engaged in shooting matches on the streets, were not sufficiently professional tohave either started or stopped a military campaign in an effective fashion if theirleaders had so ordered. In decentralizing and fragmenting power, according toTabitha Petran, the war also

produced a newly rich and locally powerful social stratum of warprofiteers, contraband traders, big-time looters, and city and regionalmilitary and political zu‛ama and their clienteles.14

Though not all that different from the regular Lebanon, this developmentbrought a new class of people into the limelight, people lacking the finesse of theirfeudal predecessors and lacking, as well, a network of established connectionswith others of their number who had formerly made it possible to maintain socialcohesion. In the many on-the-scene pictures provided us by Jonathan Randal,Thomas L.Friedman, and Robert Fisk, we almost get to know the young,upwardly mobile boys with their kalashnikovs in West Beirut and the muscularboy scouts bedecked with their oversized crosses in East Beirut.15 In Survival inBeirut, Lina Makdidi Tabara recounts the many times she believed that analmost nonchalant trigger finger was about to end her life.16

Amidst the destruction and bloodletting, some Lebanese, not directly involvedin the military campaigns, actually profited from the war. Remittances fromabroad increased by a third; states sponsoring the multitude of militias alsopumped money into the country; and the massive thieving and looting had theeffect of redistributing income. New ports were opened up in Tripoli and Juniehwhile, according to customs officials, the Gemayel militias were able to siphon


off over five billion Lebanese pounds between 1975 and 1983 by not allowingthe government to collect revenues from Pier Five at Beirut port. The Assad-Franjieh relationship allowed the export of large amounts of hashish from theBiqā Valley during this period. One wing of the Lebanese Forces also profited bythis trade. In the emerging enclave state of Marounistan, a Maronite middle andlower class was rapidly taking over from the more established, semi-feudal classof landowners, bankers, and entrepreneurs. For these villagers, the Kata‛iboffered greater chances for upward mobility than had the old-established leaders.With the new lower class of chiefs, the old fashioned shootout was replaced bythe pogrom. Thus, the “war society” not only defeated Lebanon’s regularsociety, it also scrambled up the country’s elite.

THE WAR IN THE SOUTH

Except for acts of violence and turf battles, the large-scale civil war had ended in1976 only to be turned into a smaller-scale war in the south. On January 25,1977, Syrian forces moved into both (Christian) East Beirut and (Muslim)Nabatīyah in the Arkoub region of the south, ostensibly to carry out theirpeacekeeping role. Israel protested the Syrian move into Nabatīyah, andeventually Damascus withdrew from the town. Israel’s protest, however, was nota signal to help define the invisible “red line” but a warning to keep clear of itsown military moves. On February 19, Christian forces led by Major Sa‛adHaddad captured the key Muslim town of al-Khiām largely controlled byPalestinian militiamen. Palestinian guerrillas reacted with reinforcements andagreed with the Syrians to pull back from their forward bases in the south ifSyria would end its attacks on their forces and reopen the supply pipeline fromDamascus that had maintained them in the past.

While Hafiz al-Assad seemed to backpedal a bit, the Israelis moved aheadwith their policy of supporting Haddad’s attacks against Palestinian-controlledMuslim towns. On March 14, Christian forces attacked the Muslim village ofKafr Kilā and, with the help of Israeli artillery, continued to trade fire with thePalestinian militias in the far south. Even before Menachem Begin became PrimeMinister in May 1977, the Israelis had begun transporting Maronite militiamenfrom Junieh harbor to Haifa for training so that they could fight with Haddad’sforces in the southern enclave. After Begin came to power, Israel’s troopsprovided sustained and overt assistance to the South Lebanese Army, oftencrossing over into Lebanese territory to conduct their own operations.

The war gradually intensified until it reached a level of constant artilleryexchanges in the fall of 1977. The Israelis, Jonathan Randal points out, hadchanged the rules of the game.17 Whereas the new script called for the Syrians torescue the Maronites and then cooperate with the government to limit Palestinianactivity and assist the army in regaining control of Lebanese territory, Israel haddecided to have its own clients in Lebanon. Jerusalem not only gave the Haddad


militia the go-ahead to move against the Palestinians in the south but also refusedto let the Syrians take forces into the region to gain control over the guerrillas.

The Americans, for their part, were counting on Arab-Syrian support to makeit possible for the army to regain control over the country. A number of meetingsat Chtaura seemed to have nailed down an agreement between the members of thetripartite club—Sarkis, al-Assad, and Arafat—on acceptable conduct byPalestinians in a “new” Lebanon. But the Americans could not get Israelicooperation, and it became impossible to deploy the army into the south. Even afterthe Israeli invasion in March of 1978 and the arrival of UNIFIL (the UnitedNations Force in Lebanon), no real progress was made. By that time, havinggotten the Syrians to save their necks, the Maronite “ultras” were in the processof changing sides. They would try using Israel instead of Syria. Certainly, noneof them thought of attempting to make a deal with the establishment Sunnis.Even President Sarkis refused to uphold the minimal demands of the al-Hossgovernment for restructuring the army. It remained an essentially Maroniteforce, bolstered by a Maronite-led intelligence and police operation, the SpecialForces.

Even though the war had supposedly ended, 1977 was a violent year for thevarious fighting groups in Lebanon. Approximately 70 major incidents ofviolence were recorded, down from the 171 counted for the previous year (at theheight of the war). Of these 70 incidents, 15 can be identified as “acts ofviolence,” another 10 involved “turf wars,” and 9 more seemed to fit the “proxywar” category (including measures for the Lebanese government taken by theSyrian-Arab peacekeeping forces). There were also 18 incidents that could becounted as “intercommunal war” engagements and another 18 that best fit the“state war” category. In addition, there were at least 9 discernible betrayals, oneless than in 1976. Most of the violence recorded in the last two categoriesinvolved hostilities in the south where, with Israeli help, Major Haddad wasattacking Muslim and Palestinian strongholds in order to establish his enclavestate. Therefore, most of these incidents must be seen both as having an“intercommunal” character and involving “state” actors.

Although technically over, the civil war, according to Tabitha Petran, had“simply shifted to the south.”18 This perhaps oversimplifies what was, in fact, amore complicated series of shifts. Encouraged by the Israelis, the Christianforces in the south decided that, with the Syrians on the other side, it was anideal time to rid themselves of the Palestinian presence. The Israelis hoped for asmuch military clout in Lebanon as the Syrians were enjoying, and they alsoexpected to improve their military position vis à vis the Palestinian guerrillas. Asfor the Maronite hardliners, they played it by ear—the only way things are donein the Levant—to see if Haddad had the better strategy for reasserting Christiandomination of Lebanon. Why not allow Israel to compete with Syria forinfluence? For those who were uncomfortable with the degree to which Syriawas running things in Beirut, it was not difficult to imagine playing the Israelicard. Of course, where everyone cheats, it was not likely that anyone’s script


would be followed. Lebanon’s civil war was turned into a playground forregional competition; its warring communities became playthings for states. The“new” war in the south was being fought in the marches between Israel andPalestine.

OUTSIDERS INVADE

Between 1977 and 1982, both outsiders and insiders made major moves to breakthrough the old stalemate; a few were feeble attempts by the constitutedLebanese authorities but most were made by nearby countries and their proxiesinside the country. The results were deadly for the Lebanese. On April 4, 1978,Muslim and Christian leaders agreed on a so-called “program” of national unity,and on the 27th, the Assembly voted to ban all private militia activity. But thesepleas were rendered inaudible by the deafening roar of Syrian and Israeliartillery.

One could say that before the end of 1978, everybody had fought one anotherin a full schedule of round-robin matches. While the clashes between thePalestinians and the Christian militias continued in the south, new eruptionsbroke out in Beirut. On February 7, 1978, the Syrian peacekeeping forces weresetting up a new series of checkpoints in response to a number of mysteriousbomb explosions that had seemed to challenge their military effectiveness inBeirut. A recruit at the (all-Christian) Fayadīyah military barracks, where the newLebanese army was being put together, lowered his anti-aircraft gun duringpractice, blasted the Syrian checkpoint, and killed some fifteen soldiers. TheSyrians retaliated by flattening the Maronite barracks, killing even more. The factthat the gun had been loaded with live ammunition, even though it was beingused for training raw recruits, indicated that this was not a chance event.19 Infact, the Maronites had finally turned on their erstwhile protectors in the hopethat the Israeli door at the other end of the corridor would be opened. Israeliswere cooperating with Haddad’s Christian militia in the south fighting thePalestinians; surely they would help Maronites in the north oust the Syrians aswell.

As could be expected, the cycle of action and reaction escalated, and EastBeirut soon became the target of heavy bombardment by the Syrians.Throughout the winter and spring of 1978, fire was exchanged on a daily basisbetween the Syrian occupation forces and the Phalangists and continuedperiodically for the next three years. Yet, only a month after it began, this verydestructive war was overshadowed by another: the first full-scale, across-the-border, invasion of south Lebanon by the Israelis.

The surprise recipient of Sadat’s peace initiative, the Israeli Prime Minister,Begin, was under considerable pressure to reciprocate but was instead, at this time,taking a very hard line on the question of the Palestinians. He reportedly told theCarter administration that UN Resolution 242, in his opinion, did not obligateIsrael to withdraw from any part of the occupied territories. Asked over and over


again by the Americans to think about compromise and move in the directionindicated by Sadat, Begin became even more intransigent. He wanted what theradical Palestinians wanted—the whole loaf.

Heading toward extreme isolation, the Begin government was fortunate tohave the PLO come to the rescue. On March 11, 1978, a Fatah guerrilla unit,using inflatable rafts, came ashore in Israel, shot several Israelis on the beach,and hijacked a bus on the Haifa-Tel Aviv highway. In the ensuing shootout withIsraeli police near Tel Aviv, some thirty-five passengers on the bus were killedalong with nine of the eleven terrorists. On March 14, Israel sent its army acrossthe border into south Lebanon, declaring that it only sought to rid the area ofterrorists and establish a buffer zone six miles deep into southern Lebanon.However, the Israelis did not stop until they had taken most of the territory inLebanon south of the Litāni river. Below the Litāni, only Tyre and its immediateenvirons remained outside the control of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).Although Palestinians were still able to fire rockets into northern Israel, theIsraelis had completed their operation by the 21st and called for a ceasefire.

The United Nations Security Council met on the 19th, asked Israel towithdraw, and voted to send in an interim force. This peacekeeping operation,UNIFIL, (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), initially found it difficult totake up its position in south Lebanon due to the continued fighting between thePalestinians and Christians. Caught in a crossfire on March 26, UNIFIL wasfinally able to deploy on the 30th. Having secured a permanent military positionfor its Christian (SLA) allies, though not uncontested, and a UN peacekeepingforce (UNIFIL) for the border area, Israel told the world that it had created asecurity zone between itself and its Palestinian adversaries and announced plansto withdraw. On April 4, the IDF conducted the first stage of a phasedwithdrawal, allowing UN forces to occupy its most forward positions. Twomonths later (June 13), Israel announced that it had completed the withdrawal ofits forces, handing over the territory under its control to its SLA allies led byMajor Sa’ad Haddad. By August, Israel had begun to bomb Palestinian bases inLebanon while providing military and intelligence assistance to Haddad’s men.Israeli leaders could now argue that all of their country’s borders, from the Sinaito south Lebanon were protected by security zones. Future negotiations, if theyever occured, would be about Lebanese, Syrian, and Egyptian territory, not aboutPalestine.

While Israel may have advanced its security goals, Lebanon descended evenfurther into its tragic and absurd chaos. Although the Israelis had (formally) leftLebanon by the middle of June, they remained involved, and the fighting on allfronts intensified. Syrian and Palestinian forces fought against the Israeli-backedSLA; Palestinian, Christian, and Israeli gunners fired on UNIFIL peacekeepers;and the artillery exchanges between the Syrian “deterrent force” and thePhalangists in Beirut became increasingly destructive. The Christian right wasattempting to move through the Israeli door, and the Syrians were determined to


stop Israel by hitting its proxies. Syria had never ceased fighting these eventhough it had been able to stay clear of the Israelis during the invasion in March.

War in Lebanon had become a combination of power consolidation and proxyfighting. While the Sarkis government was attempting (unsuccessfully) to deployits army in the south, Bashir Gemayel was busy expanding his control among theMaronites. In May, his Phalangist forces attacked the NLP Tigers of fellowMaronite, Camille Chamoun, killing several and chasing them from tax-farmingterritory coveted by Bashir. On the day that the Israelis completed their withdrawalfrom south Lebanon, June 13, 1978, Phalangist forces raided the north Lebanontown of Ihdin and killed twenty-five members of former President Franjieh’smilitia, including his son, Tony, and Tony’s wife and child. Within the space of amonth, Bashir’s forces had fought both the southern and northern wings of theMaronite community itself.

The proxy wars continued as well. In July, Fatah troops (the main force of thePLO) fought in Tyre against fellow Palestinians of the Iraqi-funded PLF(Palestinian Liberation Front). Israeli-supported SLA Christians (another proxy)drove the Christian-led army of the Lebanese government out of the small townof Kawkaba in the south where it had attempted to deploy in cooperation withthe UNIFIL operation. Sometime after August 25, the Libyans removed from thescene Mūsa al-Sadr, the Shi‛ite founder of the Amal (Movement of theDeprived). By September, many world leaders were pleading with the Hafiz al-Assad to lift his siege against Christian forces in East Beirut. On October 20,Saudi Arabian peacekeeping forces replaced the Syrians in some positions, butthe exchange of fire between Syrian troops and their former Maronite alliescontinued. According to reports, Syrian soldiers even killed one of their SaudiArabian replacements when sniper fire could not be halted. Conferences calledfor unity—one convened by Arab Foreign Ministers even transformed the Syriantroops into formal “peacekeeping” forces. Yet rocket fire between the Syriansand the Phalangists continued on into 1979 with no end in sight.

On December 20, 1978, Sarkis and al-Hoss reshuffled the cabinet. Almost noone noticed.

Not counting the violence committed by the Israelis in their March invasion,66 incidents of conflict occurred in 1978. This compares with 73 taking placeduring the previous year (1977) and 45 the following year (1979). Reportedincidents of conflict climbed back to their previous level in 1980 with 74incidents and remained at that level with 73 incidents for 1981 (see Figure 8.1).But, as J.S.Mill often said, “Facts do not tell their own story.” In the period from1978 through 1981, the violence from within Lebanon was almost entirelyincoherent while that imposed on the Lebanese from the outside wasconsiderably more focused. The Israeli invasion, for example, caused 265,000Lebanese and Palestinian villagers to flee from the south to become refugees inthe shack towns of Beirut. The lengthy three-year bombardment of East Beirutby the Syrians resulted in that part of the city losing much of its population.Syria, with its Palestinian partners, continued to trade fire with Haddad’s SLA


forces and Israel regularly shelled both Palestinians and UNIFIL. The Haddadmilitia also struck at UNIFIL and the Muslim populations of Sidon and Tyre.Israel and Syria’s more focused efforts made it possible for them to empty thefiring ranges of most of their inhabitants and have at each other militarily withlittle risk. Whether planned or not, Syria and Israel could assert an active military




posture and compete for Middle East power without harming each other. TheIraqis and Libyans tossed in their two bits as well.

While the Israelis and Syrians were bringing troops in, Lebanese groupscontinued to rearrange the rubble. Between the end of the 1978 Israeli invasionand the more extensive one of 1982, no sector of Lebanon’s inveterate conflictremained untouched by new calamities. All the usual sites in Beirut were hit bybombings, assassinations, and firefights. East Beirut was under siege from Syrianfirepower. Some citizens of Christian East Beirut even fled to Muslim WestBeirut. Sidon, Tyre, the villages of the extreme south (the Jabal Amil), theArqoub region, Jezzīn, Chtaura, Zahleh, Ba‛albek, Qnāt (above Hermil), Ihdin,Tripoli, and the northern and eastern suburbs of Beirut were all venues forviolence. Villages in the south could receive fire from five different armies, fromthe Israelis, Syrians, Palestinians, the Republic of Free Lebanon (SLA), andUNIFIL. The Lebanese army even ventured south a few times to add a sixthforce.

Moreover, no sizable community in Lebanon survived this four-year periodwithout suffering from intracommunal violence. The Phalange regularly attackedthe PNL militia in 1980 and 1981, killing hundreds and worsening the divisionswithin Maronite ranks. Suleiman Franjieh tried to organize political elements inthe north against the Gemayels and even held some Maronite hostages for a briefperiod. Centrist Sunnis in Tripoli, supported by Syria and besieged by Sunniradicals, fought a series of pitched battles in December 1981. Support for thePLO as well as for Islamic fundamentalism divided this northern Sunnicommunity. Similar turf battles occurred between the Murābitūn and rival Sunnileaders in West Beirut.

Serious divisions began to appear among the Shi‛ites aswell. The initial gunbattles broke out between Amal and the (Shi‛ite) Communist Action group. Laterrifts grew between the fundamentalist Shi‛ites, inspired by the AyatollahKhomeini in Iran, and the more indigenous Amal group founded by Mūsa al-Sadr and led by Nabīh Berri (after the Imam’s disappearence in 1978). Thisbreach developed into a major struggle between Amal and Hizbollah forinfluence among the Shi‛ites, a contest that was linked to Syria as well as Iran.Shortly after, further splits emerged within this community. Some of the Shi’iteswho remained in the southern villages of the Jabal Amil, angered by thedomineering behavior of the Palestinian guerrillas, were successfully recruitedby Haddad’s SLA militia. By far the greater portion of this community, however,came under the influence of their radical clergy and linked up with Hizbollah,not so much to assist the Palestinians but to oppose the Israelis and other “alien”forces. Even the Hizbollah became divided between those taking their cues fromsuch home-grown leaders in Beirut as Sheikh Fadlallah and those directly underthe control of Iranian clerics operating in the Ba’albek region. The Palestiniancommunity continued its internecine struggles, between pro-PLO and pro-Iraqgroups as well as between pro- and anti-Arafat militias in the Palestinianmovement.20


Along with these intracommunal struggles, the regular intercommunal andproxy wars continued to take their toll on Lebanon. However, not all was chaosduring these four years. A major trend at this time was the political ascendancy ofBashir Gemayel. His star rose, not simply because he was the son of the founderof the Phalange, but because he pursued power with single-minded purpose.Bashir Gemayel’s determination not to let his rivals within the Maronitecommunity block his campaign to unify Lebanon led to many brutal actsbetween 1978 and 1982, taken to consolidate his military control over theMaronite militias. It was a badly wounded community that he finally got controlof and used to become President.

This younger son of Sheikh Pierre became, almost by accident, thecommander of the Phalange militia in July 1976 while the civil war was at fullthrottle.21 William Hāwi, the previous commander, was assassinated wheninspecting his forces during an attack on the Tel al-Za‛tar refugee camp. Both heand Sheikh Pierre had tried to restrain Bashir’s insistance on a command, butonce the assassination of Hāwi had taken place, the exigencies of battleovercame the father’s reluctance. The Phalange needed leadership, and Bashirwas already out in front. He soon gained control of the Lebanese Forces, acoalition of Maronite militias organized (on paper) in the spring of 1976,comprising the Phalange, Tigers, Tanzīm, and Guardians of the Cedars.Shrewdly, Bashir emphasized his role as the military leader of the LebaneseForces and de-emphasized his part in the political decision making of his father’sown party apparatus. Thus, while formally an arm of Phalange policy, Bashiractually began to develop his own power base, recruiting fighters from working-class districts of Beirut and promoting his own people to command positions. Bythe time the Syrians intervened in late 1976, Bashir was in charge of his ownmilitary organization and in competition with his formal connections, such asChamoun’s Tigers. He was, in fact, ready to make his move.

This occurred on June 13, 1978. Bashir ordered a commando force to cross themountains from Kisrawān to besiege the Qadīsha valley redoubt of the Franjiehclan at their summer palace in Ihdin. Although it is not entirely clear whatpurpose this raid was to serve, its results were tragic for the Franjiehs, for theMaronite community, and for the future of Lebanon. In the ensuing battle, thirty-four members of the Franjieh clan were killed, including Suleiman’s son Tony,commander of the Franjieh militia and heir apparent to leadership of the clan. Amember of the Lebanese parliament, he was being groomed for the presidency,the job Bashir Gemayel was grooming himself for. Whether intentionally or bymistake (as he later claimed), Bashir had removed a major rival on his way to thetop. Whatever the pretensions of the Phalange to revive and defend ChristianLebanon, its militia commander was obviously engaged in a much morerecognizable activity, eliminating opponents and seeking power. Pierre, the new-style politician with an ideology and politburo to boot, had given Lebanon an old-style warlord.


Yet, for Bashir, the elimination of Tony Franjieh was only one step in his bidfor power. There were other Maronite competitors to contend with, includingformer President Chamoun, a man with a party, a militia, and a son with politicalambitions.

Chamoun’s son, Dany, commanded a militia, tax-farmed, and patrolled thefamily’s commercial interests. Moreover, Chamoun, though formally allied withGemayel, was active in the central and southern districts of Marounistan wherethe Phalange had its greatest strength. The two organizations especiallycompeted for taxes and customs revenues in Beirut. The former President was notonly active but also in the cabinet as Minister of the Interior at this time. Hissoldiers often got into turf battles with those of the Phalange and, when bothmilitias began to acquire tanks, these fights became serious. Chamoun was also,like Bashir, a man to take initiatives and go on the offensive. His operations hadsparked the early troubles in Sidon, the fishermen’s strike which kindled the civilwar. His personnel had begun the siege of Tel al-Za‛tar, committing the otherChristian forces to that struggle before they were ready. Finally, it was alsoChamounists who (in February 1978) first began blasting away at the Syrianarmy that had intervened to save the Maronites the year before. While thisturnabout was popular with many Maronites, it was also disastrous. Chamoun’sreflexes were hardly encumbered by principles. Unfortunately, for a man ofinstincts similar to Bashir’s, the former President’s behavior always threatened tocompromise the power of the Lebanese Forces or commit them prematurely tomilitary engagements not in accord with their interests. The Maronites needed butone za‛īm to lead them against the traffic jam of competitors in Lebanon, andBashir intended to be that one. Yet, Camille Chamoun was still active, cracklingwith ambition.

A year after Bashir’s disastrous triumph at Ihdin, he began a campaign tosubordinate the NLP militia of Chamoun to the Gemayel clutch of organizations.On May 15, 1979, it was announced that the Phalange and National Liberal Partywere preparing to merge. Two days later the two militias engaged in a shootoutin northeast Beirut. Additional gun battles broke out between these two Maronitemilitias in May and June of 1979 until (on the 18th) units of the Lebanese armywere ordered to take up positions between them. But “the will to contend wasknown,” and Chamoun’s Tigers had not been inactive. Two weeks earlier abomb had exploded in a parked car, killing one person and wounding PierreGemayel. Even though clashes between the Phalange and the National Liberalshad broken out as early as 1976, these had previously been written off by leadersof the two groups as the actions of hotheads. But suddenly sacral politics wasgetting rough. The issue had ceased to be about local turf and rackets; it hadbecome a question of who would control the Maronite community and, thereby,control Lebanon.

With the intervention of the Lebanese army, overt clashes between the NLPand the Phalange ceased for about one year as Gemayel and Chamounintermittently cooperated. The two militias were able to launch joint operations


against the Armenians and the militia of the Syrian National Party.22 Below thesurface and within the complex of other struggles (which lent some ambiguity tothe situation), the contest for power remained intense. Before the end of March in1980, both Camille Chamoun and Bashir Gemayel had been targets ofassassination attempts. In the latter case, the omniscient bomb hidden in a parkedcar killed eight people, including Bashir’s daughter, as the Gemayel limousinewas driving by. By this time (February 1980), so many people were out to getBashir Gemayel, it would have been impossible for him to know who had beenresponsible. Was it Franjieh’s doing or Chamoun’s? Whatever the case, theserious business of acquiring power required eliminating the NLP competition.On March 12, 1980, an attempt was made to assassinate Chamoun. The car bombkilled an aide but only wounded the former President. Three more months of aformal modus vivendi between the two groups was to pass before Bashir madehis major move to eliminate the Chamounists.

On July 7, 1980, with coordinated attacks on NLP port facilities, barracks, andoffices in Beirut, Bashir’s Lebanese Forces quickly overran Chamoun’s fightersand, within a few days, had gained control of their holdings. At least 150 peopledied in the assault, about half of them innocent civilians, many needlesslymurdered at one of the NLP hotel resorts on the coast north of Beirut. TheTigers’ military facilities, especially the barracks at Safra and Amsheit, weresoon taken over by Bashir’s men as the last resistance to his control ofMarounistan began to collapse.23 Although Dany Chamoun, the Tigers’ militiacommander, vowed (from exile) to strike back at Bashir, the father, formerPresident Chamoun, soon capitulated to the Phalangists and, in return for a cut ofthe protection money, cooperated with their program. Unlike the Franjiehs,Chamoun could not, by this time, have turned to the Syrians. For the Christians,Bashir was now the only game in town.

Bashir conducted further operations against the Armenians (September 1980)and even against the Lebanese army, which was protecting that portion of theNLP militia still holding Ayn al-Rummānah, a working-class suburb of Beirut.Here, where the civil war had begun in 1975, the Lebanese Forces pushed theLebanese army out and took control of their rival’s remaining few forces. Havinghumiliated what was left of Sarkis’s military clout, Bashir now shouldered themain responsibility for opposing the Syrians. As the multitude of military frontsremained active throughout the rest of 1980 and all through 1981, especially thewar in the south and that between the Syrian army and Bashir’s Christian forces(now called the National Home Guard), the new “liberator of Christian Lebanon”decided to add to his territory. His next target was to be the Greek Catholic townof Zahleh, located on the eastern slope of the front range and commanding thecentral Biqā.

To include Zahleh in his domain, Bashir had to exclude the Syrians who,while not governing the town, controlled all of its access points. To link up withZahleh, Bashir had decided to build a new road up to the heights of MountSannīn, one which offered a direct connection between the Biqā and the


Maronite port of Junieh. Small-scale hostilities began on December 23, 1980;however, a ceasefire was called a few days later; and Phalangists went onbuilding their military road. On April 2, 1981, fighting broke out once morebetween the Christians and the Syrian army near Zahleh. Bashir hoped toconnect that large Christian enclave in the central Biqā with the other districtsunder his control, much as Yusuf Karam had planned to do in the 1860 civil war.Like Karam, he would gain power in Lebanon by uniting the Christians.

The Syrians were intent on preventing this link for two reasons: it wouldreduce their influence in Lebanon, and it would augment that of Israel. By thistime, Israel was openly arming and advising the Lebanese Forces as part of astrategy to use them in pushing the Palestinians and Syrians out of Lebanon.Bashir was so energetic in trying to connect up with Zahleh that it soon joinedEast Beirut as a regular recipient of Syrian bombardment. By the end of April,the Phalangists were driven out of the Biqā and even off the slopes of Sannīn. InJune, the Foreign Ministers of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait intervened and managedto work out a ceasefire whereby Lebanese police units were substituted forPhalangist soldiers. The three-month siege of Zahleh finally ended on June 30,1981, and Bashir’s major gambit to the east came to nothing.

This failure, along with a promise from both Bashir and Pierre not to havefurther dealings with Israel (a quid pro quo for the ceasefire with Syria), did notaugur well for peace in Lebanon. For the Israelis, neither their Gemayel norHaddad allies were doing very well, and if security was to be gained, the IDFwould itself need to act. Thus, the failure of Bashir to take Zahleh along with theinconclusive character of the fighting in the south—Haddad shelled Tyre onSeptember 13, 1981, and a bomb killed twelve people in Zariyah on the 28th—led the Israeli military to reconsider their dependence on the Christians as ameans of managing the situation across their northern border. Even a ceasefireagreement (July 25, 1981) brokered by United States envoy Phillip Habib,ending hostilities between Palestinians and Israelis across the Lebanese border, didnot resolve the dilemma for the Israelis. The agreement did not apply to actionstaken against Israel’s Haddad clients, and (according to PLO official KhalilWazīr) it also did not apply to actions taken against Israel on other fronts.

Meanwhile, clashes in Tripoli broke out on September 7 followed by amassive bombing and further clashes on December 10. The result was anexpanded presence of the Syrian army in northern Lebanon as a means of endingthe bloodshed in that city. Israel’s intimacy with Gemayel and Haddad hadscarcely neutralized the PLO; if anything, it had improved Syria’s militaryposition. Still, if more firepower could be brought up from the south, Gemayelmight be useful to Israel in the future. Supplying the necessary firepower wasprecisely what Ariel Sharon was determined to do.

The preliminaries for the Israeli invasion of 1982 were extensive and hardly asecret. The American Ambassador to Israel, Samuel Lewis, had been advised ofthe proposed operation by Sharon himself as early as the summer of 1981, aboutthe time of the Habib-sponsored ceasefire agree ment between Israel and the


PLO. Preparations for the invasion were so overt that Israel was forced to spendextra time and effort denying that it was about to invade. On January 20, 1982,the Israeli Prime Minister, Begin, promised President Reagan that Israel wouldnot launch an attack on Lebanon without a clear provocation from Palestinian orSyrian forces. The special envoy, Habib, assured Mr Reagan that Israel would notbe the first to attack. On April 10, President Sarkis asked the United States toprevent an Israeli attack. Ambassador Lewis received personal assurances onApril 11 that Israel had not made the decision to attack targets in Lebanon. On May9, Israel broke the ceasefire with air attacks on targets in Lebanon, and on the14th, opposition leader Yitzhak Rabin said that an Israeli military operation inLebanon would achieve Israel’s objectives. Could there be any doubt that thedecision had been made to go ahead?

The political context for the Israeli invasion of 1982 went far beyond thesituation in Lebanon. Israel was, at this time, having to respond to considerablepressure from the outside to begin serious negotiations on the question of thePalestinians. First of all, the Palestinians were keeping to their agreement of July1981 not to attack the Israelis across the Lebanese border. In August, the “SinaiObservers Agreement” between Egypt and Israel was signed, indicating that asecurity regime between the Israelis and a former Arab belligerent was possible.A few days later (August 8, 1981), King Fahd of Saudi Arabia announced his“Plan” which, among other things, explicitly accepted Israel’s right to exist. TheSaudi statement was the first one from an Arab state to make such a declaration.President Reagan gave his support to some parts of the Plan; former PresidentsFord and Carter, returning from the funeral of the assassinated Anwar al-Sadat,called for mutual recognition by Israel and the PLO. Later that fall, the UnitedStates, Israel, and Egypt were engaged in preliminary negotiations aiming(supposedly) toward some kind of self-rule for the Palestinians in the West Bankand Gaza. Moreover, Sa‛ad Haddad was in ill health and wanted to resign asleader of the SLA (and probably would have if the Israelis could have come up witha suitable replacement). Yet, with all these peace initiatives in the air, Israelsignaled its readiness to resist all attempts to move the peace process forward byformally annexing the Golan region captured from Syria in the 1967 war. Thismove on December 12, 1981 sent the diplomats flying in all directions. Far fromupholding the spirit of Camp David, the Begin government was hardly botheringto keep up appearances.

At the beginning of 1982 (as in the early 1990s), it seemed to many observersthat the only obstacle to the peace process was Israel. The reality was morecomplex than this explanation suggested, but it is obvious that the Begin regimehad decided against responding to peace overtures in favor of a new militarycampaign, one that was intended to remove the PLO from the picture. By the endof April, Israeli forces had been staged, and General Sharon was set to go. Israelonly needed the “clear provocation” that had been the criterion for a war given toRonald Reagan on January 20, 1982. Since most of the Arab opposition washolding its breath at that moment, one had to be created.


On May 9, Israel attacked Palestinian targets in Lebanon; the PLO retaliatedwith artillery fire against Qiryāt Shemona; and the ceasefire had ended. On May25, Israeli pilots shot down two Syrian MIGs during a routine reconnaissance ofLebanon. On June 3 1982, the “provocation” required to set Sharon’s forces inmotion occurred. On that day in London, the Israeli Ambassador to Britain,Schlomo Argov, was shot and seriously injured, not by a PLO group but by theirmost bitter rivals in the organization, a terrorist faction led by the infamous AbuNidal. On the following day, the Israelis conducted large-scale air raids ontargets in Lebanon and then, on June 6, three days after the assassinationattempt, crossed the Lebanese border with heavy armor. Israel, claiming that thePLO was responsible for the attempt against its Ambassador, broke its (informal)truce with the PLO on military activity in south Lebanon. The invasion of 1982had begun.24

THE ISRAELI INVASION OF 1982

Proclaiming that their purpose was to gain control of a zone only twenty-fivemiles deep, the Israelis went north to remove the PLO guerrillas from Lebanon.There were subsidiary goals as well: to contain the Syrians, to leave Lebanonunder Christian control, and to take action that might make the final withdrawalfrom the Sinai more palatable to Israeli nationalists. The attack was certainly nosurprise. The Economist of Britain had outlined a plausible scenario the previousFebruary, including both the military tactics of the operation and its purposes. Asit turned out, that periodical, in its prognostications, was not wide of the mark.25

Yet, with their scarcely concealed plans for eliminating the Palestinian threat, theIsraelis had not been preparing to invade Palestine. Rather, they had organized anattack which would send them marching into Lebanon. To get at their enemies,the Israelis were about to flatten another country and another people not at war withthem.

By the spring of 1982, the Lebanese were already nearly prostrate. Notcounting any of the military actions taken by Israel against its Palestinian andSyrian foes, the general level of internecine conflict in Lebanon remained almostconstant, up from 73 recorded clashes in 1981 to 80 in 1982 (see Figure 8.2).However, conflict had become even more fragmented. In May alone, SyrianAlawi (Ba‛thists) foughtlocal Sunni (Ba‛thists) in Tripoli, a subordinate clash tothe more general conflict between Syria and the PLO. South of Tripoli,Phalangists exchanged sporadic gunfire with the Syrian army. In south Beirutand West Beirut, Amal engaged in several battles with the PLO-backed NationalMovement; Amal also fought with the Lebanese Communists; and a unit of theregular Lebanese army fought soldiers of the Lebanese Arab Army in Sidon.Also in that city during May, PLO forces clashed with Mustapha Sa‛ad’s PopularNasserist Organization. South of Sidon, some Shi‛ite Amal units battled PLO-backed Shi‛ite communists while, at the same time, the Fatah militia had ashootout with the (Syrian-supported) Sa‛iqa militia. A relatively new group, the


Movement to Free Lebanon from Foreigners, carried out a series of attacks againstboth Syrians and Palestinians. A Sunni mosque under construction in Beirut(near the home of the Grand Mufti) was bombed, and Syria was reported to haveorchestrated the bombing of the French Embassy, killing fourteen people. It islikely that the list for that month would have been longer had reports from theBa‛albek region made it all the way to Beirut.




Thus, from the Israeli perspective, Lebanon was spinning its wheels inconflict. Neither the government nor the Christian militias could restrain Syria,and the Palestinians were boasting of their permanence in south Lebanon.26

Camp David had not gotten a decent reception from the Arab states. AlthoughSaudi Arabia was not hostile, only Egypt had openly cooperated, and then atgreat cost. Syria, Iraq, and the PLO (threats that counted) had rejected the Sadatinitiative out of hand. Perhaps the context for the peace process would havelooked altogether different had the PLO been expelled from Lebanon. Lookingat the short run, one can understand why Ronald Reagan, Alexander Haig, andmost Israelis saw the second IDF attack into Lebanon as the final act againstPalestinian military threat. After this last PLO base had been eliminated, surelythe Arab states would find it necessary to deal with the USA-Israel combination?Bogged down in Afghanistan, the USSR was in no position to help.

Weak and in disarray, the Arabs were agreed on one simple truth; the Israelishad never made them a bona fide offer. The psychological implication is just assimple; no representative of an Arab state would approach the table, headhanging low after a whipping. It is not too difficult to understand Israelishortsightedness in viewing Fatahland. They had little margin for error. As forthe Americans, they would pay in the future for their lack of diplomaticprofessionalism. Their men would pay for the dynamics of the anger let loose.

By the end of the second day of the invasion (June 7), the IDF had proceededbeyond its self-proclaimed twenty-five mile limit and was on its way towardBeirut. It was put out at the time that Begin was not entirely able to controlSharon, perhaps to help maintain a semblance of legitimacy for the Israeligovernment, but it is likely that both men were cooperating in the assault. Syria’ssoldiers backed up quickly and were out of the war by the end of June. By thattime, Damascus had lost many aircraft and all of its SAM II missile sites. Theceasefire had not applied to the Palestinians, and the mainline PLO troopsretreated into West Beirut where they were soon trapped by the advancingIsraelis and the cooperating Phalangists.

Even with their ceasefire of June 11, the fight between the Syrians and theIsraelis flared up once more in a battle for control of the Beirut-Damascushighway. Unable to maintain its control of the Lebanon ridge, Syria was forcedto withdraw toward the Biqā and remained cut off from its Druze and Palestinianallies throughout the Israeli occupation. On June 24, a second ceasefire wasworked out between the two armies and, for the most part, Syria obeyed it,positioning its forces at a sufficient distance to eventually win the war for controlof Lebanon.

On July 5, 1982, Israel began shelling Beirut, the first televisionsiege. Suspecting that the Israelis were not just conducting an operation for peacein Galilee, President Reagan decided to inform Congress that Israel had usedcluster bombs in Lebanon. If true, such use was contrary to an agreement withJerusalem that these weapons would only be used for defensive purposes. TheAmericans had, only two weeks earlier, vetoed a UN Security Council resolution


calling for the Israelis to withdraw from Beirut The combination of these twopolicy positions seemed to imply that, in Reagan’s view, the Israeli action was anaggression but not one that he disapproved of. On July 18, the President did haltfurther shipments of the (defensive) cluster bombs.

Amidst the horror of West Beirut under siege, often with its food and watersupply cut off, the question of how to unlock the stalemate finally surfaced. ThePalestinians were daring the Israelis to move into West Beirut and try their handat house-to-house fighting while the Israelis were maintaining the bombardmentas a means of forcing the PLO to leave. The latter engaged in protractednegotiations, using the Americans as middlemen, letting everyone and everythingin the city pay the price. At the beginning of the siege, the PLO asked the Sarkisgovernment to allow the dispersal of its personnel throughout Lebanon. Onefinds it hard to imagine any country granting Yasir Arafat this request, least ofall Lebanon. President Sarkis, on July 17, rejected the PLO request. A monthlater, after continued starts and stops between the PLO and the Americans, anevacuation plan was approved; the Israelis gave their assent the following day,and on August 21, 1982, the evacuation of the Palestinians, on American ships,to a number of Middle East destinations began.

Suddenly, while the Israelis were being bad, the Americans were being good,and the Palestinian fighters were being shipped off with their personal arms andself-proclaimed honor. Unfortunately, they left their Palestinian people behind,trapped in the refugee camps. For the Lebanese, especially those trapped underthe Israeli barrage of West Beirut, the invasion had been another terrible episodein the endless series of wars which kept them huddling in their basements. Butwith the Palestinian “cause” of the war removed and Western forces on the scene—ith Bashir Gemayel about to be at the helm—would not these tragic eventssoon be ending? Would not Christian Lebanon now emerge from the ashes of therecent past? These were not the questions but the hopes—almost the certainties—that many Lebanese felt in late August and early September 1982.


9Permanent war: 1983–1990

THE GEMAYEL PRESIDENCIES

While the Palestinians were marching down to the pier, firing their weapons inheroic retreat, Bashir’s supporters were hustling parliamentary votes to havetheir man elected President of Lebanon. On August 23, 1982, Bashir Gemayelbecame Lebanon’s seventh holder of that office by a vote of fifty-seven to fiveon the second ballot. Chamoun put up a token candidacy but did not pursue itseriously. Just as Syria had controlled the election of Sarkis six years before,Israel got its reward on this occasion. Several deputies did have to be dragged into make a quorum, but with Lebanon’s largest army, Bashir’s own Lebaneseforces, and the IDF invasion force surrounding the Fayadīah military academywhere the session was held, the result was a foregone conclusion. The UnitedStates sent 800 Marines to assist the Palestinian departure, and the Lebanesearmy began taking up their abandoned positions. The election of Bashir appearedto sanction the new Israeli-imposed government of Lebanon. The Palestinianswere out; the Israelis were satisfied; and American Marines had come ashore inLebanon for the first time since 1958. News correspondents posted to Lebanoneven took well-earned and long-awaited vacations. Surely the war was about toend.

The United States had rejected General Sharon’s characterization of Jordan asa “Palestinian state,” and on September 1, 1982, announced its own policy forMiddle East peace, the Reagan Plan (a statement not too distant from the earlierFahd Plan, sponsored by the Saudis). It called for a “freeze” on new settlementsin the West Bank, an autonomous “entity” there for the Palestinian inhabitants,linking them to Jordan, and Arab recognition of Israel. While the Israelis rejectedthe Reagan initiative, much as they had the one from the Saudis, many observerssaw the United States preparing to nudge the Jewish state toward the peace table.As a signal that things were working out, the contingent of 800 Marines waswithdrawn on September 10, 1982. Although removing the American force sosoon after they had arrived seemed premature, it did indicate that the diplomatsbelieved they had all bets covered. Secretary of Defense Weinberger had evencome to Beirut to take part in the ceremony. What could go wrong?

Everything! Talks between the Israelis and the Lebanese had not gone well.Begin and Sharon wanted a peace treaty and were not above bullying the youngBashir, treating him like a servant boy. Hafiz al-Assad then declared that hewould take military action against Lebanon if the new President signed a peacetreaty with Israel. Bashir had not strived so mightily to be President of Lebanononly to be batted back and forth like a ping-pong ball. To these two leaderswhose armies occupied his country, he conveyed his determination to beindependent of them. On September 13, three days after the Marines had left, theIsraelis conducted air strikes against the Syrians in the Biqā Valley. Bashirwanted power and independence; his neighbors wanted him to choose sides. Thecountry he headed, after all, was only the battleground for their wars.

On the next day (September 14), an explosion ripped through the Phalangistheadquarters in East Beirut, killing Bashir Gemayel. The strong man of Lebanonhad been blown to bits. The particularism of Levantine culture reigned onceagain.

Bashir’s associates moved quickly to make things worse. On the 16th, the dayafter Israeli forces had taken up positions overlooking the Palestinian camps,elements of the Lebanese Forces entered the Sabra and Shatila refugee campsand carried out a revenge massacre. This pogrom was carried out by members ofBashir’s own militia, reportedly led by Elie Hobeika and joined by members ofMajor Haddad’s SLA militia. Although the IDF officials, in a fluid situation,seemed to have taken responsibility for security in the area, they did nothing tostop the bloodshed. After two days of butchery, the news began to leak out, andby the 18th, the true magnitude of the horror became apparent. Nearly 2,000people were killed, mostly women, children, and the elderly. This terribletragedy, of course, has been extensively investigated and written about. Whilesome among the Israeli military may have orchestrated the massacre, it isessential to keep in mind that those who carried out the killings were, in fact,Lebanese Christians.

