TABLE OF CONTENTS

<table><thead><tr><th>Title</th><th>Tab</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>The War for Lebanon, 1970-1985 - Itamar Rabinovich</td><td>A</td></tr><tr><td>Peace Process -- Bill Quandt (who used to be on the NSC under HAK)</td><td>B</td></tr><tr><td>Conflict and Violence in Lebanon: Confrontation in the Middle East - Walid Khalidi, Harvard</td><td>C</td></tr><tr><td>The New York Times - Articles</td><td>D</td></tr><tr><td>Newsweek - Articles</td><td>E</td></tr><tr><td>Department of State Bulletin - HAK comments and speeches on ME and Lebanon</td><td>F</td></tr><tr><td>A Time to Heal - Ford's Account</td><td>G</td></tr><tr><td>The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford - John Robert Greene book on Ford</td><td>H</td></tr><tr><td>The Tragedy of Lebanon - Jonathan Randal's perspective</td><td>I</td></tr><tr><td>Syrian Intervention in Lebanon: The 1975-76 Civil War - Naomi Weinberger</td><td>J</td></tr></tbody></table>

LEBANON: THE CIVIL WAR OF 1975-1976

Beginning in April 1975, the second Lebanese civil war ravaged the country for 18 months. Although it was, indeed, a civil war between two broad coalitions, the Christian camp and the Muslim camp, the conflict affected the security of neighboring countries. External actors directly and indirectly involved in the crisis included the Middle Eastern states of Syria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel, as well as the United States and the Soviet Union (among others).

* *The Role of the United States*

The United States, working towards peace in the Middle East and recovering from the tragedy in Vietnam, ruled out U.S. military intervention in Lebanon from the start. The role of the United States throughout the civil war involved little more than a limited diplomatic effort, whereby U.S. government officials urged other external players, especially Syria and Israel, to refrain from involvement in the Lebanese conflict. For the United States, the crisis in Lebanon was not of primary importance, a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict was. The U.S. did not intend to jeopardize the progress Secretary Kissinger made in the Middle East by involving itself in Lebanon's civil war.

"The State Department said today that the United States was giving 'absolutely no consideration' to military intervention in Lebanon and was continuing to urge other countries to stay out of the conflict." (See Tab D, 10/31/75)

Malcom Toon, the US Ambassador to Israel, stated, "after our sorrowful experience in Vietnam, we would not like to be involved in another military intervention." (See Tab D, 10/31/75)

"There are limits to what we can do,' Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger said . . . Mr. Kissinger appeared to caution Lebanon's two neighbors, Syria and Israel, against taking any hasty action. 'The only people who can do anything easily,' the Secretary said, 'are going to produce a war if they do--or at least a grave crisis.'" (Tab D, 11/3/75)

"Secretary Kissinger states, 'We were not in favor of the intervention of any outside country. . . Our present conviction is that there should be a round-table conference as soon as possible among all of the parties to bring about a solution.'" (Tab D, 8/12/76)

"In the mid-1970s, the United States was not very likely to intervene on behalf of a political system that many influential Americans viewed as outdated. The United States and Western Europe were seeking friends and influence in other parts of the Arab world and were not likely to jeopardize these interests for the sake of the vague notion of a Christian Lebanon." (Tab A, p. 35)

2

"Kissinger and Ford, quite simply, had no game in mind, other than to prevent a full-scale
Arab-Israeli war. Apart from urging the evacuation of Americans in Lebanon, the United
States did little." (Tab B, p.248)

The Senate also adopted a resolution, sponsored by Senator James G. Abourezk, D-SD, on
November 4, 1975 which "deplored the violence in Lebanon and opposed intervention by any
nation." (Tab D, 11/5/75)

Also see:

Tab D, 11/28/75
Tab D, 6/18/76
Tab B, p. 247

* Reactions to Syria's Military Involvement in Lebanon

Despite U.S. cautions against involvement in Lebanon, the Syrian Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA) entered Lebanon in the second week of January 1976. Although the Administration did not back Syria's military activities in Lebanon, the United States did support Syria's political initiatives during this time. (Tab D, 4/15/76, p.4) Unlike the United States, other countries showed support for Syria's military and political involvement in the Lebanese conflict.

"A Syrian move has been supported by Jordan and France, among other nations, but the United States has not endorsed such intervention because of fear that it might trigger an Israeli move into southern Lebanon."

In April, Jordan's King Hussein visited with President Ford, Secretary Kissinger and other U.S. officials to discuss the topic of Lebanon. Speaking to the press after [President Ford and King Hussein's] 75-minute meeting at the White House, Secretary Kissinger said, "We are in close touch with Syria and other Arab countries and also are in touch with some of the parties in Lebanon to see what we can do to be helpful." (Tab D, 3/31/76)

After his April discussions with President Ford, King Hussein met with the press to voice his support of Syrian military involvement in Lebanon. He remarked that Syrian role would be "to maintain a balance, to separate the warring factions, to give the Lebanese people time to reorganize themselves and solve their problems." (Tab D, 4/2/76)

Also see:

Tab D, 4/1/76, "Hussein Is Backing Syrians on Lebanon"

Secretary Kissinger, speaking to the press on May 17, 1976, reiterated the U.S.'s role in the Lebanese crisis. "Our basic position has been to avoid intervention by outside powers or to give outside powers the right of intervention, and therefore we would believe that the best solution would be one in which the one in which the Lebanese factions agree among themselves as to the creation of the security force." Tab

"Both Mr. Kissinger and Ron Nessen, the White House spokesman, reiterated today that the Administration was not even considering intervention by American armed forces in the Lebanese fighting." (Tab D, 6/18/76)

Mr. Kissinger said he supported Syrian proposals for a redistribution of power in Lebanon between Christians and Moslems but disapproved of Syria's armed intervention in the 16-month-old civil war." (Tab D, 8/12/76, p.5)

Secretary Kissinger states, "We were not in favor of the intervention of any outside country. Our present conviction is that there should be a round-table conference as soon as possible among all of the parties to bring about a solution." (Tab D, 8/12/76)

* *Argument: Contrary to official policy, the United States accepted Syrian military involvement in Lebanon.*

Syrian involvement "was acceptable to the United States, which weighed it against the prospect of taking a more active role itself and also against other risks of a worsening crisis. . . . American acquiescence in Syria's intervention in Lebanon actually meant that the intervention would be supported by Lebanon's Western guarantor. Even more important perhaps was U.S. mediation between Syria and Israel, which resulted in securing Israel's tacit agreement to Syria's intervention in Lebanon in return for some limitations of the scope of that intervention. The indirect Syrian-Israeli understanding was further elaborated in 1976 and came to be known in Israel's political parlance as 'the red line' in Lebanon." (Tab A, p. 48-9)

"Early in April, Henry Kissinger described Syria's role in Lebanon as 'highly responsible,' . . . Even after Syria had introduced some regular military units into Lebanon on 9 April, the United States was sanguine about their objectives. Kissinger contended on 23 April that 'the danger of outside intervention has been reduced,' and that 'it is our impression that they [the Syrian forces] are there as a part of the immediate situation and not a permanent feature of the Lebanese scene.' Tacit American approval of Syria's military escalation persisted after the large-scale intervention of regular Syrian forces in June." (Tab J, p. 300)

* *Not surprisingly, tensions between Syria and Israel intensified*

The notion of a Greater Syria. (Tab A, p. 54)

Secretary Kissinger stated that "recent Syrian military movements into Lebanon were 'getting very close to the borderline' of Israeli tolerance. He warned that despite some political progress made in Beirut, 'the situation could blow up tomorrow.'" (Tab D, 4/15/76)

"Ambassador Simcha Dimitz of Israel called on Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger late last week and said Israel would not put up with any Syrian-PLO agreement that meant a

4

## LEBANON

**November 1969**
Cairo Agreement. Nasser arranges meeting with PLO and comes to agreement on regulating PLO activities and presence in Lebanon.

**September 1970**
PLO booted out of Jordan.

**Early 1970s**
PLO violence in Lebanon; army unable to control. Mideast war, October 1973.

**April-June 1975**
Outbreak of fighting between right (Phalange) and left (radical Palestinians) over Palestinian freedom of action in Lebanon. April 29 compromise announced and formation of a joint Lebanese - Palestinian committee to implement it. Failed.

**June 1975**
Lebanon now in full-fledged civil war. Christians seek to restore status quo; Muslim camp seeks to overthrow it. September - October, fighting continues while a "national dialogue committee" tried to reach an agreement on social and political reforms and on the status of the PLO in Lebanon. Frangie and Chamoun represent hard core status-quo supporters. Muslim PM Karami in ambivalent position -- wants reform and restructuring of system but not its overthrow; he was being undermined by younger generation Muslims.

Lebanese army did not intervene in crisis. Ultimately the army disintegrated in 1976.

**December 1975**
Asad begins to think about intervention to avoid partition of Lebanon or victory by radicals.

**January 1976**
Syria sends units of the Syrian Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) into Lebanon and comes into conflict with the PLO. Fighting worsens.

**January 21 1976**
Syria urging a ceasefire; published a reform plan for Lebanon.

**February 7**
In communique with Frangie, Syria guaranteed implementation of the 1969 Cairo Agreement. Also announced was agreement on reform proposals.

Taken from an article by Itamar Rabinovich, *The War for Lebanon, 1970-1985*. - Tab A.

ALL 1976 from HERE ON

Page 2

February 14
Reform plan unveiled; retained Christian supremacy but reduced president's power vis a vis the Muslim Prime Minister and equalized Christian/Muslim deputies in parliament. The confessional system was to be limited but not completely abolished. Some elements of plan obliquely suggested more Palestinians would be integrated into the Lebanese system in future.

Suspicions of Syrian intentions - by the PLO, Lebanese leftists and other allies (such as Iraq) develop.

March 11
Breakaway Muslim army officer Khatib forms own Lebanese Arab Army and breaks ceasefire; one of his men announces a coup on March 11 and demand Frangie's immediate resignation. Latter refused. Frangie had support of Syria which refused to agree to his departure until it was assured that their successor choice - Elias Sarkis - was elected.

Late March
Dean Brown dispatched to Beirut as situation deteriorating (Egypt, Iraq, Libyan efforts also to undermine Syrian policy.) (HAK comments - Tab F)

During March, April, May Asad dispatches more PLA units and Al-Saiqa units to Lebanon.

April 15
The one ceasefire between Syria and Palestinians failed.

May 31/ June 1
Asad decides to send a powerful Syrian column into Lebanon; does it just before Kosygin arrives on June 1 so it is a fait accompli.

According to Rabinovich's account, this military invasion was a failure (check Asad speech July 20).

July 29
Another Syrian-Palestinian agreement failed.

Syria thereupon launches another assault which is more successful, hoping to secure situation before September 23 when Sarkis scheduled to take office.

Page 3

October
16-18

While attempting to secure a military solution, Asad decides instead to attend an Arab summit convened by Saudi Arabia in Riyadh. The apparent aim is to solidify Arab unity as the US heads into an election and to show a united front. Saudis, Kuwaitis, Egyptians, Lebanese and PLO attend. Rabinovich concluded that Asad realized that a total humiliation of the PLO by Syria and its Lebanese allies would be unacceptable to Syrian and Arab public opinion.

The outcome was an agreement on a ceasefire and a gradual normalization in Lebanon. Arab troops -- under the name Arab Deterrent Force -- would police the situation -- mainly Syrian troops in a force of some 30,000, theoretically under the head of Lebanon's president. The Cairo Agreement of 1969 would be implemented. All armed forces were to return to their pre-April 1975 locations and all heavy weapons would be put under the control of the ADF.

Fighting lessened in the next few weeks. Sarkis assumed office and began to form a government.

December
1976

Salim Al-Huss, president of the development bank and a Sunni formed a cabinet composed of four Christian and four Muslim members. Eighteen months of warfare sort of wound down for a period of time. According to Rabinovich's account, the Lebanese system was not broken but it was exhausted: "The authority of Lebanon's president, government, parliament, and central bureaucracy was limited to a small part of Beirut. Lebanon's territory was in fact divided among external forces and local baronies. Syria controlled and administered directly large parts of eastern and northern Lebanon; an autonomous Christian entity developed north of Beirut, with its capital in Jounieh; a comparable protostate dominated by the Palestinian and their Lebanese allies existed south of Beirut; in the southernmost part of Lebanon, along the Israeli Border, Sa'd Haddad and his pro-Israeli militia vied with the PLO and leftist militias for control; in the far north, the Frangie family and the Sunni political bosses and militia leaders maintained their respective fiefs."

In the end, the Lebanese army disintegrated in 1976, its remnants divided between pro-Syrian elements and Christian militia.

End of
1976

Rabinovich: "The events of 1975-76 altered the external balance and enabled a foreign power, Syria, to acquire an actual hegemony over Lebanon. The United States and Israel both demonstrated their unwillingness to interfere militarily on behalf of Lebanon's Christian communities and acquiesced, the latter more reluctantly than the former, in Syria's intervention. During the Arab summit conferences in October 1976, the Arab leadership came to tolerate and even to finance Syria's new role in Lebanon. As part of the same settlement, the Syrian government had to accept the PLO's political role and continued autonomy in Lebanon. Although the PLO was weakened and discredited by its involvement in a second Arab civil war in six years, it remained a crucial actor in the Lebanese system, one that had to be taken into consideration in any attempt to resolve the Lebanese crisis."

who might have gone were put off. by the ban on large pets and by reports of animal quarantines in Piraeus, the port of Athens—or by the prospect of the 40-hour voyage.

"Yes, we had planned to go," said a disappointed Leslie Cobb, a 17-year-old American, sitting on the floor of the crowded Riviera Hotel-lobby two Shetland sheepdogs, and Jackson.

but now there's a boat, we're not going to go," she continued. "We're going to drive."

Christopher W. S. Ross, an American Embassy spokesman, said a preliminary count showed that a total of 116 United States citizens and family members and 147 "third-country nationals" had joined the surprise sea evacuation.

He said that about 60 Britons, 20-Germans, 10 Italians and 10 Greeks were included in the second category. The American officials had agreed to a special request from the Lebanese Arab Army, which has been guarding the embassy building, to take

closed for two weeks.

Security for the evacuation, apparently arranged by the British, was begun early in the morning by the Fatah Palestinian organization and some of its leftist allies. At dawn, roads leading down to the Bain Militaire, which once served as the headquarters of the Lebanese Arab Army, an organization of Moslem defectors from the Lebanese Army, were sealed off by gunmen in jeeps and Land-Rovers.

### Christian Gunners Warned

American officials were reliably reported to have warned artillerymen of the Lebanese Christian forces, who have in the past heavily bombarded the Bain Militaire area, to keep their guns silent this morning. One American noted wryly that among the vans providing protection for the evacuation was one that had been stolen from the embassy.

In charge of the operation was Abu Firass, a high-ranking Fatah security official. The only moment of slight tension occurred just after the landing craft docked, when Arab Army soldiers fired three shots into the air to ward off television cameramen who crowded around the evacuation site.

A few American sailors on the landing craft took cover, though no one else was particularly upset by the shots. At a beach club overlooking the concrete pier where the evacuation took place, a waiter served journalists 7-Up, orange crush and coffee. A few Lebanese came to wave good-bye to friends and relatives.

Officially, American diplomats are not permitted to have contact with members of the Palestine Liberation Organization, but actual cooperation on the evacuation operation was intimate.

"We are a group of Al Fatah," a man in a blue jean suit, who gave his name as Mohammed,

one American official acknowledged. "What do you think I'm doing here?"

Another official, Sidney T.

Counted in all of Lebanon.

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### Evacuees, who gathered at Hotel Riviera and at British Embassy, embarked for trip to Athens at Bain Militaire.

Her father, John Cobb, a consulting engineer from Atlanta: "I have faith that the will get us out. A lot of people we've talked to think there are a lot of political motivations to a big Navy ship coming in what with Mr. Reagan criticizing our Panama Canal policy."

### Ban on Pets Eased Slightly

Another resident American engineer, Carl Peterson, a native of Hamden, Conn., explained his reluctance to take the ship: "If I don't take the cats, my wife will divorce me."

In the end, American officials relaxed what they said was a standing-Navy ban on pets, and at least two dogs, one cat and a bird—a yellow budgerigar named Sleeper, belonging to Marilyn Rgschaa, an English schoolteacher—were seen going aboard No. 1654, a 185-ton L.C.U. (landing craft, utility).

The atmosphere surrounding the evacuation was hardly one of high tension. Foreigners in Beirut have become quite accustomed to mingling with grizzled kanmen and hearing odd explosions and automatic weapons fire—and before the 1654 left the former military officers club beach, one soldier from the renegade Lebanese Arab Army, wearing a green Hawaiian-style sport shirt, was fraternalizing with a few American sailors.

Have a nice cruise," said Samuel Asper, the head of American University Hospital, bidding goodbye to friends at the Riviera. The doctor, along with most of the embassy staff, is remaining in Beirut.

"I really, don't consider this an evacuation," said the 31-year-old Miss Rgschaa. "It's just a convenient way to get out of the country."

### 2 Girls Off for Camp

out a lieutenant who had been badly wounded in the knee and needed special surgery. At the last minute, the lieutenant decided not to go.

### Britons Urged to Leave

Geoffrey Hancock, the British charge d'affaires, strongly urged a group of reluctant Britons, Nigerians and other foreigners under the protection of the British Government who had assembled at his embassy to participate in the American evacuation. But after the landing craft picked up its anchor at 11:36 A.M. and set off for the Spiegel Grove, a score of people clustered around the British Embassy, hoping that a deferred road convoy would set off for Damascus.

At 12:30, Mr. Hancock said that fighting south of Beirut around Ouzai and Khalde, where Syrian troops are entrenched, made it impossible to leave today. Another attempt—the third in three days—will be made tomorrow, he said.

The entire evacuation went off smoothly, though just as the landing craft set off into the flat blue Mediterranean, a honking Land-Rover full of guerrillas delivered Carol Debs, a Briton, to the Bain Militaire. She missed the boat.