On September 21, 1982, following the Phalangist’s choice of Amin Gemayel,Bashir’s older brother, as their candidate, Lebanon’s parliament elected him thecountry’s eighth President. Two days later Amin was sworn in, promising to endthe “cycle of violence” and to free Lebanon from foreign forces. On the 27th,French and Italian troops re-entered Beirut; the next day, ten days after themassacres were revealed, the American Marines returned to take up theirpositions in the city. The Multinational Force was rapidly redeployed to the areaof the Palestinian camps (one supposes) to protect the dead.

It took a week for the Lebanese to recover from the shock of these events andget things back to normal. By the beginning of October, however, fighting at thetraditional locations had broken out again, first in Tripoli, then in West Beirut,and later in the Shūf. Before another week had passed, a cabinet had fallen andbeen reconstituted. Amin Gemayel accepted the resignation of the PrimeMinister Shaf īq īq al-Wazzan, on September 29, and on October 8 a newcabinet, with al-Wazzan as Prime Minister, was formed. On the same day, while

PERMANENT WAR: 1983–1990 227

Nabīh Berri and Amin Gemayel discussed the matter, the Lebanese army begandemolishing the homes of Muslim squatters near the Beirut airport. On the 13th,Christian and Druze militias clashed southeast of Beirut, inaugurating a newmilitary debacle for the Maronites. With foreign troops on hand and Israelistaking the blame for the Maronite massacre at Sabra and Shatila, it was time toreassert Christian control over Lebanon.

President (Amin) Gemayel and his national security advisor, Wadie Haddad,apparantly believed it was the right time to pursue an activist military policy.Thus, as if to outdo the self-inflation of earlier Christian leaders, e.g., in 1845and 1860, they took military measures that seemed to assume an American blankcheck for action against their opponents. Wadie Haddad, for example, is reportedto have told the Syrians that he had the Americans in his pocket.1 The newPresident could have tried to heal wounds in Lebanon by restraining his father’smilitia, especially in its determination to settle scores with the radical Sunnis inWest Beirut and among the Druze of the Shūf. Instead, kidnappings of Sunniswent on unabated; the Shi’ites were offered an insulting pittance forreconstruction in south Beirut; and Phalangist war against the Druze was wagedin earnest. A Lebanon controlled by Christians continued to be the agenda. AsTom Friedman writes:

President Gemayel, instead of using…the strength he derived from hisAmerican backing to forge a political entente with the Muslim and Druzeleaders of West Beirut and make real national unity possible—at a timewhen they had yet to side with Syria and were open to compromises onmoderate terms—he began to behave with typical tribal logic, which says,When I am weak, how can I compromise? When I am strong, why should Icompromise?2

Indeed, the new Gemayel was barely out of the wrapper when, once again, theMaronites moved to take control of their Lebanon. Israel’s invasion forceremained on location, and the Multinational Force had returned to bring stabilityto the situation. Moreover, Amin Gemayel had begun negotiations (December1982) with Israel for a peace agreement that would lead to a withdrawal of theIDF from Lebanon. It was a time for balance, diplomacy, and self-control.Instead Amin’s military colleagues interpreted it as a time when the “real”Lebanese, led by the Phalange, should win the war. The head of the LebaneseForces at this time, Fādi Frem (Afrim), did not, of course, take orders from AminGemayel. He had agreed (October 1982) to support Amin only if his policieswere directed to the removal of all foreign forces, a goal that Amin’s ForeignMinister, Elie Salem, emphasized on countless occasions. Amin was Presidentbut, unlike Bashir, not in command of a militia. He was not the President of verymuch. Therefore, he sought to expand his power by searching for it outsideLebanon.

228 PERMANENT WAR: 1983–1990

President (Amin) Gemayel’s first stop in his campaign to gain support for hispolicy of reconstituting Lebanon under the authority of its Christian leadership wasWashington. During a stop there (October 1982), he asked President Reagan fora much enlarged multilateral force to help his government extend its control overthe country’s territory. For Amin, it was a tug-of-war between getting enoughsupport from the outside to contain those forces on the inside, including thoseoriginally established by the Gemayel family, and getting enough support on theinside to make it worth the trouble to shore up his power. Until that support wasforthcoming, he had no punch beyond what the warlords of his brother’s militaryoutfit would provide. On the other hand, if the Americans came in with thetroops, the Maronites could lose all the battles and still win the war.3 TheIsraelis, who at times gave arms to the Druze, would not obstruct the LebaneseForces from moving into the Shūf, since they hoped to conclude a peaceagreement with Amin Gemayel that would allow them to keep a militarypresence in the south. Even Fādi Frem eventually came around to this view when,a year later, he urged Amin to normalize relations with Israel as a means ofbalancing Syria. What was advertised as a policy to remove all foreign forcesturned out to be a strategy for bringing in friendly forces to reimpose Christianpower on all Lebanese. This explains why, in the face of conciliatory statementsby both Shi‛ite and Druze leaders, government forces acted with such energyagainst the Shi‛ites in south Beirut while the Phalangists were similarly makingwar in the Shūf.

Despite several trips to Washington by Gemayel and Salem and trips to Beirutby Shultz, Habib, and McFarland, the Reagan administration remained steadfastin its refusal to increase its forces in Lebanon. Amin got a few tanks, a fewtraining missions, and nothing more. Along with the other (usual) venues, the warin the Shūf continued. The Maronite push was not so much stopped as“absorbed”—village fought village until the Druze were able to assertthemselves by the end of 1983.

Although 1982 had proved to be a terribly destructive year for the Lebanese,the number of conflicts rose only slightly from the previous year, that is, from 73in 1981 to 80 in 1982. The major war that resulted from the Israeli invasion ofsouth Lebanon and the bombardment of Beirut reduced the opportunities fornormal incidents of violence to break out at the regular intercommunal locations.With the withdrawal of the PLO in August 1982 (and in September), theassassination of Bashir Gemayel, the occupation of West Beirut by the Israelis,the Sabra-Shatila massacres, and return of the American-led multinationalpeacekeeping forces, the number of conflicts began to increase as the amount ofmajor violence decreased. The number of domestic incidents of violence rosefrom 80 in 1982 to 118 in 1983 and on to 122 in 1984 (see Figure 8.2). Underoccupation, controlled locally by numerous militia groups and party factions,with a government trying to assert itself amidst a multitude of intrigues, Lebanonmoved back toward its previous levels of conflict.


Moreover, the political situation became extremely complicated during theaftermath of the 1982 Israeli invasion. Because of the various sectors ofinfluence then engaged, 1983 would be a very difficult year.

GEMAYEL ENTANGLED

In Washington, President Reagan undoubtedly wished for a different script in theMiddle East drama, especially where it concerned the Israelis, Syrians, andLebanese. He had released the Reagan Plan for a Middle East peace inSeptember 1982, a somewhat sophisticated and un-Reagan-like document,representing, perhaps, the high point of State Department influence during hispresidency. The Americans wanted a Palestinian homeland, not state, and wereready to push for an Israeli-Lebanese agreement to cooperate on normalizingrelations without a full withdrawal of the IDF from Lebanon’s territory.Although the Reagan initiative represented a reasonable preliminary from thestandpoint of the parties’ needs, it did not give any one of them enough of whatthey wanted. Mr Reagan had been given a useful script—his Middle East expertshad told him it was in line with Saudi thinking—and he was prepared for theactors to play their parts. No one did, of course, and the play was neverperformed. Thereafter, the Reagan administration was reduced to a minimalistapproach, tied to Israel, trying to stabilize things in Beirut, and finding itselfcomplaining to the parties that their actions did not support the cause of peace.Attempting to sponsor various settlements rather than take the lead meant thatpoor Gulliver was likely to get torn up in the Middle East souq again. In fact,Gemayel, Assad, Begin, and Arafat used Reagan as a means of furthering theirparticular goals, mostly to block each other as much as possible and hold ontowhat they already had.

The Soviets, tossed out of Egypt, were heavily engaged in Afghanistan andwere giving military support to the Iraqis in their war with the Iranians. Theyalso continued to arm Syria as a stopper against the Israelis and Americansgetting their way without opposition. But Moscow no longer believed it could“win” in the Middle East. Thus, the Soviets were paying for their Syrian“stopper” while calling for Arab and Palestinian unity. Although contrary toArab deeds, this position did not contradict Arab rhetoric. Moreover, at this time,the Soviets were a rapidly declining political force in the Middle East.

Arafat, in contrast to the Palestinians generally, was on his way toward evergreater irrelevance. Evacuated from Beirut, most of his forces had moved toTripoli in north Lebanon and were beseiged by Syria and Syrian-supportedPalestinians. His newest rival, Sa‛id Abu Mūsa, led a Fatah faction which hadbroken away from the regular militia over Arafat’s handling of the 1982 Israeliassault. Abu Mūsa claimed that PLO forces should have stood their groundagainst the Israelis rather than retreat into Beirut. He accused the PLO leader ofputting his own political position ahead of the cause, of protecting himself ratherthan fighting. Other factions continued their traditional non-support for Arafat,


and his control over Palestinian fortunes was further weakened. After twomonths of fighting (mixed with negotiations), Arafat’s soldiers were evacuatedonce again from their base in Lebanon and put aboard ships to be taken to theirfuture home and headquarters in the city of Tunis.4

As for the Syrians, they and their allies occupied a large portion of Lebanon.Syria had its own Palestinian factions, the Sa‛iqa, PLA, and its own Fatahfaction, led by Sa‛id Abu Mūsa. It gave support to the Amal Shi‛ite militia, to theFranjieh (Maronite) “Brigade,” and to Sunni and Alawite forces in Tripoli (toname the most prominent outlets for Syrian influence). President Assad’s majordemands in 1983 were that Israel must withdraw from Lebanon and that thegovernment of Amin Gemayel should not sign a separate agreement normalizingrelations with the invader from the north. These demands, however, putDamascus on a collision course with Washington, whose diplomats had hoped torestart the peace process by making progress in Lebanon (while Arafat was outof the way). The Americans believed that an IDF withdrawal from Lebanon,coupled with an agreement to conduct normal state relations, would have helpedbreak down barriers in Israel’s relations with Lebanon just as the Sinaiwithdrawal had done with Egypt.

But, beyond a temporary depreciation of Palestinian capability in Lebanon, the1982 Israeli invasion had also humiliated Damascus. Even with Soviet arms,Syria had not been able to hold its own against Israel. It could only hope that theIsraelis would be forced by others, or by their own overcommitment, eventuallyto withdraw. To contain the Israelis, the Lebanese had to be kept out ofJerusalem’s orbit. Therefore, Hafiz al-Assad spent much of 1983 trying toprevent any moves in Lebanon that might make it possible for the Israelis tosolidify a partnership with the Gemayel government. Israel had already annexedthe Golan Heights; if it had gained a permanent position in Lebanon, Syria wouldhave been more surrounded than ever. With many pawns to play, Assad couldresist such an outcome. The Reagan administration, slow to recognize this reality,huffed and puffed in vain.

Israel’s purposes were hardly a secret, even if many of the means employedwere. The Begin-Sharon combination hoped to scatter the Palestinians as one ofthe steps toward settling and establishing “Greater Israel.”5 With the Palestinianmilitary threat removed, for both the Israelis and the Lebanese Christians, thelatter could once again have their Lebanon while the Israelis patrolled the south.“Choose, Lebanon, choose,” said the Israelis. “It is either us or the Muslims,”i.e., the Syrians and Soviets.

As for the Lebanese, they, of course, disagreed both with the views of variousneighbors and among themselves. Within the central Maronite camp itself, therewas only partial accord. Bashir’s old gang, the Lebanese Forces of Fādi Frem,wanted to develop the partnership with the Israelis and promoted an agreementbetween Amin Gemayel and Menachem Begin as a start. Amin, himself, wasalso ready to work with the Israelis if that would bring about their (complete)military withdrawal and sufficient American support for him to defeat his


domestic foes. To start down the road to such an outcome, Amin and his Phalangistpartners commenced the military action to subdue their domestic adversaries,push back the Druze, and neutralize the Shi‛ites. Amin, the non-militantGemayel, began his presidency with his partners on the warpath, one of anumber of military components that he hoped would help reconstitute ChristianLebanon.

It did not happen, and it is difficult to imagine how it could have happened.Even if given to wishful thinking, the Americans realized that an IsraelifiedLebanon was not in the cards. Such a creation would only act as a “black hole”down which to pour money and lives. The Reagan administration wanted aLebanese-Israeli agreement that would remove the Israelis from the country andend the pretext for the Syrians to be there. But Israel’s desire for peace wassecondary to its desire for territory, either annexed or as a buffer. Syria also wasnot prepared to reduce its forces supporting those of its Lebanese allies fightingGemayel. Both Israel and Syria could say “no” to a reconstituted Lebanon; bothcould say “no” to the peace process. Both could keep Lebanon as an arena fortheir own competition.

Peace in Lebanon was certainly not merely a matter of getting foreign forcesout; it was also a problem of settling the nasty disputes within. Power for aLebanese President, however, was a matter of getting harmful foreign troops outand helpful ones in. Absorbed in this diplomatic effort, President Gemayel failedto recognize that outsiders had been assaulting an injured, only partly developedbody. For them to leave would have only partially cured the patient. They, infact, did not leave, and the domestic sickness continued apace in 1983.

On January 1, 1983, fierce fighting broke out in Tripoli, continuing the latestround, which had restarted the previous month (December 1982) in that city.Although a number of ceasefires and agreements were negotiated, clashes inTripoli continued throughout the year. The major battle in 1983, however, wasthe one initiated by the Phalangists and Lebanese army aimed at driving theDruze out of the Shūf. This (Christian) advance made some headway at first, butby the end of August, the Druze had begun to recapture those areas of the Shūfthey had lost and had placed themselves, as previously, in a position to threatenthe airport with artillery barrages. This 1983 edition of the Druze-Maroniteconflict was still being fought at the end of the year.

In Beirut, the attempt by the Lebanese army to oust the Shi‛ite militias alsobegan big and gradually faltered. In addition, the Shi‛a, especially the Hizbollahgroup, were able to impose mounting casualties on the Israeli occupation forcesin Lebanon. Their guerrilla activities provided increased, though unstated,incentive for the Begin government to sign an agreement with Gemayel andredeploy south. Sporadic violence also took place in Shtaura, in the Biqā, and inSidon. Major Haddad’s SLA militia opened a garrison in Sidon early in 1983,declaring it a step toward housing troops of the regular army there. The Gemayelgovernment denied the connection, but the Israeli signal was not lost. Begin haddecided that Haddad could claim control over a portion of the south that


extended a full twenty-eight miles north of the Israeli border. This developmentwas intended to help Amin Gemayel make up his mind about the peaceagreement the Israelis wanted.

With the Americans in attendance, this much hassled-over agreement was, infact, signed on May 17, 1983. Special envoy Phillip Habib had participateddirectly in the negotiations. In addition, Secretary of State George Shultz madehis first trip to the Middle East at the end of April, making it credible to theLebanese that the Americans wanted the Israelis completely out of Lebanon.Shultz had earlier rejected an Israeli demand for “listening posts” to be set up inthe south. Thus, the Lebanese could imagine that they would not be left floppinghelplessly in an Israeli net. When the agreement was finalized, it was clear that astate of war had ended. Israel would leave Beirut and move south. Israel was alsoobligated to evacuate all Lebanese territory, but when this would happen was tobe determined by future agreements. (These have never been negotiated, andIsrael occupies a portion of south Lebanon to this day.)6 Although the Americansdid not get what they wanted from Israel, a complete departure of the IDF fromLebanon, they did have to pay for it. Seventy-five F-16s, along with severalother inducements, were the “side payments” needed to get the Israelis to dowhat was in their interest to do anyway, move their military forces out of Beirutwhere they had come under increasing attack by the Shi‛ite guerrillas.

On May 13, Syria formally rejected the agreement, four days before it wassigned on the 17th. On July 20, Israel approved a plan to redeploy to the south,and on August 3 began to move its military forces to points south of the Awaliriver. The IDF also withdrew, ahead of schedule, from the Shūf and, at the sametime, removed the Phalange from Sidon. The effect of these two moves was toincrease the vulnerability of both the Lebanese Forces and the Gemayelgovernment. Druze forces were now able to move freely in the mountains;moreover, Haddad could still threaten Sidon. Obviously, the Israelis meant tokeep pressure on Amin Gemayel. He was in no position to try levering betweenthe two occupiers; either he must accept a partnership with Israel or remainvulnerable to locally-based Lebanese and Syrian forces. These latter would neversupport him.

And vulnerable Gemayel proved to be. On September 1, Walīd Jumblāt(Kamal’s son) declared “a state of war” with the Gemayel government and ruledout any participation on his part in talks concerning national reconciliation.Heavy fighting broke out in the mountains southeast of Beirut on the 4th, and bythe 6th, Druze forces had recaptured Bhamdoun. As in 1845 and 1860, the Druzewere able to surround the town of Dayr al-Qamar, trapping the many thousandsof Christians who had taken refuge there. In fact, the Maronite President was sovulnerable that he was faced once again with having his Christian partners routedby their Muslim adversaries. As in 1860 and 1976, the Maronites hadoverextended themselves, counting on others to bail them out. Who would cometo rescue St George this time—the French, the Americans, the Syrians?


AMERICA ENTANGLED

The Americans, under Robert McFarlane’s guidance, decided to prevent a lostcause from losing. Under the pretext that the Marines guarding the AmericanAmbassador’s residence were being threatened by the Druze forces, McFarlaneordered ships of the Sixth Fleet to open fire on them at Suq al-Gharb. Thisdecision was made over the protests of the commander of the American(peacekeeping) Marines, Colonel Geraghty, who realized that such a movewould compromise American neutrality. Michel Aoun, like his namesake, Tobia,in 1860, was merely losing the first of several battles that would reduce Maronitepower in Lebanon. The American destroyer, John Rodgers, began firing five-inch shells at Druze positions in Suq al-Gharb on September 12, 1983. This littlenoticed event had almost no effect on the military situation up on the mountainridge, but it did compromise American neutrality in the sectarian wars ofLebanon. The Americans had entered on the side of the Christians against theMuslims; they had become vulnerable as well.

On October 19, while Druze, Palestinians, and Syrians were fighting theLebanese army and Phalange in the mountains, President Reagan, in Washington,announced that the Marines would remain in Lebanon. On the 23rd (1983), fourdays later, a truck bomb killed 241 of them. A second bomb, detonated abouttwenty seconds after the first, resulted in the deaths of some 58 Frenchparatroopers, all members of the Multinational Peacekeeping Force. It was, inThomas L.Friedman’s words, “the most brilliant act of terrorism.”7 This bombwas the one act in Ronald Reagan’s program that could not be removed from therecord. He could add the excitement of the Granada invasion but not expunge thepolitical mistakes of Beirut. The force that had been installed there was too smallfor a military role and too large for a purely political role. The men weresacrificed for ill-defined, ill-understood diplomatic purposes.

Who were the truck bombers? Although their identity has not been fullyascertained, it seems likely that they were what Islamic Jihad, in its typical call tothe Agence France Presse, reported them to be: Lebanese Muslims dedicated tothe Koran and to the expulsion of foreigners from Lebanese territory. It is alsolikely that such a large and well-organized operation as the one that destroyedthe American and French compounds had the assistance of Iran and Syria.

Why carry out such a deed? The most likely immediate purpose was toremove the American component from the Christian-Muslim conflict in Lebanon,one that Washington should never have involved itself with in the first place. Asecondary purpose was surely to reduce American influence in the area generally,by demonstrating that only a large, costly commitment of forces could yield theresults which Washington’s policy sought. Although it took some time and anadditional conflict before the United States could extricate itself from the messthat Israel and the Phalangists had caused, the lesson was finally learned. Unableto neglect completely its responsibilities in the area, the United States was forcedto treat the Lebanese question only as part of the overall peace process. The


bombers demonstrated the reality in the only way politicians can understand.They altered the context of involvement for outsiders in Lebanon; they contestedthe power of five-inch shells with the power of plastic explosives.

The context of the involvement was changed in other ways as well. Three daysbefore the bombing, Lebanese factions had agreed to send delegations to Genevafor talks on reconciliation. Eight major Lebanese politicians, including WalīdJumblāt, Nabīh Berri, Camille Chamoun, Suleiman Franjieh, and Pierre Gemayelmade the trip. These, representing Maronite, Druze, Sunni, and Shi’acommunities, met on October 31 to hear Amin Gemayel outline his program forreconstituting Lebanon. Although the atmosphere was frigid, the “Godfathers”did sit down together and agree to two principles: to define Lebanon as a singleArab country and to “freeze” the agreement between Lebanon and Israel until thelatter had completely withdrawn its forces. The Americans were called upon topersuade Israel to leave. The document that was signed opposed the creation ofeither Marounistan or Druzistan, desired by Israel, but also did not formallyabrogate the agreement with Israel as Syria demanded. In Lebanon, too, a fewgestures were made. Jumblāt allowed the Christians trapped in Dayr al-Qamar toleave, and fighting abated somewhat in south Beirut. On most fronts, however,fighting continued as before.

Yet the overall context of war in Lebanon underwent another change in 1983,one involving the PLO regulars under Arafat in the al-Bedawi camp near Tripoli,where (as mentioned above) most had been sent during the evacuation of theprevious year. In late November, Syrian-armed Palestinian rebels began anoffensive against the regulars and, during a campaign intermixed withnegotiations, were able to box in the latter and cut them off from their sources ofsupply. On December 20, while Israeli gunboats shelled their positions, the menof the regular PLO were finally evacuated from Tripoli and transported to theirfuture sanctuary in Tunisia. This vindication of the Israeli invasion was short-lived, however; the PLO was back in force within five years.

While Syria (with Israel’s help) was temporarily changing Palestinian fortunes,another truck bomber succeeded in blowing up an Israeli military installation inTyre, killing forty people. The Syrians also got into the act by shooting downtwo American fighter bombers which were attacking their positions in the Matn,and it was rumored by the Soviets that Washington was planning to launch amajor military offensive in Lebanon. The Soviets probably knew better but notthe Lebanese government. Amin Gemayel continued to push for an Americaninvolvement that would tilt the balance in his favor. The refurbished battleshipNew Jersey, an anachronistic extravagance kept in the fleet to make old moviescome true, arrived on the scene and fired its sixteen-inch guns at the Druze.While its blazing guns might have been valuable for public relations, they had nomilitary effect on the situation in Lebanon. The political aftershock, however,was considerable. On December 22, 1983, the Islamic Jihad issued a newwarning to the United States; hostage taking was to be its next mode of operation.Soon after (December 30), with the regular PLO gone, a relatively new


organization, the Islamic Unification Movement, began to engage in clashes withleftist militias. With the support of Iranian militants, new “committees” wereestablished under the umbrella of the Shi‛ite Hizbollah. Before long these wouldact on Islamic Jihad’s warning.

During the previous two years, there had been a lot of campaigning, bringingdeath, destruction, and drama to the tiny Lebanese arena. It had been a periodwhen major actors had tried to alter the context of relations permanently in theLevant. Yet the fighting went on as it usually went on, in the same places andbetween the same groups. Uncomfortably, the venues of conflict remainedremarkably similar to what they had been in the tenth century BCE, when theAssyrians were poised to move into the area. The Hebrew scriptures tell the storyfrom the inside. This “Old Testament” lives on in the Levant because there is toomuch diversity for insiders to process and too many points of access whereoutsiders may interfere.

NEGLECT AND BEYOND

Fighting continued throughout 1984 as the principal leaders tried to agree on anew political formula. The main fighting took place between the Druze militiaand the Lebanese army, along the Suq al-Gharb ridge and in the environs ofsouth Beirut and West Beirut. The Phalange was locked in a contest with Syrian-backed forces along the Damascus highway and in the Iqlīm al-Kharrūb regionnortheast of Sidon. Firefights between Muslims and Christians along the GreenLine in Beirut also broke out sporadically throughout the year 1984. Althoughseveral conferences were held and a few concessions offered, no perceptibleprogress toward a settlement was made. The total number of incidents continuedto rise: from 118 in 1983 to 122 in 1984. It would go even higher, to 173 in 1985and on to 191 in 1986 (see Figure 10.1).

The Syrian-supported opposition, comprised mostly of the Druze and Amalmilitias, achieved its greatest gains in February 1984 when it was finally able todrive the Lebanese army out of the hills south of Beirut and also from most areasof West Beirut. At this time, Walīd Jumblāt and Nabīh Berri made their most far-reaching demands: a radical change in the Lebanese political formula coupledwith the resignation of President Gemayel and his indictment for crimescommitted against the state. This state, where criminal behavior was almost thenorm and whose apparatus was so nominal as to preclude acting against it, couldhardly have tried its President before a court of law. Moreover, what state? NeitherJumblāt nor Gemayel could have answered that question.

The “state” did experience one of its better moments in early July when, witha Rashid Karāmi cabinet, it managed to get some of the militia’s heavy artilleryremoved from Beirut. Although fighting remained steady, the army was able tobulldoze some barricades along the Green Line, and, late in the year, take controlof some areas of Beirut and Tripoli from the militias.


Other noteworthy events took place in 1984. Having sent an establishedprofessional, Donald Rumsfeld, to consult with Hafiz al-Assad and AminGemayel about a new security plan for Lebanon, Ronald Reagan announced onFebruary 7 that the Marines would soon be withdrawn. In Reagan fashion, thisannouncement was coupled with tough talk to Syria and loud talk from the NewJersey’s sixteen-inch guns. American forces were gone by February 26 (the lastFrench contingents of the Multinational Peacekeeping Force did not leave untilApril 1986). With their soldiers finally out, Reagan officials said (February 27)that the administration would no longer be actively involved in the search forLebanese reconciliation. Although Syria was blamed for standing in the way of asettlement, it was well known that both Damascus and Jerusalem had cooperatedin preventing the American initiative from achieving the desired results. Bothhad claims that could only be settled through a comprehensive settlementprocess. Until the time when pressure for a settlement process could not beavoided, it was relatively inexpensive for both states to hold pieces of Lebanonas bargaining chips to be offered later.

Two political notables died in 1984. Major Sa‛ad Haddad, principal organizerof the South Lebanese Army (SLA), died on January 14, and longtime politicalleader and founder of the Phalange, Pierre Gemayel, died on August 29. ColonelAntoine Lahoud replaced Major Haddad as head of the SLA on April 4, 1984 whilethe relatively unknown Elie Karamah was elected to replace Sheikh Pierre asSecretary of the Katā‛ib politburo. In both cases, disintegration followed death.Serious divisions in the Phalange (many of them due to Bashir) had alreadypreceded Pierre’s passing, and these widened. For the SLA, the breakup was soserious that the Israelis had to provide the political cement needed to keep itintact. Indeed, problems with the fissiparous SLA forced Israel to remain in thefar south of Lebanon even though the Labor government of Shimon Peres (inpower in 1984) wanted to leave.

Individual Americans also first became targets in 1984. On January 18, aShi‛ite gunman assassinated the President of the American University of Beirut,Malcolm H.Kerr. Islamic Jihad took credit for the deed. A truly deep and well-educated scholar of Middle East politics, only a very few will fully realize thetremendous loss for Lebanon and the region that Kerr’s death represents. Hecould have helped and was willing to help. Certainly he was needed. Yet, he wasbut the first of many victims, people who, for the most part, were not destroyingbut building in the Levant.

During the next two months, foreigners working in Lebanon increasinglybecame the targets for the radical militias. The CIA station chief, WilliamBuckley, was captured (March 16) and later murdered. On May 8, Ben Weir, alongtime church leader, was taken, becoming one of the first to be releasedeighteen months later. In early summer, diplomats seemed to have become fairgame for the many new mysterious “committees.” The Austrian consul was shotand killed on June 23; a Libyan diplomat was captured on the same day;UNWRA stated that its staff was in danger; the Soviets were rocketed on July


20; and on September 20, twenty-three Lebanese personnel died in a bomb blastat the American Embassy annex. Actions were also increasing against Israelioccupation forces. On October 21, Israel announced its 600th military fatality inLebanon since the beginning of the 1982 invasion. At least half of these werepost-invasion losses, i.e., casualties of the occupation. The “foreigner” was notwelcome in Lebanon.

Were there any bright spots in 1984? President Amin Gemayel opened asecond reconciliation conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, calling for an end to“nine years of insane and continuous war.”8 The leaders then agreed to a totaland strict ceasefire. However, the old zu‛āma who met in Switzerland were notreally in control of their militia commanders operating in Lebanon, andhostilities intensified.

A little light shone through the gloom when Israel cooperated in sponsoring aceasefire and military disengagement in the Kharrūb region in late March (1984)and also helped keep the calm by not retaliating against the Gemayelgovernment when it abrogated the peace agreement of the previous year. Duringthe Israeli Labor Party’s turn to hold power under the national unity agreement,the Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, also agreed to new talks with Gemayel (heldin October and November) on the question of further withdrawals of IDF forces.Generally, Labor’s policy toward Lebanon, in contrast to the approach of theopposition Likud Party, offered some hope for those interested in a settlement.

In January and April of 1985, Israel did, in fact, pull back from Sidon andTyre to a security zone ten miles wide, just north of its border with Lebanon.Israel explained that its plans for a complete withdrawal were postponed becausethe SLA was too weak and fragmented to preserve security in the area. Jezzīnserved as the northernmost fortified point for this SLA-Israeli security zone.Syria and the PSP were poised to the north and east of this town. Both countrieswere cooperating in holding Lebanon hostage to the peace process.

There were talking sessions and peace plans in 1984, but the fightingcontinued. Some leaders tried to initiate dialogue, but a sense of helplessnessdominated. For each peacemaker there were dozens of mystery figures preparedto sabotage any attempt at progress. While none of the players could have hisway, each could prevent the others from having theirs, and the stalematecontinued.

Syria hoped to stay in Lebanon to stop Israel and preferred some geographicalintegrity for the Levant. Israel, on the other hand, wanted territory and bufferareas; it hoped for the cantonization of the area. President Reagan was happy tokeep his distance from Lebanon having once fallen into the country’s bottomlesspit of conflict. Amin Gemayel just wanted to be President of a reconstitutedLebanon but was unable to extricate himself from his own Maronite extremists.The Druze and Shi’ites were allies of Syria and Iran but not completelysubordinate to either country. The Christians usually called for a Syrianwithdrawal to take place in tandem with that of the Israelis. The rebel opposition,on the other hand, claimed that Syria was Arab, had been asked to intervene, had


not invaded as had Israel, and had given the necessary support to bring about anew formula fair to all the Lebanese communities. This opposition insisted onusing Syria just as Bashir Gemayel had tried to use Israel, as a weight to add toits side in the domestic struggle. Lebanese leaders were caught in an impossibletrap, the proverbial “catch 22.” They could only make those deals that outsiderswould agree to while outsiders could only agree to prevent the Lebanese frommaking deals.

HOPELESS DIVISION

By the time writers on the Lebanese imbroglio get to the year 1985, they areexhausted and begin to ignore the details in favor of selected vignettes. The warsituation by then had deteriorated to such confusion and banality that it couldhardly be called war. It was, instead, violence, bloodletting, kidnapping,skirmishing, and conferring. A myriad of organizations, factions, militias, andarmed gangs fought for territory and political position or, as often as not, foughtjust to keep the fighting going. There were not only too many groups and toomany outsiders funding them but also too little control of the groups by theirleaderships. Outside powers supported communal organizations but could notcontrol them; these organizations, in turn, conducted political activities on behalfof militia commanders but could not control them; and the commanders handedout supplies and paid for maneuvering and sniping but could not control howtheir fighters used their guns. Although the intercommunal pattern of warfarecould still be discerned—Muslims against Christians and rebels against the statusquo—there was also no group that was not, at times, shooting at a former ally.The situation seemed to defy purpose or pattern.

The Christian community was hopelessly divided, mostly by geographicalregion with skirmishing along the margins. (These divisions, of course, weredeepened by Bashir’s attempts to eliminate his Christian competitors.) Thelargest Christian sect, the Maronites, were themselves split into three main groups:south central, the Chamouns; central, the Gemayels; and north, the Franjiehs.Moreover, each of these three Maronite sectors was itself factioned. In the north,Suleiman Franjieh had Phalangist competitors (as well as his traditionalDuwayhi rivals). In the central districts, the Gemayel organization was dividedbetween the heritage of Pierre, the Phalangist regulars, and that of Bashir, theLebanese Forces (who were led at different times by such persons as Fādi Frem,Samir Ja‛ja, Elie Hobeika, and even Solange Gemayel, Bashir’s wife. PresidentAmin Gemayel’s linkages were with the regular Phalanges and, eventually, withthe Lebanese army under General Michel Aoun. As for the south central area, itwas divided between Chamoun’s National Liberals and various Phalangistfactions. Yet, even Chamoun’s organization was partly split. When the fatherstepped down as party leader on August 24, 1985 (after twenty-seven years), andwas replaced by his younger son, Dany Chamoun, a group of NLP officials (withthe support of the Lebanese Forces) denounced the appointment. Even the


Christian-led South Lebanese Army, could hardly be termed Maronite and waspartly soldiered by Shi‛ites. It was also Israel’s hired militia.

The other communities, during this period, were just as badly divided. Sunninationalists fought Sunni fundamentalists in Tripoli, and Sunni Nasserists foughtSunni Palestinians in Sidon. The Shi‛ites were split both geographically andideologically; the latter division corresponded significantly with differences inoutside support. In Beirut and points south, the Syrian-supported Amal foughtfor territory and political position with the Iranian-supported Hizbollah (and itsseveral offshoots). Amal also joined up with the Druze (PSP) militia to do battlewith Arafat’s regulars in the Palestinian refugee camps. Early in the war (1976),Kamal Jumblāt had staked his political position on the need to give support to thePLO cause. In fact, PLO forces were the key to the brief period of militarysuccess for the PSP when, in late 1976 and early 1977, their coalition had theMaronites on the run. Even as recently as 1983, Palestinians (from a non-Arafatfaction) had helped the Druze capture Bhamdoun from the Phalangists. Ofcourse, the PSP and Amal have also fought the Palestinians, sometimes as allies,sometimes separately.9

Discovering which outside power supported which military group also seemedto defy pattern and purpose. Syria helped Amal and the PSP in their conflict withthe PLO regulars (although, earlier, Syria had seen to it that PSP founder, KamalJumblāt, was murdered). The Phalangist regulars conferred fitfully but often withSyria while, during Amin’s term as President, the Lebanese Forces wing of thePhalange resisted Syrian influence and looked to Israel for support. On the otherhand, Israel’s mortal enemy, Iraq, ended up giving support to some of the samemilitary elements which Jerusalem had earlier funded. Both Iraq and Israelopposed Syria and, at different times, acted to contain its influence among theLebanese factions.

Syria had additional friends in Lebanon (at various times), e.g., a LebaneseForces faction led by Elie Hobeika as well as former President Franjieh (wholong enjoyed business and political relations with the Assads and preferredSyrian support to that of Israel). Libya, too, was a financial backer of the Amal-PSP, pro-Syrian coalition, while also assisting the more radical Lebanese andPalestinian groups. Iran also was very much involved, supporting Hizbollah inBeirut and both Hizbollah and Islamic Amal in the Biqā region. Fundamentalistselsewhere, in Tripoli for example, were also able to get Iran’s support.

Even though the Lebanese and Palestinian groups took support from outsiders,they inevitably remained on the fence politically. Therefore, it was impossible todraw clear-cut battle lines that pointed the way toward some kind of militaryoutcome. For those on the inside, there was no promising strategy to look for. Thenumber of opponents was beyond strategy. As for outsiders, they were content justto compete in Lebanon. There, the great number of adversaries kept thecompetition conveniently open for whatever opportunity arose.


BOMBS, HOSTAGES, AND HIJACKINGS

The situation in Lebanon during 1985–6 hardened; everyone seemed at a loss asto where to turn. The major developments at this time were the sharp increase inthe number of violent incidents, up about one-third from the previous year; thepractice of taking Western hostages; and the immense number of splits thatemerged as groups maneuvered for position. During the first half of 1985, a carbomb killed (or wounded) fifty people in Sidon on January 22; an explosion in amosque in Ma‛raka killed fifteen on March 4; another car bomb killed nearlyeighty in the Shi‛ite suburb of Bir al-Abd four days later; a third car bombexploded on May 22, killing approximately fifty persons including children on aschool bus; and a Tripoli car bomb resulted in the deaths of seventy-five on June19.

Hostage taking, which had begun tentatively the year before, developed into amajor activity for the several Hizbollah committees operating in Beirut andBa‛albek. Father Jenco, William Sutherland, Terry Anderson, and DavidJacobson were all grabbed. A few French and British citizens, including TerryWaite, were taken a few months later. By early September, these Shi’itefundamentalists had captured twelve Western hostages. They announced BenWeir’s release on September 16 but also that William Buckley had been killed onOctober 4 in retaliation for Israel’s bombing of the PLO headquarters in Tunis. Itwas not until the summer of 1992 that the last two hostages were released.

Another marquee event in 1985 was the June 14 hijacking of a TWA airlinerbound from Athens to Rome. It flew to several locations before finally ending upin Beirut. US Navy diver Robert Stethem was shot dead and thrown off the planeonto the tarmac. A few of the passengers were released, some in trade fordemands made by the hijackers. Nabīh Berri, leader of the Amal Shi’ite militia,offered to mediate the stalemate and managed eventually to get the remainingthirty-nine passengers taken off the aircraft and placed under his custody. Thissaga ended when, after seventeen days in captivity, the hostages were handedover in exchange for an “unlinked” release of 300 Arab prisoners (detainees)Israel had been holding. Berri’s stock rose considerably as a result of this event.Unfortunately, the outcome also suggested that kidnapping and hostage takingworked as a means by which radical zealots could exercise power. Otherwiseimpotent, they could, in this fashion, hold the world in thrall.

Various parties were also militarily active, maneuvering for position inanticipation of Syrian-sponsored talks. On January 16, 1985, the Prime Minister,Rashid Karāmi, announced new security measures for Beirut, but gunmen fromthe Kurds, al-Marābitūn, the PSP, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and theAmal movement rushed to set up check points and prevent the implementation ofthe plan. Bombs soon began taking their regular, deadly toll. Many people,including several governments did not want the security plan to succeed. Karāmiwould not live to make another attempt.


On March 11, the Phalangist politburo expelled Samir Ja‛ja from the partyafter he refused to hand over a checkpoint he controlled on the Beirut-Tripolihighway. Ja‛ja soon formed a rebel group that (at the time) opposed cooperatingwith Syria in favor of working for a confederation of mini states in Lebanon.After deposing Fu‛ād Abu Nadir, the commander of the Lebanese Forces, Ja‛jawas eventually able to take that position for himself and compete with the parentorganization that had expelled him. Although the Lebanese army intervened onseveral occasions, the two wings of the Phalange fought one another off and onthroughout most of 1985. After their spring battles died down during thesummer, fighting broke out again on September 12, followed by mutualassassination attempts in late December.

It was not entirely clear who was trying to assassinate whom in the Phalangistentourage at this time. Unfortunately, the vendetta between the two wings of thePhalangists was complicated even more by the defection of Elie Hobeika, whodecided to take an independent stance on the Syrian-sponsored peace accordsigned in Damascus on December 28, 1985. Having broken with the hardlinerswithin the Lebanese Forces, Hobeika (all at once) was strongly in favor ofcooperating with Syria. The moral wellsprings for his sudden attachment to theSyrians are not easy to discern. Whatever the case, he did, at this time, become athird, intermittently influential, wing of the Phalangist organization and, like theothers, engaged in assassinations.

Pierre Gemayel’s political creation had gone to pieces. The chief negotiatorfor the Lebanese Forces, As‛ad al-Shaftāri, and Phalangist loyalist, AminGemayel, were targets of assassination attempts in 1985. In addition, Ja‛ja’s andGemayel’s groups were soon trading fire after the peace accord was signed inDamascus on December 28. Hobeika, Berri, and Jumblāt—unlikely comrades—signed this document which announced the end of Lebanon’s civil war.Consorting with these enemies could have meant that Elie Hobeika had beentargeted for assassination. Significantly, Samir Ja‛ja, formally Hobeika’s deputybut actually in control of the militia, did not sign the Damascus accord. PresidentAmin Gemayel stated his hope that the agreement would bring peace to Lebanonbut then did nothing to prevent his Phalangist allies from sabotaging it. Onepiece of Pierre Gemayel’s organization had signed the accord with Syria; anotherpiece had given it lip service; a third had opposed it violently. The old Katā‛ibwas in tatters.

By the end of 1985, there were three discernible segments of the Phalangistorganization led by Gemayel, Ja‛ja, and Hobeika respectively. The mostlyMaronite Phalangists, however, were only the central portion of three majorgroups making up the larger community, those led by the Chamouns, theGemayels, and the Franjiehs. The Sunni community was also divided roughlyinto three major groups, determined to some extent by the three major cities,Sidon, Beirut, and Tripoli, where large numbers of this sect lived. Beirut Sunnisalso seem to fall approximately into radical revolutionary, centrist governmental,and conservative religious categories, a three-way segmentation of interests. One


finds establishment, Amal, and Hizbollah Shi‛ites as three political tendenciesor, perhaps, three distributions of the sect geographically: those of the JabalAmil (far south), those in the south and west sectors of Beirut, and those living inthe Ba‛albek and Hermil districts of the Biqā Valley. The Shi‛ites have even hadthree outside sponsors in Syria (Amal), Iran (Hizbollah), and SLA-Israel(although, in fact, only a few Shi‛ites were ever active in the SLA militia).

Lebanon seems to suggest a factor which might be termed the “rule of three.”In a society of amoral relativists, where traditional ties are not broad enough toprovide a national cement, politics becomes exclusively concerned with puretactics and the unending maneuver for immediate advantage. Trust is notavailable, detachment unknown, and expediency the only guide. In such a world,where only force and fear control behavior, all organizations naturally fly apartas fights and games leave a constant stream of winners and losers. Winnersinevitably overextend themselves; losers start new organizations. The numberthree represents a reduction to the smallest coalition, the most particularisticaggregate for which majority rule (and coalition behavior) is possible. The “ruleof three” simply says that groups in a society of amoral relativists, supposedly heldtogether by some shared principle but actually controlled by little more than theplay of power, will divide into the smallest coalition possible. Doing so allowseach player to try to be the last added factor on a minimally winning coalitionwith the least investment in trust—a non-force means of controlling behavior.The reciprocal result of all and sundry following coalition behavior is for no oneto adhere to any principle that admits of limitation on means. Thus, no generalprinciple can shape expectations and control behavior.

To lead all of the Maronites against their opponents, for example, requirestrusting and accommodating a lot of people. First of all, it is necessary tomaintain the fiction of a single, identifiable Maronite community, held togetherby principles and traditions that suggest common interests because otherwise,why be a Maronite? Why identify the enemies of that community? It is easier,however, where nothing but power controls, to lead only a third of thecommunity and substitute coalition behavior for trust. Three is the most efficient-effective number; it is least destructive to the fiction of the identifiable whole andmost economical to employ as a substitute for trust. Indeed, it is the mostefficient majority rule system available.

Similarly, to lead all the fighters of the “Lebanonist” Maronites requires thetrust and accommodation of a lot of people, many of them violent andconspiratorial in behavior. As the implementation of Phalangist “principles”works itself out reciprocally, a leader is forced to use coalitions against those hecannot trust. The others must do the same. The number three permits anestablishment view, an opposition view, and a pivot between. A number largerthan three allows the enemy to win; a number smaller than three either means afight or domination.10 Thus, where the imperatives of power are the only guidesto action, organizations should break down into three competing factions as theyseem to do in Lebanon.


Israel, Syria, and Lebanon, after 1978, have also been trapped in a three-waystruggle for power. These three governments have served, in a fashion, asoutsiders relative to the local militias. The locals, on the other hand, have foundtheir difficulties with policy and personnel compounded by the interference ofthe governments. Again and again, it was clear that some bankrolling neighborsdid not want Lebanon’s civil war to end. The various hot spots that were cooleddown from time to time were only kept that way temporarily until a combinationof the inside and outside could heat them up again.

Such was the case with Syria’s involvement in Tripoli. Throughout 1985,fighting occurred there intermittently, mostly between Syrian-supported groupsspearheaded by the anti-traditional Black Knights and the Islamic UnificationFront (al-Tawhīd). The latter were Sunni fundamentalists who held the center ofthe city. On September 28, 1985, a coalition of leftist militia groups attacked theTawhīd resistance and, after a series of assaults, captured several positionscontrolled by the fundamentalists. On October 5, a Syrian-sponsored ceasefiretemporarily ended the bloody encounter and left Damascus with a marginallyenhanced position. Hafiz al-Assad could hardly want to protect the radicals, buthe also did not find Islamic fundamentalism any more to his liking in Tripolithan in Hama. In Tripoli, however (unlike Hama), he could not buryfundamentalism under the rubble of the bombed-out city; he could only containit.

When not taking potshots at each other, the Amal-PSP alliance succeededgenerally in extending its power, subduing (for a time) the Arafat elements tryingto make a comeback in the large refugee camps of Sidon and south Beirut.Although the outcome of their efforts was anything but conclusive, the Amal-PSP combination did contain the Palestinians, leaving the more radical factions(PFLP and PFLP-GC) in superior positions. As in Tripoli, Syria’s hand wasinvolved and her position strengthened.

In 1984, Palestinians and Nasserites had clashed in Sidon; Amal and Hizbollahhad fought in Beirut; periodic shooting had broken out across the Green Line;and the SLA had disintegrated to the point that Israel had to begin directing itsoperations. In 1984, Israel had also fought a limited tank battle with the Syrians.The next year was to witness more of the same and worse.

On August 23, 1985, Israel initiated the practice of shelling military positionsalong the coast and, on December 4, attacked Palestinian positions in the BiqāValley. As for President Gemayel, he was trapped by the Syrians who armed hisPSP opponents and by the Israelis who armed his Phalangist opponents. Only theUnited States could have rescued him, but the Reagan administration wassensibly wary of Lebanon. Gemayel did make numerous trips to Damascus andended up the year by agreeing to the Syrian-sponsored peace accord.Unfortunately, the President could not deliver enough of his Christian side tomake the accord worthwhile (assuming that he had ever wanted to). For manyMaronites, Syria was more of a threat than Israel; the former, after all, had(recent) historic claims to Lebanon.


If there was any trend to be discerned in 1985, it was that Syria’s influencehad increased significantly while Lebanon’s leaders had done little more thantread water. They had been unable to make any serious moves to change thepolitical formula under which the country’s government could operate in thefuture. A suggestion, in this regard, came from a most unlikely source, SuleimanFranjieh, one of the authors of Lebanon’s downfall. On August 29, after ameeting with former Presidents Hilū and Chamoun, Franjieh rejected Muslimproposals to end Lebanon’s political confessionalism but, soon after, did broachhis own “thirteen-point” plan (with the implied assent of the other two formerPresidents). Franjieh’s plan would have retained the presidency for the Maronitesbut given Muslims equal representation in the Chamber of Deputies. This wasneither a new nor sufficient concession, but it was a step, one that indirectlylinked Chamoun to Assad.

VIOLENCE AND STALEMATE

But before a Syrian-Maronite-Muslim combination could be assembled to regaincontrol over Lebanese territory and stop the violence, the country, starting in1986, had to endure another half-decade of chaos. Although the scale of violenceand destruction was not as great as during the worst days of civil war andinvasion, the number of individual incidents of violence was higher. The numberof these acts continued to rise throughout the early 1980s, reaching a high of 197in 1986 and remaining between 165 and 175 from then until the middle of 1990when the designated head of state, General Michel Aoun, was defeated by aSyrian force and ousted from B‛abdā Palace (see Figure 9.1). While the numberof car bombings slacked off somewhat in 1986, all the old venues hosted theircustomary battles and a few new ones opened up. Some hostages were let go,but, unfortunately, other persons were captured to replace them. Israel becamemore overt in taking military action in the south, and Syria cautiously butrelentlessly expanded its influence throughout the rest of Lebanon. AminGemayel’s indecision, along with increased factionalism, greatly assisted Syriain her purposes. Although Syrian power grew, she did not “sail on a summersea.” The PLO regulars also began to filter back into Lebanon, where the Amalmilitia and the Syrian army fought them for most of the year.11

At the very end of the previous year (December 28), the Syrians had managedto get Hobeika, Berri, and Jumblāt to sign a tripartite accord. It was Lebanon’stenth peace plan to end the civil strife, and most observers saw it as just anothermeaningless agreement. On the other hand, this accord did link Franjieh(Marda‛ite Brigades); Hobeika (one wing of the Lebanese Forces); Berri (Amalmilitia); and Jumblāt (PSP militia) with the Syrians. Damascus also believed thatthis time they had persuaded President Gemayel to cooperate in the agreement.Had he done so, quite a bit of Lebanon’s firepower would have beenprovisionally cemented together. In early 1986, the chances for a generalsettlement seemed to have improved.


But Amin Gemayel temporized. Although he gave a verbal commitment toabide by the accord, the President faced a major split in the Maronite ranks. Amajor gap developed between Elie Hobeika and Samir Ja‛ja over not only thisaccord, but the degree to which the Lebanese should depend on the Syrians.Gemayel finally made up his mind not to sign the accord, it seems, when hismilitia supporters along with those of Ja‛ja defeated Hobeika’s forces, sending




the latter into exile. Samir Ja‛ja then formally replaced Hobeika as commanderof the Lebanese Forces and was in a nominal alliance with the regular Phalangeas well as with Amin Gemayel. It is likely that General Aoun, who was leadingthe army forces against the leftists in the central mountains at this time, was thedecisive factor in the President’s decision not to join the others in signing theSyrian-brokered accord.

Elie Hobeika, one of the principals in the slaughter of the Palestinians at Sabraand Shatila, also tried to make a comeback in 1986. Following a briefdisappearance, Hobeika soon surfaced in Damascus looking for support in hisstruggle to gain control of the main Maronite militias. His record against Arafatregulars, perhaps, attracted him to the Syrians; clearly they needed a Maroniteforce in order to have any hope of getting hostilities under control in Lebanonand becoming that country’s major protector. Hobeika, for his part, seems tohave concluded that Israel would never give the Christians enough support toenable them to regain their hegemony in Lebanon. Moreover, by this time, Syriawas his only major backer.

Samir Ja‛ja and Elie Hobeika had long been rivals in the community ofMaronite militias. While clashes between the two had occurred both in April andAugust 1986, the big showdown between them took place in late September.Hobeika led a force of his Christians plus an assemblage of Syrian-backedMuslims from West Beirut into East Beirut. This move marked the first timeduring the entire eleven-year war that any force had attempted such a crossing.The battle began on September 27, 1986 and lasted three days, costing at leastone hundred casualties. The Ja‛ja-Gemayel combination was able to defeatHobeika’s bid for power and briefly reduce Syrian influence. New splits,however, soon developed, offering Syria renewed opportunities to play the field.

The newcomer to Lebanon might have had difficulty conceptualizing how theSyrian-backed wing of the Lebanese Forces (wing of the Phalange Party) couldpossibly try to defeat the future Syrian wing of the Lebanese Forces (wing of thePhalange Party) when the latter had the assistance of both the regular Phalangistsand elements from the Lebanese army (led by General Aoun in coalition withPresident Gemayel, son of the founder of the Phalangists but not a leader of anyof its wings). It would not have been easy to gain such a victory unlessDamascus had been willing to commit their Amal allies to the Muslimcontingents (in the rump LF) as part of a momentary coalition. Had all theseseparate groups been dressed in different colored uniforms, they could have atleast prevented themselves from shooting at the wrong people. Did anyone haveany idea what they were fighting for?

Gemayel’s (Ja‛ja) victory was his eventual downfall, for he was then forced toturn away from the family militias for support. The President’s ensuingresistance to change in the political formula for Lebanon also meant that the greaterweights of regional power would remain arrayed against him. Israel’s onlyinterest in Lebanon was to paralyze it; America and France could never commitmore than good offices and rhetoric. Could Iraq become the new benefactor for


the Maronites? Except for the parti cular moment, the immediate tacticalrequirement, who was kidding whom?

The Green Line was especially dangerous throughout 1986 as Muslims andChristians traded fire intermittently all year long. In addition, snipers took aheavy toll on innocent civilians. Battles between the Aoun brigade of theLebanese army and Syrian-supported leftists led by the PSP continued in the areaof Suq al-Gharb and near Bikfāya, the Gemayel’s home town. Tripoliexperienced a relatively quiet year (under the control of Syrian-supportedmilitias and the Syrian army); however, late in the year (December 20–25),Syrian troops fought a pitched battle and conducted raids against the al-Tawhīdfundamentalists. The war in the south continued with Shi‛ite guerrillas largelysupplanting the Palestinians as major problems for Israel and the SLA. Bothleftist Lebanese and Palestinian groups also remained active in this sector. PoorZahleh, quiet for the previous two years, experienced a car bombing on October14 that injured seven people. The Armenian Tashnāq Party and its rival, theArmenian Revolutionary Union, resumed their struggle after a four-year lull. Inthe Biqā, Syrian-supported SSNP militias carried on a number of pitched battleswith the Iranian-sponsored Hizbollah fighters based in Ba‛albek. In the south, onthe other hand, Hizbollah fighters were allied with the Syrian-backed Amalmilitia against the Palestinians, especially in the contest to control Maghdūshah,a hilltop town directly above the Tapline petroleum facility. Their cooperation,however, was only momentary, an episode in the larger drama of Shi‛itecompetition with the regular PLO and Lebanese Communists attempting to holdthe area. That Hizbollah could be at war with a Syrian-supported militia in theBiqā while allied with another Syrian-supported militia in south Lebanon onlymakes sense in a mosaic political culture like that in the Levant.12

Lebanon, at this time, was the battleground for many separate but interlockingconflicts. In the south, four of these interlocking conflicts were occurring. Themost serious of these, to which the Syrians had committed large resources, wasthat between the Shi‛ite Amal organization and the Sunni Palestinians belongingto the PLO regulars of Yasir Arafat. The second of these was the ongoingstruggle between the Israeli-backed SLA and a loose coalition of radicals in thesouth—non-PLO Palestinians, SSNP, Communists, and some Hizbollah Shi‛ites.A third contest continued between the Christians and Muslims in the southcentral areas, battles that consumed villages in the Shūf and Kharrūb areas andspread as far as Sidon. Here the PSP and Amal often cooperated but sometimesran into the opposition of Sidon’s independent Nasserites. The fourth conflictwas the very general one between the fundamentalists and radicals, mostprominently expressed in the intense and bitter rivalry between the Amal andHizbollah organizations in Beirut and in the southern Jabal Amil region. Locally,turf was at stake in these contests, and regionally, state relations stimulated them.The great number of factions and splinters of factions fighting each other lent acertain surrealism to the lethal landscape—as if the battles were really old feudalengagements wrapped up in modern garb.


TURF BATTLES

The most destructive campaign in Lebanon during the 1986–7 season pitted theShi‛ite Amal against the regular PLO over the question of who controlled thecamps. Perhaps the main reason for the struggle was Nabīh Berri’s briefinternational “place in the sun” during the TWA hijacking at Beirut airport in1985. He was able to use this incident, and the long-drawn saga that ensued, tomake a major bid for power in south Lebanon. With the recognition gained fromsuccessfully getting the TWA hostages returned and with Syrian backing, Berriwas ready to make himself the key international factor in Lebanon.Unfortunately, the Palestinian camps stood in his way, both territorially andideologically. Having acquired new arms and personnel, the Palestinians acted asa barrier between the Shi‛ite poor in the eastern and southern sectors of Beirutand the Amal strongholds in West Beirut. Prevented by the camps fromexpanding, the Amal was faced with losing the hearts of the shantytown Shi‛itesto Hizbollah missionaries who were relatively free to recruit them. Amal onlyoffered posters of Nabīh Berri and its brand of Shi’ite renaissance; Hizbollahoffered pictures of the Ayatollah Khomeini and a chance to fight for God.Amal’s effort to make a hero of Berri could hardly compete with Hizbollah’smartyrs.

Both Syria and Iran, on separate occasions, tried to work out a set ofarrangements among the Amal, Hizbollah, Palestinian, PSP, and Murābitūnrivals in West Beirut and south Beirut. But too many armed groups werestruggling for territory generally; three of them, in particular, were pushing toimprove their positions.13 The Palestinian regulars had also come back; theywere armed and ready to reassert themselves. As mentioned above, the refugeecamps stood directly in the way of Berri’s chances to win in the competition forthe allegiance of the Shi‛ite slumdwellers. Since Syria had fought Arafat butsupported Amal while Iran backed the Palestinians but aided Hizbollah, thecamps, in terms of their position and the claims of their inhabitants, helpedHizbollah and thwarted Amal (see Figure 9.2).

Had the Palestinian leaders in the camps been able to act prudently, theymight have profited from their territorial pivotality. Unhappily, factions in theShatila camp actually fought each other within the PLO to determine whichdirection the armed struggle would take. A Palestinian decision to press on withthe war (against Israel) was not in the interests of either Assad or Berri at this time,and it is possible that they took action to instigate discord among the Palestinianfactions. Fighting between PLO forces in the camps and the Amal had alreadybroken out in the fall of 1985, mostly as a by-product of the intermittent clashesbetween the latter and Hizbollah, and intensified in 1986. The conflict betweentwo Shi‛ite militias caused similar outbreaks in the south among Palestinians(1985–6) in and near Sidon.

After a few skirmishes in the fall of 1985, the Amal-Palestinian war subsidedfor a time while Nabīh Berri was busy with Jumblāt and Hobeika working with


Figure 9.2 Areas of strife and turf battles



Syria on the “secret” accord mentioned above. At the end of January 1986,however, fighting again erupted. Meetings were held on the “security situation inWest Beirut” that seemed to call for several inter-locking settlements—Amal andthe PSP had also been engaged in the area and were fighting for control of thevillages along the coast south of Beirut. Again, there was a lull as the ceasefireseemed to hold, but on March 31, 1986, battles broke out again and continued onthroughout the year and into 1987. By the time they had ended, the main threecamps in the Beirut area—Sabra, Shatila, and Burj al-Burājneh—weredevastated. Once again, the Arafat loyalists lost out, and their losses were evengreater than those they had suffered at the hands of the Christians four yearsearlier.

But the flattened Sabra and Shatila camps were not the whole story. The largerstory was about the camps’ inhabitants who, because they had no other place togo (permanently), had to suffer from the prolonged bombardment that occurredduring sieges such as the one that occupied the Amal and the PLO during mostof 1986. The militia fighters seldom saw fit to storm each other’s positions butgenerally lobbed ordinance on each other’s assets. Thus, only the noncombatantswere sacrificed, and the fighters could stay alive long enough to collect their payduring the next timeout, i.e., ceasefire. People confined to underground hidingplaces must have also noticed that the only winners were manufacturers ofweapons and that, during this period, there was no effort by the countries whichproduced them to limit their entry into Lebanon.

Robert Fisk recounts the following incident that sent two erstwhile coalitionpartners into a fracas in April 1985. As the Israelis were redeploying in early1985, there ensued a mad scramble to control the areas which they had occupied.The heaviest fighting broke out between the Lebanese Forces and the Amal-PSPcoalition (including the Palestinians) near Sidon and the villages east and northof that city. The Phalangists began to lose and, during their withdrawal, theChristian villagers were also forced to flee as Druze and Shi‛ite troops moved in.Approximately 17,000 Christian families fled to Jezzīn and eventually to Beirut.Moreover, the territorial takeover that ensued was the highpoint of Amal-PSP(Syrian) military success. These two forces, with Syrian support, were able tocontrol the Shūf, the Iqlīm al-Kharrūb (northeast of Sidon), and the villagesalong the coast between Sidon and Beirut. By cooperating in an assault on theirformer allies, the Murābitūn, this Amal-PSP coalition had also gained atemporary upper hand in West Beirut. Rounding out the contestants were Amaland Hizbollah, who, at this time, were also involved in the scramble for territory.

One of the Maronite villages taken during this campaign was Jīyeh, locatedjust under the hills of the Shūf and a few miles south of Damour, the coastalentry to Dayr al-Qamar and Beit al-Din. Newspaper correspondents were invitedto see what atrocities the Christians had committed before they were driven out.When journalists arrived, Amal-PSP officials showed them the deserted houses ofthe villagers, the desecrated Maronite church, and the corpses of those villagersand local (Muslim) officials whom the Phalangists had reportedly kidnapped and


murdered.14 After the brief public relations stint had been taken care of, and thejournalists were back in Beirut, the Druze forces dynamited the church while theAmal troops handed over the local houses to impoverished Shi‛ites from theslums of south Beirut. A week later, however, a PSP-Druze force arrived anddrove the squatters out, not wanting the Shi‛ite community so close to their ownhomes in the Shūf. The “socialist hope” for the slum dwellers had to beabandoned. Only a few days had passed when a series of clashes eruptedbetween the Amal and the PSP components of this recently successful coalition.The fight was on—not for progress, but turf.15

The year 1987 saw the Lebanese quagmire deepen in complexity andambiguity. PLO forces continued to slip back into the country, intensifying theviolence between themselves and the Amal group as the “camp wars” keptgoing. Hizbollah, meanwhile, increased its activity both against the SLA in thesouth and against foreigners in Beirut. In the south, the Israeli-established SLAwas getting “clobbered” by its Hizbollah enemies, attracting an intensified Israeliresponse in the form of helicopter gunships and fighter bombers.16 (Wobblyallies were a valuable pretext for conducting military exercises.) In Beirut, a newround of abductions occurred when, on January 24, four members of the BeirutUniversity College—Mithileshwar Singh, Jesse Turner, Robert Pohill, and AlannSteen—were kidnapped. This followed on the heels of the capture of aFrenchman, a Saudi, and two Germans, doubling the number of hostages held bythe several wings of the Hizbollah organization and factions of the Palestinians.Finally, Terry Waite, on a mission to gain the release of the hostages, washimself taken on January 27.

By the end of 1987 and the beginning of 1988, most observers spoke aboutLebanon in words that conveyed a sense of total futility. Factionalism actuallyincreased; assassinations and hostage taking went on as before; and theubiquitous bomb continued to send its deadly message.

The leftists attempted to create a single front, led by Amal and the PSP, but itcame apart and new fronts, radical and ultra-radical, were put together. Amalfought its erstwhile Druze allies, its Shi‛ite brothers, and then they fought oneanother over leadership in the south. Palestinian fighters, besieged by Amal, alsofought each other for leadership positions within Ein el-Hilweh camp. TheLebanese Forces militia, led by Samir Ja‛ja, fought with its parent Phalangistorganization in East Beirut. In the small village of al-Kūfah, two Syrian SocialNational Party factions, one led by Isām al-Mahayri, the other by Jubrān Jaraysh,fought until separated by Syrian army troops. At Burj al-Barājneh camp, forces ofthe Amal, led by Hāni Izz al-Din, engaged another Amal faction led by Sa‛idMuhanna. They disagreed on the imposition of protection payments.

The year 1987 may also have been the worst for assassinations, both successfuland otherwise. The most significant loss occurred on June 1, 1987 when a bombput on board an army helicopter killed Rashid Karāmi, Sunni leader from Tripoliand often Prime Minister (as he was at the time of his murder). He wasreportedly killed because he refused to sign the abrogation of the Cairo


Agreement that had been passed by the cabinet on May 21. In addition to havingbeen the PM who served both the longest and the greatest number of times,Karāmi was a crucial connector between establishment and revisionist groups inthe Republic. Joining Karāmi as victims of assassination were officials of theSyrian Social National Party, the Lebanese Communist Party, the Syrian Ba‛thParty, the Lebanese army, the PLO, the Iranian Pasdarān, the Armenian TashnāqParty, and the Kurdish Razkāri Party.

Even more significant were the targets of unsuccessful assassination attemptsin 1987. This list reads like a Who’s Who in Lebanon: on January 7, CamilleChamoun; Ibrahim Atwāh, Hizbollah leader, on May 5; Walīd Jumblāt on June13; Sheikh Fadlallah on June 30; Dany Chamoun on September 5; Elie Hobeikaon September 15; Nazīh al-Bizri (Sidon deputy) also on the 15th; Raja Harb, PSPleader, on September 21; Samir Ja‛ja on October 4; and Lebanese armycommander, Michel Aoun, on December 6. In 1987, almost all the major militiaheads and political notables were either victims or targets of assassination.Furthermore, in Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981–1987, by Bob Woodward(the Watergate reporter), it was revealed that the bomb directed againstHizbollah leader Sheikh Fadlallah, killing eighty innocents living near histargeted domicile, had been a CIA-Saudi operation.17 It was to have been thefirst in a series of planned assassinations against “known terrorists.” As is wellknown, the bomb missed the Sheikh and, fortunately, the CIA mission was calledoff before it resulted in additional massacres.

Another indication as to how extreme factionalism had become was revealedby the proliferation of mythical organizations taking credit for all this murderand mayhem. In addition to the regular splinter groups such as the IslamicResistance Movement, a Hizbollah militia up against the SLA and Israel, and theSunni Popular Liberation Army, fighting in Beirut, there were factions of theregular movements and militias like those of the various Palestinian camps andof the Lebanese Ba‛th, Communists, and Syrian Social National Party. Radicalwings of the Hizbollah, like the Revolutionary Justice Organization and IslamicJihad (for the Liberation of Palestine), held most of the Western hostages,including Alann Steen and Terry Anderson. Beyond these fringe groups werethose like the Lebanese Liberation Front (Christian Nationalist); the IslamicResistance Coalition of Shi‛a; the Committee for the Defense of PalestinianPrisoners; the Eagles Front of the Resistance to Khomeinite Imperialismin Lebanon; the Oppressed on Earth; the Organization of Truth against the FalseBiqā Section; the Organization for the Defense of Free People; and the LebaneseLiberation Battalion (Tripoli), that took credit for kidnappings and assassinations.

Often, more than one of these took credit for the same heinous deed. Both theOrganization of Vengeance for the Martyrs of Islam and the Lebanese SecretArmy, for example, claimed to have assassinated Prime Minister Karāmi. TheRevolutionary Organization for Liberation and Unification, Force Seventeen(Palestinian), the Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, the Tanyūs ShahīnArmed Unit, the Khalīl Akkawi Unit of the 9th February, the Popular


Steadfastness Organization, and the Fatah Revolutionary Council (Abu Nidal’soperation in Lebanon) also named themselves as perpetrators of special acts ofviolence, at times just tacked on to the terrorist claims of other organizations.Admittedly, many of the above represented nothing more than code names foroperations carried out by larger organizations, yet their “multitudinosity” tendedto complicate matters for the diplomatic world and completely bewilder thegeneral public.18 One could hardly blame the world for giving up on Lebanonwhere it became commonplace to have terrorist operations named after prominentindividuals almost as if they were endowed chairs at a university.

War continued in the usual arenas. Although the fighting diminished in suchplaces as Zahleh, Tripoli, and along the Green Line in Beirut, it intensifiedgreatly in the refugee camps and against the SLA-Israeli combination in thesouth. All in all, there were 174 incidents of violence in 1987, only slightly belowthe high of 191 violent acts recorded for the previous year.

At the end of 1987, in the words of The Economist, the “wreckage was almostcomplete.”19 Lebanon was falling into an economic crisis; the government wasnot governing; the Syrians could not produce a political settlement; and everyonewas blaming everyone else. Indeed, the government was left with very little togovern, and the Lebanese were hostages to its absence. The country had gone tothe bottom.

Yet it was at the bottom where something new could develop. Several eventsin 1987 did signal a way back up.

The first of these took place outside the Middle East, namely the increasedconvergence of US-Soviet military policy resulting in the Intermediate NuclearForces (INF) agreement, signed in 1987 and ratified in mid-1988. This process,along with other changes in Europe, meant that using Lebanon as a playgroundfor proxy games was unlikely to be as profitable for outsiders in the future. Inaddition, the collapse of the Lebanese pound meant that less liquidity would beimmediately available for insiders to finance their programs. Bankers and bomberswould both have to search for new ways to remain competitive in the struggle.

The second event, presaging the future, took place on February 21, 1987,when the Syrians brought a force of 7,000 men into Beirut, ostensibly to helpstabilize the military situation there. With this troop, they not only helpedregulate Beirut but put themselves in a position to intervene in the terrible campwars being fought between the Palestinians and the Amal militia. Perhaps no one,inside or outside Lebanon, was enthusiastic about having to make use of theSyrian army in this fashion, but the situation was so terrible, and interminable,that diplomats could find no feasible alternative.

The conditions of life were especially tragic in the camps at this time; womenand relief workers were routinely gunned down when they tried to smugglesupplies into the camps to feed their starving inmates. None were worse off thanthose living in Ein el-Hilweh camp near Sidon. These poor civilians might bebombed by the Israelis one day then, if they tried to escape, shot by their owncontending militias the next. Civilians were trapped into suffering even more


than might be expected in such a military situation since they were being used tocreate an impact on a world that had lost interest in their plight. They were worthmore as statistics in a body count.

Sliding to a place below the bottom, life in 1987 was terrible for the people ofLebanon. Israel and Syria were actively engaged on its territory while Iran, Iraq,and Libya conducted war by proxy. Palestine was fighting for survival in therefugee camps, and the Lebanese continued their own civil strife. Although, onpayment of ransom, a few of the hostages were released, most stayed as a meansby which their captors kept the powers at bay and awaited better terms. Eventhough Syrian forces (in 1987) were finally able to lift Amal’s control of thePalestinian camps and reinvigorate the almost moribund search for a politicalsettlement, it would take two-and-a-half more years of internecine struggle andcomplex maneuvering before any political success came from the Syrian effort.

BORDER WAR AND TURF BATTLES

As in the previous year, 1988 was bleak for those Lebanese who were hoping foran end to the interminable fighting. There were 174 acts of violence recorded,exactly the same as in 1987. However, some changes in the pattern of violencecan be seen, especially regarding the continual war of raid and retaliation alongthe SLA-Israeli buffer zone in the south. There, the Israelis had given up ontrying to work out a deal with Lebanese authorities and were preparing tomaintain the area as a permanent territorial buffer. Syria had also decided that theLebanese government under Amin Gemayel could not play a neutral role inreconciling the various factions and was prepared to add its own weight to themix of forces contending in Lebanon. Thus, in 1988, the country was moving upfrom below bottom while elements of its future were being set, partly by Israel’sscrimmaging in the south and partly by Syria’s military presence in Beirut.Changes in the political fortunes of persons outside Lebanon, e.g., Yasir Arafat(with the intifada uprising in the West Bank and Gaza) and Saddam Hussein(with his plans for Kuwait), would also alter the context of domestic civil strifetaking place in Lebanon.

Consider first the main events, both inside and outside Lebanon, that tookplace during this pivotal year.

In Beirut, the main battles in 1988 were fought in the Shi‛ite districts south ofthe city where Hizbollah fighters moved against the Amal organization and, forawhile, succeeded in getting control of nearly 90 percent of the local turf. Syria,which had intervened in the “camp battles” of the previous year between Amaland the PLO, was forced to place itself between Amal and Hizbollah during the1988 round of intrasectarian conflict. However, it was only after protractednegotiations with Iran that the Syrians were allowed to interpose themselvesbetween the two Shi‛ite militias. Although Syria and Iran were friendlycolleagues in the battle against Iraq, the interests of local militia commanders andcommittees holding hostages had to be worked out for Damascus and Tehran to


cooperate in Lebanon. Syria, a supporter of Amal, wanted to be accepted as aregional power and allowed to consolidate its influence in Lebanon. Iran, on theother hand, wanted to direct fundamentalist forces and keep the West out ofLebanese affairs. Western governments, whose citizens were being held hostageby groups loyal to Iran, were attempting to use the Syrian government andIranian moderates to gain the release of the hostages. Those holding hostagesresisted these pressures, as did Iranian hardliners, wanting assurances that theirown political and security goals would be met.20

Finally, on May 27, 1988, negotiations made it possible for Syrian troops tomove peacefully into Beirut’s southern suburbs and interpose themselvesbetween Amal and Hizbollah. Foreign newsmen were bussed in from Damascusto report the show, and there was talk of locating and rescuing the hostages. EvenLebanese police and army personnel would be involved. On a number ofoccasions, the Syrians would boldly announce where the hostages were beingheld—sure to be newsworthy—and then move in for the rescue after the Iranianshad been given sufficient time to have them moved.

During the previous months, however, a major new round of fighting betweenAmal and Hizbollah had occurred in the south, one which, though halted by theSyrian buffer force, broke out again in October 1988. It erupted when Amal triedto retake lost positions in that area. At the time when the 7,000-member Syriancontingent had arrived the previous year (February 1987) to bring an end to theAmal-Palestinian “camp wars,” the Amal militia had also begun to withdrawsome of its personnel from the southern suburbs of Beirut, moving them south.Replaced in Beirut by its Syrian allies, Amal was soon able to assert itselfagainst the Hizbollah militia in the far south where the war against SLA-Israeliforces was rapidly escalating. Amal units sought to recapture some strategic pointsaround Jezzīn and Nabatīyah, bordering the Israeli buffer, while Syria pressedagainst Hizbollah strongholds in the Beirut suburbs (see Figure 9.2).

The implicit partnership in this operation between Syria and Amal was a bittoo overt, considering the degree to which Iran and Hizbollah were players in thegame. Perhaps Hafiz al-Assad would have thought it worthwhile to rescue someof the hostages; he certainly hoped to boost his credentials by closing down anyfurther opportunities for hostage taking. Although some attempts were made tonegotiate the Amal-Hizbollah differences, both the Amal (in the south) and Syria(in south Beirut) overreached in trying to press their advantage (in forces on thespot). Fearing that Damascus was about to become too cozy with Washington,Iran began to distance itself from the Syrian project in Lebanon, allowing itsHizbollah loyalists to stage a large-scale counterattack. Within a short time, Amaland Syria found that they had become vulnerable in their recently achievedforward positions.

On May 6, 1988, after a mediation commission failed to persuade Amal tohand back its recent military gains, gun battles broke out between Amal andHizbollah fighters in West Beirut (alongside concurrent and unrelated firefightsconducted between Arafat and Abu Mūsa factions of the PLO (Fatah) militia.21


The combat soon spread into the Shi’a districts of the southern suburbs, killingover 170 persons within the first week of fighting. By May 24, Hizbollah haddriven Amal forces from all but one area in southern Beirut (a strongpoint in al-Shīya) and controlled about 90 percent of the Shi‛ite districts.

By the time Syria and Iran finally reached an agreement on May 26, over 300persons had been killed, many, in this case, actual fighters. Following thisagreement and a Hizbollah attack on the Syrian (military) motorcade, 800Syrians and 100 Lebanese moved into south Beirut to stop the blood-letting.Hizbollah, presumably, was free to concentrate its firepower in the south whileAmal, whose bid for supremacy in south Lebanon had been seriously blunted bythe Hizbollah campaign, was also free to fight against the SLA-Israel program.This Syrian truce lasted until the middle of October 1988 when a series ofkidnappings led to a resumption of hostilities between the two Shi‛ite militias.These continued intermittently, and by the end of the year, Amal, with Syrianhelp, appeared to have gained a marginal advantage.

Syria’s presence in Lebanon not only added weight to the strength of its Amalally in the intra-Shi‛ite wars, its presence also helped its Abu Mūsa ally in theintra-Fatah conflict. Following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and thesubsequent Arafat-led PLO exodus from Beirut, defections from the Arafatcommand of al-Fatah began to occur. Led by Abu Mūsa (Sa‛id Mūsa Murāghah)and given explicit and enduring support from Damascus, the “uprising” opposedArafat’s “board of directors” approach to the Palestinian movement. Believingthat the Fatah regulars preferred to escape to their Beirut sanctuary rather thanstand and fight the incoming Israelis, Abu Mūsa hoped to attract the genuinefighters to his movement. Supposedly, there were vast supplies of arms andammunition stored in the catacombs under the refugee camps that could havebeen used to impose a higher casualty rate on the Israeli invaders. From Syria’sperspective, punishment of this sort, even in a losing cause, would have hadobvious benefits. Arms given the PLO were to be used against Israel.

Defections in the always-tense Ein el-Hilweh camp led to an ambush andassassination of a top official of the Arafat loyalists on March 25, 1988. Sixweeks later, ten fighters died in a firefight at Shatila camp in Beirut, leading toanother fight on May 6 for control of the areas held in West Beirut. In thisinstance, it seems, two separate armed battles, parallel but unrelated, wereactually taking place in the same section of the city at the same time, onebetween the Amal and Hizbollah militias and another between the Arafat andAbu Mūsa factions of the Fatah (PLO) militia. By early July, the Abu Mūsafighters had gained control of both (completely flattened) Shatila and Burj al-Barājneh camps. With the aid of the Popular Nasserite militia of Sidon, the pro-Arafat regulars were also beaten (though repatriated) at Ein el-Hilweh. Theoutcome of this particular Palestinian struggle was to increase the guerrillaactivities against SLA-Israel and to attract an intensified air and ground responsefrom the Israelis. By insisting on guerrilla activism, Abu Mūsa loyalists alongwith DFLP and PFLP-GC radicals were able to bring the war from Israel back to


the refugee camps. The demise, for a while, of the Arafat loyalists also led to arenewal of the Palestinian-Amal battles, which only began to dissipate (1988)when Amal resumed its struggle with the Hizbollah militia.22

Another major event in 1988 in Lebanon was the expiration of President AminGemayel’s term of office as President of the Republic, He had been President ofvery little during the previous three years and had shared his power with Salimal-Hoss, a Prime Minister who governed even less. Both ran separate non-governments, accusing each other of acting unconstitutionally in carrying out theirnon-duties. Unable to convene a quorum of the Chamber of Deputies on August18, its Speaker, Hussein al-Husseini, postponed the session to elect a newPresident until September 22, 1988, one day before the expiration of Gemayel’sterm on the 23rd.

There were, at various times, four candidates to succeed Gemayel asPresident. The PSP had nominated its own Antoine al-Ashqār; Suleiman Franjiehhad announced; and Raymond Eddé was, as usual, ready to return from Paris andtake over the office. A fourth candidate would undoubtedly have been GeneralMichel Aoun, who had been appointed to head the cabinet (as an interimexecutive) just a few minutes before Gemayel’s time had run out.23 (The latterhad manfully declared his intention not to seek a second termunconstitutionally.) As it turned out, the Chamber was not able to convene—ithad remained unchanged since the last countrywide election in 1972—and soGemayel’s last minute appointment of Aoun was almost devoid of any politicalbasis.

The General’s appointment, however, did have a military basis. He was, ofcourse, the commander of the Lebanese army which, with Phalangist support,had tended to act as one of the Christian militias. With Aoun in B‛abdā Palace,the lines of confrontation began to change somewhat in the fall and winter of1988–9. The Maronite community, from which the President was traditionallyselected, was divided in terms of its northern, central, and southern sections, andeach of these experienced splits within its leadership groups. Among the centralMaronites, the divisions were based on the forces at hand, those of the Syrianarmy (Assad), those of the Lebanese army (Aoun), and those of the LebaneseForces (Ja‛ja). Each of these had influence that went beyond the central sector,and they were certainly not exclusively Maronite. Most of the Maronites of thecenter were split between Ja‛ja and Aoun, the latter increasingly supported byIraq. Thus, before leaving office, Amin Gemayel had appointed a militiacommander armed by Iraq (for the purpose of containing Syria) to replace him inthe President’s office.

Beyond the Maronite community there were, of course, the Muslim elementsof the government, led by the Sunni Prime Minister, Salīm al-Hoss. He, likeAoun, also insisted that he was the interim chief executive in charge of Lebanon.Amin Gemayel, Michel Aoun, and Saddam Hussein were able to prevent theelection of any Syrian candidate but were unable to bypass Syria with their ownselection. Gemayel’s appointment of General Aoun and his cabinet was of


doubtful constitutionality, and Lebanon needed either a French HighCommissioner to make the emergency appointment or to have a large contingentof American Marines come in and watch over a national election. Thus, onSeptember 24, 1988, Lebanon had two governments, both operating extra-constitutionally, neither with the power to control much of the people or territoryof the state. People and territory were, indeed, polka-dotted with sects, fiefs, andmilitia commands, many of them subjected to shooting and bombing. Yet, a kindof institutional impermanence had been formally established.

Even before President Gemayel’s term had expired and General Aoun hadbeen put in charge of B‛abdā Palace, clashes were periodically occurringbetween Ja‛ja’s Lebanese Forces and Gemayel’s Phalangists. On August 13,1988, Ja‛ja’s men even got into a fight with Aoun’s army troops. Obviously,there was little chance of getting a Maronite consensus on the presidency. Syriahad tried to have someone suitable to its interests elected, but Iraq was able toprovide enough muscle to the indigenous oppositon to prevent it. Iraq, in fact,had finally joined Israel, Syria, and Iran in the serious bidding for influence inLebanon. Baghdad was ready to provide arms to any Christian force that wouldfight Syria.

It was in this context, therefore, that Amin Gemayel felt forced to appoint asix-member military cabinet headed by Michel Aoun, who was named PrimeMinister and also held the portfolios of defense and information. The Muslimofficers appointed to this cabinet refused to join. The al-Hoss government,operating out of West Beirut, appointed its own deputy Prime Minister to matchColonel Issām Abu Jamrā, who had been appointed to that post by AminGemayel. General Aoun then issued a statement forbidding governmentemployees from implementing administrative decisions made by the al-Hoss“outgoing” government; the Prime Minister, al-Hoss, responded by announcingthat his cabinet was still in power because the Aoun government violated theNational Covenant. Syria continued its recognition of the al-Hoss governmentwhile Iraq recognized Aoun’s emergency cabinet. Edmund Na‛im, governor ofthe Central Bank, said that the bank would make funds available to pay thesalaries of members of both governments.24

This strange turn of events also resulted in a (momentary) new round offighting across the Green Line in Beirut, fighting of a type that had not been seenin Lebanon for some time. Briefly, in late 1988, clashes between sects, ratherthan within them, broke out across the Green Line. These firefights did not lastlong, since there was really no intercommunal state over which to gainsupremacy. Most of these battles were for turf, taking a higher proportion ofmilitary lives than those of civilians. This trend was, itself, significant because itcontrasted with those many meaningless bombardments between communitiesand sectors where the two sides simply lobbed destruction onto each other’scivilian populations. Deterioration into mere counter-military turf battles wasactually a valuable development from the standpoint of the survival of theLebanese as a people since it tended to kill off many of those doing the killing.


Were such a trend to continue indefinitely, the war would someday run out offighters.

To get an idea of how far the war-of-all-against-all had deteriorated, here is anaccounting of who was fighting whom in 1988–9.

The major conflict dyads inside Lebanon during 1988–9 were, obviously, theheadline-making battles between Amal and Hizbollah, Amal and the Palestinians(the “camp wars”), Arafat and Abu Mūsa (over control of Fatah), LebaneseForces and the Lebanese Phalangists, the Lebanese Forces and the Lebanesearmy, the al-Hoss (Muslim) army and the Aoun (Christian) army, andeventually, in 1990, the Aoun army and the Syrian army. These were the eightmajor (continuing) conflict dyads of the 1988– 90 period (along with, of course,the many lesser turf battles reviewed above). Had the war been limited to justthese eight conflict dyads, there would have been too many variables for anysolution to be possible except through outside force. But whose outside force,whose patron, could have defeated the many, ever-changing oppositions?

The wars that were actually going on between various groups in Lebanon andpeoples on the outside during this period only hint at an answer to this question.These internal-external fights fall into five major categories. In the south, therewere three groups: the Shi‛ite radicals, mainly armed groups fighting under theHizbollah umbrella; the Palestinian radical militias such as DFLP and PFLP-GC;and the radical Lebanese leftist militias such as the Popular NasseriteOrganization and Lebanese Communists, all fighting the SLA-Israelcombination. Elsewhere, there were two: the Christian forces fighting theSyrians, especially in the central districts and the Iranian-Syrian supportedShi‛ite and Palestinian groups, such as Islamic Jihad and Revolutionary Justice,which had targeted and captured citizens of Western countries in order toprevent the West from intervening. Of these five categories, most of the violenceinvolved the SLA-Israel program against their Lebanese-Palestinian opponentsand, near the end of this period, the al-Hoss-Syrian opposition to General MichelAoun.

A few intriguing minor episodes involving groups inside Lebanon going upagainst outside states include the following: the Strugglers For Freedom (ofAbdul Hādi Hamādai) opposing Germany, the Cells of the Armed Struggle againstBritain, the Soldiers of Justice (Libya) versus Belgium, the Armenian SecretArmy for the Liberation of Armenia against France, and the Shi‛a al-Sadr Groupagainst Libya. Moreover, both the PSP of Walīd Jumblāt and the PFLP-GC ofAhmed Jabrīl sent volunteers to help Mu’ammar Khadafi with his intervention inChad. Mysteriously, some unidentified group kept bombing the embassy of theIvory Coast, discouraging its unfortunate denizens to the point that they finallyleft. Undoubtedly, the mystery is not so baffling to the large Lebanesecommunity living in that West African country.

In several cases these armed groups were punching at a foreign enemy withone hand while punching at a domestic competitor with another. Among thoseengaged in such sideshows during this period were the PSP (Jumblāt) fighting


the SSNP; the PLO regulars pitted against the DFLP; the Islamic RevolutionaryBrigades against UNIFIL; and the 16th January Organization for the Liberationof Tripoli doing battle with the militia of the Arab Democratic Party (of Tripoli).In addition, five entirely intramural firefights, mere struggles for power within anarmed group, erupted at this time. It is possible to find over fifty discrete conflictdyads potentially engaged in violence against one another during this period.Therefore, it was structurally impossible for any capability to develop within thecountry that could have contained the violence.25 There were too manydifferences in too small a place.