"Well, I just—arrived too

### LEGAL

#### PUBLIC NOTICE

The City of New York
Housing and Development Administration
Department of Development

In accordance with the provisions of Section 505 of Article 13 of the General Municipal Law, of the State of New York, notice is hereby given that the Board of Estimate of the City of New York will hold a public hearing in the City Hall, Borough of Manhattan, City and State of New York, on June 24, 1976 at 10:30 A.M. or as soon thereafter as the item may be reached on the calendar for that day to consider the Urban Renewal Plan for the South One Park Homesteading and Community Rehabilitation Project in the Borough of Queens.

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blacks have been of-
citizenship in the "home-
" traditional tribal areas
account for 13 percent of
Africa territory.

The anxious for the
civil's independence, offi-
icial retorica, the South
n capital, could be em-
ed by the roundup of the
tion:

their argument for inter-
ial recognition of the
city, the officials have
much of the fact that the
will have a democratic
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contrast with the one
systems prevalent else-
in Africa.

Diplomatic Boycott

territory, covering an
almost as large as Switz-
faces an almost total
atic boycott. Most mem-
the United Nations take
what recognition would
ate an acceptance of
id.

focal points of political
and recruitment by
where are few signs
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its members with seats in the
assembly. The police said last
night that more arrests were
planned.

The action is being made
under emergency regulations
that provide for the indefinite
detention of anybody suspected
of saving or doing anything
that might interfere with the
authority of the territory's gov-
ernment.

Chief Matanzima, speaking in
the assembly, said that his gov-
ernment would not hesitate to
use its police powers to deter
attempts to incite "violence
and revolution" among the
territory's 1.7 million people.

CONTACT WITH P.L.O.
CONFIRMED BY U.S.

WASHINGTON, July 27 (AP)
—United States officials in

Beirut made direct contact with
the Palestine Liberation Organi-
zation in June for the first time
and some liaison will be con-
tinued even though the evacua-
tion of Americans who want
to leave Lebanon has been
completed, the State Depart-
ment said today.

Talks with P.L.O. officials
are conducted by the United
States Embassy security officer
and concern "the personal
security of our embassy per-
sonnel in their movement in
west Beirut," the department
statements said.

The United States does not
officially recognize the P.L.O.,
and until security preparations

ization.

Mr. Kaddoumi returned to
Beirut today and gave the
P.L.O. chairman, Yasir Arafat,
the details of the plan, which
has not been disclosed official-
ly. A copy of the plan was con-
veyed to Christian leaders yes-
terday by a special aide to
President Hafez al-Assad of
Syria.

Palestinian sources said Mr.
Kaddoumi might go back to
Damascus in the next 48 hours
with the final answer of the
guerrilla movement and the
leftist-Moslem alliance on the
plan.

Sources close to the guerrillas

for the Beirut evacuations, it
had never been in direct con-
tact with the guerrilla group.

Until late last week, depart-
ment officials maintained that
there had been no contact with
the P.L.O. and that security
arrangements with the Palesti-
nians for earlier British-super-
vised evacuation convoys to
Damascus had been made
through "third parties."

Ex-Peruvian Chief Stricken

WASHINGTON, July 27
(Reuters) — Former President
Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru
was in serious condition at
Georgetown University Hos-
pital today after suffering a
stroke last night, diplomatic
sources said here. General Ve-
lasco, who had a leg amputated
three years ago, arrived in
Washington in April for out-
patient treatment at Walter
Reed Army Hospital.

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PREFACE

Tel Aviv University has in the past twelve years been much more
than my work place. I thank my colleagues at the Institute, Hanna
Zamir, in particular, and the Institute's staff, Amira Margalith, Edna
Liftman, Tali Mor, Lydia Gareh, Maggie Mahlab, and Ami Salant
and his staff at the documentation system. Hanna Ben Artzi has
been an effective research assistant in this and other projects.

Much of the writing was actually done while I was on leave in the
Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. The fac-
ulty, staff, and students all helped in the effort. Part of the manu-
script was read and discussed during the Middle East seminar at the
Lehrman Institute in the winter and spring of 1982-83. I thank
Robert Tucker and Nick Rizopoulos for organizing an excellent sem-
inar and them and the other participants for their criticism and
suggestions. Walter Lippincott, Jr., now the director of Cornell Uni-
versity Press, and Fouad Ajami, Carl Brown, and Elie Kedourie read
the manuscript and made numerous suggestions that contributed to
its improvement. I remain responsible for the lingering deficiencies.
The Ford Foundation through Israel's Foundations Trustees facili-
tated much of the research that underlies this book. And finally, my
gratitude and love go to the other members of the team—my wife,
Efrat, and my daughters, Iris and Orna.

ITAMAR RABINOVICH

Tel Aviv, Israel

Chronology

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>August 31, 1920</td>
      <td>Establishment of Greater Lebanon by France.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>May 23, 1926</td>
      <td>Establishment of a Lebanese constitutional republic under French mandatory control.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>1936</td>
      <td>French-Lebanese treaty (suspended in 1939).</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>June 1941</td>
      <td>Anglo-Free-French invasion of Lebanon and formal declaration of independence.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>1943</td>
      <td>Lebanese National Pact; Lebanese-French clashes.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>1946</td>
      <td>Completion of French evacuation of Lebanon.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>September 1952</td>
      <td>Bloodless coup d'état ends Bishara al-Khuri's administration and begins Camille Chamoun's administration.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>1958</td>
      <td>First Lebanese civil war; end of Chamoun's administration, beginning of Fu'ād Shihab's administration.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>1964</td>
      <td>Beginning of Charles Helou's administration.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>December 1968</td>
      <td>Israeli raid on Beirut airport; beginning of conflict in Lebanon over Palestinian issue.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>November 1969</td>
      <td>Cairo Agreement between Lebanese Government and the PLO.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>1970</td>
      <td>Beginning of Suleiman Faranjiyya's administration; the PLO transfers its main base from Jordan to Lebanon.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>May 1973</td>
      <td>Confrontation between the Lebanese army and the PLO.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>April 1975</td>
      <td>Opening phase of the second Lebanese civil war.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>January 1976</td>
      <td>Indirect Syrian intervention in the civil war.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>February 1976</td>
      <td>Syrian effort to formulate a political compromise in Lebanon.</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

12

13

CHRONOLOGY

March 1976 Failure of Syrian effort; abortive coup d'état by General Aziz al-Ahdab. Syrians-left

June 1976 Full-fledged Syrian invasion, stiff Palestinian opposition. Syrians invade

September 1976 Second Syrian offensive in Lebanon; formation of Lebanese Front and Lebanese Forces.

October 1976 The **Riyad and Cairo agreements**, which end the Lebanese civil war. ~~Riyad and Cairo agreements~~ end civil war

July 25, 1977 The **Shtura Agreement** between Syria, Lebanon, and the PLO—another attempt at implementing the Cairo Agreement.

February 2, 1978 The Fayadiyya incident, which marks the beginning of Syria's conflict with the Lebanese Front.

March 16, 1978 Israel's Litani Operation in southern Lebanon.

June 13, 1978 Killing of Tony Faranjiyya by a Phalangist squad.

August 31, 1978 Disappearance of Musa al-Sadr, the Shi'i Imam, during a visit to Libya.

January 22-31, 1980 First phase of Syria's redeployment in Lebanon.

July 7, 1980 Phalangist raid on the Chamounist militia.

December 20-27, 1980 First phase of Syrian-Phalangist fighting in Zahle.

April 2, 1981 Second phase of Syrian-Phalangist fighting in Zahle; developed into the missile crisis.

July 1981 Israeli-Palestinian fighting; cease-fire negotiated by U.S. Ambassador Philip Habib.

June 6-11, 1982 Israel's Operation Peace for Galilee and the Syrian-Israeli cease-fire.

August 1982 Bashir Jumayyil elected president of Lebanon; the PLO evacuates Beirut.

September 1982 President Ronald Reagan's Middle East peace initiative; assassination of Bashir Jumayyil; massacre at Sabra and Shatila; beginning of Amin Jumayyil's administration.

The War for Lebanon, 1970-1985

14

CHAPTER 1

# The Lebanese Paradox

THE OUTBREAK OF the second Lebanese civil war in 1975 and the subsequent collapse of the Lebanese state can be studied from two diametrically opposed vantage points. From one, the independent Lebanese republic appears to be artificial and archaic, built on shaky demographic and political foundations, and therefore doomed to be destroyed by the domestic and external foes of its political system. Consequently, the first thirty years of its history are simply the working out of prophecy: that tension and contradiction are inherent in Lebanese politics. From the other vantage point, the Lebanese political system is seen as an impressive and unique attempt in the Middle East to develop a pluralistic polity, a state able to contain a heterogeneous population against difficult odds. This view derived encouragement from the system's capacity to endure for thirty years—in an unstable environment—through its imaginative responses to successive challenges.¹

## The Nature of the Lebanese State

Underlying these contradictory interpretations of Lebanon's recent history is the more fundamental debate on the nature of the Lebanese state and on the degree of continuity between historic Lebanon and the post-World War I Lebanese state. Was the independent Lebanese republic of the years 1945-75 an essentially

17

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

Christian state, the successor and perpetuator of a long tradition? Or was it a new entity, shaped by but never fully adjusted to the demographic realities of its 1920 boundaries?² The notion of a Lebanese political entity was officially embodied for the first time in 1861 when, under European pressure and guarantee, an autonomous province (Mutasarifiyya) was established in Mount Lebanon. Its establishment was the product of several historical processes, the complexity and subtleties of which are reflected also in the subsequent history of the Lebanese polity. In tracing the evolution of the Lebanese entity, it is useful to distinguish between its territory, its population, and its political system.

The name Mount Lebanon applied originally only to the northern part of the Mountain. With the migration of the growing Maronite population, the name gradually encompassed the whole mountain. The rugged Mountain had traditionally attracted minority communities—heterodox Muslims and Christians—that in the later Middle Ages and early modern period sought refuge from the governments of the Sunni empires (Mameluk and Ottoman) that dominated the region. The Druze and Maronite were the two principal communities on Mount Lebanon, but Shi'is, Melchites, and Sunnis became associated with the Lebanese entity either through living at the Mountain's edges or by coming under the authority of the Lebanese emirates of the Ma'nids (1516–1697) and the Shihabis (1697–1841).

The Ma'nid emirate (imarah) developed out of the protofeudal social stratification, land tenure, military service, and system of tax collection in the Shuf Mountain, the original mountain of the Druze. In its heyday, under Fakhral-Din (1585–1635), the emirate was characterized by (a) virtual autonomy within the framework of the Ottoman Empire, (b) Druze-Maronite cooperation, which transcended the rigid religious and communal lines known elsewhere in the region, (c) the extension of the emir's authority into other parts of Ottoman Syria, and (d) the development of Lebanon's relationship with Latin-Catholic Europe.

When the Ma'nid male line became extinct in 1697, it was replaced by the Shihabis. The latter were Sunni and not Druze, but the emirate was already clearly losing its distinct Druze bias. The trend was accentuated in the eighteenth century by two separate developments—the migration of a large part of the Druze to southern Syria

18

THE LEBANESE PARADOX

because of intracommunal fighting, and the territorial expansion of the Maronites. This process was to a large extent led by the Maronite church, whose predominance in the community was acquired at the expense of Maronite feudatories. The Shihabi family in fact converted to Maronite Catholicism; but it was characteristic of the ambiguous relationship between religion and politics in the Lebanese entity that the religious affiliation of the Shihabi family remained opaque.

The long reign of Emir Bashir II (1788–1840) reinforced the tradition and legacy of a strong central authority exercised over Mount Lebanon and the areas adjacent to it. His fall, and the end of the Shihabi emirate (1841), were followed by twenty years of social and political upheaval: a revolt by Maronite peasants against their Maronite landlords (1858), and a Druze-Maronite civil war (1860), in which the less numerous but more warlike Druze at first routed their enemies, who were then saved by the intervention of a French expeditionary force. The events in 1860 brought to the surface and nourished a new ingredient in Lebanese politics of the nineteenth century—religious solidarity and religious hatred.

France's intervention and European pressure brought about the creation of an autonomous Lebanese province within the Ottoman Empire. The autonomous Lebanon of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had a clear Christian majority and character and a political system that offered representation and a share of political power to minority communities. It was an exceptional entity in its Muslim environment, and its tentative existence owed much to Europe's support. Indeed, when World War I broke out, the Ottoman government abolished the 1861 arrangements and established its direct rule over Mount Lebanon (1915).³

A sizable segment of the Maronite community refused to reconcile itself to the "smaller Lebanon" of the 1861–1915 period and demanded that all the area united by the Lebanese emirate be included in the new Lebanese entity. (See Map 1.) Without Beirut and much of its agricultural and commercial hinterland, the mutasarifiyya appeared to these Maronite nationalists as a poor and weak version of the Lebanon they aspired to. Their time came after 1918, when France secured a mandate for Syria and Lebanon. Some of the authors of French policy in the Levant supported the Maronite militants' demands, arguing that Lebanon's Catholic population was

19

THE LEBANESE PARADOX

France's one reliable ally against the hostile Arab nationalists and Muslims in the hinterland and that Lebanon's economic viability should therefore be bolstered. Thus, when on September 1, 1920, the French added parts of Ottoman Syria to the original territory of the autonomous province of Lebanon, they created a completely distinct state—Greater Lebanon.⁴

The consequences of this measure were clear at the time to at least one perceptive and prescient French official, Robert de Caix, who in his internal memoranda warned of the dangers inherent in the creation of Greater Lebanon. De Caix was an architect of the policy that sought to break the French-mandated territory in the Levant into a patchwork of ethnic units and to prevent the crystallization of a large, anti-French, Syrian Arab entity. A larger Christian Lebanon would be a mainstay of France's position, but the expansion of Lebanon's territory should be done with prudence and moderation. "We know of no reason to annex Tripoli to Lebanon," he wrote in July 1920. "It is a Sunni Muslim center, rather fanatic, and not wishing at all to be incorporated in a country with a Christian majority." In the same vein, de Caix argued that "it is most questionable whether such a large city as Beirut, which will no doubt contain half the Lebanese population in a few years, is the most desirable capital for the Mountain, whose character might be greatly altered by the move."⁵

Indeed, the net effect of the creation of Greater Lebanon was Syrian irredentism and the disruption of the demographic balance in the new state, resulting in discord between the traditional Maronite Christian ethos, which underlay its creation, and the heterogeneous composition of its population. How was this discord to be resolved? One school of thought among the Maronites saw the solution in continued reliance on French support. As long as French or other external support was certain, the Lebanese state could be preserved as a Christian entity against domestic and external Muslim and Arab nationalist opposition. Another school of thought, headed by Emile Eddé (Lebanon's president, 1936–41), was convinced by the 1932 census that the Muslims were about to become the majority in the Lebanese state and that the possibility of France abandoning the Lebanese Christians had to be taken seriously. Eddé concluded that it was essential to "expedite the territorial

Smaller and Greater Lebanon. The Autonomous Province 1861–1915 and Lebanon 1920.

20

21

reduction of Lebanon in order to enable the latter state to have a
more consistent Christian majority." By "amputating" Tripoli and
southern Lebanon from the Lebanese state, "Lebanon will be rid of
almost 140,000 Shi'i and Sunni Muslims and will be left with a Chris-
tian majority equalling about eighty percent of its population."⁶
(See Map 2.) Eddé tried to win the support of the French govern-
ment, which was not unimpressed with his reasoning but which in
the end chose to preserve the territorial status quo. Still, Eddé did
not abandon his idea, and in 1946 he sent an emissary to Chaim
Weizmann, the Zionist leader, to attempt to persuade Weizmann to
seek the incorporation of southern Lebanon and its predominantly
Muslim population into the Jewish national home.⁷

Alongside these comparatively straightforward solutions, other, more subtle approaches were developed. In the more complex political arena and atmosphere of the post-1920 Lebanese state, Christian intellectuals and politicians tried to devise a formula that would enable the non-Christian minorities to find their place in an essentially Christian Lebanon. Thus the Catholic banker and intellectual Michel Chiha saw the modern Lebanese state as a successor to the ancient Phoenicians, a merchant republic, bearer of a Mediterranean culture, illuminator of its environment, and an interpreter between East and West. Chiha's notion of Phoenicianism was further developed and given a Christian flavor by two Maronite poets, Charles Corm and Sa'id 'Aql. Later, the concept of *l'asile de Liban*, Lebanon as a haven for persecuted minorities—Druze and Shi'a as well as Christian—was put forth. But neither concept appealed to Lebanon's Muslim population, and rather than mobilizing support among Greater Lebanon's opponents, each concept served only as a legitimizing tool for its defenders.⁸

Chiha's stronger impact on the development of the Lebanese
state came from his contributions to the drafting of the 1926 con-
stitution and to the shaping of the Lebanese republic's political
institutions. Some flexibility was built into the constitution and the
governmental structure, which enabled the Lebanese political sys-
tem to adapt to the changes that occurred in the 1930s and 1940s.⁹
During most of the interwar years, Lebanese politics were domi-
nated by the conflict between Lebanese Catholic communities sup-

22

Map 2. Lebanon: Approximate concentration areas of major communities.

23

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

ported by France and the Sunni and Greek Orthodox communities, which rejected the legitimacy of the Lebanese state, objected to the Maronites' political supremacy, and demanded that Lebanon (or part of it) be added onto a larger Arab state. But by the 1940s, the Lebanese political spectrum had altered because of the integration of the Shi'i community into the Lebanese state; the rise of ideological, extraparliamentary parties; and the crystallization of distinct political groups within the Maronite and Sunni establishments, groups shaped by differences of policy orientations as well as by personal and regional conflicts.

World War II, France's political decline, and the apparent ascendency of Pan-Arab nationalism facilitated the victory within the Maronite community of Bishara al-Khuri and other leaders, who urged an accommodation with Lebanon's Muslim communities and the Arab world and the abandonment of the traditional aspiration and demand for a Christian Lebanon. This development was matched by the crystallization of a Sunni leadership, headed by Riad al-Sulh, that despite its ritualistic commitment to Arab nationalism and unity was willing to share power with a senior Maronite partner in a Lebanese state.