WARS OF CONSOLIDATION

Although 1989 saw little lessening of conflict in Lebanon, movement toward theend of the year by the country’s politicians provided some hope that the neededconstitutional changes might occur to help bring an end to hostilities. Thisactivity resulted in the Ta‛if Agreement and its subsequent ratification byLebanon’s Christian deputies. The new formula of power sharing, explained ingreater detail below, would require, of course, the means to implement it,something that was not possible to achieve without a new round of (Muslim-Christian) war.

A total of 165 incidents of violence occurred in 1989, down slightly from the174 totals for each of the previous two years, and went on down to 108 incidentsin 1990 (see Figure 9.1). Unfortunately, both 1989 and 1990 would turn out to bemore destructive than any year since the end of the 1982 Israeli invasion. WhileIsraeli combat, mostly by aircraft, had by now become a regular occurence andoperations by the Syrian army almost institutionalized, the internal warsunderwent major change. What changed was the basis of outside support, e.g., anAmerican encouragement for Syrian tutelege in Lebanon along with a newsupporter for the Christians against Syria, namely Iraq under Saddam Hussein(who was freed in 1988 from his war with Iran). This new alignment helped turnwars between militia personnel of the same sect back into intercommunal strifeand, to some degree, consolidated the war. It would be two more years, however,before the fighting would end.

The initial major fight in 1989 occurred between the Amal and HizbollahShi’ite militias over control of the Iqlīm al-Tuffah, an area of hills and ridgesthat extends from Jezzīn to Nabatīyah in the south of Lebanon. Before the Syrianswere once more able to intervene, over 140 persons lost their lives in this turfwar. Syria could not act either quickly or in strength to rescue Amal, its Shi‛iteally, because Damascus was allied with Tehran, Hizbollah’s supporter. Finally,however, after three rounds of talks between Iran, Syria, and the Hizbollahcombatants, an agreement was hammered out putting Syrian forces in betweenthe two warring groups. Hizbollah was forced to hand over a number of strategicpoints it had captured but was free for further military action in the south. Amal,with Syrian backing, was left in charge of security in the area of contention in the


southern suburbs of Beirut. A joint coordination committee met to keep thesoldiers apart and allow both sides to bury their dead. The agreement held, with afew exceptions, until late October when the Shi’ite struggle once again erupted.

Concurrent with the troubles between Hizbollah and Amal was the similarmilitia competition between the Arafat and Abu Mūsa factions of the PalestinianFatah organization. This round of intramural killing only ended when the Israelisstepped up their raids against the camps—the prize for those who survived theintra-Fatah battles. With its plate full, Syria had better uses for Abu Mūsa thancontending with Arafat, while the latter’s militia turned its attention toassassinating members of Abu Nidal’s rival Palestine Revolutionary Council(FRC).

Just as the battle between Amal and Hizbollah for control of the Iqlīm al-Tuffah was temporarily winding down, a new one was shaping up between theLebanese forces of Samir Ja‛ja and the Lebanese army of Michel Aoun. Aftermore than seventy-five people were killed in this battle between the twoChristian forces, Ja‛ja seemed ready to subordinate himself to Aoun andrecognize him as Lebanon’s head of government. At about this time, however,General Aoun began to receive generous shipments of arms from Iraq and,sufficiently inflated, must have come to the view that he could gain control ofLebanon without Ja‛ja. On February 24, 1989, Aoun announced that he wasclosing down all illegal ports and would use the navy to enforce his decision. Healso made incautious statements about reuniting Lebanon, tossing both theIsraelis and the Syrians out. Very likely this program would have suited SaddamHussein who could then have supplied arms to Aoun’s Christians without riskinghis own prestige. His weapons could have been used against Syria’s weapons.General Aoun, from his point of view, could have hoped to consolidate hispower by means of a less politicized source of supply than that which BashirGemayel had enjoyed. In other words, Iraq would have been superior to Israel asan arms supplier because, while it opposed Syria, it did not covet Lebaneseterritory. There must have even been some Americans, impressed with the“international experience” of their new boss (George Bush), who saw things thesame way.

Just as in chess, where one marvelous move seldom wins the whole game, soit is with the complexities of Levantine politics. Closing down the ports wastantamount to getting serious about the situation in Lebanon. Ports like Khaldeand Jiyyah, south of Beirut, and Silāta, north of Jubayl, were entry points for armsas well as exit points for narcotics. The drug trade supported many of thesemilitia organizations as well as some sectors of the Syrian military andintelligence communities. General Aoun was, at this point, honest but hardlyrealistic. Closing the ports would halt everybody’s operations. What was thebasis for Aoun’s decision? What made him think he could take such a massivestep? Perhaps there were Americans who believed at the time that SaddamHussein was the one who could light all our candles—stop the narcotics trade,ease the Syrians out of Lebanon, and reconstitute the country under Michel Aoun.


But the General’s gambit came to nought. When Robert Franjieh announcedthat he would hand over his port (Silāta) in the north of Lebanon to GeneralAoun, Syrian forces moved in, took it over, and prevented the Lebanesegovernment from assuming control. When the General’s military tried to stopingress and egress from the Druze ports (Khalde and Jiyyah), Jumblāt had hisPSP gunners open up against B’abdā and East Beirut from their Shūf outposts inthe mountains. The Lebanese Forces would also have been left holding the baghad Aoun’s policy remained in effect. They had long controlled Beirut ports as ameans to receive arms shipments. Moreover, Aoun’s challenge, redoubled by theIraqi commitment, would have overshadowed the al-Hoss claim to authority asthe constitutionally chosen Prime Minister.

What began as hostilities between Ja‛ja’s Lebanese Forces and Aoun’sLebanese army was soon deflected into a battle between al-Hoss (Syria) andAoun (Iraq). On March 11, 1989, the PSP conveyed its opinion of the General’sintention to take over Lebanon’s ports by opening fire on his positions below theShūf. Firing along the Green Line soon erupted, and before long the al-Hossportion of the Lebanese army was at war with the Aoun portion. By thebeginning of summer, the Syrian army had been fired upon and was retaliating withits own fire. Between August 9 and 11, more than 20,000 shells were raineddown on a area covering about a third of Lebanese territory. Fewer than 200,000people remained in Beirut; some even fled to the SLA zone controlled by Israel.The civil war was on again, with daily bombardment, Beirutis in flight, andinnocent civilians taking 90 percent of the casualties. Baghdad fought Damascusby proxy; America finessed its dilemmas in the Middle East; and gunnersreturned to work while ordinary people once again hid in their cellars takingcover from the crashing shells.

The more isolated Aoun became, the more implacable he sounded. He blamedthe United States for not saving Lebanon, the French for not remembering theirhistoric ties to the country. Blaming outside supporters for one’s political demisehad almost become a reflex in Lebanon. It was a complaint that sometimessignaled an end to a political career.26

But, in fact, what had happened to Michel Aoun had not been conjured up infar away places. It was simply that, in spite of his nimble footwork, the oldLebanon had reappeared. For his supporters, the historic separation of ChristianLebanon from Muslim Syria was at stake. For his detractors, the war was merelyone more episode in the struggle for power in the Levant. Syria was flexible,compromising, but relentless. Iraq was here today and gone tomorrow. Wherecompromise was essential, General Aoun refused. He needed the Sunni PrimeMinister, the Muslims, other Christians; he needed people inside Lebanonagainst the outsider, not Saddam.

This final round, which had begun as a battle between the Lebanese Forcesand the Lebanese army over control of military barracks, slid into a war over theGreen Line between the Muslim and Christian sides of the (Aoun-Hoss) doublegovernment. The war then escalated into a struggle for control of the ports and


consequently the survival of the militias. Although the last round of the civilwars in Lebanon ultimately culminated in a struggle between the Syrian (Muslim)army and the Lebanese (Christian) army and, indirectly, a conflict betweenSyria’s Hafiz al-Assad and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, it also reduced the conflict toa recognizable dyad. Moreover, it was a dyad that could be processed, for Iraqwas the one state in the Middle East that Israel could allow Syria to beat.

THE TA‛IF AGREEMENT

Maybe the Saudis knew how to deal with Christian Lebanon. A bright spotappeared on the gloomy horizon when, after many truces, talks, and conferences,a large number of Lebanon’s legislators were persuaded to meet in Ta‛if, SaudiArabia. In this Flagstaff, Arizona kind of resort town, a total of sixty-twodeputies, thirty-one Christians and thirty-one Muslims (elected to the Chamber in1972), worked out an agreement for a new Lebanese constitution. Although thelatest round of the civil war continued throughout 1989 and into 1990, the Ta‛ifAgreement served as a precedent. Lebanese politicians could agree to reform thesystem. While it is true that most of those Lebanese present at Ta‛if were lesserpolitical figures, it is also true that their futures were at stake. The new formulathey agreed upon was intended to accomplish the following:

1 establish a 108-member Chamber of Deputies with membership dividedequally between Muslims and Christians,27

2 retain the office of President for the Christians,3 make it impossible for the President to legislate independently of the

Council, i.e., subject to a Sunni veto,4 produce a Council with a Prime Minister selected by the Chamber, presided

over by the President who would have no vote.

In addition, the Syrians were formally committed to an eventual withdrawal fromLebanon as soon as political conditions made it possible for them to do so.28

The Ta‛if accord was finalized on October 22, 1989; the deputies met again atQulayāt air base (north of Tripoli) on November 4 and ratified the agreement;they then elected René Mu‛awad President of the Republic on November 5.After much prodding, the Chamber had moved to break the old impasse.Tragically, war was still going on; Lebanon was partly under occupation; andtwo (almost) Prime Ministers were ambuscading each other over the Green Line.Yet, the agreement eventually would have political impact. Hizbollah indicatedits marginal displeasure by referring to the “treachery” of the new Arabianconstitution. General Aoun said he would block its implementation; the Israelisshowed no interest and continued their bombing runs as usual. Yet, quietly, manyLebanese had hope that the previous fifteen years of insanity was about to end.

René Mu‛awad was President of Lebanon for less than three weeks. OnNovember 22, 1989, he was killed by a car bomb in Beirut. Some twenty-three


others had to lose their lives in this vicious act of determining power. Mu‛awadwasnot a major personality within Lebanon’s Christian community and seems tohave been assassinated simply because he was the man chosen to hold thepresidency under the new constitutional formula. Although Mu‛awadwasacceptable to Syria and the United States, as well as to moderate Lebanese ofboth Christian and Muslim communities, he was obviously not acceptable toGeneral Aoun.29 There were also those among the radicals who doubted his“Arabist” credentials.

Two days later (November 24), Elias Hrāwi was elected President at a meetingheld under Syrian protection at Chtaura. Hrāwi, a Biqā Valley Christian, hadactually been known as an anti-Syrian politician in the past but was, by this time,won over to the idea of cooperating with Damascus in trying to stop Lebanon’sself-destruction. The Chamber also extended its own term until the end of 1994and instructed Hrāwi to try to form a cabinet. The one announced on November25 was obviously an attempt to reconcile all the country’s major factions. Itincluded such notables as George Sa‛adah, head of the Phalange; Nabīh Berri,the leader of the Amal movement; Walīd Jumblāt, the Druze chief and majorfigure of the PSP; and Omar Karāmi, Sunni leader from the city of Tripoli.30

General Aoun, however, stayed put in his bunker at B‛abdā Palace anddemanded, as a price for his cooperation, that the Syrians issue a timetable fortheir withdrawal from Lebanese territory. The Syrians refused to agree to thisdemand, pending further negotiations and reminded the General that Israel hadnot budged. To emphasize their point, the Syrians brought in 10,000 additionaltroops. Lebanese Forces Commander Samir Ja‛ja declared that he would helpdefend Christian areas from a Syrian attack but also recognized Hrāwi as thelegitimate head of state. Hrāwi then gave Aoun five days to leave the Palace.Predictably, amid warnings to Damascus from Paris, hostilities resumed acrossthe Green Line. Elsewhere in Lebanon, guerrillas raided, Israelis bombed, Amaland Hizbollah fought in the Iqlīm al-Tuffah, and the two governments went onissuing decrees that affected almost no one.

In 1989, another “non-government” had an influence on the Lebanesesituation. It seems that the inability of Iran to get the Hizbollah and Amal to stopfighting in Lebanon was due to the political struggle between hard-liners andmoderates in that country. After a protracted period of part-fighting and part-negotiation, the agents for the larger Shi‛ite cause finally agreed to reposition theFatah guerrillas on the high points in the Iqlīm al-Tuffah and, thereby, separateAmal and Hizbollah forces in that area. This move also served to prevent thewhole area from being usurped by the equally determined Palestinian groups.

Tehran, which subsidized Hizbollah but did not control every move made onlocation, was struggling over its policies in Lebanon as well as its role in gettingthe hostages released. One wing of the clerics in Tehran wanted to conduct apragmatic foreign policy and rebuild Iran; the other preferred to carry the bannerfor revolutionary Islam. The first, led by President Rafsanjani, was prepared tolimit Hizbollah radicalism in Lebanon and, correspondingly, co-exist with the


Syrian-supported Amal militia. The second wing, comprising a number ofmullahs but especially Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, was less ready to engage inaccommodation either regionally or in Lebanon. Iran’s “double government” haddifficulties making policy decisions in 1990; consequently, as the year came to aclose, the hostages remained chained in dank cellars while Amal and HizbollahShi’ites killed one another nearby.


10Syria stops the war: 1990–1995

AOUN AND JA‛JA

The beginning of the end of fifteen years of civil war in Lebanon occurred onJanuary 30, 1990. As recounted above, the sly Ja‛ja had said (December 1989)that he would fight the Syrians but support Hrāwi, Syria’s President of Lebanon.This was hardly a position to commend itself to a no-nonsense military man likeGeneral Aoun. On the 30th, a firefight broke out between the Aoun and Ja‛jaforces and spread rapidly throughout the Maronite enclave. This intra-Maronitewar turned out to be one of the most destructive of all the rounds, causing morecasualties in eighteen days than had occurred during six months of artillerybombardment by the Syrians in 1989. The fortunes of the two sides swung backand forth. The Ja‛ja forces held better positions while Aoun’s forces were morenumerous and better equipped. After six weeks of fighting, interrupted by twoceasefires, Ja‛ja was in control of about two-thirds of the enclave, including theports and the coastal area north to Jubayl; Aoun controlled most of Ashrafīyahand the southeastern approaches to B‛abdā of Ras al-Matn. The overall politicaleffect of Samir Ja‛ja’s campaign was not to put himself in a position to dislodgeAoun but to contribute to the General’s strategic isolation. With othercombatants in the neighborhood and 40,000 Syrian troops on his doorstep, Aouncould not move. He had attracted too many opponents.

Although the war between the two militia commanders broke out over thematter of controlling turf, made likely by Ja‛ja’s support of Hrāwi instead ofAoun, there were also other political differences in the two leaders’ programs forLebanon. Both Samir Ja‛ja and Michel Aoun wanted to rule Lebanon’s onemillion or so Christians, but Ja‛ja, unlike the General, called for a “federalLebanon” to be partitioned among its rival faiths. Aoun hoped to be President ofthe whole of “Greater Lebanon” only partly modified from the system of thepast. Ja‛ja, cast in the swashbuckling mold of Bashir Gemayel (whose militia hecommanded), wanted power as Bashir had wanted it. Michel Aoun consideredhimself in power, appointed as acting head of government by the formerPresident, Amin Gemayel, when no quorum to elect a successor could convene.The Lebanese Forces Commander, in his willingness to settle for some form of

Marounistan, had also separated himself from the Gemayel core of the Katā‛ib.The Gemayels’ approach was more Lebanonist than Maronite nationalist. Thus,the appointed General more closely represented what Pierre Gemayel, the Party’sfounder, had always stood for than did Ja‛ja, the LF leader.

General Aoun, perhaps recalling wistfully Fu‛ād Shihāb’s role in the 1958crisis, was determined to reconstitute the internationally recognized independentLebanon, member of both the United Nations and the Arab League. His majorpolicy position was to refuse to call off the state of emergency and step downuntil the Syrians had left the country. He always insisted on a specific timetablefor the withdrawal of Syria’s troops but did not fully address the question ofIsrael’s forces in the south. It is important to recognize that, at this time, theMuslim side wanted Syria to stay put as a means of guaranteeing the new power-sharing formula agreed to at Ta‛if. It was clear to the opposition that Lebanon’sdilemmas would not be resolved merely by having the General take over theports and order militia commanders to submit to his authority. They objected tothe fact that he had not agreed to share power, to abide by the Ta‛if formula.

It would be a mistake to suppose that these political differences were the mostimportant reasons for the renewed hostilities in early 1990. Both Ja’ja and Aounwanted to be in power, to direct future changes in Lebanon. But more to thepoint was the fact that the Commander of the Lebanese Forces was hardlyprepared to take orders from General Aoun. Both Ja‛ja and Aoun commandedmilitias, had to pay soldiers, had to control resources for that purpose, and had tocommunicate a raison d‛être for their positions of power. General Aoun, withone army, had been trying to give orders to Samir Ja‛ja, commanding anotherarmy. Ja’ja refused to recognize these orders; thus, war.

Michel Aoun had about 15,000 soldiers under his command, and Samir Ja‛jaabout 12,000; but the latter’s ranks were growing larger through defections fromthe General’s trapped army. Aoun’s force possessed 250 tanks, 100 armoredvehicles, 200 artillery pieces, and 200 heavy mortars. The Lebanese Forces hadabout half that amount of equipment, but they did have the assistance (bydefault) of the other militias that opposed the General. Though Aoun’s soldiersmade several valiant attempts to break out of their encirclement, trying to capturebarracks, port facilities, and air bases, they were unable to hold any for long.Ceasefires could not last long because, as in the situation before the war, rivaltroops were continually maneuvering for position and control of resources inorder to have the best jump-off posture when hostilities recommenced. Certain intheir belief that the war would resume, the fighters took measures which made itsresumption inevitable.

The war was especially brutal. Many people in the urban battle area lived incellars for weeks at a time; more than half the population of Beirut fled the city.Because tunnels were blocked and checkpoints were hard to get through, longlines of cars often formed. On one such occasion, a grenade hit a school bus andkilled fifteen people, eleven of them children. After this tragedy, a cartoon in

268 SYRIA STOPS THE WAR: 1990–1995

Beirut’s An-Nahār commented on the Aoun-Ja‛ja power struggle with thefollowing line: “Forgive them, Lord, for they know what they do.”

The war was conducted in the usual fashion. On March 9, General Aounagreed to a ceasefire, declaring that the war was over. At this time, Ja‛ja’s forceshad captured about two-thirds of the 350-square-mile (Maronite) enclave,including most of the ports. The war, however, was back on by March 14; theGeneral had received a new shipment of arms from Iraq. The Arab Leagueattempted to get Aoun to step down on terms of safe passage and an acceleratedwithdrawal on the part of the Syrians. He turned down the League’s offer. ThePatriarch, Nasrullah Butrus Sfayr, complained of the “collective suicide” of theMaronite sect and led a group of Christian leaders to conferences with EliasHrāwi in an attempt to isolate Aoun. The General’s supporters condemned thePatriarch. History reminds us of another period when an Aoun, Bishop Tobia,and a Patriarch, Bulus Masa‛ad, were involved in civil war in Lebanon—thecivil war of 1860.1

This worst round of the fifteen-year civil war in Lebanon began to wind downin May 1990. After several truces and restarts in April, a ceasefire wasannounced on May 15, and a permanent ceasefire was declared by the PapalNuncio, Msgr Pablo Puente, on the 26th. Although one or two breaches of theceasefire occurred a month later, the serious fighting had spent itself in May.Significantly, Aoun and Ja‛ja’s representatives had met with Iraq’s SaddamHussein on May 10. Arms shipments to the General were to be shut down. Theability of the Lebanese Forces to close down Aoun’s last port at Dbayye mayhave contributed to Saddam’s decision not to send more arms. Even theAmericans, still “tilting” toward Iraq, probably agreed with this assessment.

There ensued, after May 26, 1990, a massive war of words as defections to theHrāwi government gathered momentum. Ja‛ja turned over the Sarba and Kāslikbases to Hrāwi on April 16. Both George Sa‛adah and Michel Sasīn withdrewtheir resignations and joined the Salim al-Hoss cabinet in June. In September, itwas reported that several of Aoun’s officers had made the switch over to theHrāwi army, commanded by General Emile Lahoud, due to the refusal of theirboss to increase their pay to meet cost of living allowances. These defectionsoccurred just as Syrian (and Hrāwi) army troops were reportedly massing in theMatn hills above B‛abdā. On September 21, 1990, President Hrāwi called uponGeneral Aoun to join the process to end the civil war or face a “military surgicaloperation” that would crush his forces. This was merely the last of a series ofoffers made to Aoun, all of which were reasonable and all of which received astubborn “no” from him. It has been charged that Aoun decided to let the Syrianscome at his soldiers and, rather than waste his money on them, just lose ina straight-forward engagement before retiring to Paris. Although this scenario isclose to what actually happened, the General may have had other motivations forhis rigid stance. He may have firmly believed that once the Syrians were inLebanon militarily, they would never leave until forced out. On this point, Aounmay turn out to be right.

SYRIA STOPS THE WAR: 1990–1995 269

Over 1,000, mostly Maronite, lives were lost in the intra-Christian war ofspring 1990. The Patriarch was the target of an assassination plot that backfiredon Aoun’s soldiers. The General, himself, almost met the same fate at the handsof a Shi‛ite gunman. Other venues of the war remained active: in Iqlīm al-Tuffahbetween Hizbollah and Amal (and later between these and the Fatah guerrillas);in Ein el-Hilweh camp between Fatah and Abu Nidal’s FRC (and eventuallybetween FRC defectors and FRC loyalists); in Ihdin between Aoun partisans ofthe Franjieh family and the Franjieh faction supporting Hrāwi; and between SLA-Israel and its enemies of the resistance in the south. Hostilities certainly persisted,but some consolidation around Elias Hrāwi (and the Syrian role) also occurred in1990.

A new drama in Lebanon also began to develop at this time. The world waspaying renewed attention to the question of releasing the hostages as both Iranand Syria were in the process of regularizing their diplomatic relationships withthe West. Although progress in this respect was agonizingly slow, the soundingswere begun. But these soundings, along with nearly everything else, weredrowned out by the high drama of August when Saddam Hussein invadedKuwait. Release of the hostages actually happened partly as a function of theAmerican-led response to the Iraqi invasion, precipitated especially by thehoneymoon given the Bush administration during the aftermath of the Gulf War.That war was a military triumph for the President even though its politicalbenefits remained somewhat up in the air. But the drama of the Gulf War alsoserved to drown out the pivotal activities occurring in Lebanon, e.g., Aoun’sstubborn rebuffs along with Syria’s preparations to move against him. Syria’ssounds could not be heard above the noise level coming from elsewhere in theMiddle East.

THE DEPARTURE OF GENERAL AOUN

On October 10, 1990, President Hrāwi, as called for by the Ta‛if accords,formally asked for Syrian assistance in ousting the General from his B’abdāstronghold. On October 13, Syria’s ground and air forces were used in an assaultthat completely overwhelmed the Aoun brigade. The General escaped to theFrench Embassy and later called upon his men to surrender. Some 750 personsdied in the assault and in the reprisal murders that followed. Syria claimed thatits army lost 460 men. It was the bloodiest single engagement of the entire war,and it was decisive. The Syrian assault served the requirements of conflictresolution because one side actually vanquished another. This terrible act ofviolence was not just punishment politics; it was an invasion where soldierskilled one another in large numbers, a use of violence which actually altered thedistribution of power. The Syrian assault was a ghastly business, but it also wasnot business as usual in Lebanon.

While Michel Aoun skulked around in the French Embassy, the Hrāwigovernment set about implementing the provisions of the Ta‛if agreement. On


December 19, 1990, the al-Hoss cabinet resigned to make a reconciliationgovernment possible as called for in the agreement. Salim al-Hoss, American-educated and all business, had headed four different cabinets, most during theworst of times in Lebanon. His main achievement was to get the necessarysupport to oust Aoun and keep the Ta‛if process going. He also was PrimeMinister during the late November, early December period when the Lebanesearmy, with Syrian back-up, was able to destroy the barricades dividing theMuslim and Christian sectors of Beirut along the Green Line. Gradually, inDecember, the Lebanese army was able to gain control of the whole of “GreaterBeirut” as the militias were persuaded to pull out. The massive attack by theSyrians that ousted Michel Aoun had also notified other recalcitrant militiacommanders what they could expect if they refused to cooperate. Regaining a”monopoly of force” was to be the main goal for the Syrian-Hrāwi combinationduring the years 1991–2.

As for al-Hoss’s quiet departure, this decision also made a major contributionto the process of pacification which followed Hrāwi’s accession to thepresidency. Privately, those close to the former Prime Minister complained thatthe President (Hrawi) had become accustomed to making decisions and handlingstate affairs “as of old”, i.e., in an exclusive fashion without involvement of thecabinet headed by its Muslim Prime Minister. It is difficult to know to whatdegree this charge was valid or if the problem was inherent in the duopoly that wascreated at Ta‛if. Even with Syria acting as the final arbiter over the actions of thePresident and his several Prime Ministers, it is obvious that the structural dilemmasof Lebanon’s confessionalism still plague the system. Some would say that agenuine “twin executive” is a political oxymoron, invalid in theory andunworkable in practice.

Umar Karāmi, leader of the Sunni community in Tripoli and son of the formerPrime Minister Rashid Karāmi, was named to head a new cabinet. On December23 1990, he presented a “cabinet of everybody,” including all the old warriors. Inaddition to his “working cabinet,” Karāmi named the major militia leaders to thegroup as “ministers of state” in order to recognize the military status quo minusSyria (which was too busy running the state to join the cabinet). Most of thelatter group declined to participate, claiming that the government was “untidy”or too dominated by Syria or not genuinely representative, etc. Under normalconditions, the refusal of Jumblāt, Berri, Hobeika, Franjieh, Ja‛ja, and (Phalangist)George Sa‛adah would have rendered the functioning of the governmentunwork able. In this instance, however, Syria was enforcing policy, so their non-participation actually enhanced the government’s performance.

For 1990, there were 108 incidents of violence, down from the 165 total of theprevious year. The reconciliation period reduced the number somewhat, eventhough 1990 was the bloodiest in fifteen years of war in Lebanon (except for1982 with its Israeli invasion). More than 1,000 had been killed in the intra-Christian war during the spring; at least 800 more died as a consequence of theSyrian attack on General Aoun in the fall; and, in midsummer, an additional 200


or so lost their lives in several weeks of struggle among the Hizbollah, Amal, andFatah militias in the al-Tuffah district. Of course, the bombing, mutualassassinations, and guerrilla (raid-reprisal) activity continued, producing itsnormal losses in life and property. One such event resulted in the murder ofCamille Chamoun’s other son, Dany, along with all the members of his familyexcept an eleven-year-old daughter. Now, the war had taken the (militiacommander) sons of each of the three major Maronite chiefs, Chamoun, Gemayel,and Franjieh. Chamoun had lost two.

The year 1990 was, however, not merely another year either for Lebanon or forthe rest of the Middle East. Most of the conflict of the civil war ended, and theLebanese army began to take control, first in Beirut, then in other areas ofLebanese territory. With the events of the Gulf War, the beginnings ofrealignment in the Middle East, and the closing stages of the Cold War, theLebanese actually began to believe that their country might survive. Syria, Israel,Iran, and Palestine still occupied much of their land, but, even so, a recognizableLebanese government had been created to add to the list of political authoritiesrunning things. Some of the militias had withdrawn, and one, Amal, had evenvoluntarily disbanded. There was some hope.

Following the takeover of “Greater Beirut” in December, Lebanon becameconsiderably more stable and somewhat less violent. The number of incidents ofviolence in 1991 was down to sixty, in comparison to the 108 total recorded forthe previous year. Yet, violence was still a part of Lebanon’s political scene in1991. The year began with a series of bomb blasts targeted at installationsassociated with those countries fighting Iraq in the Gulf War, e.g., a Britishbank, a Lebanese-French bank, the Italian Embassy, French-owned and Saudi-owned banks, the Saudi Embassy, the French Embassy, and the Soviet CulturalCenter. Several car bombs also were set off early in the year. One, aimed at themotorcade of the Defense Minister, al-Murr, killed eight people but only injuredhim slightly. Al-Murr had been put in charge of disbanding Lebanon’s armedgroups, hence the massive explosion. Raid and retaliation continued apace in thesouth as both the Palestinian militias and those of the Islamic resistance steppedup their attacks on the SLA-Israel force. In addition, considerable violenceaccompanied the attempts, mostly successful, of the Lebanese army to extendgovernment authority throughout the country. Some of this violence came fromPalestinians fighting to prevent the Lebanese government from imposing itsauthority in their camps.

PROGRESS UNDER PRESIDENT HRĀWI

The major news in 1991 was political; the government was able to begin theprocess of reconstituting its authority. On May 1, the army took control of anadditional swath of territory, increasing its holdings to about 25 percent of theformer republic. The Lebanese Forces turned over ports, barracks, air bases, andmany of their heavy weapons to the Lebanese army as they withdrew from the


fringes of Beirut into the hills of Kisrawān. The PSP, for the most part, was notunreservedly cooperative in turning in its weapons but did redeploy away fromthe ridges of the Matn overlooking Beirut to the mountains of the Shūf. OnMarch 2, 1991, Walīd Jumblāt withdrew his earlier resignation from the cabinetand took on responsibilities as Minister of State. About six weeks later, the PSPmilitia reportedly handed over 300 tons of munitions to the Syrian army.Lebanese Forces Commander, Samir Ja‛ja, and Phalangist leader, GeorgeSa‛adah, also withdrew their resignations and decided to join the Hrāwi cabinet(as Ministers of State). Consolidation of the government’s authority andreconciliation with its adversaries continued during the summer of 1991.

With the 40,000 members of the Syrian army in the background and GeneralAoun out of the way—he slipped out of the French Embassy and left for Paris onAugust 29—Hrāwi managed to gain the support of some Muslims, someChristians, Syria, and most foreign governments, including the United States. Sofar, the President has had little choice but to bow to Syrian interests. For the pastfew years, this Syrian-Maronite combination has been the only one to masterLebanon’s impossible communal mix. While the militia commanders have onlypartially cooperated with the Hrāwi government, they have not taken up arms tooppose it either. Recognizing Syria’s clout, they have chosen to retire to theirhome bases, keep in touch with their men, and wait to see how the newgovernment fares (both in Lebanon and with Syria).2

REGIONAL LINKAGES

There was a lot of waiting and watching in 1991. Early in the year all eyes werecast on events beyond Lebanon to see what might be the political results of the GulfWar. Would the United States get serious about the peace process that waspromoted for the Israelis and Palestinians? Would Washington give seriousleadership to controlling the flow of arms into the area and into Lebanon inparticular? Would the world help in reconstructing the destroyed economies, andwould countries take a multilateral approach to the problems of the area? Thesewere some of the questions diplomats asked. As for answers, little had been doneabout the refugee problem except to create more refugees. Dictators still ruled,and all and sundry were preparing to buy even more arms. Israel began to retreatfrom its hard-line position on the Palestinians, recognizing that the latter wouldnot budge unless Jerusalem offered concessions. These culminated in the Israeli-PLO peace accord that may someday give a sliver of independence toPalestinians in Gaza and Jericho and, if negotiations for an infinite series ofinterim agreements succeed, allow the extension of Palestinian authority in theIsraeli-occupied territories. Moreover, until Israel and Syria settle the GolanHeights issue, Syria will not leave Lebanon. The absence of a settlement has alsoprovided more fuel to keep Islamic hearts on fire—especially in Iran and on theWest Bank. In Lebanon, these linkages lead directly to questions concerning itsown territorial integrity. Palestinian, Syrian, and Israeli occupation of Lebanese


territory are current realities and are also tied to making progress on a settlementof the Arab-Israeli conflict and, perhaps, (eventually) a general settlement in theregion.

Beyond this, progress awaited elections, in Lebanon, in Israel, and in theUnited States. In Lebanon, elections for a new Chamber of 128 members—thefirst since 1972—were conducted in August and September 1992 but weremarred by a Christian boycott. The Christians (backed by a few Muslims) hadattempted to have the elections postponed until after the departure of Syriantroops to the Biqā promised for September. But Syria and the Hrāwi governmentwere adamant, and the elections went on as scheduled without violence. Themainly Maronite boycotts, both by candidates and voters, led to the election of aChamber not representative of all of Lebanon’s political views and also notlikely to stray far from Syria’s tutelege. In Israel, the new Labor government ofthe Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, has sounded somewhat more conciliatorythan the previous Likud government under Yitzhak Shamir had been. The Rabin-Peres government has backed the peace process; it has halted settlements andnegotiated with the PLO. Even so, violence may still undercut that government’sapproach to the peace process as long as its concessions are sliced so thin.Although the “handshake in Washington” gave dramatic impetus to the peaceprocess, real progress, especially for the Lebanese, awaits negotiations betweenthe Israelis and Syrians that began in early 1996 but have, as yet, produced littlemovement.3

According to the Ta‛if agreement, the Syrians had to withdraw their forcesfrom coastal Lebanon into the Biqā by August of 1992. During the Bushpresidency, Secretary of State Baker often said that he fully expected this tohappen, reiterating this position in person during a meeting with President Hrāwiin Zahleh on July 23. Hrāwi insisted that he would ask for a Syrian withdrawal,and Syria is on record as having recognized the independence of Lebanon.Unfortunately, Syria’s occupation forces had not been redeployed to the Biqā bythe time of the September 1992 deadline.

The Syrian government has never claimed the right to maintain troopsin Lebanon and has not said anything that would preclude their ultimatewithdrawal. Yet, the Assad government has been demanding “special relations”with Lebanon, an idea which, when spelled out, strikes fear into the hearts ofthose Lebanonists who wish to enjoy genuine independence from the Syrianhinterland. The Assad government has, in fact, insisted that this “specialrelationship” be formalized by a treaty that establishes a “Higher PresidentialCouncil for Cooperation and Coordination.” This Council, made up of the SyrianPresident and Vice President along with the Lebanese President and PrimeMinister, would hook the two countries permanantly together in security,foreign, and economic policies. The comprehensive character of this Syrianproposal worried even the most pro-Syrian members of the Hrāwi government.The proposal was fudged a bit and ratified by the Chamber on September 17 as a“treaty” through which the “brotherly interests of the two countries” would be


cared for by joint committees on security, economics, trade, culture, and foreignpolicy. The new words amounted to a compromise that gave the treaty greaterscope in return for weakening the powers of the Council in those matters overwhich it had competence.

It is not easy, at this time, to assess the significance of the Lebanese-Syriantreaty or predict what form the overall political relationship between the twocountries will take. While the Syrians are formally committed to theindependence of Lebanon, the episode of the treaty, especially in reference toSyria’s initial demands, provides a clear signal that the Assad regime has notgiven up on keeping Lebanon, in some fashion, for itself. Words on a piece ofpaper will not determine Syria’s behavior in Lebanon. Only conditions inLebanon, the status of the peace process, and enforced demands by outsidepowers will bring about a Syrian withdrawal. As an example of politicallymeaningless words on a piece of paper, consider that no country in the worldexcept Israel agreed with the Shamir interpretation of United Nations Resolution242, namely, that compliance with the words “withdraw from territories”occurred when the IDF left the Sinai. Yet the Likud Prime Minister insisted onsuch an interpretation when he outlined Israel’s position in Madrid. Similarly,Syria will not worry about language and treaty commitments when it continually“postpones” leaving Lebanon.

Israel, concerned about an American-Syrian closeness, is angry about theSyrian envelopment of Lebanon, noting that nothing has been done to containPalestinian or Hizbollah military activity in the south. It is clear to the Israelisthat as long as Damascus controls the government in Beirut, nothing will be doneto rein in the various guerrilla groups. What could be more convenient for theSyrians than to conduct hostilities against Israel (at a tolerable level) fromanother country’s territory and, thus, avoid Israel’s retaliation. Yet, Israel holdsthe Golan region and the SLA buffer in south Lebanon as cards to play againstSyria (and Lebanon). Syria holds the guerrillas; Israel the Golan. These are thetwo major cards that must be played before Lebanon has any chance of regainingits full independence.

It must be kept in mind that ending the Hizbollah-Palestinian activity in thesouth would not be easy for Syria and the Lebanese government to accomplisheven if Damascus decided to do so. Such a policy would harm Syria’s relationswith Iran whose power helps contain Iraq, Syria’s most dangerous enemy.However, were the peace process to yield an interim settlement (in the interest ofboth the Syrians and Palestinians), one can imagine Syria and Israel cooperatingin allowing the Lebanese army to gain control of the south and restrain theguerrillas. Clearly, the future of Lebanon awaits outcomes in the peace processbetween Israel and its neighbors that seem distant at present.

Lebanon’s government did make some progress on the domestic front in 1991.In early July, 6,000 soldiers of the Lebanese army assaulted the Palestinianguerrillas in their strongholds east of Sidon. These Fatahland fighters, morenumerous in 1991 than in 1981 (prior to the Israeli invasion), were defeated but


were allowed to return to their Mieh-Mieh and Ein el-Hilweh camps withnothing more than the light weapons needed to maintain order.4 As the Hrāwigovernment saw it, without their heavier weapons and bases, conducting raidsinto SLA-Israel would be more difficult (unless they had Syrian permission).5The object of this policy, therefore, was not only to extend the army’s controlover Lebanese territory but also to demonstrate that the government could controlthe guerrillas. If it could do so, perhaps the Israelis might eventually bepersuaded to return the SLA buffer in the south to Beirut. Locally, the Lebanesearmy took some pride in the fact that it was a multicommunal force that hadattacked and defeated the Palestinian military units. Obviously, it was alsohelpful that Syrian troops had been able to patrol other parts of the country whilethe new Hrāwi army devoted its full attention to moving against the Fatahregulars. The success of the Lebanese army in this case should not lead us tooveremphasize its freedom of action. One of the reasons that the Lebanese hadSyrian support for this action was that Damascus wanted to weaken the Arafatfaction of the Palestinians.

Moving further east and south, however, has not been so easy for the Lebanesegovernment. In attempting to enter Jezzīn as well as move on south toward Tyre,the army began to push at the outer edges of what is possible in regaining controlover its territory. Jezzīn acts as the most northerly outpost for the SLA, andIsrael was not prepared to concede this spot to Beirut. In moving toward Tyre,UNIFIL6 demanded that its mission and security needs be honored, putting alimit on how far Lebanese authority could move in that direction. Here again, thereal limits are controlled by both Israel and Syria, and neither is likely to pullback until the other does. As said before, Lebanon waits; we all wait for progressin the peace process.

RELEASE OF HOSTAGES

Another major development in 1991 was the beginning of the release, in earnest,of the Western hostages. On August 8, 1991, Islamic Jihad released JohnMcCarthy, a British journalist who had been kidnapped in 1986. Then, followinga hiccup in the pattern, when a Frenchman, Jerome Leyraud, was kidnapped (toprotest Iran’s new policy on the hostages), both he and Edward Austin Tracywere let go on August 11. Tracy was freed by the Revolutionary JusticeOrganization, another Hizbollah group, signalling that all the hostages held byorganizations tied to Iran would soon be released. On September 23,Revolutionary Justice also handed over Jack Mann to Syrian authorities; he hadbeen seized by a group, the Cells of Armed Struggle, in 1989. On September 111991, Israel released fifty-one Lebanese prisoners it had been holding and, inexchange for information on Israelis held or killed in Lebanon, became part ofthe program to get the release of the hostages. These continued to come out: theBritish Thomas Sutherland and Terry Waite in November and, finally,Americans Joseph Cicippio, Alann Steen, and Terry Anderson, a few weeks later


in early December 1991. Only Thomas Kemptner and Heinrich Strübig, twoGermans held by the Hamadai clan, remained in captivity. Their case wascomplicated by the fact that this family hoped to trade Kemptner and Strübig fortheir kin imprisoned in Germany as convicted terrorists. These two men were notfreed until the summer of 1992.

Not counting those held by Israel, about eighty-six hostages were captured andheld in Lebanon during this saga. The first was taken in 1982 and the last werereleased a decade later. Obviously, more hostages could be taken and thismethod again used to dramatize a cause or, as is more likely, to keepinterventionary forces out of Lebanon. Yet, the rapid movement on this issue,once a decision had been made in Tehran, suggested that a more pragmaticapproach was being followed. Although it may take years to bear fruit, it hasbecome clear (since the end of the Gulf War and the break up of the SovietUnion) that Middle East regimes will need to be less ideological and morepragmatic in the future. The need to find a role in the post-Cold War period, bothpolitically and economically, more than anything else, is fostering the newapproaches that are emerging in the area. Yet, economic needs do not, bythemselves, decide political issues. Difficult, abrasive issues still divide people,and bombs and hostage taking remain tools for groups to use as the means toadvance their causes.

Another sign of pragmatism was the participation of both Israel and Syria inthe peace talks, held initially in Madrid, which inaugurated America’s post-GulfWar attempt to give impetus to the peace process. Syria’s Lebanon alsoparticipated in these talks, but the Hrāwi government’s views have not divergedsignificantly from positions taken by Syria. Its representatives, however, havehad the opportunity of presenting their claims in face to face talks with theIsraelis. The Israelis and Palestinians have continued to negotiate (even asradicals on both sides try to undercut the peace process), and they may beinching their way towards normalcy by means of an infinite series of interimagreements. A non-publicized attitude with which the participants haveconducted the negotiations is that, even though major difficulties stand in theway of a settlement, they can always return to try again. In Moscow, twentycountries attended the Middle East peace talks, giving the process a multilateralflavor and setting a precedent for the conference-approach to the issue. Meetingsduring the latter months of 1992, following the June elections in Israel, led to“real” talking, for example in 1993 in Norway.

POLITICS AND RECONSTRUCTION

After obtaining Syria’s approval, President Hrāwi nominated Rafīq al-Harīri tobe the Prime Minister of Lebanon following elections (boycotted by mostMaronites in the central districts) held in August and September of 1992. OnOctober 22, Harīri was voted in and (with Nabīh Berri as the new Speaker)provided a new look in the Lebanese government. Lebanese born but a Saudi


national, Harīri is a self-made billionaire committed to the reconstruction ofLebanon. While he has himself begun to invest in new commercial properties,the main hope Harīri represents is his determination to cut through the politicalimbroglio in Lebanon and steer the country along a coherent path ofreconstruction and renewal. Although not without controversy, the Harīrigovernment has established Solidère, a state-managed stock company to rebuildthe market center of Beirut. Other projects are being planned to develop thecountry’s transportation and utility infrastructure, e.g., a bypass for Beirut andrebuilding the old Haifa-Tripoli railroad. The government’s objective is, onceagain, to attract business and capital to Lebanon, and, so far, it has succeeded.

The third of President Hrāwi’s Prime Ministers (Salīm al-Hoss and OmarKarāmi preceded him), Rafīq al-Harīri first took office in 1992. Relations haveoften been strained with other members of the cabinet—especially the Shi’iteSpeaker of the House, Nabīh Berri—as well as with President Hrāwi. Harīri hasattempted to resign at least three times, usually over the question of getting quickaction on his development projects.7 This Sunni minister also wanted to bringmore Maronites into his cabinet—to make it more representative—and evenwent on strike to try and get his way. Elias Hrāwi, the Maronite President,refused him the new ministers but was, with Syria’s help, able to persuade Harīrito stay on. Although their relationship has not been easy, the President and thePrime Minister have functioned fairly well as a dual executive. Acting as a kindof proconsul for Damascus, Hrāwi sets limits on the policies that the morepopular Harīri initiates and tries to push through. At present, power in Lebanon’sgovernmental structure has shifted from the President to the Prime Minister.That power, however, is subject to what the Syrians allow and might operatedifferently, under the Ta‛if formula, if left to its own devices.

In addition, the traditional leader of the Druze, Walīd Jumblāt, has led themovement for reconciliation in Lebanon, making special efforts to conduct aprogram directed toward the repatriation of Christian villagers to the Druze areasof the Matn and Shūf. As Minister for War Displaced, Jumblāt is working on acareful step by step process that helps people who fled their villages during thewar return, find protection, and rebuild.8

In other parts of the country, similar reconstruction and reconciliation programshave been inaugurated. However, the 360,000 Palestinian refugees still living inLebanon pose a problem that has not been dealt with satisfactorily. Some camps,like Ein el-Hilweh (near Sidon), are small cities in their own right; others, likeNahr al-Barīd (near Tripoli), are caught between the PLO and Syria and sometimesleft without any support. Although less than one half of Lebanon’s Palestiniansactually live in the camps, living space is still at a premium. The governmentplans to reduce sharply the number of camps and insists that once a settlement isreached, no more than 50,000 Palestinians will be allowed to become permanentresidents (with civic rights) in the country. In the future, Lebanon is to be only forthe Lebanese.


Although the recent election suffered from the Maronite boycott and thesmothering tactics of the Syrian pro-consuls, it also must be gauged as aqualified success. The present cabinet is by no means entirely pro-Syrian and hasmany positions occupied by political technocrats instead of the old zu‛āmapoliticians. Hizbollah made electoral gains both in the Ba‛albek region and in thesouthern Jabal Amil. Amin Gemayel has returned from France, and Samir Ja‛jawas forcefully persuaded to take up residence in his village home in themountains.9 The Franjiehs participated in the election, and some won seats in theAssembly. In May 1995, the inevitable question (in Lebanon) of amending theconstitution so that the President might succeed himself began to surface. OnNovember 23, Hrāwi’s term would end and with it, so his supporters claimed,would end the recent “era of security and…stability.”10 At first, concerned aboutthe political consequences of going against constitutional tradition in Lebanon,Damascus opposed the idea. By the end of the summer, however, the Syriansviewed the matter differently. Facing difficult negotiations with the Israelis overthe Golan and the status of south Lebanon, Assad decided not to take a chance ona successor beyond his control in Beirut. Thus, on October 19, the 128-memberLebanese Assembly, with only eleven opposed, agreed to the amendment thatallows Elias Hrāwi to continue in office for an additional three years (rather thana second full term of six years). The Prime Minister, Harīri, his own lusterhaving paled somewhat in 1995, led the campaign for amending the constitution.

While public order is better maintained than in the past, violence still aboundsin Lebanon. As part of the war between Hizbollah and SLA-Israel, the Israelisconducted a weeklong bombing of guerrilla targets in the Biqā in July 1993.More than a hundred persons lost their lives. Attack and reprisal continue in thesouth. The Israelis launched thirty-one air strikes into Lebanon in 1994, whileHizbollah’s attacks cost Israel twenty soldiers that year. Also, internally,Lebanon has suffered several bombings. The Phalange Party headquarters wasbombed in December 1993; in Jounieh, eleven died when bombs were detonatedin a Maronite church, in February 1994; and bombings against Jews in Londonand in Buenos Aires (killing a hundred persons) have been linked to the war insouth Lebanon. A Jordanian First Secretary, Na‛iīb Ma‛ayta, was murdered inBeirut in January 1994, and a car bomb killed Fu‛ād Mughnīyah, brother ofhostage taker Imād Mughnīyah, in December. Syrians, Iranians, Israelis, andrevanchist Lebanese still have agents who can kill for them in Lebanon.

Although deep and bitter divisions from the long years of strife remain, the civilwar in Lebanon has ended and the process of healing begun.11 Considering thehorrors of the previous period, the country has done well in fostering politicaland economic stability, striving mightily to reimpose the rule of law andorganize a long-term program of reconstruction. Yet, while the civil war is over,Lebanon is still occupied (by Syria and Israel), and the war in the south betweenHizbollah and SLA-Israel continues. In Beirut (1995–6), the mood has becomemore optimistic as more goods have appeared in the stores, the streets have beencleaned up, electricty has been turned on for most of the day, and roads have


been rebuilt.12 The mood has been different in other parts of the country,especially in the Biqā and the south, where the war takes its regular toll of livesand property.

Figure 10.1 Summary of incidents of violence: 1947–1991



WAR AND OCCUPATION

In 1976, the Syrian army was invited to intervene in Lebanon to prevent a victoryby a PSP-Palestinian coalition that had pushed the Christian militias into themountains. The Israelis first entered Lebanon militarily in 1978 to drive back thePalestinian guerrillas in South Lebanon and give support to the South Lebanesearmy which was organized as a buffer in the border regions. Both remain inLebanon today. The Biqā region has hosted an Iranian presence as well.

The incoherence of Lebanese politics and the chaos of its violence providedthe context for these interventions. Those in Beirut, depending on the Syrians,and in Marjayoun, needing the Israelis, can find justification for their policies bysimply recalling the past. An Armenian Mutasarrif or an American ambassadorcould stand apart from the clash of interests in Lebanon; not all relationships forthem (in Lebanon) were zero-sum. The problem is, of course, that neitherDamascus nor Jerusalem fill the bill. They are not about to take on roles thatremind us of the policies of Da'ūd Pasha or Robert McClintock. Lebanon forthem is, at least partly, a means by which they compete with each other. The“Ghassanid” SLA buffers for Israel while the “Lakhmid” Hizbollah buffers forSyria (and Iran).13 Lebanon is trapped.

Undoubtedly, the Syrian occupation provides some benefits for the Lebanese.The 30,000 soldiers of the occupation force are not very visible; much of themanagement of traffic at the checkpoints has been taken over by thereconstituted Lebanese army. The outsider, for some time now, has been calledupon to mediate between Lebanese factions and squabbling members of thegovernment, contributing to the country’s new-found stability. Hafiz al-Assad’sposition in Lebanon complicates Israeli strategies for operating with a free handin Lebanon, not only to combat guerrillas there but also to make off with thecountry’s water from the Litāni River.14 Finally, Syria’s presence in Lebanonstrengthens the Arab component in the “peace process.” Neglecting the Arabcomponent has been destabilizing to Lebanon in the past, and it very likelywould be destabilizing in the future.

The only palpable benefit of the Israeli occupation for the Lebanese is that itprovides them with a possible ally against the Syrians and prevents the outrightannexation of the country by Damascus. The contributions of both occupationsare, otherwise, negative. For those who still believe that Lebanon should be Arabbut separate, the negatives are simply that the two occupations emasculate theindependence of the Republic, perpetuate a tight stalemate of war in the south,and reduce the chances that the Lebanese can be free of the religious andideological zealotry that keep them in thrall.

All talk of progress and reconstruction in Lebanon should not deflect ourattention from the fact that war is still being fought in its precincts. Lebanese andIsraelis die in the raids and bombardments that are conducted on a routine basis:in Israel, in the border region, in the Iqlīm al-Tuffah, in the Biqā Valley, andeven in far-off places like London and Buenos Aires. The loss in property and in


the feelings of bitterness and helplessness on the part of persons who have theirhomes destroyed is immense. The UN reported eighty Hizbollah attacks inFebruary 1995, while Israel blockaded the coast of south Lebanon that month,putting 1,800 fishermen out of work. The active war front along Lebanon’sborder with Israel continued on a routine basis throughout 1995 and into 1996,killing 151 persons (including twenty-five Israeli soldiers). Attacks with pinpointaccuracy by the Israelis removed some Hizbollah leaders; booby-traps andsuicide bombings carried out by Hizbollah guerrillas killed SLA and IDFsoldiers. By April of 1996, guerrillas in south Lebanon were once againrocketing Kiryāt Shimona in the northeastern corner of Israel. The Israelis haveretaliated by bombing Hizbollah targets in Ba‛albek and Beirut. Attack andcounterattack amount to permanent war in Lebanon.

What is the objective basis for the war-stalemate? Having won the Golan inthe 1967 war, Israel has since annexed part of it and allowed Jewish citizens tobuild settlements in the region. For security reasons, among others, Israel wantsto keep at least some of the area permanently; Syria wants all of it back. Israelalso occupied a buffer strip of south Lebanon in 1978, invaded again in 1982,and then did not completely withdraw in 1985 as had been promised. Syria, withits Hizbollah and Palestinian auxiliaries, outflanks the Golan Heights region onthe west and can keep military pressure on Israel and her SLA allies at little cost.In lock step, Syria and Lebanon have insisted on a comprehensive settlementwith Israel that would result in the return of the Golan to Syria and withdrawal ofIsraeli troops from southern Lebanon. Damascus has insisted that the Lebanesecannot act independently of Syria; to do so would reduce their bargaining powervis-à-vis the Israelis. Officially, the Lebanese government has been adamant inrefusing to send its own army into the south to control the “liberation” forcesthere until all of the provisions of UN Security Council 425 are fulfilled.15 Thegovernment of Lebanon needs Syria for internal stability; the Syrian governmentneeds Lebanon as a means to exert military pressure on Israel. The quid pro quowould seem to suggest that Lebanese cooperation will increase Syria’s chances ofgetting the Golan back while Syrian cooperation will increase Lebanon’schances of regaining control over the whole of its territory. In carrying out its sideof the bargain, Lebanon is not to make a separate deal with the Israelis orinterfere with Syria’s use of Hizbollah against Israel; and, for its part, Syria is tomake no agreement over the Golan that does not also require the Israelis towithdraw from Lebanese territory and allow the Lebanese army to imposeBeirut’s authority on the militias. Although all three governments need asettlement, many strings need to be pulled at the same time.16

In an attempt to pull these strings, the Americans invited Israel and Syria toengage in discussions at Wye Plantation on the eastern shore of Maryland—alocation barred to the media and allowing a relaxed, unhurried atmosphere.Meetings in June and December 1995 and January 1996 have allowed the partiesto examine options without engaging in genuine negotiations. The results of thisOslo-style format are, as yet, unknown, but reports suggest a businesslike


approach by the conferees and an exchange of views on a wide range of issues.The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995, murders of Hamasleaders, suicide bombings by Hamas, bulldozing of homes, and more murdersand suicide bombings have made it much more difficult to make progress atWye. Although discussions will undoubtedly continue, they are not likely toyield substantive results until some time after elections have been held (1996) inboth Israel and the United States.

In the meantime, the Lebanese have not deviated from the Syrian line inregional and international policy. They did not attend the second Israeli-Palestinian summit (Oslo II); they were absent from Rabin’s funeral; and theywere among only six Middle East countries that refused to go to the “conferenceof peacemakers” at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt on March 13, 1996. Thirteen Arabcountries attended. Bombs and bulldozers have played into the hands of theradicals, keeping Lebanon in lock step with Syria. Although it is assumed thatLebanon will be able to retrieve its southern districts when Syria regains theGolan, many question whether or not the three governments involved will beable to gain control over Hizbollah and the radical Palestinian guerrillas in thatarea. Hizbollah may not be much easier to manage for Syria and Lebanon than isHamas easy to manage for Palestine and Israel. The process of actual retrieval insouth Lebanon may take much longer than negotiating a settlement betweenSyria and Israel.

THE FUTURE

Boxed in by Syria, Israel, Palestine, and Iran and with its independence at stake,Lebanon is a hostage to the international process that will determine its future.The Lebanese, within the confines of what is politically feasible, must exhibitgreat patience for now. They must concentrate on the internal reconstruction andreconciliation necessary to attract the serious involvement of sympatheticpolicymakers and financiers in the world at large. A sovereign Lebanon thatexisted only as an arena of factional strife and intercommunal war would not beworth the trouble.

Yet, even with a strengthened credibility, Lebanon will not be “saved” bymeans of another country’s program. Other countries are more likely to use herthan save her. For now, she must make her way along the treacherous path ofdomestic and regional politics, prospecting the peace process for what it yieldswhile preparing for the day when she can assert her independence. To flailherself into a thousand pieces will only delay that day.

Some argue that the current government in Lebanon should send its army intothe south and, acting independently of Syrian wishes, begin to reconstitute itsauthority in that region, a change of policy, one assumes, the Israelis wouldwelcome.17 This is not a feasible strategy for Beirut at this time. With due regardfor the suffering caused by the war in the south, Lebanon is not stable enough orstrong enough to act independently of Syria. Moreover, it would be a mistake for


it to flout the “Arab” role in the peace process that has now been thrust upon it,at least until all feasible possibilities have been exhausted. But how will we knowwhen “all possibilities are exhausted?” How long must the Lebanese wait?

The answer to this question involves the covariance of two factors: thestrength and solidarity of Lebanese society relative to the status of the peaceprocess. If the problem of the Golan is resolved (and it comes back under Syriancontrol), the war situation in southern Lebanon will also have been settled; forIsrael would never give up the Golan region while Syrian-Iranian proxies remainactive there. Thus, the peace process must yield the whole package or nothing atall. The difficulty for the Lebanese, of course, is that in working out the quid proquos of that package, they must perform first. They must cooperate with Syria ongetting the Golan back before Syria must cooperate with them in disarming the“liberation” forces in south Lebanon and withdrawing the 30,000 soldiers fromLebanese territory. Genuine Lebanese patriots must simply recognize that thisunfortunate asymmetry in their prospects is one of the penalties assigned them forhaving fought the civil war and allowed the Syrians to come in and end it. It maybe that the Syrian troops will never leave willingly and that Lebanon’s governingelite will, indeed, prefer that they do not. While it is not incredible to imagine thestatus quo remaining indefinitely, a sense of Lebanon’s history suggests thatthese peoples will once again demand to be independent. Throughout theirhistory, the only times they have been able to unite—the only instances when thepeople have been true to their Mountain—were those times when they had to acttogether to rid themselves of foreigners. Policymakers in Damascus, in Jerusalem,in Beirut, and in Washington take note.

One can, of course, imagine a worst-case scenario, a deterioration in thesituation that neither honors the efforts of the Lebanese in rebuilding theircountry nor the care and perspicuity with which Hafiz al-Assad has conductedhimself in the Levant. In such a case, a movement would surely develop amongthe Lebanese to regain their independence—perhaps guerrilla action that wouldhave as its goal the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon. Once theLebanese have expressed their gratitude to the Syrians for the assistance that hasbeen rendered and politely asked them to leave, and a “reasonable” time haspassed without this request being honored, realism suggests that the peoples ofthe Republic would organize to bring about Syria’s departure by their ownefforts. This effort, if required, should set the following, lexically ordered,priorities:

1 to demand the reconstitution of the fully independent Republic of Lebanon,2 to organize it according to the conception of the mīthāq al-watanī (National

Pact),3 to assert, as an ultimate goal, the establishment of a non-sectarian political

system,4 to emphasize diplomatic means as precedent to military action,


5 to manage, if possible, to have the top leadership position in the movementheld by a Muslim.18

Comment is perhaps needed only for the last of these priorities. The genius of theal-Khūri-al-Sulh National Pact was that it enunciated the one, unvarnished truthabout Lebanon—it is separate and Arab. Such a movement, if necessary—andthis account is written for the express purpose of making it unnecessary—wouldonly meet with success if most of the members of the Muslim communities in theRepublic felt Lebanese. Christians should assume, therefore, that a time wouldcome when Muslims also wanted to reconstitute a fully independent Lebanon,one that was their country too.

THE LONG-TERM FUTURE

Salvation for Lebanon requires movement toward non-sectarian politics and alessening of class barriers. Because religious leaders cannot deliver the goods ina global economic and political system, the religion disease will run its courseonce outsiders stop subsidizing it. When meddling in politics, religious leaderscan only close doors not open them. While much has been made of Lebanon’ssectarian dilemmas, the special difficulty for Lebanese society has been the“double trouble” it engenders; class barriers run parallel to religious divisions.The only long-term solution for this dilemma is to permit people to vote asindividuals for individuals, linked only to non-government political partyorganizations. Only a non-sectarian politics will lessen class barriers.

Another key to Lebanon’s future is for its leaders to master the “inside-outside” game, not only as an independent state but as a cultural and economiccomponent of the region. History teaches that insiders cannot alone organize astable and prosperous Middle East. Nor can any of the parts of the region enjoypeace independently of the peace and security of the other parts. While theMiddle East as a whole is truly a mosaic, as is Syria, that part of it calledLebanon is even more so. In Beirut, all the little pieces have fallen down in aheap. This tragic place is an area of hyper-particularism, one square of the fourcenter squares of the global chess-board, an urban culture in a desert-oasisecology, an arena for those in and out of the garden, a place of vulnerability, ofoutside intervention, of amoral relativism, of glorified expediency, of thetransient moment.

It is necessary to see the future of Lebanon not so much in terms of gainingperfect distributions of justice for everyone, adjudicating the many claims in someoptimal fashion, but in terms of providing alternatives to current behavior as ameans of surviving and (hopefully) prospering. People have to ask, “What couldLebanon be like? What could the Middle East be like?” A person in Beirut oughtto be able to pick up his phone and do business with someone in Jerusalem.Khadījah Mariam Abraham should be able to drive from Cairo to Damascus in ahalf day, stopping perhaps for lunch in Jerusalem.


In truth, there are simple physical dilemmas for individuals to face in today’sLebanon, dilemmas that ramify throughout the Middle East. Of these, by far theworst is a single one, the fact of simple, on the spot, personal vulnerability. ManyLebanese seem to operate from extraordinarily banal and regressive motives.They, like their forebears for thousands of years, have often found it necessary torun away from the place. Solutions for them, from love of their Creator and fortheir children, require value change and behavior change. But, even though suchchange depends on great efforts from everyone, it cannot happen without thegifts and energies of people in Lebanon whose motivation is refined andprogressive. Moreover, the “good” of some cannot win over the “bad” of othersunless provision is made for a political context within which it can work.Outsiders may be able to provide some of the political cement, but only theLebanese can make their system work. Only the Lebanese can bring credibility totheir politics.

The context proposed here must do the following for the individual Lebaneseas well as for those persons living in the Middle East. A political context must becreated that gives the individual person real protection at four levels of humantransactions. First, a person needs security as an individual. Security at thisprimal level will require both the above-mentioned behavior change andimproved institutions at the higher levels. Second, the individual needs security atthe communal level, something parallel to what the old Ottoman millet systemused to provide. Third; the Middle East individual must have protection at thenational level, i.e., protection that enforces criminal statutes and controls trafficacross territorial boundaries. Finally, the citizen of the Middle East must haveprotection at the regional level, a means of organizing the desert-oasis ecology ina way that yields and distributes enough wealth to make the first three levels ofprotection possible.

Above and beyond talk about eternal Syria, a Christian refuge, a promisedland, Arab unity, and the Islamic purification of territory stands the real pluralismof peoples and culture in the Middle East. There are too many differences to sortout in each of the national cocoons that the Europeans drew up after the First WorldWar. Unless the world is willing to provide the subsidy, none of the religious orideological contenders can dominate the whole area or any of its parts. People inthe Middle East must not only learn to live with differences but also mustinstitutionalize the means of doing so. Travelers to the area revel in thedifferences; find them intriguing, exciting, exemplifying the assertion of style.They come to love the land, the peoples, the effervescent contrasts. Is it not adream worth pursuing that, someday, natives of the Middle East would be able totravel in, and come to love, their own land?

To do so they must make the whole region secure. Without the larger, securearena, Middle Eastern people lose in conflict what they would otherwise makefrom their professional and commercial activities. All three levels of security andopportunity interrelate with one another. Personal and communal security requirenational, secular enforcement. To provide national enforcement requires a


workable regional involvement. This involvement at the regional level entailsnot merely “just” distributions but the commutative salience to make prosperityhappen. In order to make a commercial transaction with an Armenian Catholic inBeirut, the businesswoman in Jiddah ought to be able to contact a supplier in

Figure 10.2 Major rivers of Lebanon



Jerusalem, someone who could ship his goods from a warehouse not nine blocksfrom Ashrafīyah. That is the way to compete. That is the way to bring prosperityto Lebanon and to the rest of the Middle East. To suggest anything less would becondescending to the peoples of the region. To hope for anything less, would notbestow upon Lebanon the honor that is her due.


Appendix I:Religious sects of Lebanon

MUSLIM SECTS

Shi‛ites (Matāwīlah in Lebanon) Principal heterodox sect of Islam; they hold totwelve Imams beginning with Ali. Largest community in Lebanon.

Sunnis The orthodox sect of Islam. Recognize election of first four Caliphsand sunna of the Prophet. Third largest community in Lebanon.

Ismā‛ilis Split off from Ja‛fāri (twelver) Shi‛ites; hold to seven Imams andincorporate mysticism in faith. Represented in confessional system.

Druze Split from Ismā‛ilis when disciples of the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakimproclaimed his divinity (1021). Lebanon’s fourth largest community.

Alawites (Nusayris) Split from Ismā‛ilis by missionary activity of IbnNusayr; eclectic faith. Main community north of Lebanon in Syria.

CHRISTIAN SECTS

Maronites Originally monothelite; held that Jesus had a single divine will.Uniate with Vatican (1182). Lebanon’s second largest community.

Greek Orthodox Residual from Byzantine era; main (trinitarian) sect ofEastern Christianity. The fifth largest community in Lebanon.

Greek Catholics Originally Greek Orthodox from Byzantine era but uniatewith Rome (1709). The sixth largest community in Lebanon.

Armenian Orthodox (Gregorian) Monophysite rite split fromConstantinople (451). Have representation in confessional system of Lebanon.

Roman Catholics Subject to direct supervision from Vatican withoutintermediaries of local Patriarch. Represented in confessional system.

Armenian Catholics Originally Armenian Orthodox but uniate with Vatican(1740). They have confessional representation in Lebanon.

Old Syrians (Jacobites) Monophysite sect of missionary Jacob Baradaeus;split from Constantinople (451). Represented in confessional system.

Syrian Catholics Split from Old Syrians (1662) and are uniate with Rome.They have confessional representation in Lebanon.

Chaldean Catholics Split from the Eastern Church (Nestorians) (1552) andare uniate with Rome. They have confessional representation in Lebanon.

Protestants Converted (mostly from Christian communities) by British andAmerican missionaries (after 1820). Have confessional representation.

Eastern Church (Nestorians) Split from Constantinople (451) holding thatJesus was both divine and human. Only a few live in Lebanon.

JEWS

Only a few members of the Jewish community remain in Lebanon.

290 RELIGIOUS SECTS OF LEBANON

Appendix II:Dynasties and rulers of Lebanon

Ancient settlements along eastern Mediterranean 3500 BCE?Towns along Lebanese coast (Sidon, Tyre, Byblos, Aradus,Berytus) (Amoritic Canaanites)

3000 BCE

Amorite Phoenicians 1500 BCEPhoenician city statesSidon (high point) 1050 BCETyre (high point) 950 BCEAssyrian invasion (beginning) 854 BCEChaldean (Neo-Babylonian) control 625 BCEPersian Empire (beginning) 539 BCEHellenic Empire (Alexander) 330 BCEHellenic (Ptolemies and Seleucids) 320 BCERoman invasion (indirect rule) 63 BCE(direct rule) 75 BCE-395 CEByzantine control 395–636 CEArab Muslim conquests (beginning) 636 CEUmmayad control (Damascus) 661–750 CEAbbasid control (Baghdad) 750 CEFatimid Caliphate (Cairo) 969–1171 CECrusader kingdoms 1097–1291 CE(Zengid-Ayyubid (Damascus-Cairo) Wars) 1191–1250 CEMamluks (Turkish) (Cairo)(Baybars defeats Crusaders) 1271–1517 CE(Al-Ashrāf drives out Crusaders) 1291Ottomans (Salim I) (Istanbul) 1516–1914(Ma‛ni Amirate) 1518–1697(Shihābi Amirate) 1697–1842(Kaymakamate, etc.) 1842–1860(Mutasarrifate) 1861–1914

Syrian and Israeli occupation 1977–1996

292

(Military rule) 1914–1918France (colony and League Mandate) 1918–1943Independent Republic 1943–1977

Epilogue

At the time of writing this epilogue (May 1996), war continues in Lebanon andthe country remains emasculated. Many in Lebanon have concluded thatcountries on the outside such as Syria, Israel, Iran, France, and the United Statesare either unwilling or unable to help them regain their independence. From theinside, the situation looks bleak; the Lebanese are trapped. Their government,such as it is, continues to support the Syrian strategy of linking the Hizbollahthreat (based on Lebanese territory) to an Israeli withdrawal from the Golanregion. Unfortunately, Lebanese civilians must suffer punishment for holding theonly card Assad has to play in getting what he wants from Israel.

Early in 1996, civilians were targeted in several incidents, contrary to anagreement between the belligerents (following hostilities in July 1993) that onlymilitary personnel were fair game. After one such attack (April 8, 1996), inwhich a Lebanese youth was killed and several others wounded, Hizbollahguerrillas launched a barrage of rockets the next day at Israel’s northeastpanhandle, wounding several Israelis in Kiryāt Shemona. The initial Israeliresponse was measured, but when Hizbollah’s Katyushas continued to descendon its towns, Israel retaliated with a massive air and artillery bombardment. Inone strike from off-shore naval vessels, Israel shelled refugees who had fled to aUNIFIL camp near Tyre, killing ninety-one persons. The United States, the onlycountry other than Israel to vote against a UN General Assembly resolutioncondemning the attack, then sent its Secretary of State shuttling betweenDamascus and Jerusalem, trying to get the war stopped. The Secretary’s attemptswere frustrated at first by the number of leaders involved as well as election-yearpolitics. He did finally get a ceasefire (April 26) after eighteen days of shelling.

During this latest round of violence, it has become clear that no side will be ableto win the interminable communal struggles and proxy wars that politiciansconduct in the Levant. Insiders habitually keep score, as if yesterday’s atrocity ortomorrow’s diplomatic move will ultimately lead to victory. But it never does; itonly leads to the next calamity—to the next revison of the score—leavinginnocent people scrambling for their portion of zero-sum.

As for the score, let us hope that this latest round is seen as so utterly stupidand futile that those involved will recognize that they are not going to win, that

the old games won’t work. What will work? No one knows exactly, but it mighthelp to…

1 agree to keep the violence to an absolute minimum pending the outcomes ofvarious electoral campaigns, including the one in the United States(November 1996);

2 realize that none of the parties is going to give up, settle for subordinatestatus, or leave the area;

3 recognize that no particular conflict in the area can be resolved outside theboundaries of a general settlement;

4 approach the problem in terms of an infinite series of interim agreements,each outcome improving particular situations, pending future negotiations;

5 understand that the conflict is not about religion but about scarce livingspace and scarce water, about who will get to live in what place (in an areawhere too many differences cohabit too small a territory);

6 accept the fact that all five states involved—Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria,and Lebanon—are intercommunal, confessional systems and notindependent nation states on the Western pattern;

7 and, finally, work for solutions that reduce people’s vulnerability byproviding security and governance at regional, national, and communallevels of association.

May 1, 1996Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania

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Notes

1PEOPLES AND HISTORY TO 1840

1 The population of Lebanon is estimated (mid-1994) to total 3.6 million persons. Inaddition, UNRWA estimates that about 360,000 Palestinian refugees live in thecountry, perhaps 42 percent of these living in the camps. Also, nearly a half millionSyrian workers live in Lebanon, and Damascus has about 30,000 soldiers basedthere as well. Of the current population, about 57 percent is Muslim, 43 percentChristian: including 1.1 million Shi‛ites (Lebanon’s single largest sect), 700,000Maronites, 650,000 Sunnis, 210,000 Druze, 190,000 Greek Orthodox, and 160,000Greek Catholics. The population was increasing at an annual rate of 2 percent, and33 percent of the population was under fifteen years of age. Lebanon’s PQLI(Physical Quality of Life Index) was pegged at 81 in 1991 (compared to 97 forIsrael and 83 for Jordan). For mid-1994 comparisons with other Middle Eastcountries, see Ethelston, Sally, “Gender, Population, and Environment,” MiddleEast Report, no. 190, September–October 1994, p. 4.

2 Certainly, Lebanon had not become a modern democracy, but I think it is fair to saythat the Lebanese made the attempt. For the evidence, see Harik, Iliya F., “PoliticalElite of Lebanon” in Lenczowski, George (ed.), Political Elites in the Middle East,Washington, 1975, pp. 201–20. While it is easy, especially with hindsight, todisagree with some of Harik’s interpretations, his data on the changing class originsof political leaders as well as the electoral turnover rate indicate that Lebanon hadbegun to experience a species of democratic pluralism. Had more of the power ofthe system been located in the elected political apparatus, perhaps more theRepublic’s citizens would have come to believe that democracy worked.

3 The term “Levantine” here refers to a cultural tendency, a psycholologicalcondition of life in the power corridor along the Eastern Mediterranean. Frenchscholars tend to employ the term “Levant” (for historic Syria) more than thosewriting in English, its reference being merely geographical and cultural. In English,however, the word often conveys an ethical overtone which, shorn of pureprejudice, has its basis in the belief that Levantines are more concerned with therelative distribution of values than their absolute distribution. Similarly, the term“conflict prone” does not mean “warlike” but “fissiparous.”

4 The term “circular causation” was coined by Gunnar Myrdal in his seminal studyof the American South (An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and AmericanDemocracy, New York, 1944). The concept (briefly) suggests that phenomena insocial contexts recapitulate one another in syndrome fashion, e.g., that a personwho is poor finds his poverty causes him to be hungry, and, therefore, weak,making him slow and, for that reason, unproductive, not earning much, and, thus,poor (completing the circle). It is not easy to say what causes what, andconceptions of linear causation do not seem adequate.

5 For comment and research findings which emphasize the division, fragmentation,and sectarianism of the area, see Binder, Leonard (ed.), Politics in Lebanon, NewYork, 1966, especially the articles by Hourani, no. 2, pp. 13– 29 and Zuwiyya-Yamak, no. 9, pp. 143–66; Fisher, W.B., The Middle East: A Physical, Social, andRegional Geography, Cambridge, 1978; Gulick, John, The Middle East: AnAnthropological Perspective, Pacific Palisades, 1976; Gordon, David C., Lebanon:The Fragmented Nation, London, 1980; Hurewitz, J.C., “Lebanese Democracy inits International Setting,” Middle East Journal, vol. 17, 1963, pp. 487–506;Hottinger, Arnold, “Zu‛ama and Parties in the Lebanese Crisis of 1958,” MiddleEast Journal, vol. 15, 1961, pp. 127–40; Barakat, Halim, “Social and PoliticalIntegration in Lebanon: A Case of Social Mosaic,” Middle East Journal, vol. 27,1973, pp. 301–18; Khoury, Phillip S., “Factionalism Among Syrian NationalistsDuring the French Mandate,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol.13, 1981, pp. 441–69; Ma‛oz, Moshe, “Attempts at Creating a Political Communityin Modern Syria,” Middle East Journal, vol. 26, 1972, pp. 389–404; and van Dam,Nikolaos, “Sectarian and Regional Factionalism in the Syrian Political Elite,” MiddleEast Journal, vol. 32, 1978, pp. 201–10.

6 We should note that the Balkans offer a similar geopolitical example of the dilemmasthat landforms and location bring to peoples. In the Balkans, for example, themountains keep local people apart while the river valleys let outsiders in, givingthem, like the Lebanese, the worst of both worlds, i.e., barriers that hinderintegration without providing protection. Where we might say that Balkanizationhas occurred in the Levant, we might also characterize contemporary Bosnia (in theBalkans) as “Lebanonized.”

7 For example, in the period just prior to the 1860 civil war in Lebanon, the Khāzinsheikhs in Kisrawān put so much effort into weakening their rivals that they nearlyruined themselves.

8 In Power and Society, New Haven, 1950, Lasswell and Kaplan elaborate an ID(Indulgence-Deprivation) Continuum, pp. 62–9, on which this statement is based.Their point is (simply) that value losses, measured in power or monetary units, arenot the same as the real losses conceived in purely psychological ical terms. By thisconception, Peter, who accidently loses ten dollars, loses more value than Paulgains when he unexpectantly finds the same ten dollars. On a psychological plane,the exchange was negative-sum even though, in economic terms, it was a transferpayment.

9 Quote appears in Ma‛oz, Moshe, op. cit.,“Attempts at Creating a PoliticalCommunity,” p. 393.

10 According to Carolyn M.Crockett, the rapacious behavior of howler monkeys shestudied in Venezuela indicates that the permanently unfavorable state of affairs forsome members of the population, females and less rapacious males, has become a

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function of their gene pool. Only the meanest survive to reproduce and, of course,tend to reproduce their own kind. The gene pool is thus constrained to biologicallyrecapitulate the “war of all against all” in the monkeys” social behavior. Somethingalong these lines may have become an influence in the interminable conflict whichgeography has bequeathed to the strategic Levant. For example, during the long civilwar period, amoral relativist militiamen in Lebanon killed more civilians thanenemy soldiers, further skewing the genetic curve away from that balance ofpersonality traits which a stable population requires. New cultural achievements forthe Lebanese may have to develop in Detroit. See Crockett, C.M., “Family Feuds,”Natural History, vol. 93, no. 8, 1984, pp. 54–63.

11 Lebanon is filled with such pawns, cast adrift from other parts and stranded in itscatch basins. Names like Ma‛n, Halabi, Jumblāt (Janbalāt), Kin‛āni, Sima‛ān, Sāba,Salībi, and Franjieh (Faranjīyah) not only give rise to etymological speculation butsuggest geographical origins as well.

12 I emphasize here the “conflict-proneness” and political incapacities of theLevantines, and especially the Lebanese, partly because of the usual explanationswe hear from their own representatives, whether politicians, journalists, orscholars, which tend to blame their problems to the manipulations and intrigues ofoutsiders. While a more balanced perspective is necessary, which this accounthopes to provide, we certainly must not ignore the fact that the Lebanese have hadto contend with an extraordinary number of designs and interventions from theoutside. Undoubtedly, the Palestinian presence in the 1970s and the high-flyingNasserism of the late 1950s, like Ibrahim’s invasion in the 1830s, have placedunbearable burdens on the country’s institutions. What is clear, however, is thatoutside forces which assail Lebanon do not act as a unifying factor, as would beexpected of an aggregate subject to a common threat, but more as a catalytic agentto intensify the disruptive elements which pull its society apart.

13 Dunand, Maurice, Byblos: Its History, Ruins, and Legend, Beirut, 1964. See,especially, pp. 22–5.

14 Matthew 15:21–8 and Mark 7:24–30. This may represent a turning point in Jesus’ministry, e.g., “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”Here we may have the initial suggestion that the “Good News” was not meantsolely for the people of Israel. For the outcome of this controversy, see Acts 10–11.

15 Meaning, “people of the Book,” which formally includes Jews and Christians (whohad been given revelation of God before Muhammad’s time and, though not inpossession of the final word, must be tolerated). In practice, Zoroastrians wereaccorded similar status.

16 The Jurājimah were undoubtedly extracting money from both the Byzantines andthe Ummayads, i.e., “double dipping.” Abd al-Malik, by means of a treaty withJustinian II, did get the Byzantines to withdraw them in 685 CE. They must havereturned, however, as al-Walīd sent an expedition against them in 708 CE.

17 The reference to a “separate” Lebanon does not imply a dramatically different stateof affairs, only that, historically speaking, the future country began to experienceits faint beginnings. We note that in conveying an interpretation of the reality thatis followed here, P.K.Hitti entitled his book, Lebanon in History.

18 See Salibi, Kamal S., “The Maronite Church in the Middle Ages and its Union withRome,” Oriens Christianus, vol. 42, 1958 pp. 92–104, for an excellent account ofthe relationship between the Maronites and the Crusaders. See also his Maronite

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Historians of Mediaeval Lebanon, Beirut, 1959 pp. 50–52, for the story of MalikKisrā and the renaming of this central mountain district, changing it from al-Khārija to Kisrawān in honor of this Maronite of the Crusader period.

19 The Byzantine Emperor, Heraclius, in wanting to find a resolution of the religiousfeud between his trinitarian populace and the monophysite Copts of Egypt,promoted a monothelite compromise that may have had its origin in the teaching ofMar Mar‛ūn. Where the monophysites insisted that Jesus was entirely divine, thetrinitarians claimed that he was both divine and human. The monothelite doctrineseems to have claimed that, while Jesus possessed both divine and humancharacteristics, he had but a single divine will. See Salibi, Kamal S., “TheMaronites of Lebanon under Frankish and Mamluk Rule (1099–1516),” Arabica,vol. 4, 1957, p. 295.

20 For comment on the anti-patriarch, Nuh al Bqūfāni, see Salibi, MaroniteHistorians, pp. 80–86. Discussion of an earlier period when the Maronites had tworival patriarchs, a uniate from the Jubayl region competing with an anti-union, anti-Frankish patriarch from Besharri, can be found in Salibi’s “The Maronite Church,”pp. 96–8. The anti-patriarch was Luke of Bnahrān.

21 The best sources in English on the Buhturs are to be found in the writings of KamalS. Salibi. See his “The Buhturids of the Garb: Mediaeval Lords of Beirut and ofSouthern Lebanon,” Arabica, vol. 8, 1961, pp. 74–97. His discussion of Shidyāq’sHistory in Maronite Historians, pp. 72–5 and 144–5 is also valuable.

22 I have derived the term “establishment Sunnis” from the classifications “PopulistIslam” and “Establishment Islam,” i.e., al-Islam al-Sha‛bi and al-Islam al-Rasmirespectively, as James Bill employs them in his article, “Resurgent Islam in thePersian Gulf,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 64, 1984, pp. 108–27. See, especially, pp. 108–9 for his rendering of these terms. My use of these labels for a different time periodsimply calls attention to the distinction between Sunnis linked to the dynastiesindirectly controlling Lebanon and other Sunnis, in places like Wadi al-Taym andscattered villages in the mountains, whose origins may well have been in takingflight from “Establishment Ismā‛ilis” (Sevener Shi‛ites) during the heyday ofFatimid control of Syria. Thus, from time to time, Lebanon may have served evenas a refuge for the orthodox!

23 Put an end to it as an independent system, that is. Although Cairo no longer servedas the seat of an empire, the Mamluks themselves were retained in the feudal order.Salim left power in the hands of a Viceroy (Vali) who administered Egypt throughlocal Beys. After 1619, the power of these Mamluks grew and that of the OttomanViceroy diminished until, by the middle of the eighteenth century, they had becomealmost independent. These were sometimes termed “Mamluk Slaves” to distinguishthem from the previous dynasty of independent Mamluks. The origins of the twogroups were quite similar; both had come to power as “owned persons” usingpositions in the military guard to overthrow their predecessors. The MamlukSlaves, however, had been the slaves of previous slaves, the “owned” of theowned.

24 Tradition has it that this Ma‛n was titled sultan al-barr, “Lord of the Countryside,”i.e., of the Lebanese mountain villages in the hinterland not connected to any urbantrading center. Given the essentially urban character of Middle East culture, thistitle was innocuous enough. It must have both inflated the mountain dwellers andprovided opportunities for a few guffaws on the part of old hands in Damascus.

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25 The contemporary Lebanese historian, Kamal S.Salibi, has unearthed evidence thatcasts doubt on the most important particulars of this traditional account. In afascinating article, which reads almost like a detective story, he shows that Fakhral-Din ibn Uthmān, i.e., the Fakhr al-Din I of the traditional histories, may wellhave never existed. This Fakhr al-Din, Salibi believes, was either confused withanother Ma’n, Fakhr al-Din Uthmān (died 1493), or was a pure invention useful inbolstering later dynastic claims. See Salibi, Kamal S., “The Secret of the House ofMa‛n,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 4, 1973, pp. 272–87.

26 The origin of the Yaman-Qays conflict is obscure. These are labels for the (Yaman)South Arab and (Qays) North Arab partisans, possibly stemming from the timewhen Mu‛āwiyah’s South Arab army was pitted against Ali’s (mainly) North Arabtribesmen at the Battle at Siffīn. This partisan conflict has continued throughoutArab history and was used as party identification for the contending Druzemanāsib.

27 Similar, perhaps, to the situation in the Shūf at this time, the main line ofmuqaddams in Bisharri had also passed to a person not of age, an infant in this case.It is possible that the split which resulted made it impossible to agree on a Maroniterepresentative or that Bisharri’s interests were represented by the Assāfs of Ghazīrwho were in the process of extending their control over the area and eventuallybecame very receptive to Maronite immigrants into their jurisdiction. See Salibi,Kamal S., “The Muqaddams of Besharri: Maronite Chieftains of the NorthernLebanon 1382–1621,” Arabica, vol. 15, 1968 pp 72–3.

28 Ibid., pp. 77–9. The Ottomans were, at this time, conducting extensive campaignsagainst the Safavid Persians and had taken measures to centralize theiradministration in order to collect greater revenue. In doing so, they fatallyweakened the Amirate at Ghazīr, making it vulnerable to the Sayfas of Tripoli.

29 In an important article, A.R.Abu Hussein uses recently released Ottoman archivesto point out that Mount Lebanon was rarely left to its own devices by theOttomans, who continually intervened, attempting to regularize their administrationover the peoples there. The Druze were especially targeted; ‛ulama never tired offulminating against them as heretical. Druze individuals were not accorded theprotections of the Ottoman state; they could be killed without penalty; theirproperty seized; and they did not have millet status. Obviously, in their formaldealings, Druze leaders had to practicey taqīyah and represent themselves asSunnis. According to Abu Hussein, the Ottomans never mastered the DruzeMountain. See Abu Hussein, A.R., “Problems in the Ottoman Administration inSyria during the 16th and 17th Centuries: The Case of the Sanjak of Sidon-Beirut,”International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 24, 1992, pp. 665–75.

30 This feudal family, of course, was prominent in the Shūf as Druze chiefs from thetime of the Shihāb Imarah (after the battle at Ayn Dāra in 1711) until the present.

31 Hitti, P.K., Lebanon in History: From the Earliest Times to the Present, London,1962, p. 384.

32 These Alam al-Dins were very likely contenders for the Chieftancy of the Shūf allthrough the Ottoman period. As Yamanis, they were also in factional opposition tothe Ma‛n Qaysis and could likely use the Yamani Sayfas in Tripoli as factionalallies to support every kind of mischief on the Mountain.