In 1943, these two groups reached an oral agreement known as the National Pact, which made possible the establishment of an independent Lebanon. The Muslim political establishment recognized the legitimacy of a sovereign Lebanese entity in return for the Christian communities' willingness to share power and recognition of at least partial Arab character of this entity. The distribution of power among the various communities according to their presumed numerical strength—by then a traditional pattern in Lebanon—was also agreed upon. Christian supremacy in the state was exemplified in the decision to elect a Maronite as its powerful president and to establish a ratio of six Christian deputies to every five Muslim deputies in parliament. The Lebanese polity was not based on the presumed existence of a Lebanese nation but on a confederation of protonational communities, each of which claimed the ultimate allegiance of its members. This unique political system, which acknowledged the primacy of its constituent religious communities and vested them with political power, came to be dubbed *confessional*.

The Muslim establishment's willingness to accept Christian

24

THE LEBANESE PARADOX

hegemony in Lebanon, when Christian numerical strength was clearly declining, was induced by a number of factors whose influence continued in later years. The Muslim leadership could not ignore the historical basis for the Christian claim to a special status and a special role in Lebanon, nor could it disregard the American and European support for this claim. The Sunni establishment was fully aware of the significant concessions made by its Maronite counterparts in 1943, as well as of their common interests. Changing the status quo might, after all, play into the hands of more radical Sunnis and the Shi'is, whose share of power in the government no longer reflected their numbers. This process of political accommodation was characteristic of a widespread tendency in the Arab world during the interwar years, as the states created by the 1918-20 settlement acquired vitality and as local elites with vested interests in perpetuating the territorial status quo emerged. Yet not all Muslims and Christians accepted the 1943 compromise, and segments of the major communities continued to harbor dreams either of an Arab union or of a purely Christian Lebanon.

The political system of post-1943 Lebanon was based on the political institutions of the mandatory period and on the National Pact. It was unique, complex, and its inherent flaws were quite evident. It was conservative by definition, as an ascriptive system based on the preservation of the status quo. With confessionalism as a cornerstone of the political system, religious leaders and other traditional leaders and interests kept their prominence within their respective communities. This conservative bias was further reinforced by other characteristics of the political system, such as the electoral system, which served to preserve the position of community notables (Zu'ama) and to hinder the development of parliamentary political parties across communal and regional boundaries.¹⁰ By electing parliamentary members through regional lists, the Zu'ama were practically assured of election and could often carry with them into parliament a number of clients. Often the Zu'ama would function alongside the formal and bureaucratic structures, offering services and protection and demanding allegiance, votes, and sometimes participation in violent conflicts.¹¹ In describing the phenomenon known as Wasita (mediation and the exercising of influence), Peter Gubser says:

25

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

These personal services take many forms and subsequently create various ties to the za'im, which he may in turn use for his benefit. Because of the administrative reforms, the leaders can no longer easily obtain employment for their clients in the state bureaucracy but they can exercise influence on where a man is posted. If a Zahlawi who is assigned to Tripoli wants to work in Zahlah, the easiest way to effect this change is to use his za'im's influence. As a result of this service, the za'im has not only insured the man's support at the polls, but also put a man in a bureaucratic position who will be able to help him in the future.¹²

The Lebanese parliament thus reflected the web of relationships among the traditional foci of power in the country. And moreover, it was for a rather long period virtually closed to new contenders. Furthermore, in upholding the principles of confessionalism and playing down the notions of nation and class, the Lebanese political system acquired an archaic complexion, and from the mid-1960s it found itself challenged by the political attitudes prevailing in most of the outside world.

But the system had important merits, not least of which was that it was based on an awareness of the fundamental conflict in Lebanon and attempted to come to grips with it. In this respect, Lebanon was significantly different from Syria and Iraq, whose political systems were ostensibly built on the assumption that communal differences had given way to an allegiance to Arabism. Furthermore, the Lebanese political system contained mechanisms designed to blunt intercommunal rivalries and to require intercommunal cooperation. The historical roots of the system and its gradual evolution gave it significant advantages over possible alternatives. And whatever the system's obvious deficiencies, it did not seem that any other could preserve the Lebanese state as a pluralistic polity. Furthermore, it was the only genuine parliamentary system that survived and functioned in the post-World War II Arab world.¹³

The 1958 Civil War

The challenges to the status quo in Lebanon since the 1940s have come primarily from three sources. First, some Muslims rejected the

26

THE LEBANESE PARADOX

1943 compromise and its political system as unrepresentative of its population. Second, a variety of ideologically inclined groups and individuals (Arab nationalists, Communists, and other advocates of social and economic change) viewed the existing system as a barrier to the implementation of their ideas. Finally, external forces (such as Syria, Egypt, and the Soviet Union) sought to establish influence in Lebanon and to weaken Western presence and influence.

Until the second half of the 1950s, the Lebanese system warded off these challengers with relative ease. Supporters of the status quo controlled the government, and the opposition was relegated to a marginal position outside or on the fringes of the parliamentary system. In these circumstances, it was quite natural for members of the traditional elite to adhere to a strict interpretation of the status quo. Their sense of security was in fact reinforced by the 1952 crisis, which ended in the forced resignation of Bishara al-Khuri and the election of Camille Chamoun. When compared to the military takeovers in Syria and Egypt, the assassination of King Abdallah in Jordan, and the violent conflicts between government and opposition in Iraq, the Lebanese crisis was merely a matter of bickerings among the ruling elite. The Lebanese took pride in the fact that the army refused to intervene in the crisis and that it was resolved peacefully through constitutional channels.¹⁴

The first major crisis to threaten the existence of the Lebanese state erupted in 1958, under the combined pressure of domestic and regional developments. The upsurge of messianic Pan-Arab nationalism under the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser, plus the Egyptian-Iraqi rivalry (and the Great Power rivalry superimposed on it), set the regional scene for the explosion. Nasserism offered an external focus of loyalty for Lebanon's Muslims, to the detriment of their attachment to the Lebanese state. Why accept a secondary position in a state dominated by Christians with ambivalent attitudes to Arabism, when Arabism was about to enjoy its finest hour?

Christian leaders were sharply divided as to the best response to these developments. Some favored a conciliatory and flexible policy which would enable Lebanon to weather the storm. Others, headed by Chamoun, advocated a resolute policy based on unambiguous cooperation with the West and the conservative Arab states against the wave of revolutionary Pan-Arab nationalism. The problem was

27

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

further compounded by Chamoun's decision to modify the constitution to enable his reelection for a second consecutive term. Some Christian and Muslim politicians opposed this, and during the 1957 elections Chamoun sought to exclude them from the new parliament. He was successful in several cases, and the new parliament was much more supportive than its predecessor. But it was a Pyrrhic victory, for several important politicians ousted by Chamoun thereafter pitted themselves against the Lebanese parliamentary system.

Tension mounted after the formation of the United Arab Republic in February 1958, and a civil war broke out between Chamoun's supporters and his opponents, most of whom were Muslims. This conflict mainly involved Phalangist militias and the Lebanese Syrian Nationalist Party (a radical party advocating a united Greater Syria, but acting at that time to defend the Lebanese entity against the onslaught of Pan-Arabism). The Lebanese army, led by Fu'ad Shihab, maintained a neutral line. The fighting ended with the landing of American marines in Beirut, while the political war subsided after another historic compromise had been devised. Chamoun renounced reelection, and Shihab was elected president. Under the slogan "no victors and no vanquished," it was decided to restore the status quo. The marked improvement in the position of the Muslims and the rebel leaders, shown in the composition of the first postwar cabinet, brought the Phalanges out on the streets. This threatened to reactivate the crisis and forced the formation of a new and more balanced government.

The Lebanese civil war of 1958 had manifold causes, but the overriding issue was undoubtedly a Christian-Muslim struggle over the nature of the Lebanese state. The compromise that ended the struggle had important consequences in the following years.¹⁵

## The Years 1958-70

The lessons of the 1958 crisis and the general regional developments had a salutary influence on the stability of the Lebanese political system. The civil war demonstrated to both Christians and Muslims that extremist policies in the delicate circumstances obtain-

28

THE LEBANESE PARADOX

ing in Lebanon were bound to lead to violent crises. It also showed that whatever the shortcomings of the existing system, the alternatives were still less attractive. With the checking of the messianic wave of Pan-Arab nationalism and the gradual decline of the Nasserite movement, the pressure on Lebanon was alleviated. Developments in the Arab Middle East after 1958, especially in Syria, showed that the Lebanese political system and way of life had distinct advantages over the patterns in other Arab countries.

Fu'ad Shihab's leadership was instrumental in steering Lebanon out of the crisis. The new president (1958–64) was favored with a number of assets: an authoritative personality, family prestige, a basis of power in the army, and neutral posture throughout the crisis—appearing at the end as a savior-hero. Although he was a Maronite, he adopted a moderate line, advocating a healthy balance between Lebanon's Christian identity and an Arab nationalist orientation. Shihab manipulated the Lebanese political system dangerously and conducted a slightly pro-Nasserite foreign policy. But while Shihab was successful in restabilizing the Lebanese system, he was far less successful in coping with the more fundamental questions. What was the nature of the Lebanese political community, some twenty years after the 1943 National Pact? Was Lebanon's political system still suited to the country's realities? Did it afford the degree of flexibility needed for dealing with domestic and external problems and changes?

Conservatives among the Maronites and other Christians continued to view Lebanon as the embodiment of the notion of a Christian Catholic entity closely linked to the West, a Christian haven and fortress in the midst of a hostile Muslim environment. They argued that the political arrangements made in 1943, although themselves a compromise that diluted Lebanon's original character, should be kept, even in the event the Christians lost their numerical superiority. By accepting the principle of accommodation and adaptation now, the Christian communities would undermine the system that guaranteed their hegemony and security. Nor should the social and economic system—based on a free economy, a small bureaucracy, low taxation, and minimal government intervention in social and economic processes—be reformed. This state of affairs served the interests of the elite and further widened the gap between Christian

29

communities (which enjoyed private and parochial education and other social services) and Muslim communities, particularly the Shi'is (which lagged behind in their social and economic development). The conservatives naturally resisted changes that were bound to adversely affect their immediate interests. They also feared that reform would mobilize the Muslim communities and poorer classes, with unfortunate political consequences.

Moderate Christian leaders, while sharing the concerns and aims of the conservatives, advocated reform and adaptation as the only way to address these concerns. They strove for a redefinition of the relation between state and community, which would acknowledge a Lebanese political community above the communities that constituted it. Doubtless this Lebanese community was to have a Christian character, but it could be implicit rather than explicit. Political institutions and practices should be adapted to new realities, and social and economic reforms should be instituted lest the "benign neglect" of the traditional politicians lead to a social-and political explosion.

Shihab's policies reflected many of these ideas. He was a practical politician rather than the formulator of doctrines and ideologies, and when he encountered serious difficulties in reforming the traditional system through traditional political channels, he tried to circumvent the political system by building a powerful state apparatus. Government bureaucracy and the *deuxième bureau* (military intelligence) were developed as an alternative system of government, designed to split or crush those groups powerful enough to resist the president's efforts to impinge on their privileges. Shihab's strategy produced a series of reforms and changes but did little to resolve Lebanon's fundamental dilemma. This failure was largely concealed during Shihab's term by his dominant personality and the relatively smooth functioning of the political system under his stewardship.¹⁶ But when he stepped down in 1964, the failure of his more ambitious plans exposed that fundamental dilemma. The inherent flaws in the Lebanese entity became evident. But it was equally apparent that attempts at extensive reforms or revisions were certain to upset the delicate balance on which the whole system rested. Furthermore, modernization and social mobilization

30

THE LEBANESE PARADOX

were weakening the position of conservative elements and strengthening extraparliamentary and other opposition groups that sought to join, to modify, or to overthrow the political system.¹⁷

But in the years immediately following Shihab's presidency, Lebanon's politicians focused less on underlying issues and more on immediate problems, which the existing system was hard put to solve. Some of these derived from the way power was transferred to the new president, Charles Helou. Shihab left the presidency rather reluctantly, and together with his entourage he sought to perpetuate his influence through his meek successor. The president plays a vital role in the Lebanese political system, which was affected by the weakness of the new president. Unlike the Shihabi period, there was no stable majority in parliament, and the relationships among the president, the prime minister, and the parliament were far from satisfactory. Rivalries among Arab states in the years 1964-67, the *rising tension in the Arab-Israeli conflict*, and finally the *Six Day War* forced the Lebanese government to make decisions harmful to the stability of the political system. Still more ominous pressure was felt at the end of 1968, when the *presence and activities of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)* and its constituent organizations became a cardinal issue and a catalyst for other developments.

The full impact of these developments was not absorbed until the mid-1970s. In the late 1960s and very early 1970s, conservative Lebanon enjoyed an Indian summer of sorts. In the parliamentary elections of 1968, the three large Maronite parties (Pierre Jumayyil's Phalange, Camille Chamoun's National Liberals, and Raymond Eddé's National Bloc) coordinated their campaigns and enhanced their collective influence.¹⁸ Partly as a result of this, the Shihabi bloc (Nahj) was defeated in the 1970 presidential elections, and a traditional, conservative Maronite leader from northern Lebanon, Suleiman Faranjiyya, was elected president.

Faranjiyya was very much the traditional Za'im, a leader of the clan, and an important political and economic force in Zugharta. In 1957, Faranjiyya was implicated in the "Ziyara incident," in which several members and followers of the rival Duwayhi clan were killed. Faranjiyya had to flee to Syria. It was only in 1960 that Faran-

31

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

jiyya inherited the position, held previously by his brother Hamid, as the principal national representative of northern Lebanon's Maronites.¹⁹

Favorable circumstances and his initially successful cooperation with the Sunni leader of Beirut, Sa'ib Salam, resulted in a relatively smooth functioning of the political system. But the early phase of Faranjiyya's presidency did not actually signify a revival of Lebanon's traditional politics. By 1973, a series of domestic and external developments converged to produce a crisis that Faranjiyya and the groups he represented were incapable of coping with.

How is the transition from the controlled tension of the late 1960s to the civil war of 1975 to be explained? It is hardly surprising that most analyses originate in their authors' view of the essential Lebanese system. Some prophets of doom saw the collapse of the system as inevitable, expedited perhaps by extraneous factors. The sociologist Halim Barakat, who in 1973 predicted the collapse of the Lebanese system, wrote in 1976-77 that "according to the framework employed in this study, the current civil war in Lebanon is a culmination of a confrontation that has been building up between the forces of change and the forces for maintaining the established order against all odds and quite often in opposition to the professed principles of the society and government."²⁰ Those who take a positive view of the post-1943 Lebanese state and political system offer different interpretations of the 1975-76 civil war. Political scientist Iliya Harik argues that social and economic tensions in Lebanon were manageable, that the system was undergoing a transformation, and that power was subtly shifting from Christian hands to Muslim hands. Contemplating the same data as Barakat, Harik argues that his "survey of social and economic factors did not reveal any conditions serious enough to inspire such a degree of violence over such a protracted period of time." His thesis is that the Lebanese system did not collapse under its own weight but was rather the victim of extraneous influences: "it would have survived one way or another had it not been for the unusual regional violence in which it was trapped. A historical accident no doubt, but one of traumatic magnitude."²¹

The difference between these two vantage points is moot. Nor is

32

THE LEBANESE PARADOX

the difference between their implications as stark as it may appear at first sight. After all, even those who argue that the collapse of the Lebanese system was inevitable agree that the events of the early 1970s precipitated the crisis. The following account of the 1975-76 civil war will, indeed, be preceded by an interpretation of the domestic and external changes that affected Lebanon in the early 1970s.

33

CHAPTER 2

The Second Civil War, 1975–76

THE COURSE OF LEBANON'S modern history can, as we have seen, be interpreted as the inevitable outcome of conflict between contending concepts of the Lebanese entity and the Lebanese state. Alternatively, it can be viewed as the product of a permanent effort to maintain a subtle balance among domestic and external forces, a balance often preserved by external protection (the European powers until 1914, France during the mandatory period) and intervention (the United States in 1958). But in independent Lebanon, it was primarily the political leadership that had to keep domestic and external balance. The balance was upset temporarily in 1958, restored during the Shihab presidency, and maintained against increasingly difficult odds through the 1960s and early 1970s. It was then shattered by the continuous influences of the domestic and external changes that converged during Suleiman Faranjiyya's presidency.¹

Prelude to Crisis

In 1972-76, several events had an unsettling effect on Lebanon. The establishment of the PLO's principal base is particularly important. It is examined separately, below. Among other events were the oil embargo and the consequent accumulation of immense financial resources in some Arab countries. The collective power of the Arab

THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

world—and, within the Arab world, the influence of Saudi Arabia and other distinctly Islamic oil-producing states—grew. Thus Islam and Islamic solidarity assumed a clearer political role. There was a new sense of Arab and Muslim power, which in moments of high enthusiasm led various Arab leaders and writers to refer to the Arab world as a new superpower in a new international order.

This new feeling was less overwhelming than Nasserism in its heyday, but its effect on Lebanon's Muslims was comparable. Why should they continue to accept Christian hegemony in Lebanon, when elsewhere Islam and Arabism were triumphant, or nearly so? The new assertiveness of Lebanon's Muslims was evidenced by the political prominence of the leaders of the Sunni and Shi'a religious establishments. The mood was accentuated by a growth of Lebanon's Muslim majority as well as by the altered position of the Western powers in the region. In 1958, when the United States landed marines in Beirut, Lebanon perceived the intervention as a manifestation of the West's commitment to the preservation of Lebanon's political status quo. Fifteen years later, however, the repercussions of the 1958 intervention had faded, and the position of the United States and its attitude to Lebanon had changed considerably. In the mid-1970s, the United States was not very likely to intervene on behalf of a political system that many influential Americans viewed as outdated. The United States and Western Europe were seeking friends and influence in other parts of the Arab world and were not likely to jeopardize these interests for the sake of the vague notion of a Christian Lebanon.