33 So say the Maronite historians of the aristocratic families of the Lebanese. HereHitti, ibid, p. 387 quotes Tanyous al-Shidyāq, whose main source was Antonius

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Abu Khattār, one of the earliest writers of Lebanese family histories. Theinternecine warfare was so bad that the Jurd and Matn districts, according to thechronicles of the period, were nearly depopulated.

34 Bashir I was reportedly poisoned either at Acre or at Dayr al-Qamar. If the latter,then the Haydar faction certainly orchestrated the evil deed; if the former, we canimagine other origins for the treachery, perhaps Hussein Ma‛n at the Porte. Bashir,we also recall, had been encroaching on the Vali’s territory in Galilee. It is possiblethat a combination of forces brought him down.

35 Unfortunately, the internecine rivalry between the Qaysi and Yamani factions hadnot ended with the coming to power of the Shihābs. The descendants of Ali Alamal-Din (living in Damascus) traveled to Istanbul to press their claims and returnedto Lebanon in 1698 and again in 1711 to regain the Imarah for their house. Theywere undoubtedly aided in keeping their claims alive by the Porte as well as theValis of Damascus and Sidon. Their Yamani faction could be used to checkexcessive ambition in Dayr al-Qamar.

36 Coming to power peacefully, Mulhim’s moves were cautious and without serioussetback. Asked to assist the Vali of Sidon in collecting taxes for Jabal Amil, herecovered it for the Imarah. Mulhim’s victory over the Vali of Damascus at MarEliās (in 1748) gained him the fertile Biqā as well as a pretext for taking theBa‛albek district from the Harfūsh chiefs the year after. The latter had fought onthe losing side at Mar Eliās. Mulhim then connived with his Talhūq sheikhs toinstigate a crisis in Beirut, and once more the forces of the Imarah were asked topacify the situation. They readily did so, and Mulhim was able to add that city tohis domains. With the Biqā as a granary and Beirut as a port, Mulhim had expandedthe Imarah and enhanced its political and economic viability. Having enlarged theImarah without attracting retaliation, Mulhim passed the mantle of leadership to hisbrothers, Ahmed and Mansūr.

37 Fugitive rapist, enthusiastic executioner, and traitor to those who used him, he wasthe perfect Ottoman feudatory. For him, “off with their heads” was concessionaryin a bargaining strategy. More important, the inheritor of Sidon understood theprinciples of the Ottoman protection racket and applied them to the hilt. So, as soonas he could manage it, Jazzār began to put the squeeze on the (Druze) Hakim andhis mudabbir. The Shihābs were formally subordinate to the Vali but notnecessarily weaker militarily. Jazzār, therefore, always endeavored to divide hisadversaries on the Mountain by inciting rivalries while weakening its ruler byextorting ever greater amounts of revenue. It was a zero-sum situation; the Hakim’sloss would be the Vali’s gain, i.e., the Sultan’s treasury is his enemy. At a latertime according to Salibi, Jazzār, in hounding Bashir II, presented the investiture tofive different Shihāb princes between 1800 and 1804. Salibi, Kamal S., TheModern History of Lebanon London, 1965, p. 21.

38 One is ready to suspect an afterthought here or even a little public relations on thepart of writers trying to make the claims of Bashir II more legitimate. Yet wecannot discount the possibility that Mulhim wanted to leave his power in the handsof a “man of God” whose real religious sentiments were also the cause of his laterconversion. For a discussion of this matter; see Harik, Ilya F., Politics and Changein a Traditional Society:Lebanon 1711–1845, Princeton, 1968, pp. 155–6. ForBashir II, the question of his faith did become a serious political concern. At onetime he ordered known Maronite members of the Shihāb family to openly observe

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Muslim rituals, e.g., Ramadan, causing friction between himself and the Maroniteclergy. According to Harik, p. 206, Bashir II generally received the sacramentsaccording to the Roman rite, rather than that of the Maronites, in order to avoidcontact with the priesthood of the latter.

39 Polk, William R., The Opening of South Lebanon: 1788–1840, Cambridge, Mass.,1963. Polk quotes the Swiss-English traveler, John Lewis Burckhardt, as sayingthat (in 1810) Bashir Janbalāt was the richest, most powerful man in MountLebanon, in control of the Shūf, continually expanding his own possessions, and ableto prevent the Amir from doing anything “important” without his consent.

40 See Polk’s study of the village of Ammatūr in The Opening of South Lebanon,especially pp. 58–71 and 177–89.

41 We do not know exactly what was agreed to at this time; the chaotic and flowerycharacter of the correspondence makes going beyond ambiguity impossible. Wecan, however, infer from future events that the leaders of the ‛ammīyah tried to winthe chiefs and princes of the Yazbak faction over to their cause while the latter, fortheir part, hoped to use the uprising to help them unseat Bashir II. The Shihābcandidates for the Yazbaks, Hasān and Salmān, made a deal with the Vali (whichseemed to betray the ‛ammīyah) almost immediately after these covenants weredrawn up. Once the deal proved unworkable, they briefly allied themselves with the‛ammīyah a second time before it was finally crushed by the Amir al-Hakim in1820. See ibid., pp. 213– 14.

2WARS AND INDEPENDENCE: 1840–1914

1 See Hitti, P.K., Lebanon in History: From Earliest Times to the Present, London,1962, pp. 433–8. The whole period of sectarian strife and rebellion is usuallyreferred to as al-harakāt, the “disturbances” or “movements,” while the last ofthese, the civil war of 1860, was known locally as the madhābih alsittīn, the“massacres” or “slaughter(s)” of 1860.

2 An excellent account of this period is found in Salibi, Kamal S., The ModernHistory of Lebanon, London, 1965, pp. 40–105. I am indebted to Salibi for theroute I have chosen through this history.

3 The Patriarch, it should be noted, did not call for an end to the feudal privileges ofthe Maronite sheikhs in Kisrawān. He seems to have been willing for the Druzesheikhs in the mixed districts to lose some of their privileges.

4 It is important to note that in the harakāt (wars) of 1841 and 1842, some of theShi’ites fought with the Christians while some of the Greek Orthodox fought withthe Druze.

5 The tanzimāt program refers to a series of reforms which the Ottomans attempted,beginning with the edict of the Rose Chamber called the Noble Rescript ofGulhane, that the Sultan Abdul Majīd issued in 1839. It was a program ofmodernization, calling for administrative reforms and constitution-alism. Morereforms came in 1856 and 1876, only to be stopped by Abdul Hamīd in 1878. ForLebanon, it meant that the Ottomans wished to centralize their administrativeapparatus and, if possible, shift to some means of direct rule.

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6 Bashir II and Ibrahim, in 1838, had managed to defeat the Druze at the time of theiruprising against the Egyptians in the rough mountain terrain of the Hawrān, theirtraditional stronghold. Because Bashir’s army was almost entirely Maronite, thiscampaign was seen more as sectarian warfare than as the current policy of the Amiral-Hakim.

7 Indeed, the issues had not yet been reduced to a conflict between two communities,Druze and Maronite. Many in both communities still hoped that the old feudalsystem could be restored, a Shihāb chosen, and the churchmen sent back to theirmonasteries.

8 See Hourani, Albert H., “Lebanon from Feudalism to Modern State,” Middle EastStudies, vol. 2, 1965–6, pp. 256–63 for an emphasis on the economic causes of theconflicts of this period, especially the role of the middle class in bypassing the feudalstructure in directly financing cultivation of salable crops. Charles Issawi, in“British Trade and the Rise of Beirut: 1830–1840,” International Journal of MiddleEast Studies, vol. 8, 1977, pp. 91–101, also provides some information and analysisthat sheds light on the transformations taking place in the Lebanese economy at thistime.

9 For an elaboration on the problem of “mutually impossible demands,” see Winslow,C.H., “An Empirical Road to a Normative Barrier,” Middle East Journal, vol. 34,1980, pp. 25–41. Research on Palestinian “service” drivers using a one-lane bridge(between Sidon and Ein al-Hilweh camp) showed that the drivers were unwilling, asindividuals, to alter their (collectively unprofitable) behavior until each had seenevidence that all the others had done so. They put forth their demands in such away as to preclude the possibility of their being met.

10 From iqtā, the word in Arabic to designate a fief, mu‛qāti‛ji was the general termfor landholder within the Lebanese feudal system. For an excellent description ofthe feudal system of the Mountain, see Harik, Iliya F., “The Iqtā System inLebanon,” Middle East Journal, vol. 19, 1965, pp. 405–21.

11 Churchill, Charles H., The Druzes and the Maronites Under Turkish Rule, London,1862, p. 83. Churchill’s position on these issues was complex and needs to beexplained. He was passionately opposed to the scheming machinations of the localTurkish officials, recognizing that they would use the conflictproneness of theLebanese as a means of establishing direct rule. He also opposed the Maroniteecclesiastics who were obviously bent on supplanting the Druze as rulers of MountLebanon. Early in this series of conflicts, Colonel Churchill supported the Druzedetermination to resist the revisionist program of the Maronites. Once the fullsavagery of Druze behavior was exhibited, though, he supported demands that themalefactors receive the severest punishment.

12 Outwardly, the Turks had given the Maronites the go ahead; it was the Druze whowere refusing to abide by the regulations of the Kaymakam. But, militarily, theTurks assisted the Druze.

13 See Shakeeb, Salih, “The British-Druze Connection and the Druze Rising of 1896in the Hawrān,” Middle East Studies, vol. 13, 1977, p. 251 on British links to theDruze. The Druze sought a number of political and social advantages from therelationship, and it is clear that some believed they would become members of theBritish Empire.

14 The British Consul, Moore, wrote that Bashir Assāf was “universally allowed to bewanting in the requisite qualities, he has neither sufficient experience nor does he

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possess the personal endowments.” Quoted from Kerr, Malcolm H., Lebanon in theLast Years of Feudalism: 1840–1868, Beirut, 1959, p. 12. One of the sources ofconfusion for understanding this episode is the fact that, between the years 1800and 1810, nearly every male child born on the Mountain, Druze and Christianalike, was named Bashir. This occurred at a time, of course, when the politics ofthe Amir Bashir Shihāb had not yet shown a clear direction. One very confusedJewish family, reportedly living secretly in Dayr al-Qamar and practicing sevendifferent religions by taqīyah, survived the mess in fine style but found it difficultto preserve continuity in the family tradition. For example, their oldest son, BashirMahmūd Goldbalāt, assimilated so much of the ethic of the Mountain that he endedup going into opposition to himself on odd and even days. Also, see Porath,Yehoshua, “The Peasant Revolt of 1858–61 in Kisrawan,” Journal of Asian andAfrican Studies, vol. 2, 1966, pp. 80–155, for a treatment in much greater depth ofthe underlying socio-economic changes occuring in Kisrawān at this time.

15 Porath ibid. Of course the question came up for the Khāzin Sheikhs that, if theywere to oppose the peasant movement, the support of the Druze feudal chiefswould be needed. The response of the Druze chiefs to Khāzin overtures was simplyto the effect that their peasants would never rebel…“our ‛uqqāl would never letthem do that.” In the Druze religion, the initiated ‛uqqāl (wise) were contrastedwith the main body of uninitiated juhāl (ignorant), and the former were expected togive guidance to the latter. For a good general survey of the Druze sect, see Hitti,P.K., The Origins of the Druze People and Religion, New York, 1928.

16 Strong passions concerning the perfidy of the Turks are found in Churchill, CharlesH., The Druzes and the Maronites Under Turkish Rule, London, 1862; inScheltema, J.F., Introduction to Lebanon in Turmoil: Syria and the Powers in1860, New Haven, 1920, and in Jessup, Henry Harris, Fifty-Three Years in Syria,New York, 1910. Criticism of the Maronites is emphasized by Sir Henry BulwerLytton, Lord Dufferin, and Charles Henry Churchill among the British, whileHenry Harris Jessup, a Protestant missionary, and J.F.Scheltema, translator andscholar, were Americans whose writings on the period are replete with similarcriticisms of the Maronites. Churchill and Scheltema also find plenty of space forcriticism of the Druze. As for the Turks, Churchill is trenchent in his criticism oftheir intrigues. During the 1841–2 period of civil strife, for example, Turkishduplicity was discovered when the British intercepted a letter to the Seraskier inwhich he (the Seraskier) was directed “not to trouble himself in the least aboutwhat (is) going on in the Lebanon, inasmuch as everything that had taken placethere had been done with the full sanction of the Porte.” The Druzes and theMaronites, pp. 53–4.

17 The Maronite Patriarch, choosing words most calculated to calm things down,declared, “The blow must be struck…, he who strikes first will have two chances toone in his favor.” See Churchill, C.H., The Druze and the Maronites, pp. 109–10.

18 Quoted in Scheltema, J.F., The Lebanon in Turmoil, p. 23.19 Simply imagine these “pack animals” as the Mercedes service (taxis) of that day.

The Lebanese tradition of driving a car where you want to go rather than where athoroughfare takes you, or according to any discernible rules, seems to havealready been well established by this time.

NOTES 303

20 Here was a case, during the 1860 war, where Druze intentionally massacred SunniMuslims, due, in this instance, to a local rivalry between the Shihābs and theJanbalāts over control of Wadi al-Taym.

21 Lack of coordination among the various armed groups of the Maronites was therule rather than the exception. In the case of the two populist leaders, TanyūsShahīn and Yusuf al-Shantīri, their hesitation (though not their bluster) isunderstandable since they faced conflict from their own Maronite chiefs inKisrawān and the Matn and would not be anxious to leave those areas with theirforces. The case for Yusuf Karam, however, is not so respectable. While manyreasons have been given for his tardiness in going to the aid of Zahleh, the mostplausible one remains that of his critics—that he did not wish to interfere withOttoman plans at that time because he hoped they would make him the ChristianKaymakam.

22 They had boasted and “got beat,” as African Americans say when somebody getspast his defender on the way to the basket in basketball. This seems to convey theappropriate sense of build-up and breakdown that must have caused Christianleaders to recognize that an inquiry would not have exonerated them.

23 Scheltema, J.F., Lebanon in Turmoil, p. 163.24 Commentators at the time were especially critical of the Lebanese Christians who

pointedly refused to give public testimony against particular Druze culprits. Thesevillagers recognized that they would have to return to the Druze areas to live andwere no doubt afraid to testify against anyone who might somehow escapeexecution and be able to retaliate against them.

25 Henry Harris Jessup recorded many interesting accounts of this rescue activity,some by the Protestant mission and others by the European military groupsthat intervened in Lebanon. He claims that their unselfish attitude truly impressedordinary people. See op. cit., Fifty-Three Years in Syria, pp. 188–214.

26 Revisions in the Règlement were made in 1864 and again in 1912. Although thePowers did not often attempt to make revisions, the power to do so acted as a threatwhich kept arbitrary actors in line.

27 See Spagnolo, James P., France and Ottoman Lebanon: 1861–1914, Oxford, 1977,p. 90. For much of my information and assessment of the period of theMutasarrifate, I am indebted to this fine work.

28 Jessup, Henry Harris, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, pp. 266–7.29 From a letter sent by Fain to Drouyn de Lhuys, quoted in Spagnolo, James P., France

and Ottoman Lebanon, p. 83.30 Counting Da‛ūd, a total of eleven Mutasarrifs governed Mount Lebanon between

1861 and 1918 when the French took over. Eight of these were non-LebaneseChristians: Da‛ūd Pasha, 1861–8, an Armenian Catholic; Franco Pasha, 1868–72, aGreek Catholic from Aleppo; Rustum Pasha, 1873–83, an Italian-born RomanCatholic; Wasā Pasha, 1883–92, an Albanian Roman Catholic; Na‘ūm Pasha, 1892–1902, a Greek Catholic (and Franco’s son-inlaw); Muzaffir Pasha, 1902–7, aRoman Catholic Pole; Yusuf (Bey) Pasha, 1907–12, a Greek Catholic; andOhannes Kuyumjian Pasha, 1912–15, an Armenian Catholic (eventually removedby the Turkish military triumvirate during the First World War). Three of these,appointed during the war years, were non-Lebanese Muslims: Ali Munīf Bey,1915–17, a Turkish Sunni; Ismā‛il Haqqi Bey, 1917–18, a Shi’ite; and MumtāzBey, a Sunni Turk, from July to September of 1918. A few other officials actually

304 NOTES

carried out the duties of the governorship during interim periods between the deathof a Mutasarrif and the appointment of a replacement. These interim officialssometimes were called upon to exercise the Mutasarrif’s functions for severalmonths since it might take that long for the Powers and the Porte to negotiate a newappointment.

31 The Patriarch’s stated choice for Governor, Yusuf Karam, had resigned hisappointment as Maronite mudīr of Jezzīn and gathered a popular following as ameans of unseating Da‛ūd. Had he received more support from key Frenchrepresentatives and the Maronite bishops in the south, he might have taken power.For a full account of Karam’s exploits in opposition to Da‛ūd, see Kerr, Malcolm H.,Lebanon in the Last Years of Feudalism: 1840–1868, Beirut, 1959, pp. 79–90.

32 At the time that Karam and his supporters, both in Paris and in Lebanon, weremobilizing for their confrontation with Da‛ūd, the French Consul General (Count)d’Aragon Bentivoglio was a sometime supporter of the Bey’s cause. Just before theissue was coming to a head, however, Bentivoglio had been replaced by MaximeOutrey, who turned out to be decisive in his support for both Da‛ūd and theRèglement. Karam’s use of the Khādra brothers and their “international apparatus”in his quest for power in Lebanon reminds one of a similar attempt by Fakhr al-DinMa‛n 200 years earlier.

33 Spagnolo, James P., France and Ottoman Lebanon, p. 123.34 Ibid., p. 62.35 See Khalaf, Samir, Persistence and Change in 19th Century Lebanon: A

Sociological Essay, Beirut, 1979, pp. 98–106 on the development of theMountain’s infrastructure at this time. For an excellent discussion of French policyregarding railroads in the Levant, see Shorrock, William I., “The Origin of theFrench Mandate in Syria and Lebanon: The Railroad Question,” Inter-nationalJournal of Middle East Studies, vol. 1, 1970, pp. 133–53.

36 Khalaf, Samir, Persistance and Change, p. 135. Can one even imagine search-ingfor administrative irregularities in Lebanon? The present author spent two yearsliving in the country, haunted by the possibility that he might never uncover anadministrative regularity

37 Ibid., p. 137.38 Villagers were divided into groups of a hundred and allowed to select an agent, in

addition to the sheikh, who would take part in the election of a “Councillor” fromtheir district. Zahleh, which traditionally did not have sheikhs, had been selectingits representatives in this way since 1864.

39 Published in Beirut in 1918, this survey, according to Kamal Salibi,was prepared by a group of specialists representing the best scholarship a available

in Lebanon at the time. Considering the speed with which it was d done and thewar circumstances in which it was issued, it was a truly remarka able work; itremains until today the only complete survey of Lebanon ever m made, and is amonument to the brief rule of an enlightened and devoted m mutesarrif.

See Salibi, Kamal S., The Modern History, p. 117.40 Hitti, P.K., Lebanon in History: From Earliest Times to the Present, London, 1962,

p. 447.

NOTES 305

GREATER LEBANON: 1915–1943

1 The Ottoman government (the Porte), during the First World War, was under thecontrol of a military triumvirate made up of Enver, Talāt, and Jemāl (Pashas), andthe latter made the military administrator for Syria (to which Lebanon belonged).Technically, it was an Ottoman government; the Sultanate had not been abrogatedeven though the three Generals, not the Sultan, held power.

2 Claims were made by some Arab nationalist groups for an Arab state to include mostof the Arabian Penninsula plus the Levant and Mesopotamia. Others, especially theSharifian group, supposed that the British would acknowledge their claims tocontrol over the Hijaz, Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. Of particular importance to themwas that they have control of geographical Syria with its throne for the Amir Faisalat Damascus.

In both these and similar cases, Lebanon would have been attached to the largerjurisdiction. The original Palestine which Britain created included what was later tobecome Transjordan, and Zionists assumed that their “national home” would belocated in the larger area. In their original demands, the Zionists had asked theBritish for more than the larger Palestine; they wanted a large portion of what isnow south Lebanon, including all of the Litāni river system, to be a part of the“home” that they intended to make into a state.

At the same time, the French insisted that all of geographical Syria be placedunder their control, including Alexandretta (with Antioch) and the Mosul district(in what is now the Kurdish area of Iraq). Kemalist Turkey eventually claimedAlexandretta and the Mosul district as well. The Kurds also believed they had beenpromised an independent state, one that would have required the cession of piecesof eastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, northern Iraq, and northwestern Iran toestablish. In Lebanon, the Uniate Catholics wanted a “greater” Lebanon separatefrom any larger jurisdiction. Some Druze and Nusayris also wanted separate statesfor their communities.

3 Some Lebanese authors dispute the charge that the Turks allowed starvation tooccur; they claim it was a fabrication of Allied and Maronite propaganda.See Arslān, Shakib, p. xii in his introduction to Rabbāth, M.E., L’ÉvolutionPolitique de la Syrie sous Mandat, Paris, 1928.

4 See Ajay, Nicholas Z., Jr., “Political Intrigue and Suppression in Lebanon Duringthe First World War,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 5, 1974,pp. 140–60, for an excellent account of the political situation in Lebanon at thetime of Jemāl’s military government.

5 Ibid., pp. 152–3.6 Zeine, Zeine N., Arab-Turkish Relations and the Emergence of Arab Nation-alism,

Beirut, 1958, pp. 103–4.7 Ajay, Nicholas Z., “Political Intrigue”pp. 151–2.8 For the text of the “Proclamation” of November 11, 1918, see Antonius, George,

The Arab Awakening, London, 1938, pp. 435–6.9 Shorrock, William I., “The Origin of the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon:

The Railroad Question, 1901–1914,” International Journal of Middle East Studies,vol. 1, 1970, p. 152.

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3

10 Ibid., p. 153, (quoting Sir Mark Sykes, House of Commons Debates, 1914, vol. LIX,cols. 2169–70.)

11 See Zamir, Meir, “Population Statistics in the Ottoman Empire,” Middle EastStudies, vol. 17, 1981, pp. 83–106, for an explanation of the 1914 and 1919 censusfigures for Lebanon. See also Faour, M., “The Demography of Lebanon: AReappraisal,” Middle East Studies, vol. 27, pp. 631–41, 1991 for a new assessmentof these figures.

12 Salibi, Kamal S., The Modern History of Lebanon, London 1965, p. 166.13 For an account of all the incidents of violence and responses by the French to stop

them, see Longrigg, Stephen H., Syria and Lebanon under the French Mandate,London, 1958, chapter 5., pp. 148–81. An additional study of the variousnationalist parties and groups of this movement against the French in Syria can befound in Khoury, Phillip, “Factionalism Among Syrian Nation-alists during theFrench Mandate,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 13, 1981, pp.441–69.

14 Salibi, Kamal S., The Modern History, p. 167.15 The term “consociational democracy” is not, of course, Michael Shihā’s but was

formulated by, among others, Arend Lipjhart in “Consociational Democracy,”World Politics, vol. 21, 1969, pp. 207–25.

16 See Zamir, Meir, “Population Statistics,” for a review and analysis of these censusfigures.

17 The six major sects of Lebanon, according to its traditional confessionalism, are theMaronites, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics, Sunnis, Shi‛ites, and Druzes.

18 One could make the case that today, ironically, the only consistent supporters forGreater Lebanon are the Sunni Muslims.

19 Salibi, Kamal S., The Modern History, p. 188.20 Longrigg, Stephen H., Syria and Lebanon, p. 299.21 Rommel had only been contained at this time, but Hitler’s attention was soon to be

directed against the Soviet Union, and thereafter he had only marginal interest inIraq and the Arabs.

22 Longrigg, Stephen Syria and Lebanon” p. 310.23 Bravo!

4THE INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC: 1943–1958

1 Browne, Walter L., Introduction, to Lebanon’s Struggle for Independence, Part I,Salisbury, 1980, p. i.

2 This is not to suggest that the French had no indigenous support for the creation ofGreater Lebanon. The first Mutasarrif, Da‛ūd Pasha had clamored for increasingthe size of his Mount Lebanon jurisdiction, and, later, Maronite leaders, hoping toget French help for an independent Christian Lebanon, argued strongly for thelarger state. The French, no doubt, found it politically convenient to respond to theMaronites rather than others, even among the Christians, who opposed a Lebanonseparate from Syria. For a fine review of this problem and the period in which itoccurred, see Zamir, Meir, “Faisal and the Lebanese Question 1918–1920,” MiddleEast Studies, vol. 27, July 1991 pp. 404–26

NOTES 307

3 Browne, Walter L., Lebanon’s Struggle, part II, “Dispatch from Lowell Pinkerton,no. 167, April 14, 1947,” p. 174.

4 See Baldwin, David, “The Power of Positive Sanctions,” World Politics, vol. 24,1971, pp. 19–38.

5 The great host of scholars and publicists who have concerned themselves with thequestion of whether or not Lebanon was making progress toward a moderndemocratic political system is too numerous to record here. Of the many, writingbefore 1975 and attempting to use empirical methods to answer this question, are(among others) Iliya F.Harik, Michael C.Hudson, Samir Khalif, and HalimBarakat. Leila M.T.Meo used the term “improbable nation” as the title of her bookLebanon Improbable Nation: A Study in Political Development, Bloomington1965. The Precarious Republic: Modernization in Lebanon is the title of Michael C.Hudson’s book (New York, 1968).

6 Recently (1994), the Balkans have been making a comeback.7 Browne, Walter L., Lebanon’s Struggle, part I, “Dispatch” by George Wads-worth,

p. 217. Zghartā, at this time, had two deputies in the Chamber, Bisharri none. Ryādal-Sulh, the Sunni Prime Minister from Sidon, had gone into the north to influencethe elections. But no Muslim from the south could have had any impact on thecompetition between the clans. Both votes and guns would decide this.

8 Ibid., p. 217.9 For a close breakdown on family linkages to Parliamentary seats in Lebanon, see

Khalaf, Samir, Lebanon’s Predicament, New York, 1987, Chapter 61.10 al-Khūri, Bishāra Haqā‛q Lubnānīya, vol I, Harissa, 1960. pp. 29–30.11 For discussions of zu‛āma politics in Lebanon see the following: Hottinger,

Arnold, “Zu‛ama and Parties in the Lebanese Crisis of 1958,” Middle East Journal,vol. 15, 1961, pp. 127–40; Kerr, Malcolm H., “The 1960 Lebanese ParliamentaryElections,” Middle East Affairs, vol 11, 1960, pp. 266–75; Khalaf, Samir,“Primordial Ties and Politics in Lebanon,” Middle East Studies, vol. 4, 1968, pp.243–69; Salem, Elie, “Cabinet Politics in Lebanon, Middle East Journal, vol. 21,1967, pp. 488–502; Suleiman, M., “Crisis and Revolution in Lebanon,” MiddleEast Journal, vol. 26, 1972, pp. 11–24; Barakat, Halim, “Social and PoliticalIntegration in Lebanon: A Case of Social Mosaic,” Middle East Journal, vol. 27,1973, pp. 301–18; and Entelis, J., Review of, Schemeil, Y., Sociologie du SystèmePolitique Libanais, in International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol 15, 1983,pp. 419–20.

12 See Lipjhart, Arend, “Consociational Democracy,” World Politics, vol. 21, 1969,pp. 207–25; Smock, D., and Smock, A., The Politics of Pluralism: A ComparativeStudy of Lebanon and Ghana, Kidlington, 1975; Nordlinger, Eric, “ConflictResolution in Divided Societies,” Howard Center for International AffairsOccasional Papers, no. 29, 1972; and Hudson, Michael, “The Lebanese Crisis: TheLimits of Consociational Democracy,” Journal of Palestinian Studies, vol. 5, 1976,pp. 109–22 for discussions of communalism and the development of“consociational” democracy.

13 Among scholars closely following Lebanese politics, Harik, Ilya F., “Political Elitein Lebanon,” in Lenczowski, George (ed.), Political Elites in the Middle East,Washington, 1975, pp. 201–220, and Salem, Elie, Modernization WithoutRevolution: Lebanon’s Experience, Bloomington, 1973, were perhaps mostoptimistic on the question of Lebanon becoming a modern system while among the

308 NOTES

most pessimistic on this question were Schemeil, Y., Sociologie du Système, (seeabove, note 11), and Suleiman, M., “Crisis and Revolution,” (see above, note 11).

14 Khalaf, Samir, “Primordial Ties,” pp. 252–3.15 Khalaf, Samir, Lebanon’s Predicament, p. 140.16 As quoted by Khalaf, Samir, “Primordial Ties,” p. 251, from al-Khūri, Bishāra,

Haqā‛iq Lubnānīya, vol. I., p. 159.17 Salem, Elie, “Cabinet Politics,” p. 494.18 This was not because those in Lebanon’s government opposed economic

development; rather each official had his own private list of public projects to befunded.

19 Browne, Walter L., Lebanon’s Struggle, part II, “Dispatch by Clayton Lane,December 17, 1945”, pp. 38–46.

20 Ibid., p. 43.21 Ibid., p. 43.22 See Britt, George, “Lebanon’s Popular Revolution, Middle East Journal, vol. 7,

1953, pp. 1–21.23 People “bystand” in Tripoli only at their peril.24 Browne, Walter L., Lebanon’s Struggle, vol. II, pp. 188–9.25 Hudson, Michael C., The Precarious Republic: Political Modernization in

Lebanon, New York, 1968, p. 227.26 This emnity was due, it is said, to al-Khūri’s habit of making jokes about the

Patriarch’s (Arida) family holdings, which included the rental of the building whereBeirut’s notorious bordellos were located.

27 The Constitution was amended to allow an additional term for al-Khūri; he had thevotes in the Chamber and was able to serve a portion of his second term beforeresigning. Had a more protracted process of amendment been required, theunpopular revision would not have been possible in Lebanon at this time.

28 For an excellent analysis of the breakup of the Syro-Lebanese customs union, seeYaari, S., “The Economic Relations Between Syria and Lebanon,” Middle EastAffairs, vol. 2, 1951, pp. 315–22. It should be recalled that at the time the Frenchjailed the leaders of the newly independent government in November 1943, theSyrian parliament, led by Jamāl Mardam, voted to support the (separate) Lebanesein their demand for a full restoration of parliamentary government. Someone mighthave recalled this precedent and reciprocated during the customs dispute.

29 Britt, George, “Lebanon’s Popular Revolution,” p. 10.30 Hudson, Michael C., The Precarious Republic, p. 273.31 See Seale, Patrick, The Struggle for Syria: A Study of Post War Arab Politics,

1945–1958, Oxford, 1965, p. 233, for an account of this period and GeneralShuqayr’s role in it.

32 The “blackmail”, from the view of American policymakers at the time, wasNasser’s demand that Washington finance his Aswan Dam project as the quid proquo for remaining on friendly terms with the West in the Cold War.

33 Hudson, Michael C., The Precarious Republic, p. 283.

NOTES 309

1 Salibi, Kamal S., “Lebanon Under Fuad Chehab: 1958–1964,” Middle EastStudies, vol. 2, 1965–6, p. 216.

2 Hudson, Michael C., The Precarious Republic: Political Modernization inLebanon, New York, 1968 pp. 288–9. The original source reporting Chamoun’scomments was a Turkish Foreign Office official, who recalled that the Presidenthad made this statement following General Glubb’s dismissal in Jordan.

3 Qubain, Fahim I., Crisis in Lebanon, Washington, 1961, p. 71. This book is anexcellent source, giving a valuable picture of the tragi-comic scene in Lebanon, butit is so powerfully influenced by the author’s sympathy for the rebel cause that onemust use it with caution.

4 Ibid., p. 71.5 Ibid.6 Spiller, Professor Roger, “Not War, But Like War”: The American Intervention in

Lebanon, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, 1984 p. 18. Eisenhower wasextremely skeptical about testing out the new strategic doctrine, the “New LookDefense Policy,” on the Lebanese situation, and others in his government sidedwith him on this point. One group of Pentagon staffers remained committed to theTruman concept of a highly mobile war capability that could put out the“brushfires” while others were trying to force everyone into line on the “massiveretaliation” approach. American military luck in Lebanon even helped experts seethe “muscle-bound” tendencies of the “New Look” defense policy with itsoverdependence on nuclear weapons. According to Daniel Vought, U.S. Army ret.,Fort Leavenworth, General Twining actually said,”…we’ve got them by the ying-yong,” a sexual implication.

7 Agwani, M.S., The Lebanese Crisis, 1958: A Documentary Study, Bombay, 1965,p. 143. This account is taken from Charles Malik’s presentation before the UNSecurity Council in which he attempted to document the “broadcast war” byneighboring states against Lebanon during the 1958 period of civil strife.

8 Ibid. See his Chapter 4, items 15, 16, and 17 for the evidence UNOGIL came upwith. The present author’s many days spent walking in the mountains of Lebanonleads him to a profound skepticism that the UNOGIL observers were numerousenough to have discovered any smuggling in those parts that the local people didnot want them to see.

9 See Spiller, Roger, “Not War, but Like War,” for a full account, from anoperational point of view, of the ad hoc character of the American interventionaryeffort.

10 LaFeber, Walter, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–1966, New York, 1968,p. 179.

11 The Lebanese army at this time was not one of your more ferocious militaryoutfits.

12 Spiller, Roger, “Not War, but Like War” pp. 24–5.13 The Economist, July 19, 1958, p. 218.14 Spiller, Roger, “Not War, but Like War,” p. 41 (quoting Schulimson, Jack,

“Marines in Lebanon,” Marine Corps Historical Reference Pamphlet, Washington,1966, p. 32.

15 Qubain, Fahim, Crisis in Lebanon, p. 158.16 Ibid., p. 161.

310 NOTES

5THE CIVIL WAR OF 1958

6THE BEST YEARS: 1958–1970

1 As reported in the “Chronology” for Lebanon in the Middle East Journal for theyears 1959–60.

2 A brief account of the coup attempt by the PPS (Parti Populaire Syrienne), sometimesreferred to as the SSNP (Syrian Social Nationalist Party) is given in Hudson,Michael C., The Precarions Republic: Political Modernization in Lebanon, NewYork, 1968, pp. 305–6. The original concept behind the Party was that of itsfounder, Antoun Sa‛ada, who claimed that a separate culture and distinct greatnessbelonged to the peoples of Syria, in ancient times as well as today, and that theyshould create a suitable political jurisdiction for them. The Party’s nationalist ideadiffers from the nationalism of any state in the area of geographical Syria and fromthe Pan-Arab concept that was being mobilized at about the same time.

3 Hudson, Michael, C., The Precarious Republic:, p. 298.4 Landau, Jacob, “Elections in Lebanon,” Western Political Quarterly, vol. 14, 1961,

p. 131.5 The word “giants” is a favorite among Lebanese publicists to designate the most

prominent political notables in Lebanon, a word that might seem apt only if used tocompare them to other Lebanese politicians.

6 The PPS-sponsored coup attempted on December 31, 1961, certainly frightened theregime and the army but had little policy effect on the Shihābist program.

7 Hudson, Michael C., The Precarious Republic p. 303.8 Ibid., p. 308.9 In making a very rough calculation of “conflict incidents,” the number

independently identified in the “Chronology,” (Lebanon), of the Middle EastJournal was used. Announcements of new public infrastructure projects were(roughly) counted in the same fashion.

10 Within an ethos where each party consistently overplays his hand, it is not easy tosee what fairness requires. When overplaying one’s hand and inflating one’s claimsis an ethical reflex, recapitulated and reinforced in the culture to the point ofbecoming endemic to it, the arena has taken over most of the choices individualshave. It is not easy to see what a balanced position would be like since anyindividual player would need to run a circus parade for an extreme version of hisown point of view in order to protect himself from his opponent’ opponent’sextremism.

11 Salibi, Kamal S. Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon 1958–1976, New York, 1976,p. 7.

12 The Shihābists were sometimes called the Nahj[ists], the “methodists” of Lebanesepolitics. They attempted to emphasize a technocratic, non-political approach toLebanon’s problems. None of the first three Presidents of independent Lebanonheld office without having had supporters who campaigned (near the end of histerm) to have the Constitution amended so that he could succeed himself. Althoughsuch a campaign was also launched for President Shihāb, he did not mobilizesupport for it and maintained his strictly non-political (methodist) stance towardsuch a possibility.

NOTES 311

13 The Katā‛ib Party was founded in 1936 by five Lebanese Christians: Gemayel,Hilū, Naqqāsh, Nasīf, and Yarīd. All but the last were Maronites. Of the founders,only Gemayel remained active in the organization. See Entelis, J.P., “PartyTransformation in Lebanon: the Kata’ib as a Case Study,” Middle East Studies,vol. 9, 1973, p. 325.

14 I know of only two other cases: Israel’s changeover from Labor to Likud in 1977,when Menachem Begin was elected Prime Minister, and that country’s return toLabor (from Likud) when Rabin replaced Shamir in 1992. Israel’s Government ofNational Unity also represented a temporary change from Likud to Labor withPeres as Prime Minister. The Syrian elections in 1954 did bring important changesto that government but, with the great number of independents in the Assembly,does not quite qualify as a genuine change of government. Lebanon did it once!

15 It could be argued, of course, that Hilū essentially took orders from the Shihābistsand was not fully President. Moreover, there are those who would insist that it wasHilū’s willingness to sign the Cairo Agreement in 1969 that led to the civil war of1976. While a truly constitutional transfer of power did happen once in Lebanon—Hilū taking office in an uncoerced election and leaving it to the winner of anotheruncoerced election, the result was President Suleiman Franjieh, who turned out tobe one of the least competent persons ever to become the chief executive of amodern state, riding the Lebanese horse until it collapsed and died.

16 A vigorous effort, waged by Shihābists in the army and security police, had led toan unlikely victory over Raymond Eddé by a Nahjist for the Jubayl seat in the 1964elections.

17 Those trapped at the time in the Agriculture Building of the American Universityof Beirut, where the American Embassy herded its citizens then living in theLevant, were quite grateful for the efficiency of Lebanon’s security forces underHilū. It was interesting, and somewhat comforting, to hear them give orders to oneanother in a language that was neither Arabic nor French.

18 It is important to remember that, at this time, the West Bank was still part of Jordanand an essential source for agricultural products sold in Lebanon.

19 Author’s recollection of an often-heard comment from the Palestinians he visited inthe Ein al-Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon.

20 “Public Prosecutor’s Indictment in the Assassination of Kamal Mrowa,” publishedin English translation by the Daily Star (al-Nahār) June 25, 1966. (Indictmentdated June 23, 1966.)

21 There is no question that Intra’s reckless and extravagant practices represented apossible danger for the Lebanese banking system. What was clearly not acceptablewas for a cabal of government and financial leaders to bring the bank downintentionally.

22 Salibi, Kamal S., Crossroads to Civil War, p. 30.23 The most notable of these, of course, was George Habash, former leader of the

Arab National Movement (ANM) and founder of the Popular Front for theLiberation of Palestine (PFLP). As previously mentioned, Antoun Sa‛ada, founderof the PPS, was a Christian; Michel Aflaq, one of the founders of the original Ba‛thParty, was also a Christian.

24 Even as early as 1968, the Palestinian movement had splintered into a multitude ofpolitical organizations and guerrilla factions. Some were simply instruments ofArab governments, e.g., al-Sa‛iqa (Thunderbolt), an organization under the control

312 NOTES

of the Syrian army, and the Arab Liberation Front (ALF) funded by Iraq. Otherprominent groups included the following: the Popular Front for the Liberation ofPalestine (PFLP), the PFLP-GC (General Command), the Democratic Front for theLiberation of Palestine (DFLP), the Palestinian Armed Struggle Command(PASC), and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF). These were linked tovarious paymasters as each Arab regime felt it had to have a guerrilla group tobalance its rivals’ groups. In true Levantine fashion, Palestinian guerrillaorganizations have broken up into a myriad of factions. Just to trace one lineage,the Arab National Movement (ANM) begat the PFLP that, in turn, begat the PFLP-GC, which has presently begotten two wings, one sponsored by Syria and the otherby Libya. Even Fatah is now divided into two major factions: one (led by Arafat) isfairly independent and the other (led by Abu Mūsa) is protected by Syria but keptseparate from that country’s own Palestinian militia, al-Sa’iqa. See Cobban,Helena, The Palestinian Liberation Organization: People, Power, and Politics,Cambridge, 1984. Her chapter 3, entitled, “The Joy of Flying, 1967–73,” providesan excellent account of Palestinian organizations of this period.

25 Salibi, Kamal S., Crossroads to Civil War, p. 35.26 Quote taken from the “Chronology,” (Lebanon) Middle East Journal, vol. 23, 1969,

p. 73, for the date November 2, 1968.27 Ibid., p. 373, for the date April 29, 1969.28 Ibid., for the date May 31, 1969.29 Ibid., for the date July 15, 1969.

7TOWARD CIVIL WAR: 1970–1975

1 Politically, this could be called the “Uthman solution.” When the second Caliph,Umar ibn al-Khattab, was on his deathbed, he nominated a shūra (council) of sevenof the Prophet’s companions to elect a new Caliph from among themselves. Themajor notables, including the Imam Ali, Talhā, and Zubayr, were deadlocked anddecided to choose the weakest (and least fit) to replace Umar. While their choicemay well have been an expedient way to break the stalemate, it was also a steptoward being able to replace the weak Uthman when he failed. As it turned out,Uthman ruled for the longest period of the initial four Rāshidūn Caliphs.

2 See Riker, William H., The Theory of Political Coalitions, New Haven, 1967, foran elaboration of the “size” principle. In the case of the 1970 election, each blocleader tried to be pivotal—to make his vote become the last added weight on acoalition without surplus weight, i.e., more persons to pay off than needed for asimple majority. Not everyone, of course, could be pivotal, and Franjieh was theresidue of an n-person attempt to be pivotal.

3 Voting sampling taken by al-Nahār is cited by Meir Zamir in his “The LebanesePresidential Elections of 1970 and their Impact on the Civil War of 1975–76,”Middle East Studies, vol. 16, 1980, p. 51.

4 At one time, I had come to the conclusion that the activities of Kamal Jumblāt inthe 1970 election were merely an exhibition of amoral relativism, exemplifying theLevantine ethic at the furthest reaches of primordial lunacy. This was, perhaps, an

NOTES 313

unrealistic assessment. It seems more likely that the attractiveness of the cute gameon August 17 simply won out over good sense.

5 The al-Nahār headline was “The Vote of the People.” See Salibi, Kamal S.Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon 1958–1976, New York, 1976, pp. 47–51. For anextended account of the election, see Zamir, Meir, “The Lebanese PresidentialElections.”

6 Quote taken from the “Chronology,” (Lebanon), Middle East Journal, vol. 25,1971, p. 72, for the date September 23, 1970.

7 This was thanks to Jumblāt’s policies during the last few months of the Hilūadministration. Franjieh’s get-tough talk was mostly rhetoric; he had returned to“politics as usual.”

8 A veritable Salām dunk in the lingo of American basketball!9 Salibi, Kamal S., Crossroads to Civil War, p. 69.

10 Ibid., p. 78.11 There were probably reasonable arguments on both sides of the fishing dispute that

broke out. In the argument between going modern with a factory-fishing enterpriseand maintaining the rights of traditional fishermen, I must confess to having aspecial sympathy for the latter. Having, many times, watched them from the SeaCastle in Sidon, mending their nets or bringing in a single “buffalo fish” (?) that fedthe whole cafeteria at the Boys’ School, the author is emotionally disposed to givethe rights and complaints of the traditional fishermen the benefit of the doubt.

12 It was only after the outbreak of troubles in Sidon that this “exclusive” right to fishin the coastal waters was altered to “beyond eighteen kilometers off the shore.”

13 The word “adventure” has been used by Kamal Salibi in brilliant fashion to depictthe sense of enthusiasm felt in Christian circles for the coming showdown, a wordthat especially describes Phalangist sentiments at this time. See Crossroads to CivilWar p. 97.

14 We recall that one of the preliminaries to the civil war of 1860 took place at Beit Mīriwhen two muleteers quarreled over who had the right of way on a mountain path.In the melee that followed, people from both the Druze and Maronite sides werekilled, and their survivors tallied the relative death tolls to see what would berequired to get even. As anyone who has driven an automobile in Lebanon knows,the compulsion to gain the most marginal advantage over another driver ispervasive, and momentary losers in traffic battles must also “get even.” Suchbehavior arises from the relativist ethos which drives individual conduct. It hasalways been abrasive, not only on nerves but on automobiles and, if the past is anytestimony, on mules as well. In 1860, of course, there were other events thatprecipitated war—the belief by some prelates, for example, that peasant armies couldpush the Druze out of Lebanon. In 1975, as in the earlier period, there were a numberof incidents as well. War, however, broke out not because of the incidents butbecause many of the major leaders had committed themselves to a showdown. AsHobbes said in Leviathan, “the will to contend…is sufficiently known.”

15 This would have been the fourth nonentity in succession as Prime Minister for AsHobbes said in Leviathan, “the will to contend . . . is sufficiently known.” theestablishment Sunnis, a trend that made them feel that their role in Lebanon wasbeing depreciated.

16 Halim Barakat in “Social and Political Integration in Lebanon: A Case of SocialMosaic,” Middle East Journal, vol. 27, 1973 pp. 301–18; Michael C. Hudson in

314 NOTES

The Precarious Republic: Political Modernization in Lebanon, New York, 1968 pp.330–31; Fuad I. Khuri in “The Changing Class Structure in Lebanon,” Middle EastJournal, vol. 23, 1969 pp. 29–44; and Michael W. Suleiman in “Crisis andRevolution in Lebanon,” Middle East Journal, vol. 26, 1972 pp. 11–24 (amongothers) provided research and analysis that warned of Lebanon’s impendingpolitical breakdown.

17 Randal, Jonathan C., Going All the Way: Christian Warlords, Israeli Advenurers,and the War in Lebanon, New York, 1983, p. 107. In his preface, p. xii, Randalsays that, in September 1974, he had “predicted the coming civil war in print” andwas banned from Lebanon for his trouble.

18 See Gordon, David C., Lebanon: The Fragmented Nation, London, 1980, pp. 17–18, for his concept of “marginality.”

19 See Entelis, John P., “Belief System and Ideology Formation in the LebaneseKata‛ib Party,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol 4, 1973, pp. 148–62 for a valuable analysis of the ideology and political program of the Phalangists.

20 Randal, Jonathan C., Going All the Way, especially pp. 156–85.21 For a general explanation of Jumblāt’s political thinking, see Joumblat, Kamal, I

Speak for Lebanon, translated by Michael Pallis, London, 1982 pp. 13–24.22 The Paradigm Levantine appeared in the soul of Lebanon.

8CIVIL WAR AND INTERVENTION: 1976–1982

1 “Chronology,” (Lebanon) Middle East Journal, vol. 30, p. 214, for the date January22, 1976.

2 The Lebanese Liberation Army was partly financed by Fatah, Yasser Arafat’smilitia in the PLO. It is reported that Arafat’s intelligence officer, Abu HassanSalama, escorted Ahdāb to a leftist television station to make the originalannouncement. See Tabitha Petran, The Struggle Over Lebanon, New York, 1987,pp. 190–92.

3 Joumblat, Kamal, I Speak for Lebanon, translated by Michael Pallis, London,1982, p. 74.

4 This is not to assert the “plot” theory, i.e., that Assad had a clearly formulatedstrategy regarding Lebanon. Perhaps his “political needs” better explains it.Through his support of the Lebanese left, Assad was drawn into the war. He surelybelieved that neither Israel nor the West would allow the radicals to controlLebanon; partition went against the grain of Ba’thist Arabism. Permitted by theWest to mediate between the Lebanese factions, Assad was essentially trying toconvince the Christians that they could look toward Damascus rather than to Parisor Washington for protection of their interests. The success of Jumblāt’s offensiveboth interfered with Assad’s hoped-for role and presented him with an opportunityto project his own power into the Lebanese portions of geographical Syria.

5 “Chronology,” (Lebanon) Middle East Journal, vol. 30, p. 529, for the date May20, 1976.

6 Petran, Tabitha, The Struggle Over Lebanon, p. 199. Quote taken from an interviewgiven to Monday Morning, June 14–26, 1976.

NOTES 315

7 Presumably that Israeli-defined line which, if the Syrians crossed in sufficientforce, would cause the Israelis to feel vulnerable and perhaps respond with their ownmilitary force.

8 The Christian forces were especially energetic in moving into the Greek OrthodoxKūra district southeast of Tripoli and defeating the LNM irregulars there. Syrian-backed operations by Christian militias in the far south, also aided by Israel,reduced much of the infrastructure of Fatahland and prepared the way for the futureenclave state of the South Lebanese Army under Sa’ad Haddad.

9 Petran, Tabitha, The Struggle Over Lebanon, p. 214.10 Sometimes the “dog does wag the tail.” The cynic might argue that since no

Lebanese nationality, including all the peoples in the country, has ever existed, it isnot fair to accuse Haddad of any lack of patriotism.

11 Friedman, Thomas L., From Beirut to Jerusalem, New York, 1989, p. 233.12 Quoted in Friedman, ibid., p. 234.13 Ibid., pp. 233–4.14 Petran, Tabitha, The Struggle Over Lebanon, pp. 231–2.15 Jonathan Randal’s Going All the Way: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers,

and the War in Lebanon, New York 1983; Charles Friedman’s From Beirut toJerusalem, and Robert Fisk’s Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon, NewYork, 1990, all provide extensive accounts of life and events in Lebanon during thenearly two decades of war. Although anecdotal, the works of these foreigncorrespondents provide a full picture of the material and emotional reality of theLebanese scene during this period.

16 Tabara, Lina Makdidi, Surviving the Siege of Beirut: A Personal Account, London,1983.

17 Randal Jonathan C., Going All the Way, pp, 203–5.18 Petran, Tabitha, The Struggle Over Lebanon, p. 235.19 Today, it is generally understood that this Maronite gambit was perpetrated

by Chamoun’s Tiger militia, following a meeting between the former President andthe Israelis. Syrian intelligence must have also known about it; they immediatelyattacked the headquarters of the (PNL) Liberal Party.

20 The years 1979 through 1981 also saw a few battles take place among theArmenians; even the non-citizen Kurds managed a fracas or two.

21 See Randal, Jonathan, for a concise but excellent biographical sketch of BashirGemayel, especially his political ascendancy, in Going All the Way, especially pp.114–24.

22 From its beginnings as a Pan-Syrian movement, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party(often known by its French name and acronym, Parti Populaire Syrien (PPS) hasfollowed a radical line. By the time of the Lebanese Civil War of 1975–6, it hadessentially joined the leftist forces to fight the status quo in Lebanon.

23 The term, Marounistan, is an informal geographical label for the central Maronitedistricts of Matn, Kisrawān, and Jubayl which some Maronite nationalists, e.g., theGuardians of the Cedars, think should become a separate Christian jurisdiction.

24 The Israelis, in breaking their truce with the PLO, chose to ignore the question ofwho had committed the terrible act against Ambassador Argov. General Sharonwas set to go; only a pretext was needed.

25 See “Arafat’s Bad Dream,” in The Economist, February 13, 1982, p. 55.

316 NOTES

26 Arafat seemed to interpret the ceasefire worked out between himself and theIsraelis as a victory for the Palestinians. He believed that the agreement implied anIsraeli recognition of the PLO and an acceptance of its permanent position inFatahland.

9PERMANENT WAR: 1983–1990

1 Friedman, Thomas L., From Beirut to Jerusalem, New York, 1989, p. 194.2 Ibid.3 …as in 1860.4 Many of these, since 1986–7, have filtered back into Lebanon.5 With claims for Greater Syria, Greater Lebanon, and Greater Israel in the air, it is

no wonder that conflict between jurisdictions in the Levant is the norm rather thanthe exception. Someday, one expects to hear that the whole area really belongs toGreater Qatar.

6 This agreement, signed on May 17, 1983, stipulated the following: termination ofmilitary activities; no alliance against Israel; end to propaganda against Israel; anda security zone forty-five kilometers deep. In addition, Haddad’s SLA, as second incommand of a brigade under a Muslim commander, would control only fifteenkilometers of the security zone. There would be joint security patrols but nopermanent posts, a consular office for Israel, and normalization of relations to bediscussed in the future.

7 Quoted by Robert Fisk; see Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon, New York,1990, p. 513.

8 “Chronology,” (Lebanon), Middle East Journal, vol. 38, 1985, p. 508, for the dateMarch 12, 1984.

9 One time (in July 1985), when fighting the Palestinians as allies in the far south,the PSP and Amal were fighting each other in Beirut and along the coast towardDamour. Walīd Jumblāt claimed that it was just a mistake, and the ignorant culpritswere withdrawn to the mountains. In fact, the Druze did not relish the idea ofShi’ite control of the coastal villages just below their stronghold in the Shūf.

10 There is, certainly, a third possibility—accommodation leading to solidarity. But thisis a possibility hard to achieve in a cultural context of great vulnerability such asexists in the Levant.

11 According to a report by Fisk, ibid., p. 604, one wing of the Phalangists had invitedArafat regulars to return to help it contain Amal and the Syrians.

12 For an excellent journalistic treatment of various allies and enemies during thisphase of the civil war, see The Economist, September 17, 1986, p. 38.

13 These five contenders were by no means the only independent armed groupsoperating in the west and south Beirut areas at this time. Lebanese Communists,Ba‛thists, Syrian Social Nationalists, and Palestinian radicals, organized in variousgroups and coalitions, also possessed arms and competed for control of checkpointsand territory.

14 Druze militiamen, in the hills above the village, had also engaged in this sort ofactivity.

15 Fisk, Robert, Pity the Nation, pp. 599–601.

NOTES 317

16 Taken from “Insecurity Zone,” The Economist, January 24, 1987, p. 38.17 “Chronology,” (Lebanon) Middle East Journal, vol. 42, 1989, p. 101, for the date

September 27, 1987. See also Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation, p. 581 for an account ofthis allegation.

18 Certainly, the behavior of such groups tells much of the story. But perhaps thenames they invent to identify themselves tell even more. They suggest particularismbeyond imagination, anger without mind, impassive indulgence in the language ofthe self. One can only await the day when the Organization for the Liberation ofHalf of an Atom or for Adam’s Better Half announce themselves. If the latter wereto organize first, it might prevent the former. But don’t count on it.

19 Taken from “The Wreckage is Almost Complete,” The Economist, November 28,1987, pp. 44–5.

20 A few hostages were released and others were newly kidnapped, then released soonafter. These cases, however, were usually a function of local groups having localsecurity problems or simply using this activity as a means for extorting ransommoney.

21 This was a case of two entirely separate wars being fought in the same area at thesame time without either pair of fighting groups going into coalition. A fighteractually had to dodge bullets not intended for him, i.e., neither “friendly” nor“unfriendly” fire; just deadly.

22 Confusing? Better believe it…!23 A fifth candidate, deputy Mikhail al-Dāhir, was supported by Syrian and American

diplomats but rejected by both the Lebanese Forces and the Lebanese army.24 “Chronology,” (Lebanon), Middle East Journal, vol. 42, 1989, pp. 663–9.25 In Connecticut-size Lebanon, it was possible to identify forty-two conflict dyads

for the above two years, fights ongoing only within the country’s borders. Some ofthese were groups with specific labels, like Oppressed of the Earth, which simplydesignated operations being carried out under the auspices of an umbrellaorganization, perhaps Hizbollah, the PLO, or the Lebanese Forces. Taking this factinto account, there were still well over thirty recognizable dyads that, at any onetime, might have been engaged in armed conflict (with each side targeting theother) inside Lebanon. This figure, however, only represents a portion of thenumber of groups contending in Lebanon; each of the external sectors of influencemust also be included. When groups engaged in violence externally, but notcounted in the internal figures, are included, an additional twenty-nine conflictdyads must be taken into account. Most of the groups fighting external foes wereeither radical Muslim and Palestinian militias conducting operations against theSLA-Israel combine or the many groups, mostly Christian, taking action against theSyrian army of occupation, some simply names given to operational groups actingon behalf of parent organizations.

26 Perhaps he ought to have blamed the Americans for using the Iraqis to sucker himinto believing he could save the country. Certainly, the Americans, who were bothstroking Saddam and pushing for elections in Lebanon at the time, had no betteranswers for Lebanon’s dilemmas than did Aoun or al-Hoss or the Lebanesethemselves. Syrian answers, unfortunately, were comprised of Syrian solutions.

27 Before the national elections of 1992, the number of seats in the Chamber ofDeputies was increased from 108 to 128.

318 NOTES

28 Note that the Ta‛if Agreement, to which Damascus has formally agreed, onlyrequired withdrawing the Syrian army to the Biqā Valley by August 1992, leavingit indefinite when all Syrian troops would be out of Lebanon. On the one hand, theAssad regime had not ruled out eventually leaving Lebanon and had acknowledgedit as an independent state, but on the other, it could exert tremendous control overLebanon’s government and could always have it request a Syrian militarypresence. Indeed, a year after the deadline, Damascus had not moved the Syrianoccupation force to the Biqā Valley.

29 It should also be noted that the Mu’awads were traditional clan rivals of theFranjiehs in the Besharri region of north Lebanon.

30 He had inherited his political base from his father, Rashid Karāmi, who wasassassinated in 1987. Moreover, not all of the members of this cabinet actually tookpart in its functions. George Sa‛adah, the head of the Phalange, for example, didnot participate and eventually resigned his post (January 29, 1990). Similarly,Michel Sasīn had refused to participate. Later, however, after the inter-Christianwar had wound down, both Sa‛adah and Sisīn withdrew their resignations andjoined the Hrāwi government as cabinet members. Since then, of course, there havebeen more boycotts by Lebanese politicians protesting Syrian interference,including a refusal to participate in the September 1992 elections for a newChamber of Deputies.

10SYRIA STOPS THE WAR: 1990–1995

1 One major difference is that, in 1860, Patriarch Bulus Mas‛ad supported the Bishopof Beirut, Tubīyā ‛Aun, while, in 1990, the Patriarch, Nasrullah Butrus Sfayr, didnot support Michel Aoun.

2 The fruitlessness of going on with the conflict has been one of the reasons forcooperation from the militia commanders. Also, they have been given nominalrecognition as Ministers of State. Finally, it is perhaps not lost on the survivors ofthe conflict (still in the country) that Syria seems to be able to use an assassinationor bombing to take out whomever it wishes.

3 The American foreign policy establishment had projected negotiations betweenSyria and Israel for the fall of 1995, believing that some progress had to occurbefore Israeli elections in May 1996 and those in America for the followingNovember. Although these negotiations did formally begin in Wye, Maryland inearly 1996, it soon became clear that movement would not occur until later.

4 The “order” in the camps that the various Palestinian militias can maintain may notbe an order fully compatible with the needs of either the camp’s inhabitants or theLebanese. The question of Lebanese sovereignty over the camps also remainshostage to the Arab-Israeli conflict and its resolution. Without progress on thisissue, it is likely that limiting the Palestinians to the possession of only “light”weapons will be temporary.

5 Permission, of course, not altogether different from what the Lebanesegovernment, at this time, had to obtain as well.

6 UNIFIL stands for United Nations Forces in Lebanon. These “internationalpeacekeepers” have been in Lebanon since the end of the 1978 Israeli intervention

NOTES 319

into South Lebanon. Based in Tyre, UNIFIL has not been able to do much morethan monitor the hostilities that regularly take place in the border region betweenIsrael and Lebanon.

7 For a brief account of Harīri’s difficulties, see Trendle, G., “Condemned to Rule,”Middle East International no. 490, Dec. 1994, p. 11.

8 For an in-depth study of Jumblāt’s program in the Druze areas, see Harik, J.P.,“Change and Continuity Among the Lebanese Druze Community: The CivilAdministration of the Mountains,” Middle East Studies, vol. 29, 1993, pp. 377– 98.

9 Samir Ja‛ja was arrested in April 1994 and later put on trial for having ordered thebombing of a church in Jounieh as well as the murder of Dany Chamoun during thelast years of the civil war.

10 Nasrallah, Fidā, “Lebanon, the Succession to Presiden Hrāwi,” Middle EastInternational, no. 503, June 1995, p. 18.

11 For a discussion of the prospects for a permanent end to the civil war, see Norton,A.R., “Lebanon After Ta‛if: Is the Civil War Over,” Middle East Journal, vol. 45,1991, pp. 457–73. For an analysis of the residual bitterness following the war, seeSoloman, Z., “Does the War End when the Shooting Stops?” Journal of AppliedSocial Psychology, vol. 20, 1990, pp. 1733–45.

12 For a brief account of conditions in the south (1993), see Cherif, Cordahi, “Letterfrom South Lebanon,” Middle East International, no. 462, November 1993, (backcover). Godfrey Jansen offers some optimistic reflections on Beirut (1995) in“Looking Up,” Middle East International, no. 495, March 1995, pp. 9–10.

13 The Ghassanids and Lakhmids were two ”marcher” kingdoms made up of Arabiantribes which served as small buffer states during the fifth and sixth centuries CE.Settled along the Yarmuk river in what is now Jordan, the Ghassanids were used bythe Byzantines for frontier defense while the Lakhmids, located at al-Hira on theEuphrates in Iraq, were supported by the Sasānid Persians for a similar purpose. Thetwo buffer kingdoms mostly fought each other within the context of the largerinternecine struggle between their Byzantine and Sasānid patrons.

14 A considerable number of articles, over the years, have been written aboutpurported Israeli designs on the Litāni. For a recent discussion, see Amery, H.A.,“The Litani River of Lebanon,” Geographical Review, vol. 83, 1993, pp. 229–37.Also, same author, “Israel’s Designs on Lebanese Water,” Middle EastInternational no. 458, pp. 18–19, September 1993.

15 This resolution essentially calls for a complete withdrawal of Israeli military forcesfrom Lebanese territory.

16 Only the proxies—the Jewish settlers in the Golan, the SLA militia in the bufferzone, and the Hizbollah and Palestinian fighters in south Lebanon—stand to losefrom an agreement. A settlement between Israel and Syria does pose the verydifficult problem of what to do with the proxies. Without a settlement, of course, theycontinue to lose their lives and property to war.

17 For a more extended view of this position, see Nasrallah, Fidā, “Lebanon ShouldMove to Make Peace on its Own,” Middle East International no. 482, August1994, pp. 19–29.

18 It is possible that a “special relationship” with Syria and something less than fullindependence for Lebanon is the “best” outcome for the Lebanese and the one theywill choose. The point is that it is their choice. A look at the history of the country

320 NOTES

suggests, realistically, that a large segment of the Lebanese will eventually resistpermanent control by any outsider, Syria included.

NOTES 321

Index

Abayh, battle at 34Abbasids 9Abboud, Muhammad 103Abd al-Malik, Yusuf 32Abd al-Malik family 19, 22, 305n.16Abdul Hamīd, Sultan 49, 309n.5Abdul Majīd, Sultan 309n.5Abdullah (Vali of Sidon) 23–4Ab‘l-Lam family 19Abu Hussein, A.R. 307n.29Abu Kattār, Antonius 307n.33Abu‘l-Lam, Bashir Ahmed 36Abu Mūsa, Sa‘id 239, 266–7, 271Abu Nakad family 19, 21–2, 24Abu Shahlā, Habīb 76Acre 20, 21, 22Adīb Pasha, Auguste 65Administrative Council of the

Mutasarrifate 42, 43, 48–9;abolished 50, 54;continued as Mount Lebanon governingbody 56–7

Aflaq, Michel 319n.23Agwani, M.S. 317n.7al-Ahd group 54al-Ahdāb, General Abdul Aziz 203–4, 206al-Ahdāb, Khayr al-Din 69Ahmed Pasha 40Airport, Beirut international:

Arab Liberation Front guerrillastandoff 169;corrupt contracts for 99;Druze attacks on 115;Israeli raid on 160;proposal for 93;United States secures 123, 124–5

Ajay, Nicholas 56, 314n.4Akkadians 7Akkar region:

Arab rebellion in 64;in the 1958 civil war 117;Sunni communities of 13

Alam al-Din, Yusuf 19Alam al-Din family 13, 15, 18, 19, 307n.32Alawites 60, 298Aleppo:

First World War seige of 53;revolt against the French in 63

Alexandretta 64, 70Ali Munīf Bey 54Allenby, General Edmund 53, 56, 57–8, 60Allied occupation of Lebanon 57–9Amal 197, 213, 222;

v. Hizbollah 224, 248, 257, 265–7,271, 275, 279;v. the PLO 249, 258–61, 265, 269;PSP alliance with 249, 253, 257, 260,323n.9

ancient Lebanon 7–8Anderson, Terry 250, 262, 286Anglo-Iraqi Treaty (1930) 68anti-patriarchs 11, 306n.20Aoun, General Michel 242, 255–6;

appointed President 267–9;assassination attempt on 262;Syrian defeat of 216, 254, 279–80, 282;at war with Ja‘ja 271–9, 325n.l

Arab League:in the Aoun-Ja‘ja war 278;and the civil war of 1975–6 182–3, 210–11;founding of 80;

322

response to the partition of Palestine 96Arab Liberation Front (ALF) 169, 214,

319n.24Arab National Movement (ANM) 162–3,

319n.23Arab nationalism:

in the Arab uprising (1925) 64–5;Christian response to 107, 109, 135,143;and Nasser 103, 107–10;political parties for 70;and the proposed Arab state in OttomanSyria 53–4, 58, 313n.2

Arab Revolt 53, 54Aradus 7Arafat, Yasir 161, 162, 180, 182, 210, 233,

322n.2;v. Abu Mūsa Fatah forces 266, 271;Assad’s negotiations with 205–6;and the Cairo Agreement 163;ceasefire declaration of 211;elected Chairman of the PLO 157;Franjieh administration negotiationswith 171, 173, 174, 178;weakening of 238–9

Argov, Schlomo 230Armenian Catholics, 298;

as Mutasarrifate leaders 43, 49, 312n.30

Armenians 64, 323n.20army of Lebanon:

disintegration of 200, 203;of Fakhr al-Din 17;Muslim-Christian ceasefireenforcement 187- 8, 203;Muslim-Christian conflicts in 203, 214,219;normalization of control 281;v. Palestinian guerrillas 161, 162–4,173–4, 180, 285;Shihāb use of 137–9;in the Sidon fishing rights controversy181–2;see also South Lebanese Army

Arslān, Majīd 76, 114–5;in the Karāmi cabinet 185;in the Salām cabinet 135

Arslān, Shakib 314n.3

Arslān family 22al-Aryan, Shibli 32al-As‘ad, Kamal 210al-Assad, Hafiz:

demands in the Israel-Lebanon peaceprocess 239;Franjieh’s relations with 202, 205, 217,249;Jumblāt negotiations with 205, 322n.4

Assāf family 15–16Assembly see Chamber of DeputiesAssyrians 6, 7al-Atrash, Ismā‘il 39Atrāsh, Linda 207Attaturk, Kemal 64Ayn al-Rummānah massacre 182, 184, 189,

194Ayn Dāra 19, 38Ayn Sofār massacre 12Aytu 15al-Ayyubi, Shukri 56Ayyubids 12, 15

Ba‘albek:Arab rebellion in 64;Shi‘ite communities in 13

B‘abdā, conference at 34Baghdad Pact (CENTO) 104–5, 110Baker, James 283Baldwin, David 315n.4Balkans 304n.6, 315n.6B‘aqlīn, battle at 29Barakat, Halim 186, 304n.5, 315n.5, 315n.

11Bashir I 18–20, 307n.34Bashir II 20–4, 25–7, 308n.38, 309n.6Bashir (Qasim) III 27, 28–9, 31, 38Bashir Assāf 36, 310n.14Ba‘th Socialist Party 163, 198, 199, 262Baybars 12Baydās, Yusuf 153–4Begin, Menachem 218, 235, 318n.14;

invasions of Lebanon 220, 229, 232,239;and the Israel-Lebanon peaceagreement 240, 241

Beirut:

INDEX 323

British occupation of 56;in 1914 census 61;in 1958 civil war 112, 115, 117;in 1975–6 civil war 175, 182, 188, 200,206;development of 81, 98;disposition of in the Mutasarrifate 43;execution of First World Warcollaborators in 55;Green Line skirmishes 257, 263, 269,272, 280;intercommunal feuds in 64;Israeli seige of 232–3;Ma‘n rule of 17;Palestine partition protests in 89;PLO headquarters in 157;Roman Empire 7;Shi‘ite settlements in 163, 171;Syrian bombardment of 220, 222, 224;Syrian occupation of 263–6;United States forces in 122–4;in the unrest of 1967 148–9, 319n.17

Beit al-Din, palace at 22, 32, 144Berri, Nabīh 236, 258, 260, 275;

Amal leadership 224;v. Amin Gemayel 245;at the Geneva reconciliation talks 243;hijacking negotiations by 250, 258;Syrian peace accord signed by 251, 254

Berytus 7Bharsāf, battle of 26, 28Bill, James 306n.22Binder, Leonard 304n.5Biqā region:

Arab rebellion in 63, 64;in 1958 civil war 115–16, 117;feudatories 9;Shi‘ite communities in 13;Sunni communities in 13

Bisharri feudal district 11, 15, 307n.27Bitār, Emile 170–1Blum, Leon 68Bosnia as ‘Lebanonized’ 304n.6, 315n.6Britain:

controls Allied occupation 57;in the Druze-Maronite conflicts 29–30,35, 310n.13;v. Egyptian control of Syria 26–7;

First World War campaigns 50, 52–3,55;invasions of Syria 52–3, 56, 72, 73–4;and the Mutasarrifate jurisdiction 41,42, 43, 44;support for Lebanese independence 73,81–2

Britt, George 99, 316n.22Brown, L.Dean 206Browne, Walter L. 78, 81, 315n.7Buckley, William 246, 250Buhturid clan 12–3, 18, 306n.21Burckhardt, John Lewis 308n.39Burj al-Burājneh camp 261Bush, George 279, 283Bustāni, Emile 126, 162–3, 172Byblos 7Byzantine Empire 6–9, 305n.16

cabinets:brevity of 85, 86;fragmentation of 88;and the Presidency 85–6

Cairo Agreement 161–3, 169, 171, 319n.15Camp David accords 232Carter, Jimmy 229Catroux, General G. 72, 73, 76, 82–3Cayla, Leon 62census:

of 1914 61–2, 314n.11;of 1932 69

Central Bank of Lebanon 153–4Central Bloc 166, 170Chamber of Deputies (Assembly) 85–8,

175, 315n.9;establishment of 65, 68;family strongholds in 86–7, 315n.9;membership increased 131, 135;representation of sects in 80, 135

Chamoun, Camille:administration of 101–12;assassination attempts 160, 226–7, 262;and Bashir Gemayel 225–6;and the Bisharri-Zghartā feud 84–5;in the elections of 1970 165, 167;at the Geneva reconciliation talks 243;infrastructure development by 140;

324 INDEX

in the Karāmi cabinet 185, 194–5;as al-Khūri opposition leader 94, 97;v. Nasserism 1, 107–10;and the National Liberal Party 135, 144,158, 179;opposition to 102, 103;as peace undercutter 190–1;PNL (Tigers) militia of 190, 195, 209–10, 221–2, 225, 227, 322n.19;Raymond Eddé alliance with 144;and the Sidon fishing rights controversy180–2, 320n.11, 321n.12;and the Socialist Front 100;and the United States intervention 119;see also civil war of 1958

Chamoun, Dany 225, 227, 248, 262, 281,326n.9

Cherif, Cordahi 326n.12Christians:

Amin Gemayel military activism for236–7, 240–1;Bashir Gemayel coalition of 227;Damascus massacre of 40;Israeli alliances with 202, 212, 214,239–40;jurisdiction issue in the FrenchMandate 61, 78, 315n.2;mountain settlements of 11;Muslim tolerance for 9, 305n.15;in the Palestinian cause 157, 319n.23;v. Palestinian militia groups 158, 160,162–4, 179, 183–4;population of in Lebanon 303n.1;representation of guaranteed 69, 80;response to Arabism 107, 109, 135,143, 205;Roman-era settlements 8, 305n.14;service in the Mandate system 63;and the Sidon fishing rights controversy180–2, 320n.11, 321n.12;Syrian alliances with 206, 209, 214,218, 282, 322n.4, 322n.8;see also Greek Catholics;Greek Orthodox;Maronites;Phalange

Chtaura 210, 211, 218

Churchill, Charles Henry 31, 310n.11,311n.16

Churchill, Winston 52Cicippio, Joseph 286circularly caused dilemmas 3, 303n.4civil service:

Mandate-era development of 63civil war of 1860 2, 28, 37–40, 309n.1,

311n.20, 311n.21, 321n.14civil war of 1958 112–19, 317n.3;

and Chamoun-Nasser relations 107–10;completion of 127–30;Druze offenses in 114–15;United States intervention in 110–11,114, 118–27, 133, 317n.9

civil war of 1975–6 1, 2, 201–12;act of violence patterns in 213–219;and the Arab summit peace plan 211–12;and the th the Cairo Agreement 319n.15;characterized by intermittent fighting189;civilian victims of 216–17;early development of 173–80;intercommunal wars in 213, 214, 219;Israeli intervention in 202, 212, 214,216, 218;and the Karmi cabinet 185–8;and the military cabinet 184- 5, 194;Muslim offensives in 204–5;and outsider interference in Lebanon215;Phalange counteroffensive 206;PLA operations in 200, 202–3;profiteering in 217;proxy wars in 213, 214, 219;and the Sidon fishing rights controversy180–2, 189, 320n.11, 321n.12;south Lebanon fo focus of 218–19;state wars in 213, 214–16, 219;Syrian intervention in 1, 191, 206–12,218, 220;Syrian m mediation of 201–2, 211;turf battles ir in 213, 219;undercutters of peace in 188–91

Cobban, Helena 157, 320n.24Cold War 104–6

INDEX 325

Committee for the Defense of PalestinianPrisoners 262

Committee on Union and Progress (CUP)49, 54

communism:United States containment objectives104;see also Eisenhower Doctrine

Communist Party (Lebanese) 70, 163, 189,198–9, 262

confessionalism 67, 85, 135, 191, 195,314n.17;

circumvention attempts 71;constitutional structures for 69, 80,280;Franjieh reform proposals 254

conflict proneness xi, 3–4, 305n.12;and ethical relativism, 4–5, 251–2,304n.7, 304n.8, 304n.10

consociational democracy 67, 87, 314n.15,315n.12

Constitution of Lebanon:amendments to 66, 79, 82, 94, 95–6,146, 288, 316n.27;French suspension of 67–8, 82;for the independent Republic 75, 79–81;informal traditions of 66;Mandate origins of 65–7;National Pact provision 80, 108, 112,181, 192, 294;on the representation of sects 66–7, 69,75, 80–1

corruption:Constitutional Bloc 70, 117, 135

army 137–8;in the Mandate period 68;in the Mutasarrifate 48;in the Republic of Lebanon 85, 91, 93,99

Coulondre, Robert 61counter-revolution of 1958 128–30, 134,

144Crimean War 35Crockett, Carolyn M. 304n.10crusades 11, 12, 305n.18Cumberbatch, Henry 49CUP see Committee on Union and

Progress

currency:collapse of 263;and the Customs Union 97–8;Lebanese pound created 81;Mandate development of 63

Customs Union, breakup of 97–9, 316n.28

Dābbas, Charles 65, 66, 67Damascus:

Christians massacred in 1860 40;revolt against the French in 63

Da‘ūd Pasha 42–6, 315n.2al-Da‘uq, Umar 56Dayr al-Qamar:

Druze seiges of 29, 38, 39–40, 242;as Ma‘nid seat 17;as Maronite town 19;during the Mutasarrifate 43–4;as Shihāb seat 19, 21–2

De Caix, Robert 63De Gaulle, Charles 72, 73–4, 82, 83democracy:

consociational 67, 87, 314n.15, 315n.12;Lebanese 2, 87, 303n.2, 316n.13

Democratic Front for the Liberation ofPalestine (DFLP) 174, 189, 319n.24

Dentz, General Henri 71, 72–3desert ecology 3Deuxième Bureau 133, 136–7, 138, 153,

156, 159, 160, 168;Franjieh purge of 171–2, 320n.7

DFLP;see Democratic Front for the Liberationof Palestine

dilemmas, circularly caused 3, 303n.4double kaymakamate 32–5, 310n.12;

peasant disputes in 36–7, 310n.14,310n.15

Draft Treaty for Lebanon 68–9Druze:

Alam al-Din clan 13, 15, 18, 19, 307n.32;alliances with Britain 55, 310n.13;Amin Gemayel’s offensives against236–7, 240–1, 244–5;Buhturid clan 12–13, 18, 306n.21;

326 INDEX

civil war of 1958 offensives by 114–15, 117;Defense Ministers as 80;in the Egyptian invasion 25–6;feudatories 9;location of communities 33;Mamluks v. 12;Ma’nid dynasties 13, 15–18, 306n.24,306n.25;on the Mutasarrifate AdministrativeCouncil 42;Ottoman persecution of 307n.29;population in Lebanon 303n.1;representation guaranteed 80;revolt of in 1925 63–5;in the Syrian Mandate 60;United States attacks on 242, 244;Yamanis-Qaysis conflict among 15–16,18–19, 306n.26, 307n.32, 307n.35;see also Druze-Maronite conflicts;Druze-Maronite Imarah;Progressive Socialist Party

Druze-Maronite conflicts 28–9, 309n.7,310n.11, 311n.16;

British involvement in 35, 310n.13;and the double kaymakamate 32–7,310n.12;in 1860 civil war 37–40, 311n.20, 311n.21;and Druze-Ottoman collaborations 35,37, 38–40, 310n.12; 311n.16;French involvement in 35;in the Gemayel (Amin) administration236–7, 240–1, 242, 244–5;and the 1858 peasant rebellion 36–7,310n.14, 310n.15;in the 1841–2 war 29–32, 39;in the 1845 war 34

Druze-Maronite Imarah 20–7;the double kaymakamate in 32–7, 310n.12;Druze-Maronite conflicts in 28–32

Dufferin, Lord 311n.16Dulles, John Foster 108, 118, 123Dunand, Maurice 305n.13

Eagles Front of the Resistance toKhomeinite Imperialism 262

ecology, desert 3economy of Lebanon:

in the Chamoun administration 102–3;in the Druze-Maronite wars 309n.8;in the Franjieh admsinistration 171;in the al-Khūri administration 89–93;Lebanese independence and 81;Ma’nid era of expansion 17–8;marginality of 3, 5;in the Mutasarrifate 48;in the Shihāb administration 22, 139–42, 318n.9;and the Syro-Lebanese Customs Unionbreakup 97–9, 316n.28;see also infrastructure

Eddé, Emile 61, 67;alliance with France 71, 73;death of 100;elected President 68;in the 1943 elections 75, 81;installed as President 76;and the National Bloc party 70, 94–5

Eddé, Henri 170–1Eddé, Pierre 145Eddé, Raymond:

v. the Cairo Agreement 163;election defeats 137, 206, 319n.16;in the Karāmi cabinet 130, 140, 144;opposition to Shihāb 144–6;reelected to Chamber 148;in the Tripartite Coalition 178

Effendi, Shakib 34Egypt:

British invasion of 52–3;conquest of Syria 25–7;Copts of 305n.19;Mamluk dynasty 6, 11–14;Mamluk Slaves 306n.23;and the Sinai Observers Agreement229;see also United Arab Republic

Ein el-Hilweh camp 156, 181, 197–8, 261,264, 267, 285, 288

Eisenhower Doctrine 104, 107, 110–11,114, 118, 123, 317n.6

elections:

INDEX 327

of 1943 74–5;of 1947 94–5;of 1957 100;of 1953 103;of 1957 110–11;of 1960 131;of 1964 146–7;of 1968 159–60;of 1970 165–9, 320n.5;of 1972 172;of 1976 206;of 1982 234;of 1992 283

electoral politics:and electoral feudalism 81, 86–7;Mandate laws of 63;and political party development 70–1;of the Règlement organique 42;zu'āma system 87–8, 134, 136, 315n.11

Entelis, John P. 315n.11, 318n.13, 321n.19Ethelson, Sally 303n.1ethical relativism 88;

and conflict- proneness 3, 4–5, 251–2,304n.7, 304n.8, 304n.10, 321n.14;and deal-making 174;in the Mutasarrifate 43;and the rule of three factor 251–2

Fadlallah, Sheikh 224, 262Fahd Plan 229, 234Faisal, Amir 53, 56, 57;

installed as king of Iraq 58Fakhr al-Din ibn Uthmān (Fakhr al-Din I)

15, 306n.25Fakhr al-Din II (the Great) 16–18famine in Lebanon 52, 53, 55, 56, 313n.3Fatah 157, 174, 220–1, 222, 266–7, 271,

320n.24, 322n.2Fatimids 13, 306n.22feudal system 13–27, 310n.10;

and the double kaymakamate 32, 36;in the 1841 Druze-Maronite war 28,29–32;early feudatories 9–13;and the 1858 peasant rebellion 36,310n.15

feudalism, electoral 81, 86–7;

and the zu‘āma system 87–8, 315n.11First World War 1, 71–4Fisher, W.B. 304n.5Fisk, Robert 217, 260, 322n.15, 324n.11Ford, Gerald 178, 229France:

civil war of 1860 response 40, 311n.25;in the Druze-Maronite conflicts 35;economic development in the Levant47, 59–60;in First World War 55;and the Mutasarrifate jurisdiction 43,44, 47;occupation of Lebanon 57–9;and the Palestinian problem 169;post-Mandate role 83–4;and the Règlement organique 41, 42;see also Mandate of (Greater) Lebanon

Franco Pasha (Franku Bey Qusa) 46–7,312n.30

Franjieh, Suleiman 135, 136, 169–73;Assad’s relations with 202, 205, 217,249;called to resign 203–4;ceasefire announcement 201;and control of Palestinian militaryorganizations 169, 172–3, 178, 192;Deuxième Bureau purged by 171–2,320n.7;elected President 148, 165–9;at the Geneva reconciliation talks 243;al-Hafiz cabinet 173;Karāmi cabinet 185–8;military cabinet 184–5, 194;as peace undercutter 190;Salām youth cabinet 170–1, 176;Sulh cabinet 175;and the Syrian peace accord 254;thirteen-point peace plan 254

Franjieh, Tony 222, 225Frem, Fdi 236, 237, 240Friedman, Thomas L. 216, 217, 236, 242,

322n.15Fu'ād Pasha 40, 41, 44

Gallipoli 52game theory:

328 INDEX

chessboard analogy 6;and conflict proneness xi, 3–5, 305n.12;rule of three factor 251–2;and zero- sum perceptions of value 4,304n.8;see also inside-outside game

al-Gaylni, Rashid Ali 72Gaza 229Gemayel, Amin:

alliance with Israel sought by 240;assassination attempt on 251;elected President 235;and the Israel-Lebanon peaceagreement 240, 241–2;military cabinet 268–9;pro-Christian military activism of 236–7, 240–1;reconciliation talks hosted by 243, 246;resignation called for 245;return of 288;and the Syrian peace accord 251, 254–6

Gemayel, Bashir:assassinated 235;assassination attempt on 226–7;control of Maronite forces 221–2, 225;elected President 234;Jumblāt negotiations with 207–8;offensives against Syrians 227–8;political ascendancy of 224–5, 323n.21;Syrian-Israeli struggle for control of235, 247

Gemayel, Pierre:and the Ayn al- Rummānah massacre182, 189;and the 1958 counter-revolution 128–30, 134, 144;death of 245;in the 1964 elections 147;in the 1970 elections 165–7;at the Geneva reconciliation talks 243;in the independence movement 82;v. the Karāmi government 128–30;v. al-Khūri 94, 95;on Palestinian guerrillas 162, 180, 215;in the Salām cabinet 135, 144–5;wounding of 226

geopolitical vulnerability xi, 3;strategic analysis of 5–6

Germany:Nazi-Syrian alliance 72;railroad development by 59;Turkish alliance with 52, 54

Ghānim, General Iskandar 181, 184, 187Ghassanids 326n.13Ghazir:

Assāf Amirate 15–16, 307n.28Golan Heights 155, 178, 229, 239, 283,

284–5, 291–2Gordan, David C. 321n.18Gouraud, General Henri 58, 63Governor, office of 62–3Greater Lebanon see Mandate of (Greater)

LebanonGreek Catholics, 298;

in the 1860 civil war 37, 38;in the Druze-Maronite conflicts 29;early communities of 13;location of communities 33;in the Mutasarrifate 42;population in Lebanon 303n.1;representation guaranteed 80

Greek Orthodox, 298;in the 1860 civil war 37, 38;in the Druze-Maronite wars 31, 34,309n.4;early communities of 13;Justice Ministers as 80;location of communities 33;on the Mutasarrifate AdministrativeCouncil 42;population in Lebanon 303n.1;as President 67;representation guaranteed 80

Greeks 6, 7Green Line 257, 263, 269, 272, 280Green Project 140, 149Gulf War 279, 281, 282Gulick, John 304n.5

Habash, George 199, 319n.23Habīb Pasha Sa’ad 50Habīb, Phillip 228–9, 241Hadd, Lieutenant Colonel 122–3, 124, 126

INDEX 329

Haddad, Fu‘ād 128–9Haddad, Major Sa‘ad 202, 214, 218, 219,

221, 229, 245, 322n.8, 322n.10Haddad, Wadie 236al-Hafiz, Amin 173Haig, Alexander 232Haimari, Georges 137al-Hakim, Adnān 166al-Hakim, Mulhim (Shihāb) 20, 308n.36al-Hakim, Yusuf (Shihāb) 20, 21, 308n.36Hamādah, Qahtān 114Hamādah, Sabri 93Hamādah family 13Hamas 292al-Hamra family 13Haqqi Bey, Ismā‘il 50al-harakk (the ‘disturbances’) 28, 309n.1;

see also Druze-Maronite conflictsHarfūsh family 13Harik, Iliya F. 303n.2, 308n.38, 315n.5,