The Middle East oil revolution in 1973-74 also added to social and economic tensions in Lebanon. The case has been argued per- suasively that these social and economic gaps were not as wide as had once been believed.² But gaps did exist, and they were widened by the influx of oil revenues and by the weakness of the state mecha- nisms that might have mitigated their impact. The political signifi- cance of these gaps was heightened by events in Beirut and in the area of the Israeli border. Only fifty miles separate the border vil- lages from Beirut. People and ideas made that trip in both directions in the early 1970s, as Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad's novel *Death in Beirut* so vividly illustrates: Through the story of a young girl drawn from her small village in southern Lebanon to Beirut, the author sketches a

35

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

gallery of characters woven into the stories of Lebanese politics and southern Lebanon during these years.³

Political life in overpopulated Beirut—a capital much too large for a country as small as Lebanon (as Robert de Caix had predicted)—was affected by the juxtaposition of a new, poor district to affluent districts, by a sharp demarcation between a predominantly Christian (eastern) part of the city and a predominantly Muslim (western) part, and by the presence of Palestinian refugees. Migration to Beirut tended to arouse or intensify sectarian animosities among people used to more homogeneous environments.⁴ The nature and patterns of political organization and activity changed among both Muslims and Christians in Beirut. The influx of a large number of Muslims and the radicalization of Beirut's Muslim residents undermined the authority of the traditional political bosses in Beirut's Muslim quarters. Many Muslims shifted their allegiance to newer, more radical parties, movements, and militias. In the 1972 parliamentary elections, Najjah Wakim, a twenty-six-year-old lawyer who ran as a Nasserite, defeated a traditionalist rival. Wakim's victory was indicative of a new mood and a new balance of power among the opponents and critics of the status quo. These trends were matched by the growth of Christian militias, particularly the Phalange, whose role as protector of the Lebanese Christian entity and of a threatened way of life became much more pronounced.

Another change stemmed from Syria's newfound political stability, which was the basis for an ambitious foreign policy, with Lebanon as one of its main targets.⁵ Syria had never given up its implicit claim over Lebanon, or at least the parts added to it in September 1920. Still, the weakness of the Syrian state during the first twenty-five years of its independence prevented Syria from exerting effective pressure on Lebanon; the emergence of a comparatively stable and effective regime made such pressure possible. Syria had both political and security concerns in Lebanon. Lebanon, as an open political society, was a threat to the closed political society of Syria. And Lebanon could be used militarily by Israel to outflank Syria's defenses or by Syria to open a new front against Israel.

But Syria's leaders also fitted Lebanon into a larger design, intended to capitalize on Egypt's declining position in the Arab

36

THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

world and to develop an independent power base for Syria that was to rely on its military strength and the extension of Syrian influence over the immediate environment: Jordan, Lebanon, and with the Palestinians. As the PLO's principal base as well as the center for several Arab political parties and movements, Lebanese territory was vital to a regime with Pan-Arab ambitions. Syria also developed a peculiar interest in Lebanon's Shi'i community. This was not merely the single largest community, but one that could have a soothing effect on Syrian domestic politics. The Syrian regime calculated that if Lebanon's Shi'i leaders acknowledged the Alawis as part of the Shi'a sect, it would help Syria's minority Alawi rulers legitimize their rule. This the Lebanese Shi'is did on a number of occasions in the summer of 1973, following the Sunni challenge to the Syrian Ba'thi regime in the winter and spring of that year. Lebanon's Shi'i leader, Musa al-Sadr, not only recognized the Alawis in Lebanon as part of his community but accused Syrian Sunnis of trying to monopolize Islam.⁶

The means employed by Damascus to interfere in Lebanon and to exert pressure on the government were commensurate with the importance attached by the Hafiz al-Asad regime to its Lebanese policy. Syria could mobilize the support of at least some of the Palestinian organizations, its Shi'i community, the pro-Syrian wing of the Lebanese Ba'th party, and Lebanon's half-million Syrian workers. Syria could also resort to such measures as cutting Lebanon off from its commercial hinterland by closing its border with Syria. And, ultimately, Syria could threaten military intervention. The cumulative effect of Syria's presence, pressure, and intervention became visible by 1973. Syria had intervened discreetly in the Lebanese elections in 1972. A year later, Damascus replaced Cairo as the external center of allegiance and guidance for Lebanese Muslims and acquired virtual veto power over major decisions concerning Lebanon's domestic and foreign policies. It became customary for Lebanese politicians to go to Damascus (in the same fashion they used to go to Cairo in the 1960s) and for the Syrian foreign minister, Abdul Halim Khaddam, to go to Beirut to mediate and arbitrate.

Syria's influence accelerated a related development in Lebanon's domestic politics—the political mobilization and radicalization of its Shi'i community. In previous decades the Shi'i community had

37

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

played an important role in the consolidation of Greater Lebanon. The French government had skillfully exploited Shi'i distrust of Arab nationalism, with its distinct Sunni flavor, and had given the Shi'i community privileges denied by Ottoman and earlier Sunni administrations. In 1926, during the Syrian revolt, the French mandatory authorities recognized formally the separate judicial status of the Shi'i community, thus demonstrating to its leaders the advantages of the Lebanese entity. The Zu'ama of the Shi'a in southern Lebanon and the Beqa (As'ads, Himadehs, and Usayrans) were content with their community's share of power and wealth and did not agitate for the larger share it was entitled to on the basis of its numerical strength. Nor did the Shi'i Mujtahidun (men of religion) challenge either the lay political leaderships' supremacy in the community or the wider political order in Lebanon.

Several developments combined in the late 1960s and early 1970s to transform Shi'i quietism and passivity in 1967, the Shi'i community was for the first time placed on the same formal footing as the Sunni community, when the parliament approved the formation of the Supreme Islamic Shi'i Council in 1969. Imam Musa al-Sadr was elected its president, and he immediately set out to fortify his position as leader of the Shi'i community and to improve his community's position in Lebanon.

Sadr's swift rise was not solely a result of his Lebanese experiences. He was born in Iran (to a Lebanese father, who had emigrated to the Shi'i centers in Iran) and was educated in Iran and Iraq. His relationship with the shah's regime and with the regime that toppled it is obscure, but he and his movement must have been influenced by the revolutionary ideas of the Iranian Mujtahidun and other Shi'i activists. Some of the latter, it should be mentioned, found temporary refuge in southern Lebanon in the early 1970s. Sadr's relationship with Hafiz al-Asad's regime in Syria was another asset. Within five years of his election, Sadr had built a powerful movement—the Movement of the Disinherited (Harakat al-mahrumin)—which undermined the traditional Shi'i leadership and articulated and presented the community's main grievances and demands: a larger share of power and more positions in the Lebanese political system, protection of Shi'i border areas, funds and development projects for Shi'i areas, and the remedying of various specific complaints.⁷

38

THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

Musa Sadr's speeches to Shi'i mass rallies in the early 1970s offer an interesting blend of demands, threats, and Shi'a motifs: "This revolution did not die in the fields of Karbala; it flowed into the life stream of the Islamic world and passed from generation to generation, even to our day. It is a deposit placed in our hands so that we may profit from it, that we draw out from it as from a source a new reform. . . . We do not want sentiments, but action . . . from today on I will not keep silent . . . we want our full rights completely. Not only posts, but the twenty written demands in the petition [submitted by the Supreme Islamic Shi'i Council]. . . . Eighteen million pounds are destined for the improvement of roads. The south has received none of this and the Beqa only one-hundred thousand pounds. O rising generations, if our demands are not met, we will set about taking them by force: if this country is not given, it must be taken."⁸

The complex and delicate mechanisms of the Lebanese polity depended on the leadership and political wisdom of the communal leaders; the political system was ill equipped to deal with the changed mood of the Shi'i community. The system had functioned through manipulation and intrigue, the eternal tools of the weak, during the presidency of Charles Helou (1964–70). His predecessor, Shihab, never quite relinquished hopes for reelection and sought to perpetuate his influence and to preserve his political camp (the Nahj). Helou, who lacked a political base of his own, sought to maximize the powers of the presidency against the Sunni prime minister. Helou's successor, Faranjiyya, though beginning suspiciously, found it increasingly difficult to get his Muslim partners to cooperate in forming cabinets and maintaining a parliamentary majority, especially after the 1972 parliamentary elections, in which Syria's influence and the rising power of the Lebanese left were apparent. Faranjiyya resorted to a variety of unorthodox measures, such as the nomination of a second-echelon Sunni leader (Amin al-Hafiz) to lead the cabinet, in defiance of the traditional Sunni leadership. But rather than solve the problem, these measures only aggravated frictions within the political establishment and inflamed communal tensions.

Furthermore, the politicians' traditional bickerings over the daily business of government were symptomatic of much graver underlying problems. Their preoccupation with preserving or achieving

39

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

influence and position evidenced a failure to read the writing on the wall and an incomprehension of the qualitative change that had taken place in Lebanese politics. A show of unity and restraint by Lebanon's traditional politicians may not have stemmed the tide, but its absence compounded the difficulties and added a mournful touch to the course of events that in retrospect is seen as a prelude to the civil war. Older politicians, some of whom had begun their political careers thirty or forty years earlier, were clearly incapable of coping with the most serious threat to the Lebanese system; and yet, in the best tradition of *anciens regimes*, they were powerful enough to block access to others.

The Palestinians

The unsettling effect of the changes mentioned above was magnified by the presence in Lebanon of the chief bases and headquarters of the PLO and most of its constituent organizations.⁹ Until 1968, the Lebanese polity viewed the Palestinian problem as essentially one of refugees—some 180,000 of them came to Lebanon during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948–49. Successive Lebanese governments refused to integrate the refugees into Lebanon's own population, both because this was the policy decreed by the Arab consensus and because of Lebanese Christian opposition to such an increase in Lebanon's Muslim population. Although the Palestinians provided most of the membership of the country's radical extraparliamentary opposition movements in the 1950s, the refugees seemed not to be a danger to the foundations of the Lebanese political system. A decade later, however, the Palestine Liberation Movement developed into the first effective autonomous Palestinian national movement since the collapse of the Palestinian Arab community in 1949. It established its headquarters in Beirut and began to construct military and operational bases there and elsewhere in Lebanon. It organized the Palestinian population in the camps and in other centers in Lebanon into autonomous extraterritorial entities. And, with the blessing and support of Egypt and Syria, it launched raids against Israel from southern Lebanon and against Israeli targets outside the Middle East from Beirut.

40

THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

Egypt and Syria saw the Palestinians as a strategic component in the Arab-Israeli conflict and preferred them operating from Jordan and Lebanon. Jordan had become the PLO's principal territorial base, and the Jordanian-Israeli border and cease-fire lines became an active front during the 1968–70 Arab-Israeli War of Attrition. In the late 1960s, Lebanon's and Jordan's relations with the Palestinians evolved along parallel lines. In Jordan, controlled cooperation between the Hashemite regime and the Palestinians was replaced by virtual Palestinian autonomy, which defied Jordanian sovereignty and threatened the survival of the Jordanian state. In Lebanon, the severity of the PLO challenge to the existing order was revealed in December 1968; Palestinians from Beirut attacked El Al planes, and an Israeli commando unit retaliated by raiding Beirut's international airport.

The raid on Beirut's airport was in line with the thesis underlying most of Israel's retaliatory actions since the early 1950s: that the neighboring Arab states, as sovereign states, were responsible for activities originating in or carried through their territories. In this case, the purpose was to demonstrate to Lebanon the price it would pay for the freedom of operation given to or seized by the Palestinians. But the Israelis should have realized that the Lebanese state was too weak to resist the pressure of PLO supporters. In November 1969, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the leader of Arab nationalism, hosted a meeting of the supreme commander of the Lebanese army and a PLO delegation, and they signed the Cairo Agreement, intended to regulate PLO presence and activities in Lebanon. But only a magic formula could have achieved its stated aims—to preserve both PLO autonomy and Lebanese sovereignty. In reality the Agreement legitimized PLO freedom of action and did little to protect Lebanon's interests.

In 1970, the respective courses of Jordan's and Lebanon's relations with the Palestinians diverged. In September 1970, Jordan's military and political elites decided to stop the corrosion of their state's authority by the Palestinian organization. Taking advantage of the PLO's mistakes and provocations, the Jordanians precipitated a confrontation with the Palestinian organization and drove it out of Jordan. But Lebanon did not have the advantages of a cohesive ruling elite, a strong army, and unambiguous external (American

41

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

and Israeli) support. Jordan's success, moreover, resulted in greater pressure on Lebanon, as the only base contiguous to Israel now available to the Palestinians. Thus many Palestinians expelled from Jordan moved through Syria to Lebanon.

As events in December 1968 and their sequels show, this new reality was a manifold challenge to the Lebanese state. For one thing, the state's authority and sovereignty were subverted by extraterritorial enclaves and an armed force that, unlike the traditional Lebanese militias, was not integrated into the political system. Second, relations between Christians and Muslims were further exacerbated by their different attitudes to the Palestinian issue: many Muslims regarded the provision of a refuge for the Palestinians as a sacred duty as well as a litmus test for the country's adherence to the National Pact of 1943; but many Christians regarded it as a cynical abuse of Lebanon's weakness by Egypt, Syria, and other Arab states. (Christian opposition, however, refrained in the late 1960s from expressing its opinion explicitly, professing support for the Palestinians, and arguing only that other Arab countries should also allow the Palestinians to operate against Israel from their borders.) Third, the presence and activities of the Palestinian organizations, Marxist ones in particular, reinforced the weak Lebanese left, turning it into a formidable threat to the system. And finally, as southern Lebanon became a Palestinian base and a battleground for Israel and the Palestinians, the region's predominantly Shi'i population began to move northward, further disrupting Beirut's daily and political life. Lebanon enjoyed a brief respite in late 1970 and part of 1971. The Palestinians, weak and discredited, avoided a direct confrontation with the Lebanese government, now headed by Faranjiyya. His tough, conservative policies did not go unnoticed by the Palestinians. But their activities were renewed before 1971 was over.

The Lebanese political elite was aware of the toll exacted by the perpetuation of the status quo, but its members did not believe they could modify it significantly. Any attempt to impose new political conditions was bound to be opposed by the Palestinians, their Lebanese supporters and allies, and probably Syria as well. The conventional wisdom was that even if the Lebanese army could defeat or restrain the Palestinians—not a likely occurrence—the economic and political price for such a victory would be prohibitive. It

42

THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

seemed, therefore, preferable to put up with the gradual, less shocking damage that the Palestinians had been inflicting on the tissue of Lebanese public life since 1968. This view was bolstered by the Lebanese army's abortive attempt in the spring of 1973 to re-strain the Palestinian organizations, stimulated by the outburst of PLO violence following the successful Israeli raid on PLO targets and leaders in Beirut. But the Lebanese army's siege of Palestinian bases had to be lifted when Syria closed its border with Lebanon, cutting Lebanon off from its Arab hinterland and thereby serving notice that even more alarming measures might be taken.

A new Lebanese-Palestinian agreement endeavoring to interpret and implement the 1969 Cairo Agreement was negotiated in the Malkert Hotel in Beirut, but it too failed to clarify or improve the situation. Furthermore, the political and diplomatic sequels of the October War—the rise in the PLO's status, the beginning of the Arab-Israeli peace settlement, and the acrimonious inter-Arab bickering—exacerbated the pressure that the Palestinian problem exerted on Lebanon and hastened the outbreak of the 1975 war.

Four Phases of the War

In the spring of 1975, the Lebanese political system finally collapsed under the persistent pressure of rival internal and external forces. The endless demands and ultimatums, acts of political violence, transgressions against the state's authority and sovereignty, and other manifestations of social and political tensions developed into a civil war that lasted eighteen months. The course of the war can be divided into four distinct phases.

Transition, April to June 1975

An armed clash between radical Palestinians and the Phalange militia in the Beirut quarter of Ayn al-Rumani opened this phase. The fighting between the Phalanges (who were joined later by the militia of the National Liberals) and the Palestinians, who have since been identified mostly as members of the Popular Front for the

43

The PLO in Lebanon late '68:

PLO's influence in Lebanon was overwhelming

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

Liberation of Palestine, continued despite various mediation efforts and cease-fire agreements. The *bone of contention* seemed to be the Palestinian organizations' freedom of action in Lebanon. The two essentially Christian militias were defending not so much the violated authority of the Lebanese state as the pattern of life in the Christian neighborhoods of Beirut. Their Palestinian rivals were protecting not merely the position and privileges they had seized in recent years but also the political environment that had facilitated their acquisition. Much of the political and diplomatic activity in April was devoted to an attempt to reach a Palestinian-Lebanese modus vivendi based on the Cairo and Malkert agreements. A compromise was announced on April 29, and a joint Lebanese-Palestinian committee was formed to implement it. Its effort turned out to be yet one more abortive attempt to devise a workable Palestinian-Lebanese modus vivendi.

Violent clashes also occurred in Tripoli between supporters of President Faranjiyya and his traditional rival, Rashid Karami, that city's Sunni political leader. Prime Minister Rashid al-Sulh's cabinet was torn by controversy, and he resigned on May 18. The president tried to resolve the crisis by resorting to an unorthodox procedure, nominating as prime minister a reserve officer, Brigadier General Nur al-Din al-Rifai and appointing a cabinet composed of seven other officers and one civilian. It was of no avail, and Faranjiyya had to ask Karami to form a government. On June 30, Karami formed a "government of communal balance," in which he himself held the defense portfolio, while Camille Chamoun became minister of the interior. But by that time the crisis had developed into an all-out civil war.

All-out War, June 1975 to January 1976

By the end of June 1975, Lebanon was in a full-fledged civil war, and the protagonists had crystallized into two broad coalitions. The definition of these two coalitions and the terminology used have become one of the most controversial aspects in the literature dealing with the Lebanese civil war. The coupling of right wing with Christian and left wing with Muslim, which characterized much of the

44

THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

doctrinaire and simpleminded writing on the war, has by now been practically discarded.¹⁰ But there remains a tendency and a temptation to define a camp of mostly Christians as Christian and one of mostly Muslims as Muslim. Such definitions obscure the fact that neither camp was constituted on a truly communal or religious basis and reduce their aims to communal or sectarian ones. Rather, it should be realized that these camps have political aims; the largely Christian camp, a status quo coalition, sought to preserve the traditional Lebanese political system, and the largely Muslim camp, a revisionist coalition, sought to transform or overthrow that system.

Several developments in July and August highlighted the severity of the civil war's new phase. Fighting between various Lebanese factions, but primarily between Christian and Muslim groups, took place in Beirut, Zahle, Tripoli, Akkar, and other localities (see Map 3). Shi'i leader al-Sadr announced the formation of a Shi'i militia, al-Amal (Hope). And on the political front, the Muslims announced that Karami intended to run for the presidency and then demanded a change in the electoral system and the abolition of confessionalism.

In September and October, the fighting continued while "a national dialogue committee" established by Prime Minister Karami tried in vain to reach an agreement on social and political reforms and on the PLO's status in Lebanon. The cabinet, despite its frequent and often acrimonious disagreements, served as another forum for leaders of the two camps to meet. President Faranjiyya and Minister of the Interior Chamoun represented the hard core of the status quo coalition. Prime Minister Karami found himself in an ambivalent position. Although he was an important member of the revisionist coalition which demanded far-reaching reforms in the Lebanese political system, his position like that of other traditional politicians of his generation and standing was being undermined by younger and more radical Muslims. Karami and his coalition escalated their demands, but they were seeking to restructure rather than destroy the Lebanese political system.

One of the sharpest points of contention between Karami and his rival Maronite partners in the government concerned the role of the Lebanese army. Its senior officers were mostly Christian and were close in outlook to the leadership of the status quo coalition. Yet the

45

Map 3. Lebanon's virtual partition into areas of control following the 1975–76 civil war.

## THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

army did not intervene in the civil war. This was the result not only of a lesson learned in 1958—that a nonpoliticized army could be built—but a realization that the army's intervention on the side of the status quo coalition would split the coalition, would provoke Karami to resign, and would lead to all-out civil war and the probable intervention of the Palestinians and Syria. A compromise formula was tried whereby Faranjiyya and Karami agreed (1) to appoint a new commander-in-chief (General Hanna Said, who was considered less political than his predecessor, (2) to give Karami greater authority over the army, and (3) to allow the Lebanese army a limited military effort to try to bring an end to the fighting. But this was not successful. The army's intervention in September and October did not prevent further intensification of the fighting. The army's protracted passivity in the face of an acute crisis together with political pressure led to the army's disintegration in 1976.

By the end of 1975 a number of political patterns could be picked out in the apparent chaos. Having realized that they could neither end nor win the armed conflict, the leaders of the status quo coalition began to contemplate and then to discuss publicly the notion of partition. This was hardly a status quo position, but rather a return to the idea of a small, predominantly Christian, Lebanon. The Maronite political leadership did not relish such a course of action but raised it as a last resort should the preservation of the Lebanese political system prove utterly impossible. The Maronites' last resort was anathema to Lebanese Muslims, Palestinians, and Syrians, because a compact Christian state in a partitioned and smaller Lebanon was bound to be a "second Israel," a "Maronite Zion," and its establishment was to be opposed with all means. Although the Palestinians were appalled by the possibility of partition, their growing involvement in the fighting on the revisionist side strengthened the Maronites' conviction that the old Lebanon could no longer be sustained. It also helped to bring about a change in Syrian policy.¹¹

Until December 1975, Syria's role in the Lebanese crisis and civil war was essentially similar to that of the Palestinians. The Syrian regime had also contributed to the collapse of the traditional order in Lebanon, and thereafter it pursued a policy of extending support to the revisionist elements while occasionally mediating between the

47

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

warring parties in an effort to prevent a total collapse of the Lebanese political system. But by December that policy was no longer tenable. Asad was determined to prevent both Lebanon's partition and a clear-cut victory by the radical revisionists and their Palestinian supporters. Such a victory would have sandwiched Syria between two radical neighbors, one of whom, Iraq, was a bitter enemy and would, moreover, probably provoke Israeli intervention on the side of the beleaguered Christians. Were such an intervention to take place, Syria would have to choose between two equally unappealing alternatives—to fight Israel or to suffer the humiliation of failing to do so

To obviate such a choice, Asad decided to intervene militarily in the Lebanese civil war, but his decision also had broader political implications. This was not a conspiracy, which many contributors to the polemical literature on the Lebanese civil war claimed as an explanation of the complexities of Syria's policy in Lebanon and its about-face in 1976. Nor was it then a drive to realize the vision of a Greater Syria centered in Damascus. It was the product of a new Syrian foreign policy devised in the aftermath of and under the impact of the October War. Mention has already been made of Asad's determination to develop an independent power base and of Lebanon's place in that vision. Its new resources—a strong army and influence over Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinians—enabled Syria to diversify its foreign policy and, while keeping a close relationship with the Soviet Union, to develop advantageous relations with the United States and the rich oil-producing Arab countries. By intervening in Lebanon and resolving the crisis, Asad would not only end a situation that threatened Syrian interests but would also demonstrate that Syria was the most effective Arab power in that part of the Middle East.¹²¹

Moreover, the move was acceptable to the United States, which weighed it against the prospect of taking a more active role itself and also against other risks of a worsening crisis. Washington's endorsement was essential for Asad, a ruler capable of bold, not to say reckless, decisions, but who usually took them after lengthy consideration. American acquiescence in Syria's intervention in Lebanon actually meant that the intervention would be supported by Lebanon's Western guarantor. Even more important perhaps was U.S.

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THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

mediation between Syria and Israel, which resulted in securing Israel's tacit agreement to Syria's intervention in Lebanon in return for some limitations on the scope of that intervention. The indirect Syrian-Israeli understanding was further elaborated in 1976 and came to be known in Israeli political parlance as "the red line" in Lebanon.

The Red Line

Syrian Intervention, January to May 1976

Syria's military intervention in the Lebanese civil war proved to be one of its most intriguing and consequential aspects. In addition to altering the course of the Lebanese crisis, it had far-reaching repercussions for Syria's domestic politics and for the pattern of Middle Eastern regional politics. Its scope and effect on Syria's relations with the superpowers make it an instructive case study in interventionism. And Syria's conflict with the PLO and the Lebanese left was one of the decade's most significant developments in Arab politics.

Syrian intervention in Lebanon unfolded in six successive stages, the initial intervention and the confusion it created, Syria's actual support for a moderate reform plan, the ensuing conflict with Syria's former allies, their attempted rapprochement, its failure, and the Syrian regime's decision to launch a direct all-out military offensive against its former Lebanese allies.

Syria's participation in the fighting in Lebanon began in the second week of January, when it dispatched units of the Syrian Palestine Liberation Army (PLA), composed of Palestinians theoretically affiliated with the PLO but which for all practical purposes were part and parcel of the Syrian army. The intervention occurred as the fighting grew worse, particularly in Beirut. The warring parties had clearly adapted their respective strategies to the possibility of partition. The Phalanges and their allies besieged Palestinian camps sited in Christian areas in Beirut and destroyed Karantina, a predominantly Muslim quarter, which separated the Christian area just north of Beirut from the port area. The Palestinians, and the revisionist and leftist militias allied with them, captured and devas-

49

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

tated the Christian town of Damour, just south of Beirut, which
dominated the coastal road to Sidon and Tyre.

At first Syria's involvement was perceived as support of Syria's
traditional allies and clients and as designed to obstruct plans for
partition. The Syrian regime's newly acquired leverage encouraged
it to formulate plans to resolve both the Lebanese domestic conflict
and the controversy over the PLO's status in Lebanon. Thus, while
the first PLA units to enter Lebanon fought on the side of the revi-
sionist coalition, the Syrians were soon urging a cease-fire (January
21), and on February 7, in a formal joint communiqué with President
Faranjiyya, Syria guaranteed the implementation of the Cairo
Agreement. It was also announced that the two coalitions had
agreed on the broad lines of political reform for Lebanon.

Syria had already, on January 21, published a reform plan for
Lebanon. It was apparently well received by Kamal Junblatt, the
most prominent leader of the Lebanese left, and subsequently by
the Lebanese "Muslim summit," which met at the end of January to
decide the Muslim position toward a new national pact. At a com-
parable Maronite summit, Faranjiyya exerted a moderating influ-
ence over his colleagues and was given a mandate to reach an agree-
ment with Syria. This was accomplished on February 7, and on
February 14 the Lebanese president released the Reform Document.
The document retained Christian supremacy through the presiden-
cy but reduced the president's power vis-à-vis the Sunni prime
minister and equalized the number of Christian and Muslim depu-
ties in parliament. The confessional system was to be limited (but
not entirely abolished), and electoral and socioeconomic reforms
were promised. A cryptic promise to amend the citizenship law
implied the possibility of profound changes in the future, including
possibly the integration of more Palestinians into the Lebanese
system.

The reforms were moderate and acceptable to the bulk of the
Maronite leadership, with the notable exception of Raymond Eddé,
who emerged as the most outspoken Maronite critic of Syria's new
role and position in Lebanon. His colleagues, however, viewed the
reform plan as a tolerable compromise, judging Syria's influence to
be a lesser evil than the other likely alternatives. Syria's own accep-
tance of the compromise formula was a telling sign of the changes

50

THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

that had prompted the Asad regime's intervention in Lebanon. A
Syrian government that had become involved in Lebanon in coordi-
nation with the United States could not support, let alone take an
active part in, a radical transformation of the Lebanese system. By
1976, the Ba'thi regime, pursuing a domestic policy of economic and
political liberalization and seeking cooperation with the rich oil-
producing Arab states, had abandoned many of the radical features
it still retained after 1970. If the purpose of the Syrian intervention
was to preserve a workable Lebanese system, the status quo coali-
tion had to have an important role in it.

Syria already had comfortable, even intimate, working relations
with several Maronite leaders. A dialogue had developed between
the Syrian Ba'thi regime and the Phalanges, mainly through Karim
Pakandouni, a lawyer of Armenian descent. On the Phalangist
spectrum, Pakandouni was a prominent member of the moderate
wing, which advocated social and economic reforms in Lebanon
and a dialogue with the Lebanese Muslim communities, the Pales-
tinians, and the Arab states. The Syrians had an even closer relation-
ship with Faranjiyya, who during his exile in Syria in the 1950s
found refuge in the Alawi area, close to the Lebanese border. His
and his family's friendship with the Asad family dates back to that
period. Later, the friendship between Asad and Faranjiyya, as the
respective presidents of Syria and Lebanon, became an important
political fact. It was also a curious turn of events in the modern
history of the Levant. In the 1920s and 1930s it was often suggested
that France, incapable of coming to terms with the Sunni Arab na-
tionalism prevalent in the Syrian interior, ought to base its position
in the Levant on a coastal "rampart" or "anvil" of Alawis and Mar-
onites. In the 1970s, the Alawis ruled in Damascus and were trying
to develop an alliance with the Maronites, particularly with those in
the coastal region contiguous to the Alawi region.¹³

All this did not escape the notice of Syria's traditional friends and
allies, who for various reasons became increasingly suspicious and
critical of Syrian motives and conduct. The compromise that was
acceptable to the defenders of the status quo was rejected by many
of their opponents as offering too little to a cause which to them was
not only just but also victorious. Syrian arguments that in the long
run victory was assured primarily by Syria's presence and new role

51

Reform
Document

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

in Lebanon were to no avail. They rather sharpened the fears of Syria's rivals in the Arab world (notably Iraq), the PLO, and such leaders of the Lebanese left as Kamal Junblatt, that Syria was in Lebanon to stay. Syria's Arab rivals saw this as further self-aggravization by a hostile regime. For Palestinians, the danger was still greater. Syria, unlike most of the Arab states, claimed a special position with regard to the Palestinian issue, arguing—meekly at that stage—that Palestine was, after all, a part of southern Syria.¹⁴ Syria's leadership did try in fact to extend its control over the Palestinians as part of Asad's new regional policy. In 1975, a Syrian proposal to unify the PLO's political and military commands was gently but firmly rejected by the Palestinians. Syrian domination of Lebanon, the PLO's only autonomous territorial base, was therefore seen by its leaders as a grave threat to their independence. As for Junblatt, his fear of Syrian domination was reinforced by his strong criticism of the Ba'thi regime's drift away from the ideas and principles of the party and the adoption of what he saw as personal, pragmatic, corrupt, and sectarian policies. In his posthumously published "legacy," Junblatt deals at length with Syria's and Asad's personal policy in the Lebanese crisis. But his criticism extended beyond this. It was the criticism of an Arab leftist, disenchanted with the pragmatism of those Arab regimes that a decade earlier had constituted the progressive or revolutionary Arab camp. "And the truth is," wrote Junblatt, "that we can ask whether all these 'progressive' Arab regimes in the region were genuinely interested in the establishment of democracy and socialism."¹⁵

The first challenge to Syria's policy came from rebellious Lebanese officers. First a Muslim lieutenant, Ahmed al-Khatib, deserted from the Lebanese army and formed Lebanon's Arab Army. Composed mostly of Lebanese Muslims, Khatib's army broke the January 21 cease-fire. On March 11, Brigadier General Aziz al-Ahdab, the Sunni commander of the Beirut area, announced a coup d'état, which, he said, was directed primarily against President Faranjiyya, but which was in fact aimed at the latter's Syrian allies. Faranjiyya's political future now became a bitterly contested issue. The revisionist forces were united in demanding his immediate resignation. He refused to resign, especially in circumstances which would have depicted him as the chief culprit in his country's tragedy. He enjoyed the support not only of his Maronite government partners but also of the Syrians, who refused to agree to his departure before the successor of their choice was elected—Elyas Sarkis. Sarkis had been the chief aide to former president Shihab and later the governor of Lebanon's central bank. In 1970, he was the presidential candidate for the Shihabi bloc, but he was defeated by Faranjiyya. In the spring of 1976, he resurfaced as a Maronite politician, trusted and supported by the Syrians.

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THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

Syria's disagreements with the Palestinians and the Lebanese left soon degenerated into an uninhibited political and military conflict. Since Asad had intervened in Lebanon not only to avert an imminent worsening of the crisis but also to demonstrate his ability to do so, the collapse of his mediation and settlement threatened to become a humiliating defeat. The American mediation effort by Dean Brown, and Egypt's, Iraq's, and Libya's efforts to obstruct Syrian policy, seemed to underscore that point. And so in March, April, and May, Asad dispatched al-Sa'iqa and PLA units to Lebanon to aid those who accepted his policy—the conservative status quo coalition—against those who rejected it—the Lebanese left and the Palestinians.

The one agreement between Syria and the Palestinians to end the fighting, reached on April 15, failed, and the Ba'thi regime encountered great political difficulties in explaining to Syrian and Arab public opinion how an Arab ideological party, successor to one of the great legacies in the history of the Arab left, could fight on the side of conservative pro-Western militias against the Lebanese left and the PLO. Damascus developed an argument that the Lebanese left (under Junblatt, who was also the leader of the Druze community) was actually pursuing a traditional sectarian policy and that the PLO had arrogated to itself the right to represent the Palestinian cause (of which Syria was no less a custodian) and had become embroiled in Lebanese affairs that should not have concerned an organization dedicated to the liberation of Palestine. The need to justify and legitimize a controversial intervention and a controversial policy in Lebanon induced Asad and his regime to develop and emphasize themes that were either implicit or inconsequential during the early phases of Syria's intervention. Most notable among them was the notion of a Greater Syria. As we saw, Asad's decision

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THE WAR FOR LEBANON

to intervene in Lebanon was not made in order to implement that
notion. But when the conflict with the Palestinians and the Leba-
nese left developed, this vision became useful to justify their sub-
jugation. The development of this concept can be traced in Asad's
own speeches in 1976 (culminating in the speech of July 20) and in
the pronouncements and writings of other spokesmen for his re-
gime. It was given its fullest expression a few months later by a
knowledgeable and sympathetic British journalist:

Asad has been a member in the Ba'th party, dedicated to Arab unity for 30 years. Moreover, the fact that he rules in Damascus, the heartland of Arabism, makes him heir to a remorseless drive to reach out beyond Syria's boundaries. His current unionist campaign is two-pronged. First he sees Syria's two immediate neighbors, Lebanon and Jordan, as a natural extension of its territory, vital to its defence. This three-nation grouping is already a *fait accompli*, although in the low-profile Asad manner, without fanfare. Asad now rules by proxy in Lebanon, while the progressive integration with Jordan is well advanced. If the Palestinians ever recover a West Bank homeland, they will inevitably join the complex.¹⁶

Syrian Invasion and an All-Arab Settlement, May to October 1976

Unable to impose his will with the limited power of the PLA and al-Sa'qa units, Asad decided at the end of May to dispatch a powerful Syrian column into Lebanon and put an end to the agonizing dilemma. This was not an easy decision to take, and Asad struggled with it for quite some time. His conclusion did not escape his Soviet allies, who objected to the contemplated invasion both because it would result in a conflict between their local allies and because they interpreted it as a move oriented more toward the United States than toward them. Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin decided to come to Damascus on June 1, but this only prompted Asad to launch his invasion into Lebanon on May 31 so as to present his visitor with a fait accompli. It was then characteristic of Syria's attitude to the Soviet Union that Asad was ready to jeopardize his relations with Moscow to preserve the sovereignty of his government's decision-making.¹⁷

54

THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

The invasion of Lebanon was a military failure. Both in Mount
Lebanon and in the urban areas of Beirut, Tripoli, and Sidon, the
Palestinians and Lebanese left were able to inflict heavy casualties
on the Syrian forces, who were ill prepared for the nature of the
terrain and the ferocity of the opposition. An invasion calculated to
put a swift end to an embarrassing political situation thus served in
fact to aggravate it. The political difficulties inherent in Syria's direct
offensive against her Palestinian and Lebanese allies were com-
pounded by the Syrian units' poor performance and ultimate
failure. ¹⁸ The cooperation between Syria and the Maronite militias
was now overt, as the latter took advantage of the failure of the
Syrian forces and took the lead in the offensive. Their main effort
was directed at the Palestinian refugee camp of Tel al-Za'tar in
Beirut, which fell in August after a two months' siege. To the Sunni
majority in Syria, this was an intolerable collusion by two minority
groups, the Syrian Alawis and the Lebanese Maronites, against
oppressed Sunni majorities. So harsh was the criticism of his Leba-
nese policy in Syria, that Asad had to address it in an atypically
direct fashion and in great and revealing detail in the remarkable
speech he delivered on July 20. ¹⁹

As long as the fighting continued indecisively, no other Arab state intervened in Lebanon, although a small Arab peacekeeping force, eventually arrived, which exercised no influence over the course of events. Small Libyan and Iraqi contingents joined Syria's opponents. Southern Lebanon and the area of the Lebanese-Israeli border were unusually calm, and a direct link was established between the region's isolated population and Israel.