316n.13Harik, J.P. 326n.8al-Harīri, Rafīq 287–8, 326n.7Hāsbayya 39d’Hautpoul, General 40Hāwi, William 225Hawran:

Druze rebels in 31, 32, 35;revolt against the French in 63;

uprising against the Egyptians 25, 309n.6Haydar Shihāb al-Hakim 19–20, 307n.34Helleu, Jean 75–6Hentshak 163Heraclius 305n.19High Commissioner, office of 62hijackings 250Hilf;

see Triple AllianceHilū, Charles 140, 146–51, 159–64;

and Arabism 148, 151, 168;and the Deuxième Bureau 153, 156–7,159 160;elected President 147–8;French relations with 169;infrastructure development by 141,148–50;and Palestinian guerrillas 159, 161, 162,319n.15;

relations with Israel 150–1Hinnawi, Sami 98Hitler, Adolf 73, 314n.21Hitti, P.K. 305n.17, 309n.1Hizbollah 197, 241, 244, 301;

v. Amal 213, 224, 248–9, 257, 265–7,271, 275, 279;electoral gains by 288;factionalism in 262;hostage-taking activities 250;v. the SLA 261, 288–90, 291;Syrian control of 284–5, 292

Hobeika, Elie 235, 249, 251, 254–6, 262Holloway, Admiral 122al-Hoss, Salim:

v. Aoun 271–9, 325n.1;as Prime Minister 212, 222, 267;resignation of 280hostages 244, 246, 249–50, 254, 261,265, 279, 286–7, 324n.20

Hottinger, Arnold 304n.5, 315n.11Hourani, Albert H. 309n.8Hrāwi, Elias 199, 274–5, 276, 278, 280,

282, 285, 287–8Hubaysh family 16Hudson, Michael C. 105, 139, 186, 315n.5,

315n.12, 318n.2Hurewitz, J.C. 304n.5Hussein (King of Jordan) 118, 161, 171Hussein, Nāsir al-Din 12Hussein, Saddam 264, 268, 271, 272, 278Hussein ibn Ali, Sharīf 53al-Husseini, Hussein 267

Ibrahim 25–6, 309n.6ID (Indulgence-Deprivation) Continuum

304n.8Imāds (Yazbaks) 19independence movement:

allies’ promised support for 73–4, 81;and the development of political parties70–1;and the 1943 elections 74–5, 81;French resistance to 75–6;general strikes for 76, 82, 89

Independent Nasserist Movement 198individualism:

330 INDEX

in conflict-proneness 4, 5infrastructure:

Hilū development 144, 148–50;Hrāwi development of 287;al-Khūri development 93;Mutasarrifate development of 43, 44,47;Shihāb development 133, 139–42, 175,318n.9;United States aid requested for 90–1,316n.18

inside-outside game xi, 2, 6, 179, 215,305n.12;

among ancient rulers 7;institutionalization of xi-xii, 295

Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF)agreement 263

International Commission of 1860 41Intra Bank crisis 152–4, 158, 319n.21Iran 243, 244, 248, 249, 275, 283, 285Iraq:

Ba‛thist regime in 150, 155;British mandate for 58–9;Faisal installed as king 58;al-Gaylāni coup 72;independence of 68;influence in Lebanon 268, 271–2;invasion of Kuwait 279;militia groups in Lebanon 199;al-Qāsim coup 118, 120;support for Aoun’s forces 278

Islam:on “people of the book” 9, 305n.15

Islamic Jihad 243, 244, 246, 262, 286Islamic Resistance Coalition of Shi‛a 262Islamic Resistance Movement 262Islamic Unification Front 253Ismā‘il Haqqi Bey 54Ismā‘ilis 13, 298isolation, geographical 6Israel:

alliance with Lebanese Christians 202,214, 219, 220, 239–40;formation of 96;in the Golan Heights dispute 178, 229,239, 283, 284–5, 291–2;influence of in southern Lebanon 201–2;

intervention in the 1975–6 civil war202, 212, 214, 218;invasions of Lebanon 220–3, 228–33,290, 291;in the June War 155–6;and the 1982 Lebanese elections 234;and the Lebanese-Syrian treaty 284–5;negotiations with Syria 283, 292, 325n.3;as obstacle to peace process 229;Palestinian operations against 156–8,160–2, 220–1;partial withdrawals from Lebanon 241,246–7;peace accord with the PLO 283;peace agreement with Lebanon 241–2,243, 323n.6;peace talks with Lebanon 234–5;proxy forces for 214;quests for water 150–2, 215, 291, 326n.14;raids in Lebanon 160, 173, 180;relations with Lebanon 150–1;response to Syrian invasion of Lebanon208, 322n.7;and the Sinai Observers Agreementwith Egypt 229;in the Suez Crisis 108;truce with the PLO broken by 230,323n.24, 323n.26;see also South Lebanese Army

Issawi, Charles 309n.8

Jabal Amil 13, 19al-Jabri, Sa‛adallah 98Jacobites 11, 13, 15, 298Jacobson, David 250Ja‘ja, Samir 250, 251, 254–6, 262, 268,

275, 276–8, 288, 326n.9Jamrā, Colonel Issām Abu 268–9Janbalāt, Sheikh Bashir 21, 22, 24, 308n.39Janbalāt, Na‘aman 29Janbalāt, Sa‘īd 37Janbalāt family 17, 19, 305n.11Jansen, Godfrey 326n.12al-Jazzār Pasha (Vali of Sidon) 20, 21, 22,

308n.37

INDEX 331

Jemāl Pasha 52, 54–6, 313n.1, 314n.4Jenco, Father 250Jessup, Henry Harris 43, 311n.16, 311n.25Jesus 8, 305n.14, 305n.19Jews 299, 305n.15;

Zionist 53, 58, 313n.2Jezizn:

in the 1860 civil war 38–9;in the Druze-Maronite conflicts 29;Lebanese army moves into 285;as Maronite town 19

Jihad:Turkish attempt at 52, 54;see also Islamic Jihad

al-Jisr, Sheikh Muhammad 67, 69Jisr al-Basha camp 201–2, 210Jīyeh 260–1Joint Forces 206–11Jordan:

Arab nationalism in 118–19;in the June War 155;Palestinians in 118–19;PLO driven from 156, 161, 171, 196,215

Jordan, river 150, 152Jouvenal, Henri de 65Jumblāt, Kamal 195–7, 321n.21;

Assad’s negotiations with 205, 322n.4;assassination of 213, 214, 249;Bashir Gemayel negotiations with 207–8;and the Cairo Agreement 163;in the 1958 civil war 114, 127;in the 1970 elections 165–8, 320n.4;Joint Forces organization 206–10;organization of radicals 177–9;as peace undercutter 191;v. the Phalange 184, 204–5;reform demands 92, 93, 95, 102, 186,196;in the Salām cabinet 135, 136, 144;in the Socialist Front 100;support for Karāmi government 129,140;support for Palestinians 156, 160, 162,178–9, 191, 196;see also Progressive Socialist Party

Jumblāt, Walīd 323n.9;

v. the Amin Gemayel government 242,245;assassination attempt on 262;at the Geneva reconciliation talks 243;in the Hrāwi government 274, 282;reconciliation program 288, 326n.8;Syrian peace accord supported by 254

June War 152, 153, 155–6, 158, 168Junieh 204, 217Jurajimah:

raids 9, 305n.16;see also Mardaites

Jurd feudal district 32Justinian II 305n.16

Karam, Yusuf (Bey) [Joseph] 39, 45–6, 83,228, 311n.21

Karam family 55Karamah, Elie 245Karāmi, Hamīd 92, 100Karāmi, Omar 275, 325n.30Karāmi, Rashid 102, 116, 325n.30;

assassination of 250, 262, 263;ceasefire maintenance attempts 203;National Bloc v. 129–30;as peace undercutter 190;as Prime Minister 117, 127, 136, 140,145, 162, 185–8, 245;and Sunni militias 198–9;Syrian influence on 202;in the Tripartite Coalition 178

Karāmi, Umar 280–1Kata‛ib Party, see PhalangeKa‛wāsh, Jalāl 156, 157kaymakamate 32–5, 310n.12;

peasant disputes in 36–7, 310n.14,310n.15

Kemptner, Thomas 286Kerr, Malcolm H. 310n.14, 315n.11;

assassination of 246Khalaf, Samir 49, 315n.5, 315n.9Khālid, Sheikh Hassan 186–7al-Khātib, Ahmed 203Khāzins 19, 35;

collaboration with Allies 55;in the 1858 peasant rebellion 36–7,310n.15

332 INDEX

Khomeini, Ayatollah 224Khoury, Phillip S. 304n.5al-Khūli, Sabri 211al-Khūri, Bishāra 68;

Constitutional Bloc of 70, 71;and corruption 99;elected President 75, 81–3;on the National Pact 80;patronage system 79, 84, 85, 94;on political amoralism 88;resignation of 100–1;second term of 94–7;splintered opposition to 94–5

Khuri, Fuad I. 186Khūri, Kamal 171Khurshīd Pasha 37, 40King-Crane Commission 58Kisrā 11Kisrawān region 305n.18;

in the 1860 civil war 38;and 1858 peasant rebellion 35–7, 310n.14, 310n.15;Shi’ite communities in 13;see also Khāzins

Kissinger, Henry 120, 178, 187Kleilāt, Ibrahim 152Kurds 313n.2, 323n.20Kuwait:

and the Arab summit peace plan 211;and the Intra Bank crisis 153ceasefire negotiations 228 153;Iraq’s invasion of 279;Zahleh

LAA, see Lebanese Arab ArmyLaFeber, Walter 121Lahoud, Colonel Antoine 245Lahoud, General Emile 278Lahoud, Jamīl 166, 167–8Lakhmids 326n.13Landau, Jacob 135Lane, Clayton 90–2Lausanne Conference 62Lawrence, T.E. 53Lay, Jean 137Lebanese Arab Army (LAA) 203, 204- 5;

in the Joint Forces 207–10

Lebanese Forces militia 225, 228, 235, 240,249, 261, 269, 272, 282

Lebanese Front 199–200, 203, 262Lebanese Liberation Battalion 263Lebret, Louis-Joseph 137Levant, paradigm of 3–5, 303n.3Lewis, Samuel 228–9Leyraud, Jerome 286Lipjhart, Arend 314n.15, 315n.12Libya 214, 249Litāni Dam Project 140, 149, 175Litāni river 151, 152, 215, 291, 326n.14Longrigg, Stephen Hemsley 71, 314n.13Lytton, Sir Henry Bulwer 311n.16

Malik, Charles 108, 111, 183, 317n.7Mallet, Louis 60Mamluks 6, 11–13;

and Mamluk Slaves 306n.23;Ottoman defeat of 13–14

Ma‘n, Ahmed 18, 308n.36al-Manāsif district 43–4Mandate of (Greater) Lebanon 1;

Christian jurisdiction dilemma 61, 78,315n.2;constitutionalism in 65–7;Draft Treaty for Lebanon 68–9;establishment of 50, 56–60;evaluation of 76–7;as a French colonial system 78–9;French withdrawal from 76, 83;general strikes in 76, 82, 89;government system of 62–4;local response to 60–1;rebellions in 63–5;size and demographics of 61–2;state of emergency in 71;suspension of Constitution in 67–8, 82;Vichy era 1–4;see also Constitution of Lebanon;Independence movement;

Ma‘nid line 13, 15–16, 305n.11Fakhr al-Din II rule 16–18

Mann, Jack 286Mansūr al-Assaf 15–16Mansūr (Shihāb) al-Hakim 20, 308n.36Ma‘oz, Moshe 304n.5

INDEX 333

Mar‘ūn 305n.19Mar Eliyas, battle of 308n.36Mardaites:

Maronite association with 11;see also Jurājimah

Marika (wife of Muzaffar Pasha) 48Marj Dabīq, battle of 13Maronites, 298;

Amin Gemayel’s hegemony goals for236–7, 240–1;and Bashir II 22–6, 308n.38, 309n.6;collaboration with Allies 55;in the fe Crusades 11, 305n.18;early among 24 feudatories 9;factionalism among 202, 214, 219, 220248;Israeli ties to 202, 214, 219, 220;location of communities 33;v. Mamluks 11–2;in the Mansūr administration 16monothelite belief of 11, 305n.19;in the Mutasarrifate 42, 47–48nationalism of 24, 37, 69, 323n.23origins of 9, 11;Ottoman era fragmentation 15, 25, 26,307n.27;population in Lebanon 62, 303n.1;Presidents as 67, 69, 80;representation of guaranteed 69, 80;80 a and the Roman Church 11;v. Sharifian Arab state 56, 58;Shihāb M alliance with 19;in the Syrian Mandate 60;see also Druze-Maronite conflicts;Druze-Maronite Imarah;Phalange 68, 69

Martel, Damien de 68, 69Martyrs’ Square 55Mas’ad, Bulous (Patriarch) 28–9, 43, 28–9,

43 309n.3, 311n.l7Matāwilah 13Matn district 34al-Matnī, Nasib 112Ma‘ūshi, Paul (Patriarch) 117, 126Maysalūn Pass, battle at 60McCarthy, John 286 123, 124, 126, 129McClintock, Robert 123, 124, 126, 129McFarlane, Robert 237, 242

McMahon, Sir Henry 53MEDO (Middle East Defense

Organization) 104Melloy, Ambassador Francis 199Meo, Leila M.T. 315n.5Metternich, Prince 32Middle East Supply Center 73Mi’mari, Major Ahmed 204, 208, 214Mohtashemi, Ali Akbar 275Mongols 12Monophysite belief 11, 15Monothelite belief 11, 305n.19Morgan, Ernest 187Mount Lebanon:

Administrative Council rule of 56–7;Arab Muslim conquest of 9;in the 1914 census 61;double kaymakamate on 32–5, 310n.12;Druze-Maronite conflicts on 31–4;early feudal communities 9–13;Jurājimah raids 9, 305n.16;Mamluk conquest 11–13;Ma‛nid rule 15–8;Maronite settlements 11;Mutasarrifate 41–51, 312n.27, 312n.30;non-Maronite Christian settlements 11;Ottoman millet system 14–15, 307n.29;peasant rebellion of 1858 35–7, 310n.14, 310n.15;as refuge 7, 11;Sharifian Arab claim to 56;Shihāb rule of 18–24;Zghartā-Bisharri feud on 84, 315n.7;see also Druze-Maronite Imarah

Movement of the Deprived see AmalMroweh, Kamal 152–3, 158Mu‘āwiyah 9Mu‘awwad, René 166, 274, 325n.29Mubarak, Archbishop 95–6Mughnīyah, Fu‘ād 290Muhammad Ali (Viceroy of Egypt) 24, 25–

6, 28Muharram, Shafīq 137Muhsin, Zuhair 214Mukhtara:

battle at 34;conference at 34

334 INDEX

Mulhim Ma‘n 18Multinational Peacekeeping Force 242, 245Mumtāz Bey 50, 54, 56Munīf Bey, Ali 50Mūnlā, Sa‘adi 93, 102Muqaddam, Farouk 178, 198Muqaddams 11, 15, 307n.27Murad IV 17Murphy, Robert 126–7Muslims:

conquest of Mount Lebanon 8–9disenfranchised feelings of 106, 143;and the disintegration of the army 203;feudal territories of 9–13;population in Lebanon 61, 69, 303n.1;in the Sidon fishing rights controversy180–2, 189, 320n.11, 321n.12;v. the Sulh government 181–2;support for the Palestinian guerrillaeffort 158, 162;representation of 69, 80;tolerance of Christians 9, 305n.15;see also Druze;Shi‘ites;Sunnis

Mutasarrifate jurisdiction 41–2, 46–9,312n.27, 312n.30;

and the Committee on Union andProgress 49;Da‘ūd Pasha leadership of 42–6;end of 49–51, 54

mutually impossible demands 32, 309n.9Muzaffar Pasha 48Myrdal, Gunnar 303n.4

Naccache, Alfred 73, 75, 92Nahr al-Barīd camp 288Na’im, Edmund 269Najjāda party 70, 92, 100, 135Napoleon 22al-Nāsir Muhammad 12Nasser, Gamal Abdul 103;

and the Baghdad Pact 104, 105, 316n.32;v. Chamoun 1, 107–10;development of his Arabism 108;influence on Lebanese Muslims 107;

in the Palestine Liberation Organization148;and the Palestinian problem 162, 169;and Shihāb 131;and the Suez Canal crisis 108

National Bloc party 70, 94, 100, 129;representation in the Chamber 135;in the Triple Alliance 158

National Home Guard 227–8National Liberal Party (PNL) 135, 144,

158, 179;Tigers militia 190, 195, 209–10, 221–2, 224, 225–7, 322n.19

National Movement (LMN) 189, 191, 196,199, 204–5, 207–10

National Pact 80, 108, 112, 181, 187, 192,294

National Union Front (NUF) 110, 111,112, 116

Nationalism:Lebanese 69–70;Maronite, 24, 37, 69, 323n.23;Palestinian 150–1, 154–5, 156, 157;Syrian 318n.2;see also Arab nationalism

Na‘ūm Pasha 48Nazareth 17Neo-Babylonians 7Nidal, Abu 230, 263, 271, 279Nordlinger, Eric 315n.12Norton, A.R. 326n.11NUF see National Union FrontNujaym, Jean 172Nusayris 13

Occupied Enemy TerritoryAdministrations (OETAs) 57

October 24th Movement 198Ohannes Bey Kuyumjian Pasha 49–50, 54Operation Bluebat 120–7Oppressed on Earth 263Organization for the Defense of Free

People 263Organization of Communist Action 199,

224Organization of Truth 263Ottoman Empire 1, 6, 13–6;

INDEX 335

civil war of 1860 response 40;collaboration with the Druze 35, 37,38–40, 310n.12, 311n.16;concessions to the French 59–60;constitutional crisis 47;direct rule initiatives 31, 40, 54, 310n.11;and the double kaymakamate 32–5,310n.12;in the Druze-Maronite conflicts 29–34;economic crisis of 48;and the Egyptian conquest of Syria 25–7;Fakhr al-Din II antagonism of 16–18;Jemāl-era repression 54–6;Mutasarrifate jurisdiction 41–51, 54,312n.27, 312n.30;Règlement organique 41–2;tanzimāt program 31, 309n.5;in World War I 50, 52–4, 313n.1;Young Turk rebellion 49, 59

outsiders see inside-outside game

Palestine:OETA South district of 57;partition of 89–90, 96–7;promised home for Jews in 53, 313n.2

Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) 157,200, 202–3

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO):v. Amal 258–61, 265, 269;Arafat elected Chairman of 157;and the Cairo Agreement 161–3, 171;ceasefire agreement 211;Druze alliances with 248–9;expulsion from Jordan 156, 161, 171,196, 215;expulsion from Lebanon 233, 234, 239,243–4;Franjieh administration negotiationswith 171, 173, 174, 178;Israel breaks truce with 230, 323n.24,323n.26;in the Joint Forces 207–10;and Nasser 148;peace accord with Israel 283;v. Rejection Front forces 213;

return to Lebanon 254, 258, 324n.11;see also Fatah

Palestinian Armed Struggle Command(PASC) 319n.24

Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF) 222Palestinian Popular Struggle Front (PPSF)

319n.24Palestinians:

Amal-PLO camp wars 258–61, 265,269;evacuation of guerrillas from Lebanon233, 234, 239, 243–4;guerrilla factions 262, 319n.24;and the Intra Bank crisis 152–4, 158,319n.21;in Jordan 118–19, 156;and the June War 155–6, 158;v. the Lebanese army 161, 162–4, 173–4, 180, 285;Lebanese control of sought, 160–3,172–3, 192, 218, 325n.4;military operations against Israel 156–8, 160–2, 220–1;nationalism of 150–1, 154–5, 156, 157;v. Phalange forces 164, 180, 182–3,187–8, 193, 201, 202;radical Muslim alliances with 177–9,181, 189–90;refugee arrivals to Lebanon 96–7, 150,152;refugee population in Lebanon 303n.1;return to Lebanon 254, 258, 324n.11;and the Syrian invasion of Lebanon208–9;turf battles among 213;see also Palestine LiberationOrganization

Parliament see Chamber of DeputiesPatriarchs:

on the Aoun-Ja‘ja war 278–9;in the 1860 civil war 37, 38;in the Druze-Maronite conflict 28–9,309n.3, 311n.l7;v. al-Khūri 96, 316n.26;and the Mutasarrifate jurisdiction 42,43

patronage 79, 84, 85, 94Paul, Apostle 8

336 INDEX

Paux, M. 71Peace Convention of 1860 40peasant rebellion of 1858 35–7, 310n.14,

310n.15Peres, Shimon 246, 283Persians 6, 7Pétain, Marshal 72Peter, Apostle 8Petran, Tabitha 217, 219, 322n.2PFLP see Popular Front for the Liberation

of PalestinePFLP-GC see Popular Front for the

Liberation of Palestine-GeneralCommand

Phalange (Katā‘ib Party), 216, 321n.19;Amin Gemayel’s offensives against theDruze 236–7, 240–1, 244–5;Aoun-Ja‘ja war 276–9;in the 1958 civil war 118;clashes with Palestinian guerrillas 164,180, 182–3, 187–8, 193, 201, 321n.13;counter-revolution of 1958 128–30,134, 144;declaratory position of 192–4;factionalism in 246, 248, 250–1, 256;Katā‘ib Party founding 318n.13;Muslim offensives against 204–5;as peace undercutter 190;v. PNL Tigers 221–2, 224, 226–7;reform demands 92;representation in the Chamber 135;seige of Palestinian camps 202;and the Socialist Front 100;suppression of 97;Syrian alliances with 206, 209, 214,218;in the Triple Alliance 158;turf battles among 213;United States support for 193–4

Pharaon, Henry 89, 90, 92, 129pharmaceutical monopoly 171Phoenician city states 7Picot, Georges 60–1Pinkerton, Lowell 78PLA see Palestinian Liberation ArmyPlace des Canons executions 55PLF see Palestinian Liberation Front

PLO see Palestinian LiberationOrganization

pluralism, democratic:Lebanese 2, 303n.2;see also democracy;electoral politics

PNL see National Liberal PartyPohill, Robert 261police force:

Mandate development of 63;see also Deuxième Bureau

political parties 70–1politics:

and conflict-proneness 4, 305n.12;and geostrategic situation xi

Polk, William R. 308n.39, 308n.40Ponsot, Henri 67–8Popular Front for the Liberation of

Palestine (PFLP) 164, 174, 180, 189,199, 253, 319n.23, 319n.24

Popular Front for the Liberation ofPalestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) 189, 213, 214, 253, 319n.24

Popular Nasserist Organization 197–8, 267population of Lebanon 303n.1;

British survey of 1918 50, 61–2, 313n.39, 314n.11;census of 1932 69;Turkish census of 1914 61

Porath, Yehoshua 310n.14PPS see Syrian National PartyPPSF see Palestinian Popular Struggle

FrontPQLI (Physical Quality of Life Index)

303n.1prehistoric settlements 7President, office of 65, 175;

broadened political base for 71;and the cabinet 85–6;as a Maronite seat 67, 69, 80;and the Prime Minister 88–9;second term amendments for 94–6, 146,288, 316n.27;term extended to six years 69

Prime Minister, office of 65, 86;broadened political base for 71;as Maronite seat 67;power of 88–9, 106, 175;

INDEX 337

as Sunni seat 67, 69, 80, 86Privat-Aubouard, M. 62Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) 70, 114,

115, 135, 282;and Amal 249, 253, 257, 260, 323n.9;offensives against the Phalange 204–5;PLO alliance with 248–9;support for Palestinians 160, 196;as peace undercutter 190

Protestants 299proxy wars 213, 214, 219, 222PSP see Progressive Socialist Partypsychology:

of conflict-proneness 4

Qadīsha valley 11–12Qānsuh (Mamluk Sultan) 13Qarūn Reservoir 140al-Qāsim, Abdul Karīm 118Qāsim, Mulhim 64Qawūqjī, Fawzi 94Qaysi-Yamani conflict 15–16, 18–19, 306n.

26, 307n.32, 307n.35Quai d’Orsay 59, 60, 61, 64, 68Qubain, Fahim 113–14, 317n.3Qulayāt, Ibrahim 178, 198Qurqums (ibn Yunis) Ma’n 16Qusa, Yusuf (Bey) 48–9

Rabin, Yitzhak 229, 283, 292Radford Plan see Eisenhower Doctrinerailroads:

French development of 47, 59–60Randal, Jonathan C. 186, 194, 217, 218,

321n.17, 322n.15Rāshayya 39;

Druze seige of 65Rashid Pasha, Muhammad 44, 47Reagan, Ronald 229, 232, 233, 237, 242,

245, 247Reagan Plan 234, 238Reconstitution of Lebanon 2–3, 293–7;

Amin Gemayel’s plan for 243;during the Hrāwi administration 287–90reforms 92–3, 101, 103, 106;

and the civil war of 1975–6 170–1,186, 215

refugees:mountain tradition of 7;Palestinian 96–7, 150, 152, 258–61,264, 282–3, 303n.l;see also Palestinians

Règlement organique, 41–2, 312n.26;annulled 50, 54;see also Mutasarrifate jurisdiction

Règlement Shakib Effendi 34–5, 36relativism see ethical relativismrelief efforts:

Allied 57, 58religion:

communal affiliation tied to 9;and conflict-proneness 4

Republic of Lebanon:and Arabism 103, 105, 107–10, 143,148, 151, 168, 192;army-Palestinian clashes 161, 162–4,173–4, 180;Chamoun administration 101–12;Cold War alliance maneuvers 104–6;and the Constitution 75, 79–81;control of Palestinian militia groupssought by 160–3, 172–3, 192, 218,325n.4;corruption in 85, 91, 93, 99, 137–8;counter-revolution of 1958 128–30,134, 144;economy of 81, 89–93, 97- 9, 102–3,139–42, 318n.9;formation of 75, 81–3;Franjieh administration 169–80;French legacy in 78–9, 84–5;Gemayel administrations 234–42, 246–7, 251–6;Hilū administration 146–51, 159–64,319n.15;Hrāwi administration 280, 282, 285;Israel peace talks with 234–5;Israeli invasions of 220–3, 228–33, 290,291;Israeli raids in 160, 173, 180;and the June War 155–6, 158, 168–9;al-Khūri administration 85–100;outsider intervention in 215;

338 INDEX

Palestinian attacks on Israel from 156–8, 160–2, 220–1;Palestinian guerrillas evacuated from233, 234, 239, 243–4;Palestinian guerrillas return to 254, 258,324n.11;and the partition of Palestine 96–7;patronage system in 79, 84, 85, 94;peace agreement with Israel 241–2,243, 323n.6;peaceful transfer of power in 148, 318n.14, 318n.15;political system of 85–9;radicals against 177–9, 181, 189–90;reform proposals 92–3, 170–1;reforms 101, 103, 106;relations with Israel 131, 150–1;representation of sects in 75, 80–1;Shihāb administration 131–46;splinter groups in 262–3;Syrian influence in 253–4;Syrian invasion of 1, 191, 206–12, 218,220, 222–3, 290–1;Syrian National Party coup attempt 132,138, 146, 318n.2, 318n.6;and the Syro-Lebanese Customs Unionbreakup 97–9, 316n.28;treaty with Syria 284–5;turf battles in 213, 219, 258–64;United States marine deployments in234, 235, 237, 242–3;war complex of 212–17;see also civil war of 1958;civil war of 1975–6

Revolutionary Justice Organization 262,286

Ridgeway, General 120al-Rifi‘i, General Nur al-Din 184Riker, William H. 320n.2Roman Catholic Church:

Fakhr al-Din’s ties to 17;Maronite divisions over 11

Roman Catholics 47, 298Roman Empire 6, 7–8Rommel, General 73, 314n.21Rose, Colonel 29rule of three factor 252–3Rumsfeld, Donald 245

Russia:and the Mutasarrifate jurisdiction 42;and the Treaty of Hunkiar Iskelesi 25

Rustum Pasha 47

Sa‘ad, Ma‘rūf 178, 180–2Sa‘ad, Mustāfa 197–8Sa‘ada, Antoun 70, 94, 97, 318n.2, 319n.23Sa‘adah, George 275, 278Sāba, Elias 170, 216Sabra:

in the camp wars 260;massacre at 235

al-S‘ad, Habīb 61Sadat, Anwar 178, 183, 229al-Sadr, Mūsa 179, 197, 222, 224Saghbīn, massacre at 29Sa‘īd, General Hanna 187al-Sa‘iqa (Thunderbolt) 161, 162, 213,

214, 239, 319n.24Saladin 12Salām, Sa‘ib 86;

as Prime Minister 102, 135, 136, 144–5,170–1;indictment against 111;and the Israeli raid of Beirut 173;negotiations with Arafat 171, 173;as reformist 170–1;resignation of 109;support for Karāmi government 129;in the Tripartite Coalition 178

Salem, Elie 89, 237, 315n.11, 316n.13Salibi, Kamal S., 309n.2;

on the Buhturids 306n.21;on Chamoun- Nasser relations 108;on Fakhr al-Din I 306n.25;on Jazzār 308n.37;on Lebanese constitutionalism 66;on Maronite-Crusader relations 305n.18;on Maronite patriarchs 306n.20;on Palestinian commandos 174;on Phalange enthusiasm 321n.13;on Raymond Eddé 144

Salih Sfayr 36Salim I 13–15, 306n.23Samqanīyah conference 18

INDEX 339

San Remo Peace Conference 58Sarkis, Elias:

and Arabism 168;and the Central Bank 153;elected President 206;in the 1970 elections 165–6;inauguration of 210;and the Israeli invasion 229;peace negotiation attempts 207, 211;in the Shihāb executive council 137

Sasīn, Michel 278Saudi Arabia:

Fahd Plan 229, 234;and Lebanese-Palestinian negotiations187, 211, 228;peacekeeping forces in Beirut 210

Sayfa, Yusuf 16Scheltema, J.F. 311n.16Schemeil, Y. 316n.13Seale, Patrick 316n.31Second World War 1, 50, 52–7, 313n.1Secretary General, office of 62–3Secretary of State, office of 67–8secular institutions, government by xii,

294–5Senate:

abolished 66;established 65

Sfayr, Nasrullah Butrus 278, 325n.1Shakeeb, Salih 310n.13Shamir, Yitzhak 283al-Shantīri, Yusuf 311n.21Sharifian Arabs 53, 56–7, 58, 61Sharon, Ariel, 228, 230, 232, 235, 239Shatila:

in the camp wars 260, 267;massacre at 235

al-Shidyāq, Tanyous 307n.33Shihā, Michael 66–7, 69, 71, 75, 82, 88,

314n.15Shihāb, Amir Maurice 186Shihāb, Bashir I 18–20, 307n.34Shihāb, Bashir II 20–7, 308n.38, 309n.6Shihāb, Bashir III 27, 28–9, 31, 38Shihāb, Fu'ād 101, 133–46, 168;

administration objectives 128, 138–9;and the army 137–9;

coalition of oppositions created by 134–6, 140, 144;as commander in the 1958 civil war110, 113, 115, 117–18, 123–6;and the Deuxième Bureau 133, 136–7,138, 168;elected President 127, 128, 133;and the 1970 elections 165, 167–8;infrastructure development by 133,139–42, 175, 318n.9;Karāmi cabinet crisis 129–30;“middle road” approach to governance138–9, 143;and Nasser 131;and the Palestinian camps 159;professional advisors to 137;resignation attempt 134;retirement from office 146–7

Shihāb, Khalid 69;elected Prime Minister 101, 102

Shihābists (Nahjists) 133, 146, 148, 159,318n.12;

in the 1970 elections 165–8;see also Hilū, Charles;Shihāb, Fu‘ad

Shi‘ites, 298;in the Amal-PLO camp wars 258–61;in the Druze-Maronite wars 309n.4;early settlements of 13;exodus to north Lebanon 163, 171;factionalism among 224, 248;feudatories 9;hostage-taking by 250;location of communities 33;militia groups 197;on the Mutasarrifate AdministrativeCouncil 42;population in Lebanon 303n.1;representation guaranteed 80;Speaker of the Chamber as 80, 106;see also Amal;Hizbollah

al-Shishakli, Adīb 98–9Shorrock, William 60Shuf region:

in the 1958 civil war 115, 117;in the Druze-Maronite conflicts in 29,31, 32, 34, 64, 236–7, 240;

340 INDEX

Fakhr al-Din II rule of 16–18;Israeli withdrawal from 241;Shi’ite communities in 13

Shultz, George 237, 241Shuqayr, General 104, 316n.31Shuqayri, Ahmed 157Sidon:

ancient city state of 7;in the 1958 civil war 116, 117;in the 1975–6 civil war 182, 200;fishing rights controversy 180–2, 189,320n.11, 321n.12;Jesus in 8, 305n.14;Ma‘n rule of 17;Syrian offensive against 211

Sim‘an 11Singh, Mithileshwar 261Six Day War see June Warsize principle 166, 320n.2SLA see South Lebanese ArmySocialist Arab Labor Party 199Socialist Front 100, 101Solidère 287Soloman, Z. 326n.11South Lebanese Army (SLA) 200, 251,

322n.8;cooperation with Israel 202, 216, 218,222, 279, 281;divisions in 246, 248;v. Hizbollah 261, 288–90, 291;in the Israel-Lebanon peace agreement241, 323n.6;and the Sabra-Shatila massacres 235

Soviet Union:Middle East ties to 104, 120, 238;Second World War operations 73;Syrian alliance with 104, 108, 238

Spagnolo, James P. 46, 312n.27Spears, General Edward 74, 75, 82, 84- 5Spiller, Roger J. 119, 124, 317n.6, 317n.9SSNP see Syrian Social National PartyStalin, Josef 73Steen, Alann 261, 262, 286strikes:

for independence 76, 82, 89;v. the Franjieh administration 170, 188;v. the al-Khūri administration 100–1

Strübig, Heinrich 286

Suez Canal:British defense of 52;

Suez Crisis, 107, 108–9Suleiman, Michael W. 186, 315n.11,

316n.l3Suleiman Pasha (Vali of Sidon) 22–3al-Sulh, Rashid:

as Prime Minister 175, 182;resignation of 183

al-Sulh, Ryād:assassination of 100;and the Customs Union 98;elected Prime Minister 75, 95, 97, 315n.7;and the National Pact 80;and patronage 84

al-Sulh, Sami Bey 90–2, 100, 101, 110Sulh, Taqi al-Din 175Sultāni, Adnān 152Sunni Popular Liberation Army 262Sunnis, 298, 314n.18:

Assāf fiefdoms 15–6;in 1860 civil war 39, 311n.20;early communities of 13;“establishment” Sunnis 13, 306n.22;factionalism among 224, 248;feudatories of 9–11;location of communities 33;militia organizations 197–9;on the Mutasarrifate AdministrativeCouncil 42;Phalange offensives against 236;political parties 70;population in Lebanon 303n.1;Prime Ministers as 67, 69, 80, 86;representation guaranteed 80;Shihāb line 18–26

Survey of 1918 50, 61–2, 313n.39Sutherland, Thomas 286Sutherland, William 250Sykes-Picot Agreement 53, 57, 60Syria:

and Amal 265–6, 271;Aoun ousted by 216, 254, 279–80, 282;Bashir Gemayel forces against 227–8;Ba’thist regime in 150, 151;British occupations of 52–3, 56, 57, 72,73–4;

INDEX 341

v. the Chamoun administration 117,317n.7;Christian alliances with 206, 209, 214,218, 249, 282, 322n.4, 322n.8;Christians massacred in 40;constitution attempted for 66;coups in 98;Egyptian conquest of 25–7;factionalism in 63, 314n.13;Fatimid control of 13, 306n.22;French capitalism in 59–60;French mandate for 58, 60, 62–3, 313n.2;in the Golan Heights dispute 178, 229,239, 283, 284–5, 291–2;influence in Lebanon expanded 253–4;interference in 1976 Lebanese elections206;invasion of Lebanon 1, 191, 206–12,218, 222–3, 290–1;v. Israel’s invasion of Lebanon 232,239;in the June War 155;mediation in the 1975–6 civil war 201–2, 211, 218;nationalism in 318n.2;Nazi Germany alliance with 72;negotiations for an accord amongmilitia groups 258, 259;negotiations with Israel 283, 292, 325n.3;occupation of Beirut 263–6;and the Palestine Liberation Army 157,200, 202–3;peace accord of 1985 251, 254–6;population in Lebanon 303n.1;proxy forces for 214, 249;railroad development in 47;refusal to withdraw forces fromLebanon 283- 4;rejection of the Israel-Lebanon peaceagreement 241–2;al-Sa‘iqa guerrillas 161, 162, 213, 214,239, 319n.24;socialism in 98–9, 104;Soviet alliance with 104, 108, 238;support for Druze forces 245, 249, 253;

support for Palestinian guerrillas 162,243;and the Syro-Lebanese Customs Unionbreakup 97–9, 316n.28;and the Ta‘if Agreement 274, 283;trade relations with Lebanon 97–9, 102–3;treaty with Lebanon 284–5;unrest against the French in 73

Syrian National Party (PPS) 70, 94, 98–9,102, 163, 199, 226, 323n.22;

in the 1958 civil war 114, 116, 118;in the 1975–6 civil war 189;coup attempt 132, 138, 146, 318n.2,318n.6;and the Socialist Front 100;suppression of 97

Syrian Social National Party (SSNP) 257,261, 262

Syro-Lebanese Customs Union 97–9, 316n.28

Tabara, Lina Makdidi 217Tahir Pasha 38Ta‘if Agreement 80, 270, 273–5, 283,

325n.28Talhūqs 19, 22, 24Tanyūs Shahīn 37, 39, 311n.21Taqlā, Philip 185Tashnak 163taxation:

import taxes 91–2, 170;inkind collections 91;in the Mutasarrifate 48–9;Sāba reform proposals 170

Tel al-Za‘tar camp 2014 Phalange seige of202;

PNL militia seige of 209–10Thābit, Ayyub 67, 75Tiberias 17Trabaud, Georges 62Tracy, Edward Austin 286trade:

import taxes 91–2;Syrian- Lebanese relations 98, 102–3;and the Syro-Lebanese Customs Unionbreakup 97–9

342 INDEX

Transjordan 313n.2Treaty of Hunkiar Iskelesi 25Treaty of Lausanne 59Trendle, G. 326n.7Tripartite Coalition (Tahalūf al- Thulāthi)

178–9, 184Triple Alliance (al-Hilf al-Thulāthi) 158–

60, 162;and the 1970 elections 165–6;response to Cairo Agreement 163

Tripoli:in the 1958 civil war 112, 116–7;in the 1975–6 civil war 182, 200, 201,217;October 24th Movement in 198;Qawūqjī homecoming 94;sectarian violence in 116, 160, 240–1;Syrian presence in 228, 253, 257

Tubiyya ‘Awn (Bishop of Beirut) 37, 38turf battles 213, 219, 258–64, 269–70Turkey 105

see also Ottoman EmpireTurner, Jesse 261Tuscany:

Fakhr al-Din’s ties to 17Tuwayni, Ghassān 170–1, 185Twinning, General Nathan 114two state solution 60Tyre:

ancient city state of 7;in the 1958 civil war 117;in the 1975–6 civil war 182;early Christian communities 8;terrorism in 244;UNIFIL forces in 285, 326n.6

UAR see United Arab RepublicUmar Pasha 31, 32al-Umar, Zahir 20Umayyads 9;

and the Jurājimah 305n.16undercutters of peace 188–91

UNIFIL (United Nations Force inLebanon) 218, 221, 222, 224, 285, 301,326n.6

Union of National Liberation 95Union of the Forces of the Working People:

Corrective Movement 199United Arab Republic (UAR):

and the Arab summit peace plan 211;v. the Chamoun administration 117;formation of 107;in the June War 155–6;and the 1958 Lebanese civil war 112;and the Palestinian problem 169

United Nations:and Lebanese independence 76;Observer Corps (UNOGIL) 118, 129,131, 317n.8;partition of Palestine resolution 89–90,96–7;responses to Israeli invasions ofLebanon 221, 233, 292, 326n.15;see also UNIFIL

United States:and Amin Gemayel’s militaryinitiatives 237;attacks on Druze forces 242, 244;and the Baghdad Pact 104–5;CIA assassination plans 262, 324n.17;civil war of 1958 intervention 114, 118–27, 133, 317n.9;economic aid to Lebanon 90–1;Eisenhower Doctrine 104, 107, 110–11, 114, 118, 123, 317n.6;and Israel-Lebanon peace prospects240;and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon 229;marine deployments in Lebanon 234,235, 237;MEDO proposal 104;in peace negotiations for Lebanon 218;Reagan Plan 234, 238;support for the Phalange 193–4;withdrawal from Lebanon 245

‘Usayrn, Adil 126, 127, 185Uthman solution 320n.1‘Uwayni, Hussein 111, 130, 144

values:zero-sum perceptions of 4, 304n.8

van Dam, Nikolaos 304n.5Vandenberg, General 62

INDEX 343

violence, trends in 131–2, 140–2, 148–9,175–6, 222–23, 230–31, 254–5, 270–71,281, 288–9, 318n.9;

factor of in 1975–6 civil war 213, 219

Wade, General 124Wadi al-Taym region:

Arab uprising in 64–5;in the 1860 civil war 39;in the 1958 civil war 115–16, 117;in the Druze-Maronite conflicts 32, 35;feudatories 9;Shi’ite communities in 13;Sunni communities in 13, 18, 306n.22

Wadsworth, George 82, 85, 315n.7Waite, Terry, 250, 261, 286Wasā Pasha 48al-Wazzan, Shafīq 236Weinberger, Caspar 235Weir, Ben 246, 250West Bank:

Israeli seizure of 155;negotiations for 229;Reagan Plan provision for 234

Weygand, Maxime 63Wilson, General 73women, enfranchisement of 81, 101Wood, Richard 30

al-Yāfi, Abdullah 69, 86, 102, 145;indictment against 111;resignation of 109;support for Palestinian militias 160–1

Yamani-Qaysi conflict 15–16, 18–19, 306n.26, 307n.32, 307n.35

Yom Kippur War 178, 183Young Turk rebellion 49, 59

Zahleh:Bashir Gemayel’s attempt to control227–8;in the 1860 civil war 39, 311n.21;in the 1975–6 civil war 187, 200, 201,204;in the 1841 Druze-Maronite war 29

Za‛īm, Husni 98Zalzal, Phillipe Effendi 55

Zamir, Meir 168, 314n.11, 314n.16, 315n.2, 320n.3

Zengids 9, 12zero-sum perceptions of value 4, 304n.8Zghart-Bisharri feud 84, 315n.7Zionists 53, 58, 313n.2Zoroastrians 305n.15Zu‘āma politics 87–8, 134, 136, 315n.11

344 INDEX