On July 29, yet another attempt to reach a Syrian-Palestinian
agreement was made, but it too failed. Subsequently Syria and its
Lebanese allies directed their energies to achieving a military victory
before September 23, when Sarkis, whose election to the presidency
was secured by Syria in May, was to begin his term of office.
Damascus launched a second all-out military offensive against Pal-
estinian and leftist strongholds in Mount Lebanon and the coastal
areas. The military lessons of Syria's debacle in June were applied,
and resistance to the Syrian onslaught was far less effective; in two
weeks the opposition was on the verge of total defeat. But rather
than consummate its military victory, Syria attended the Six Parties

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THE WAR FOR LEBANON

Summit, convened by Saudi Arabia in Riyad between October 16 and 18 to find a solution to the Lebanese crisis. The Saudis argued that it was time to put an end to a trauma that had shamed and paralyzed the Arab world for such a long time. The 1976 American presidential elections were to take place within a month, and the new administration should be pressured to pursue a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict more favorable to the Arabs than Kissinger's step-by-step diplomacy. But to accomplish that, the Arabs should settle their differences and revive the cooperation that had facilitated their achievements in 1973 and 1974. For that purpose, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait invited Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, and the PLO to join them in Riyad.

Asad went to Riyad primarily in response to Saudi Arabian pressure. But he may also have realized that a total humiliation of the PLO by Syria and its Lebanese allies would be unacceptable to Syrian and Arab opinion. He emerged from the Riyad conference and its immediate sequel in Cairo with impressive achievements. The six participants decided (and their decisions were accepted by most of the Arab states) on an immediate cease-fire and a gradual normalization in Lebanon. Arab troops (the Arab Deterrent Force), some thirty thousand strong, composed mainly of Syrian troops, were to maintain peace and order in Lebanon. They would be under the nominal authority of Lebanon's president and would be financed by the oil-producing states. The Cairo Agreement was to be implemented; all armed forces were to return to their pre-April 1975 locations and all heavy weapons put under the control of the Arab Deterrent Force.

Shooting, other acts of violence, and political quarrels continued during the next few weeks, but the all-out fighting of the previous eighteen months came to an end. President Sarkis began to form his administration, and in December Salim al-Huss, the Sunni president of the development bank, formed a cabinet composed of four Christian and four Muslim members. It was defined as a nonpolitical technocrats' cabinet, Foreign Minister Fuad Butrus being the only known politician in its ranks. These beginnings of political normalization and the decline in the level of violence encouraged a gradual return to everyday life and the restoration of services, economic activities, and the infrastructure.

56

THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

Consequences of the Civil War

A year and a half of civil war and foreign military intervention resulted in a terrible loss of human life (well over ten thousand, according to some estimates), the wounding of many others, and massive physical destruction. The atrocities committed during the war and the conviction that Christian Lebanon was destroyed led many, particularly Christians, to emigrate. The flow of money to support various militias and factions and Lebanon's interaction with Syria's black market had preserved, paradoxically, not only a certain affluence in Lebanon but even a stable rate of exchange for the Lebanese pound. But notwithstanding this paradox and the rapid rate of rehabilitation, Lebanon lost many of its functions as a financial, cultural, and communications center.

Despite many predictions made in the course of the civil war and its immediate aftermath, the Lebanese state and political system were not destroyed; but they were exhausted. The war had turned the state into an almost empty shell. The authority of Lebanon's president, government, parliament, and central bureaucracy was limited to a small part of Beirut. Lebanon's territory was in fact divided among external forces and local baronies. Syria controlled and administered directly large parts of eastern and northern Lebanon; an autonomous Christian entity developed north of Beirut, with its capital in Jounieh; a comparable protostate dominated by the Palestinians and their Lebanese allies existed south of Beirut; in the southernmost part of Lebanon, along the Israeli border, Major Sa'd Haddad and his pro-Israeli militia vied with the PLO and leftist militias for control; in the far north, the Faranjiyya family and the Sunni political bosses and militia leaders maintained their respective fiefs.

Nor did the Lebanese state have the power to impose its authority. The Lebanese army had disintegrated in 1976, and its remnants were divided between pro-Syrian elements and supporters of the Christian militias. All efforts to reconstruct the army led in a vicious circle, characteristic of Lebanon's political life in the postwar period: the army could not be restored without a consensus, this required political normalization, which could not proceed in the absence of an effective and credible state system, which needed the backing of

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THE WAR FOR LEBANON

an apolitical, militarily effective army. The course of the civil war and the interaction between rival domestic and external forces set up a balance that prevented both the Lebanese state's transformation and its restoration. It remained an entity in abeyance, one which those same forces, each according to its own outlook, would try either to preserve as an indispensable political framework or to modify.

Yet even greater harm was done to the delicate fabric of the Lebanese political system. The 1958 civil war had been shorter, less violent, and its sectarian component was mitigated by other more urgent issues. Most important, despite the role played by the United States in ending that crisis, the compromise solution in 1958 was an authentically Lebanese formula, based on the prestige of a national leader and national institutions and on a common belief in the merits of the Lebanese system, which the lessons of the crisis had strengthened. These elements were conspicuously absent in 1976. The war was long and brutal, and despite the mixed composition of the two rival coalitions, it had distinct communal and religious dimensions. Religious hatred and fanaticism manifested in the "identity card killings": individuals were kidnapped or arrested at roadblocks and executed if the religion designated on their identity cards was not in accord with their captors'. Christians and Muslims fled isolated and besieged areas to areas where their communities predominated. The sectarian character of the war was accentuated by the fact that many Greek Catholics and some Greek Orthodox Christians came to accept the hegemony of the Maronites and their militias as the effective protectors of a larger Christian community.

The failure to implement any structural reforms, as well as some of the changes brought about by the war, widened the gap between the institutional framework and the reality of Lebanese politics. In both Christian and Muslim communities, power shifted from traditional politicians and factions to new groups, particularly to armed militias and their leaders. Since the early 1970s, and even more so after 1975, a political leader or grouping devoid of military power was irrelevant. The parliamentary elections scheduled for 1976 could not be held that year (or, for that matter, later), so the parliament elected in 1972 was prolonged. This provided the Lebanese

58

THE SECOND CIVIL WAR

state and political system with a legitimate formal institutional framework, but the membership of the 1972 parliament was far from representative of those actually engaged in Lebanese politics at the end of 1976. Lebanon's political life was actually conducted through other channels, many of them not purely Lebanese. The Lebanese system's reliance on a balance of outside forces and its vulnerability to extraneous intervention were noted above as traditional characteristics. The events of 1975-76 altered the external balance and enabled a foreign power, Syria, to acquire an actual hegemony over Lebanon. The United States and Israel both demonstrated their unwillingness to interfere militarily on behalf of Lebanon's Christian communities and acquiesced, the latter more reluctantly than the former, in Syria's intervention. During the Arab summit conferences in October 1976, the Arab leadership came to tolerate and even to finance Syria's new role in Lebanon. As part of the same settlement, the Syrian government had to accept the PLO's political role and continued autonomy in Lebanon. Although the PLO was weakened and discredited by its involvement in a second Arab civil war in six years, it remained a crucial actor in the Lebanese system, one that had to be taken into consideration in any attempt to resolve the Lebanese crisis.

The Syrian and PLO positions in Lebanon stimulated Israel to greater interest and involvement. Syria's implicit recognition of Israeli interests in Lebanon was the quid pro quo for Israel's conditional acceptance of Syria's intervention in Lebanon. Israel provided military aid to the militias of the status quo coalition and developed a relationship—initially humanitarian and subsequently political and military—with the population in the Lebanese-Israeli border area. In the conditions created by the settlement in October 1976—a subtle continuation of the conflict over Lebanon's future and a prominent role for Syria and the PLO—Israel was likely to increase its involvement in order to affect the outcome of the struggle for Lebanon and to limit both Syria's and the PLO's influence. Their triangular conflict was to constitute an important aspect of the Lebanese crisis in the years 1977-82. But before turning to it, a more systematic survey of the Lebanese political scene is called for.

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CHAPTER 3

## Political Parties and Factions

THIS ANALYSIS OF the domestic Lebanese conflict, which developed into civil war in the summer of 1975, distinguishes the two warring camps as *status quo* and *revisionist*. The same distinction provides a useful framework for a closer scrutiny of the parties and factions of these two camps. But it should be noted that about a year later, in the early summer of 1976, Syrian intervention resulted in the formation of a third grouping, Syria's clients and supporters.

### The Status Quo Coalition

The status quo coalition relied on the Maronite leaders, for neither the Maronite community as a whole nor all other Christian communities supported its political line. In the summer of 1976, these Maronite leaders formalized and institutionalized their cooperation by establishing the Lebanese Front.¹ The dominant political groups within the Maronite community, deriving from traditional outlooks and reflecting responses to the latest crisis, fall into five categories.

Parties with Christian-Maronite orientation and their affiliated militias were the backbone of the Maronite community's political and military power. They included the Phalanges, headed by Pierre Jumayyil, Camille Chamoun's National Liberals, and Suleiman Faranjiyya's political clientele. In each of these groups, prominent roles were played by the leaders' sons (Bashir and Amin Jumayyil, Dany and Dori Chamoun, Tony Faranjiyya), which accentuated their traditionalist image. Despite their different policies and personal interests, the three groups and their leaders acted with rela-

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## POLITICAL PARTIES AND FACTIONS

tive harmony during the height of the crisis. In the late summer of 1976, when military victory seemed certain and the president elect, Sarkis, was about to begin his term, signs of friction and renewed competition appeared.

The other four categories were the Maronite religious establishment; recently formed communal Maronite groups; Christian leadership in the army; and accommodationist Christian leaders, of whom Sarkis was the most prominent.

### The Phalange

The Phalanges Libanaises (Kataib) was clearly the single most important actor among Lebanon's Christians in the events leading to the crisis.² The party was established by Pierre Jumayyil in the mid-1930s as a radical, vigilante youth movement in defense of the Lebanese entity. As its name suggests, the movement's original ideology and structure were influenced by the ultranationalist and fascist models of the decade. But other elements proved more durable and important in the party's and Jumayyil's later career. Jumayyil, a pharmacist by profession, came from Bikfayya, a small town in the Northern Metn section of Mount Lebanon, just outside and above Beirut. The location is significant; although they were Maronites of the mountain, the residents of Bikfayya lived close enough to the more cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city to feel its influence. Jumayyil was the scion of an important local family (hence the title Sheikh). The militant Maronite populism of Mount Lebanon was a crucial element in the party's make-up, but it was mitigated by the more complex views of the Lebanese entity emanating from Beirut and by Jumayyil's political pragmatism. In the early years, when the Phalanges took to the streets against the Parti Populaire Syrien (PPS) and the Muslim foes of Christian Lebanon, the party was also anxious to establish good connections with the president of the republic and to ensure its place in the mainstream of Lebanese politics.

For more than forty years the erect and impressive figure of Pierre Jumayyil has dominated the party he has led. During this long period he has persisted in his original purpose and mission but has been remarkably flexible in adapting the party to the changing circumstances. In the early 1950s, the Phalange became a parliamen-

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THE WAR FOR LEBANON

tary party and a participant in the traditional game of Lebanese politics. But, the party retained its militia and constructed an elaborate party hierarchy and bureaucracy that set it apart from most other Lebanese parties. A similar tactical flexibility was apparent in the party's doctrinal and political line, in the development of which Maurice Jumayyil, Pierre's cousin, apparently played an important role. The line advocated a Lebanonism that would transcend Christian-Muslim rivalries and social and economic reforms and recruited non-Christian and non-Maronite members. Yet the Phalange remained an essentially Maronite party, and the Lebanese entity it envisaged was in reality Christian. Political expediency required that this issue remain latent but in times of crisis, when Lebanon's future was to be decided, the ambivalence would be set aside and the historical role as the armed protector of a Christian Lebanon, haven and fortress in the midst of a hostile Muslim environment, assumed once more.

In the 1958 civil war, the Phalange fought on the side of President Camille Chamoun and later did not shy away from a showdown with his successor, Fu'ad Shihab, when it seemed that the latter had deviated from the compromise formula that ended the crisis. But during the rest of Shihab's presidency, he enjoyed the party's support and cooperation. The similarity of outlook was reinforced by the Phalange drive for a share in power and political influence. An interesting light on the Phalangist evolution after 1958 is shed by an anthropological study of Shiyah, a Beirut suburb, where many Maronite immigrants from the Mountain settled. Their new role in the central government helped the Phalanges change their image from that of tough boys to that of reasonable men, mature enough to be entrusted with serious and delicate national affairs. Locally, the Phalange introduced new standards of political organization and a new system of political values. They challenged the traditional family-oriented political structure and sought to replace it with a modern, bureaucratic, and (Maronite) community-oriented organization. Thus one Phalangist official told an interviewer that

> We decided to run for the municipal elections of 1964 neither to defeat an opponent nor to score a petty victory; rather we wanted to change the mentality of the people here. . . . They see that the country is torn by serious crises that may threaten its very existence while they are busy dishonoring one another. . . .³

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If the Phalangist cooperation with President Shihab and Pierre Jumayyil's requests for the presidency in the 1960s portray the Phalange as devoted to the pursuit of power and influence, the crises of the early 1970s show it in its original vigilante role. As the Lebanese state, army, and political system seemed increasingly incapable of dealing with the challenges posed by the Palestine Liberation Organization and domestic opposition groups, the Phalange became, in the words of a sympathetic and perceptive observer, "the supervigilantes . . . builder, surrogate and defender of the state." While some party ideologues continued to plan the reforms deemed vital for the preservation of the Lebanese political system, others were planning in great detail the defenses of fortress Lebanon—that part of Mount Lebanon and the coastal plain in which the Lebanese Christian entity could be upheld. Phalange conduct in the early 1970s, particularly after the army's abortive effort to check the PLO in May 1973, mirrored the party's split personality. It continued to participate in Lebanese politics, took part in the governing coalition, and maneuvered for the presidency in 1976. But it also began to prepare militarily for a clash with the Palestinians, which by then seemed to be unavoidable. It was indeed a skirmish between the Phalange and radical Palestinians that marked the beginning of the civil war. The Phalangist militia recruited and trained new members and acquired additional and heavier weapons, which enabled it to bear the brunt of the fighting on behalf of the status quo coalition in the spring and summer of 1975.

In the course of the civil war, the Phalange had to make two crucial decisions, radical departures from the traditional party line. In the late summer of 1975, when it appeared that the preservation of Christian hegemony and of the traditional political system in Greater Lebanon was no longer feasible, the party, or at least its radical wing, opted temporarily for the less desirable goal fore shadowed in the early 1970s—a smaller Christian Lebanon based in East Beirut, the northern part of Mount Lebanon, and the coastal area north of Beirut. The temporary change in the party's goal was reflected in an interesting pamphlet, published by the Maronite intellectual center in Kaslik, under the title *Greater Lebanon—A Half Century's Tragedy*.⁴ As the title suggests, the pamphlet expressed disenchantment with the experience of a pluralistic Greater Lebanon and recommended a retreat to the homogeneity, security, and

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## THE WAR FOR LEBANON

comfort of a smaller Christian Lebanon. The Phalanges thus became
temporary successors to the philosophy represented in the 1930s
and 1940s by Emile Eddé.

The other change concerned the party's attitude toward Syria's intervention in Lebanon. The Phalange took a position between Faranjiyya's eager cooperation with the Syrian Ba'thi regime and Chamoun's deep-seated distrust and hostility. Phalangist willingness to acknowledge Syria's supremacy and to cooperate with its regime against common rivals was a radical departure from tradition for a party that began its career as a staunch defender of Lebanon's territorial integrity against those who sought to submerge Lebanon in a Greater Syria, but the Phalanges did not lose sight of the precarious and temporary nature of their new and strange alliance with Syria. Syrian and Phalangist visions of Lebanon's long-term future were incompatible, and the Phalanges were prepared for the inevitable parting of the ways. In anticipation of that future situation, and indeed as added security in the present one, alternatives such as the Israeli connection were explored.

There was no unanimity on these matters among the Phalanges. In the years preceding the outbreak of the civil war, three distinct orientations crystallized in the party's hierarchy: a conservative one, which upheld the party's traditional line on domestic and external affairs; a reformist one, which hardly resembled the stereotypic Phalangist outlook; and the inevitable middle-of-the-road outlook. Pierre Jumayyil himself stood above these divisions, an appropriate position for such a historic leader and one befitting his own pragmatism. But his two sons came to be identified with the two extreme attitudes, which hardened during and after the civil war. The school of thought represented by Jumayyil's elder son, Amin, (and by Karim Pakandouni) believed that Lebanon's Christians could only survive by coming to terms with their environment, and it therefore sought an accommodation with Syria, with Lebanon's Muslims, and with the larger Arab world. The other school of thought was exemplified by Amin's younger and more assertive brother Bashir, who in the summer of 1976 became commander of the party's armed forces. This school, skeptical of Arab and Muslim willingness to tolerate a Lebanese Christian entity in their midst, believed in the need to develop that entity's resources—an alliance

64

with Israel, mobilization of the Lebanese Christian diaspora, and
American support. But in 1976, a period of satisfactory Syrian-Pha-
langist cooperation, and in view of American and Israeli reluctance
to become more involved, the differences in outlook remained
obscure.

### The National Liberal Party

The Phalanges' principal ally in the Lebanese Front, Camille Chamoun's National Liberal Party and its Tigers militia (Numūr), was a markedly dissimilar political formation.⁵ A small party organized around the person and personality of its leader, it lacked the coherent doctrine, elaborate structure, and large membership of its senior partner. There were significant differences in the members attracted to the two parties. Since the 1930s, the Phalange had appeared mostly to the Maronite lower and middle classes, for whom it was not only a protector of the community and Lebanon's Christians, but also a movement, responding to the social and economic dislocations of the time. The National Liberals, apart from representing Chamoun's constituency in the Shuf region, in Mount Lebanon to the south and east of Beirut, attracted a more patrician, and obviously smaller, group of members and supporters. (The name Tigers does not, it must be admitted, evoke particularly patrician associations.)

Chamoun, an unusually elegant figure and the consummate pragmatic politician, first made his mark on the Lebanese political scene during the final years of the French mandate, as a promising, open-minded politician of the Bishara al-Khuri school, who sought an accommodation with Lebanon's Muslims and their coreligionists across its borders. His preferred version of Arab nationalism was the conservative Hashemite brand, and he kept a close relationship with the Hashemite regimes in Iraq and Jordan. In 1952, Chamoun played a dominant role in terminating Khuri's corrupt administration and was elected his successor. Within five years, he had become a controversial figure in domestic politics, a bitter opponent and critic of Pan-Arab nationalism, and the only Arab ruler who accepted the Eisenhower doctrine. This transition is well-illustrated

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## THE WAR FOR LEBANON

by the differences between his first two books of memoirs, *The Phases of Independence*, published in Arabic in the 1940s, and *Crise au Moyen Orient*, published in French, in which he presents his interpretation of the 1958 crisis.

Chamoun remained active in Lebanese politics after his presidential term, but his successor, Shihab, and the latter's supporters sought to ostracize him for his excessively pro-Western and anti-Arab nationalist position and for violating the rules of the Lebanese political game. Chamoun's chief castigator was Kamal Junblatt, whose bitter hostility was nourished by ideological differences, personal antipathy, and a long-standing competition for the votes of the Shuf constituency. Chamoun's influence increased with Shihab's departure and Helou's accession to the presidency in 1964. His cooperation with the Phalange and Raymond Eddé's National Bloc in the 1968 parliamentary elections resulted in a strengthening of the Maronite representation in parliament and subsequently in Faranjiyya's election to the presidency. Chamoun's position was accordingly enhanced, but Junblatt was still able to obstruct his full rehabilitation by vetoing his party's participation in government coalitions. Only in June 1975, well into the civil war, was Chamoun given a cabinet portfolio. As minister of the interior, he was Faranjiyya's strongest supporter in the government during most of the war, which he spent in the Ba'abda presidential palace and not in the Ministry of Interior. His role in the war was many-sided: a central figure in the government, a chief protagonist in the conflict, he was also the leader of his party⁶ and of the militia it had to build in order to remain an influential political force. The militia was in fact led by his two sons.

### The Suleiman Faranjiyya Camp

Suleiman Faranjiyya's pre-civil war presidency discloses the main components of his political makeup—a traditional Za'im relying on his family's and his own following in the Zugharta region, a willingness to resort to violent and unorthodox methods to protect his own and his community's position, a long-standing rivalry with the Sunni politicians from Tripoli, and a recent but significant rela-

66

tionship with Syria's President Hafiz al-Asad and his family.⁷ Once the civil war broke out, Faranjiyya's ability to use his position as president to influence the course of events was severely curtailed. He was more active through the status quo coalition and his family's militia, the Zugharta Liberation Army. The militia was formed in 1969, during one of the early conflicts with the Palestinian organizations. (Like his two senior Maronite colleagues, Faranjiyya groomed his son, Tony, to be his political heir. Tony Faranjiyya, who had previously looked after the family's economic interests, was elected to parliament and held cabinet portfolios in the early 1970s. During the civil war, he led the family militia, which had a distinct regional orientation and was engaged mostly in fighting Tripoli's Muslim militias.)

Faranjiyya's personality and conduct became a focal point in the crisis in February 1976, when rebellious army officers and other opponents of the status quo made their demand for his resignation one of their main grievances. The president was saved from the humiliation and repercussions of such a forced resignation not so much by his Maronite colleagues as by his Syrian allies. The military intervention by units of al-Sa'iqa, the pro-Syrian Palestinian organization, to counter Ahmed al-Khatib's attempt to force Faranjiyya's resignation was, in fact, the first unmistakable indication of Syria's about-face in Lebanon. The growing Syrian political and military presence in Lebanon and Asad's efforts to form a distinctively pro-Syrian political bloc led to a still closer cooperation with Faranjiyya during the final months of his presidency, as well as upon his return to Zugharta.

The personalized style of Syria's relationship with the Faranjiyyas was accentuated by the special nexus between Rifat, Hafiz al-Asad's younger brother, and Tony Faranjiyya. They were friends and also partners in the commercial enterprises that were an important aspect of Rifat's activity in Lebanon. Rifat al-Asad was commander of the Defense Detachments, a military formation designed to protect the Syrian regime, which developed into a full-fledged army division with special privileges and something of the status of a Praetorian Guard. His role in the Ba'thi regime has gone beyond his unorthodox military position; he also helped formulate and execute Syrian policy in Lebanon. Rifat al-Asad's activities contributed sub-

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## THE WAR FOR LEBANON

stantially to domestic criticism of the Ba'thi regime, which proved to
be a very significant by-product of Syria's intervention in Lebanon.⁸

### The Maronite Religious Establishment

The political saliency of the Sunni Mufti and Shi'i Imam, a novelty of the 1970s Lebanon, was matched by the conspicuous role that Maronite clerics came to play at the other end of the political spectrum. This was less true of the Maronite patriarch, Bulus Khureysh. His three predecessors, Huwayyek, Arida, and Ma'ushi, had been active and influential in Lebanese politics, usually in a discreet fashion, but occasionally as visible and forceful participants. Khureysh, a humbler figure, had not acquired the same position and had not been very active in Lebanese politics before the crisis. His limited political activities and pronouncements after the outbreak of the civil war disclosed a moderate line, close to that of Raymond Eddé.

It was Father Sharbal Qassis, head of the order of Maronite monks and chairman of the Association of Lebanese Monastic Orders, who took the activist and militant line within the Maronite church. He advocated a "pure Lebanon" and rejected the notion of Lebanon's "Arab face," which had been incorporated into the compromise formula of the 1943 National Pact. Qassis was also more outspoken than other Maronites in voicing his opposition to the Palestinians and demanded, among other things, that their numbers in Lebanon be restricted. Quite naturally the Maronite lay leaders preferred Sharbal Qassis to the patriarch and his circle. Qassis was chosen to represent the church in such all-Maronite forums as the Maronite summit (December 1975) and the Lebanese Front. The Maronite monastic orders were the main intellectual and financial contributors to the Maronite academic and intellectual center in Kaslik. As the owners of a sizable portion of Lebanon's agricultural land, the monastic orders provided financial help to Maronite militias.

The line he took and the activities he pursued made Qassis a controversial figure. His critics charged that despite his professed allegiance to the patriarch, he was making "cracks in the unity of the church" and that by storing weapons, ammunition, and food for Christian militias in Maronite monasteries he was undermining

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their sanctity.⁹ Qassis was later replaced as head of the monastic orders in the Lebanese Front by Father Bulus Na'aman, another powerful, militant cleric.

### Communal Maronite Groups

The long-standing and semi-Maronite groupings surveyed above were augmented in the course of the crisis by new groups and forums that sprang up in response to it. The Maronite League was a militant militia headed by Shaker Abu Suleiman, an ardent supporter of Qassis. Like the Guardians of the Cedar, it was a purely Maronite militia without the inhibitions of the politically sophisticated Phalanges and National Liberals. It therefore chose to fight alongside these groups rather than to merge with them.

Even more than the Phalanges, the Guardians of the Cedar manifest the tension between the notion of a supracommunal movement to defend a supracommunal Lebanese entity and the reality that the movement's membership has been largely Maronite. Furthermore, although they advocated a nonconfessional ideology, the Guardians have in practice been among the fiercest fighters for the Maronite cause. The political and military leader of the Guardians of the Cedar, Etienne Saqr (nicknamed Abu Arz), worked for the Faranjiyya administration in the early 1970s. But ideologically, the Guardians were inspired by the poet Sa'id 'Aql. 'Aql inherited from Michel Chiha the notions of Phoenicianism and Al-isha 'à' al-lubnani (the Lebanese illumination), which Chiha devised as the ideological underpinning of the Lebanese entity. But unlike Chiha, 'Aql sought to draw a clear distinction between Lebanonism and Arabism. 'Aql's conception of Lebanon, originating in and inspired by a remote Phoenician past, and contributing to the development of civilization, minimizes the role of Islam and Arabism. A poet of note in the Arabic language, he developed a version of the Latin alphabet more suited in his view to render the language he and his circle called Lebanese. 'Aql's doctrines are related to other concepts of territorial nationalism that appeared in the Middle East in the interwar period and that were later discredited by the allure of Pan-Arab nationalism.

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Although there were non-Maronite and non-Christian members in its ranks, the militia of the Guardians of the Cedar functioned in the predominantly Maronite quarter of Ashrafiyya and represented the most militant brand of Maronite political opinion. They were, among other things, atypically frank about the Maronites' relationship with Israel. While the Phalanges and the National Liberals sought to conceal their relations with Israel and avoided public discussion of them, the Guardians of the Cedar argued publicly in 1976 that should Syria's intervention fail, the Lebanese should turn to Israel to ask it to save what was left of Lebanon. Like the Maronite League, they maintained their separate organization but fought alongside the larger militias.

The Tanzim was a small secretive organization formed and led by George Adwan, which appeared soon after the outbreak of the civil war in April 1975. Adwan and his colleagues rapidly concluded that the severity of the crisis called for a new kind of Maronite effort and organization—hence the name Tanzim (organization). Despite their small number, the members of the Tanzim played an important role in the fighting in Beirut. Their numbers dwindled later in the 1970s, and the organization split in two, but it retained its position as one of the four partners in the Lebanese Front.

### The Lebanese Front

In December 1975, when major changes in the Lebanese system were being discussed seriously and a Muslim summit was convened to formulate a joint position, a comparable Maronite summit was called. The major Maronite leaders of the status quo coalition—Jumayyil, Chamoun, Qassis, and Shaker Abu Suleiman among them—met in the Ba'abda presidential palace. Faranjiyya himself did not participate in the meetings, though he was briefed on their course and outcome, but the use of the presidential palace for partisan meetings was added to his opponents' list of grievances. The purpose of the meeting was not only to coordinate policies but to form a more unified leadership. The assembled Maronite leaders had no difficulty in defining the crisis as a Palestinian-Lebanese conflict rather than a civil war. The Palestinians, they charged, had

joined forces with the Lebanese left in order to provoke a sectarian crisis in Lebanon.

In the spring of 1976, the Maronite summit was renamed the Kafur summit after the new location chosen for the meetings. In September 1976, the unification efforts met with a measure of success when the Lebanese Front was established. Camille Chamoun was chosen president of the Front. Its leadership included Pierre and Bashir Jumayyil, Bulus Na'aman, Edward Hunayin (who had previously worked with Raymond Eddé), and two noted Christian intellectuals, Charles Malik and Fu'ad Ephrem al-Boustani. It became the political backbone of the status quo coalition. A joint military command was formed for the various militias, whose new collective name was the Lebanese Forces. The Lebanese Forces were made up of four militias, the Phalanges, Chamoun's Numür, the Guardians of the Cedar, and the Tanzim. Each was represented in the Forces' command by two members. Despite the nominal parity, it was clear that the Lebanese Forces were dominated and controlled by Bashir Jumayyil. Still, the formation of an apparently nonpartisan, all-Maronite forum proved very useful for the further development of the status quo coalition.

### The Army's Christian Leadership

The Christian leadership within the army can be considered an important component of the status quo coalition. The Lebanese army's refusal to take sides during the crises of 1952 and 1958 was a rare phenomenon in the post-World War II Middle East, where political history has been largely shaped by military intervention and domination. But the Lebanese army did play a role in and was certainly the object of political conflicts prior to 1975.¹⁰ For one thing the confessional system operated in it and communal balance was carefully monitored. The higher echelon of the professional officer corps was predominantly Christian, and the army was seen as one of the ultimate guarantors of both the Lebanese political system and its Christian character. In the 1950s and 1960s, Muslim politicians repeatedly demanded a national service law that would transform the army into a predominantly Muslim force, but it was essentially a

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political ritual. Of greater political significance was the discrepancy between the army's contrived image as an arbiter, standing above petty partisan squabbles, and its actual activity, both within the formal political system and as an alternative system of power and influence. The issue was first brought to the surface by Raymond Eddé in the mid-1960s; it was publicized in great and vivid detail when President Charles Helou purged the deuxième bureau and when the army's supreme commander, General Emile Bustani, fled to Syria in 1972.

Other political developments and events in the late 1960s and early 1970s—growing Muslim pressure to modify the system, confrontations with the Palestinians, Israeli preemptive and punitive raids, and the proliferation of armed militias defiant of the state—had an unsettling effect on the Lebanese army. Its officers still viewed the army as the arbiter of national politics, whose intervention could resolve the impending crisis. The supporters of the status quo were less certain, and after 1973 the Phalange began to build its own military force to perform the task the army seemed incapable of. The army played a very limited role during the early period of the civil war, and by the time it became vital for it to step in, the army had disintegrated, and its self-designated role was taken over by the Syrian army.

In the summer of 1976, the Lebanese army was divided into three distinct groups: Ahmed al-Khatib's rebellious Lebanese Arab Army, which was integrated into the leftist anti-Syrian militias; the vanguards of Lebanon's Arab Army, a thinly disguised pro-Syrian military force, organized in the Beqa Valley; and the bulk of the army, which was positioned in Beirut and the center of the country. The officers in these units were mostly Christian, and their sympathies were with the Lebanese Front. The competition for their support and loyalty figured in the next phase of the Lebanese crisis.

## Accommodationist Christian Leaders

Somewhere between the status quo and revisionist coalitions there stood another group. The moderate Christian politicians and public figures who sought an accommodation with the opponents

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of the status quo were far from possessing the coherence of an actual political school or bloc. Much more moderate than the three senior Maronite politicians, these leaders were willing to concede a large share of power in the Lebanese system to the Muslim communities and to find a modus vivendi with the Palestinians in order to preserve the framework of a Lebanese state. They strongly opposed the notion of partition. In the spring of 1975, Elyas Sarkis, the former Shihabi politician, emerged as the most prominent representative of the accommodationists. Until then that role had been played by Raymond Eddé, the son of the former president. In an interesting shift of political legacies, the Phalange adopted, albeit temporarily, the traditional line of Emile Eddé, while his son pursued a policy close to that of his father's great rival, Bishara al-Khuri.

Raymond Eddé made his mark on Lebanese politics as an opponent of President Shihab and a vehement critic of the army's and intelligence services' interference in the political process.¹¹ Their common opposition to the keepers of the Shihabi legacy facilitated the cooperation in 1968 between Eddé's National Bloc and the two other large Maronite parties. But the new alignment soon foundered owing to political and personal differences, particularly Eddé's and Jumayyil's rival bids for the presidency in 1970. During Faran-jiyya's presidency, Eddé drew closer to such traditional Sunni politicians as Sa'ib Salam and Rashid Karami, as well as to Kamal Junblatt, so that Eddé and his former partner drifted further apart.

Eddé's initial role in the civil war conformed to the policies he had formed in the early 1970s. He did not take part in the fighting but advocated compromise and moderation. He was particularly opposed to partition, which he denounced as an American Zionism design. In 1976, Eddé became the most prominent and persistent opponent among Lebanon's Christian politicians of Syria's intervention and ensuing supremacy. In May, he tried to compete with Sarkis, the Syrians' candidate, for the presidency, but he had no resources to counter the great resources of the Syrians. In the summer of 1976, he formed the National Unity Front, which agitated for Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon. The Front had an auspicious beginning, because apparently Eddé's Sunni friends had joined it. This suggested the formation of a middle-of-the-road coalition, a serious competition to the existing rival camps. But in the end, the

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Front was little more than a platform for its founder. After Syria's presence in Lebanon had been sanctioned by the Arab consensus and following a number of assassination attempts against him, Eddé, like several other prominent opponents of Syrian hegemony, left Lebanon and settled in Paris.

It was ironic that Sarkis, a politician closely identified with the Shihabi search for a new Lebanese consensus, became president in circumstances that defined him as the representative of a narrow and controversial segment of the 1976 Lebanese political spectrum. Many of the erstwhile supporters of the Shihabi Nahj were active and bitter opponents of Syrian policies in Lebanon and refused to cooperate with a president imposed on Lebanon by the Syrians. The Lebanese Front was then cooperating with Syria, but in reality it could not reconcile itself to Syria's long-range plans for Lebanon and was wary of Sarkis, a veteran opponent of the Front's leaders and attitudes. Upon assuming office, President Sarkis did try to work for national reconciliation. He presented a plan for Lebanon's political and economic rehabilitation and sought to bring the rival Lebanese factions to a "round table conference." This may have been an altogether impossible task and it obviously was beyond the reach of the controversial president of an emasculated state. Nor was he helped by his patrons the Syrians, who having first delegitimized him by treating him as their instrument, continued to undermine his position by scrutinizing his cabinet and allowing him minimal freedom of action.

## The Revisionist Coalition

This coalition was large and heterogeneous. It sought, most of the time in vain, to coordinate the efforts of many political groups and figures. Most of the fighting on behalf of this camp was carried out by Palestinian organizations and Muslim and leftist militias. Among the Palestinians, the rejectionist organizations had fought from the outset and without much ambivalence. Until January 1976, the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization had formally refrained from taking part in the war, but groups under its authority did join the fighting in earlier stages. Palestinian formations under

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Syrian control participated in the war on both sides. In January 1976, the revisionist camp was reinforced by Khatib's forces. These were decimated by the fighting into a small force, which at the end of 1976 was located in southern Lebanon. Most of the traditional Muslim politicians failed to take part in the fighting, partly because of their ambivalent attitude but mostly because of their inability to create their own militias.

Within the revisionist coalition five major categories can be discerned: veteran leftist and opposition parties; organizations and militias formed on the eve of or in the course of the crisis; traditional Zu'ama and the Sunni establishment; the militant Shi'i leadership; and the Palestinian organizations.

Syria's intervention in 1976 contributed most to splitting the revisionist coalition. Its two most substantial elements, the leftist parties and the Palestine Liberation Organization, reacted differently to Syria's role and policies. The PLO leadership was free of the doctrinaire fervor and personal animosity that characterized Kamal Junblatt's attitude and at various times showed a desire to come to terms with Syria. Later, some of the coalition's supporters shifted their allegiance to Syria and became a rather weak third, or central, camp. A proliferation of other organizations, mostly ephemeral, also followed the revisionist split: Raymond Eddé's National Unity Front; the National Islamic Front, formed in the summer of 1976 by Khatib's supporters (who claimed it was above the conventional left and right); the revolutionary Druze Organization, which rallied some of Junblatt's opponents within his own community; and the Shi'i Revolutionary Organization.

In an effort to arrest the disintegration and to counterbalance the formation of the Lebanese Front, the Lebanese left sought to bolster the leftist National Front, which had existed since 1969. A supreme political council and a joint military command were established, as well as supportive "fronts"—a Front of Patriotic Christians and the Arab Shi'i Front, both defining themselves as leftist organizations.

### Kamal Junblatt and His Party

Kamal Junblatt was indubitably the dominant leader of the established leftist groups, and his ascetic figure is one of the central and

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most intriguing personas in the history of the Lebanese crisis and civil war. Junblatt was the founder and leader of a genuine leftist party, the Progressive Socialist Party, but his influence derived from other sources: the support of the Druze community for its traditional leading family; his power base in the Shuf region; his personality; and his role as a leftist leader of national and regional stature.

Junblatt's long political career in and his crucial impact on Lebanese politics were marked by several incongruities and apparent inconsistencies, leading many observers to consider him either cynical or enigmatic. Junblatt was indeed a moody man, and he did form and lead a leftist party while remaining a large landlord and a prominent sectarian leader. But there was a fundamental consistency in his political career. He was genuinely hostile to the confessional system, which precluded him from achieving the highest office. In that respect, he was a true successor to his Junblatt ancestors, who had fought the Maronite Shihabi amirs, the heads of Lebanon's semifeudal hierarchy, whom they could hope to defeat but not to replace. And he was too astute to renounce positions that gave him influence in Lebanese politics. An examination of Junblatt's career from the early 1950s to his assassination in March 1977 reveals his persistent striving for political reform and the enhancement of his personal standing and the left's position in Lebanon.

His effectiveness increased as the system grew weaker. In 1969, he formed the National Front to provide leftist and Palestinian organizations with a common framework. In 1970, as minister of the interior, he published a decree legalizing the Ba'th, the Communist, the Syrian Nationalist, and other transnational parties. These parties, although illegal under previous Lebanese law, had been tolerated in practice; Junblatt's action was therefore largely (though not entirely) of symbolic significance. In the same vein, Junblatt lost or forsook the working relations he had with Pierre Jumayyil and other status quo politicians, and his political activities pivoted more and more around his relations with other leftist and Palestinian groups.

Junblatt's major demands for a reform of the Lebanese system were presented in a document published by Lebanon's leftist parties in the summer of 1975. They were (a) the abolition of the confessional system; (b) a constitutional amendment that would change the relationships among the branches of government; (c) a new

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electoral law; (d) the reorganization of the army; and (e) an amendment of the citizenship law. These demands, which constituted in fact the platform of the Lebanese revisionists, were strictly political and constitutional and made no mention of social and economic reforms. But even so, defenders of the status quo rejected them as tantamount to an outright abolition of the Lebanese system. Opponents from both ends of the spectrum tried to denigrate Junblatt's program, pointing to its limited scope and arguing that it was actually designed to enable him to gain the presidency.

The reform document of February 1976, which Syria endorsed and tried to implement, bore a superficial resemblance to Junblatt's demands, but he was right in claiming that it introduced only a moderate change in the political system. In his political testament, he explained that "[The Syrians] minoritarian military dictatorship made them hostile to any democracy. The 'presidential letter' on which President Faranjiyya and the Syrian foreign minister agreed sought to impose on us an illegal, distorted constitution and a caricature of a parliamentary democracy. We therefore rejected this pseudoconstitutional letter, which Faranjiyya (being ignorant in constitutional matters) announced on February 14."¹²

Junblatt's rejection of the Syrian reform plan and his refusal to comply with Syria's ambitions and to resign himself to the Ba'thi regime's pragmatism led to a bitter conflict. Junblatt could not win. He was defeated militarily by Syria and politically by an Arab world that recognized Syria's supremacy in Lebanon. In March 1977, he was assassinated. Junblatt's importance in the conflict with Syria was political rather than military. His militia had a limited local significance, and the firepower of his camp was provided by the Palestinians and by other Lebanese militias. But Junblatt's personality and leadership were indispensable to the preservation of a united anti-Syrian front, as the effect of his assassination showed.

It is now widely believed in Lebanon that Junblatt's assassins were inspired if not dispatched by the Syrian authorities. So it is sadly ironic that his followers' immediate response to the assassination was an attack on Maronite villagers in the Shuf. In a moment of tragedy, the old conflict with the Maronites was more enduring than a feud with Syria.

The Syrian regime's relations with Kamal Junblatt's son and fol-

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lowers were restored soon after his assassination, but the feud's influence on Syria's domestic politics continued to be felt. Junblatt's resistance to Syria's policies in Lebanon and the countermeasures taken by the Ba'thi regime had contributed to the outbreak of the crisis, which still threatened Asad's regime in the early 1980s. Both Asad's unusual speech on July 20, 1976, and Junblatt's posthumously published account of the crisis reflect the intensity of the rivalry between the two former allies and provide telling examples of the rhetoric and themes used in the polemics of the Lebanese crisis. Thus Asad, the Alawi president of Syria, whom Syria's Sunni majority refused to accept as their legitimate ruler, charged that while the Phalange wanted a secular Lebanon, Kamal Junblatt's Muslim allies rejected the notion of secularism "because it related to the foundations of Islam" (see appendix). As for Junblatt himself, Asad explained, "the matter was not between right and left, progressive and reactionary, or Muslim and Christian." It was rather a personal and a sectarian Druze vendetta, a desire to terminate and take revenge for a hundred and forty years of Maronite supremacy.

### The Communist Party

The Communist party has existed in Lebanon since the late 1920s, and its appeal to members of the intelligentsia and to disaffected minority communities has provided it with a comparatively large membership.¹³ Its base was further broadened by the party's control of several trade unions. But like their colleagues in other Arab countries, the Lebanese Communists discovered that they could not grow beyond a certain numerical size and measure of political influence. These were further reduced in the 1960s by schisms and by the attraction of noncommunist Arab leftist organizations. The Party tried to reverse this trend by assuming the character of a party of the masses and by pursuing the strategy of popular fronts. It cooperated with the groups attractive to its potential constituency—the Palestinian organizations, the Ba'th party, the Nasserite groups, and Junblatt's party. The Communist party realized, too, the revolutionary potential of the Shi'i community and recruited new members from its ranks.

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Like several other political groups in Lebanon, the Communist party decided in the early 1970s that without an armed militia it would lose its political relevance. Its militia, the People's Guard, took part in the civil war.

### The Ba'th Party

The Lebanese branch of the Pan-Arab Ba'th party is one of the veteran leftist parties in Lebanon. It was established in the 1940s by Michel Aflaq, a Syrian Greek Orthodox, and the other historic founders of the Ba'th. Its membership characteristically came from the Sunni and Greek Orthodox communities, the traditional repositories of Arab nationalist sentiment and hostility to the Lebanese state. The party was politically inconsequential until the change in the fortunes of its larger branches in Syria and Iraq.¹⁴

The history and structure of the Lebanese Ba'th reflected the course of the party's larger branches in Arab politics and particularly their schisms and secessions. From the late 1960s, the party was divided between pro-Syrians and pro-Iraqis, the former led by 'Isam Qansu and the latter by Abdul Majid al-Rafi'i. During the first phases of the war, both factions belonged to the National Front, but Syria's intervention and Iraq's efforts to subvert Syrian policies set the groups against one another. The pro-Syrian Ba'th, having failed in its attempt to mediate between its Syrian patrons and Junblatt, seceded from the National Front. While supporting Syria's policies in the spring and summer of 1976 they did not fight alongside the conservative militias against their former allies. The pro-Iraqi Ba'th, in turn, escalated its anti-Syrian campaign, particularly in Tripoli, al-Rafi'i's hometown.

### The Communist Labor Organization

This small radical group seceded in 1968 from the Arab Nationalist Movement, the pan-Arab party that reflected Arab ideological politics of the previous three decades.¹⁵ Thus, from being a militant

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pro-Nasserite movement, the Communist Labor Organization became in the mid-1960s a Marxist movement, the parent organization of the Popular Front and Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Its leader, Musim Ibrahim, defined the Communist Labor Movement as Lebanon's true defender against the "danger of Zionist occupation" but insisted that it was a strictly political organization without a militia of its own.

### The Najjada

The Najjada was formed as an Arab-Muslim paramilitary group in Lebanon and Palestine in the mid-1930s. The Lebanese Najjada presented itself as the Muslim equivalent of the Phalange, but it never acquired the same power and significance. The party's founder and leader, Adnan al-Hakim, had been a persistent advocate of a thorough reform of the Lebanese political system, and in 1970 he stood as a presidential candidate in defiance of the accepted political norms. He received one vote, his own, but his gesture was a harbinger of greater challenges. The Najjada's social program was rather conservative; its militancy focused on the demand for a redistribution of political power. Its small armed force (which, Hakim insisted, was not a militia) cooperated in 1975 with the Palestinians, but, following Syria's intervention, withdrew from the fighting and reduced its political activity as well.

### The Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party

The Parti Populaire Syrien (PPS), the original name for this party, is one of the oldest and most intriguing political parties in Lebanon. It was founded in the early 1930s by Antun Sa'adeh, a Greek Orthodox. The party's structure, organizational patterns, and, to some extent, ideology were influenced by the ultranationalist and fascist movements of the 1930s, but the most important elements of its doctrine were formulated in response to the social and political conditions in Lebanon and the Fertile Crescent. Sa'adeh argued that Greater Syria was a national entity, the home and creator of a Syrian

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nation; the artificial states established in its territory by the 1918-21 settlement should be destroyed and integrated into a Syrian state. His views made him an enemy of the Lebanese Republic, Arab nationalism, Zionism, and French policy. Sa'adeh's personality and his bold views attracted an impressive group, especially in the Greek Orthodox community, which was hostile to the Maronite-Catholic hegemony in the Lebanese state.¹⁶

Sa'adeh was executed in 1949 for conspiring with the Syrian government to stage a coup in Lebanon, and his party has since undergone two transformations. In the mid-1950s, its hostility to Pan-Arab nationalism turned it into a pro-Western movement and a defender of the Lebanese state. It fought alongside President Chamoun and the Phalanges in 1958 and in 1961 staged an abortive coup d'état against President Shihab, whose domestic and foreign policies it opposed.¹⁷ A decade later, the party was transformed yet again, its militancy once more directed against the Lebanese state and system but this time in league with leftist and Palestinian groups. It renounced its opposition to Arab unity—then a waning ideology—and supported Asad's regime in Syria and its ambitions in Lebanon.

The PPS's relationship to the Ba'th party has a curious and ironic history. Both parties were founded by leaders trying to solve the problems of minority communities in a fragmented, pluralistic society and both used the secularist approach of Christian proponents of Syrian-Arab nationalism in the Levant in the 1860s and 1870s. But whereas Sa'adeh advocated a secular Greater Syrian nationalism, Aflaq formulated a doctrine of a reformist, secular (that is, not Suni) Arab nationalism. The two parties were popular among Alawi youth in Syria during the 1940s and 1950s, but in the mid-1950s, as the Ba'thi regime led Syria toward neutralism, socialism, and union with Egypt, the PPS acted as the rear guard for conservative pro-Western forces. In 1955, Fuad and Ghassan Jadid, two Alawi brothers who were army officers and members of the PPS, masterminded the assassination of the leading Ba'thi officer in the Syrian army, Adnan al-Maliki, which led to the brutal suppression of the party in Syria. Ten years later, another brother, Salah Jadid, who had joined the rival party in the 1940s, became a leader in the Ba'thi regime in Syria.

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By the early 1970s, the old rivalries became meaningless, and many Lebanese members of the PPS came to view Asad's regime and its regional ambitions as the first real opportunity to implement the party's original vision of Greater Syria. For other members, Ba'thi Syria was a source of support against their traditional Maronite rivals.18 These two attitudes toward Syria helped divide the party in Lebanon, the faction headed by Ina'm Ra'd being closely allied to Syrian policy, the faction headed by George Abdul Masih keeping a distance. Following Syria's about-face in 1976, Ra'd's faction remained loyal to its patron (although it did not take part in the fighting), while Masih's continued to support the National Front.

### Late-forming Revisionist Groups

Among the Lebanese (as distinct from the Palestinians), most of the fighting for the revisionist cause was by organizations that appeared on the Lebanese political scene in the first half of the 1970s. With the exception of the Movement of the 24th of October, all these organizations defined themselves as Nasserite. After Nasser's death, this identification implied the fundamental goals of Nasserism (Arab unity, social reform, a strengthening of the Arab world's power vis-à-vis Western interests, and affiliation with other bearers of the Nasserite legacy, primarily Libya's President Mu'ammar Kadhafi).

The Independent Nasserites, led by Ibrahim Qulilat, presented itself as a progressive socialist movement, supportive of the Palestinians and opposed to Lebanon's partition.19 Its militia, the Murabitun (a Muslim organization, as its name implies) played an important role in fighting the Phalanges in that city. It was particularly close to the Fath. Qulilat claimed that his organization existed secretly since the early 1970s and fought Israel in southern Lebanon alongside the Palestinians. It remained allied to the Palestinians (and opposed to Syria) throughout 1976.

The Union of the Toiling People's Forces was the only Nasserite organization boasting parliamentary representation: as we saw, one of its two leaders, Najjah Wakim, won a seat in the 1972 elections,

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the first in which members of parties made legal in 1970 took part. Of the Nasserite organizations, it was the closest to Syria. Its military wing, Firqat Nasir, fought in the Beirut area. The change in Syria's policy forced the Union to break ranks with the other Nasserites. Its other leader, Kamal Shatila, was among those who tried in vain to mediate between Syria and Junblatt. It then ceased its military activity but extended unreserved political support to Syria. A related group, the Corrective Movement, was formed by 'Isam Arab, who seceded from the Union on personal grounds. This small organization had its own militia, Quwwat Nassir.

Two other groups were essentially local. The Popular Nasserite Organization was a militia located in the town of Sidon. Its leader, Mustafa Sa'd, was the son of the parliamentary deputy Ma'ruf Sa'd, whose death in the violent events in Sidon in March 1975 was part of the prelude to the civil war.20 The Movement of the Twenty-fourth of October crystallized in Tripoli at the end of 1969 during the clashes between the Lebanese authorities and the Palestinians.21 Its leader, Faruq al-Muqaddam, was a scion of an intensely nationalistic family, which had opposed the traditional Sunni establishment led by the Karamis. While eschewing a Nasserite label, Muqaddam was consistently anti-Syrian. His movement supported the Palestinians, opposed the Lebanese political system, and agitated for radical social reform. It was impelled, however, not so much by ideology as by traditional animosity to the Maronites of Zugharta and by impatience with the Sunni leadership in Tripoli. Muqaddam's opposition to Syria was reinforced in the mid-1970s by Syria's cooperation with the Faranjiyyas and its cultivation of Syrian temporary workers, many of them Alawis, in Tripoli.

### The Sunni Establishment

The outbreak of the civil war brought the established political leadership of Lebanon's Sunni community—the object of Faruq al-Muqaddam's wrath and scorn—face to face with an inescapable dilemma. During previous decades, Sunni politicians like Sa'ib Salam, Rashid Karami, and Abdullah al-Yafi had recognized that their

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interests overlapped with those of their Maronite counterparts.²² In the late 1960s and early 1970s, this community of interests eroded, and Sunni leaders were demanding a greater share of power for their own sake and in response to the mood and pressure of their constituents. Still they stopped short of adhering to the far-reaching demands of the National Movement, fearing a crisis like the one which finally erupted in 1975. The crisis polarized Christian-Muslim relations and forced leaders like Salam and Karami to embrace the cause of their more radical colleagues, even though they did so reluctantly, realizing that the tremors of radicalism were undermining their own position as well.

It was a measure of their ambivalence and ill-preparation for the new conditions in Lebanon that the Sunni Zu'ama took almost no part in the fighting and persistently used their influence to try to reach a compromise. Salam did form a conservative militia intended to defend West Beirut. But he and his friends were out of tune with Lebanon's street politics; their clientele had come under the influence of the new militias' leaders.

The Sunni religious leadership, headed by the Mufti, Sheikh Hasan Khaled, pursued an intermediate course. Without endorsing violence, it supported the reform proposals raised by the National Front. The Mufti argued that no just demands should be withdrawn just because they had been raised by Marxists. The Mufti's newly acquired political role and saliency were illustrated by the convening of the Islamic Summit at his residence in Aramun in December 1975. Other Muslim leaders (the Shi'i Imam and the Sheikh of the Druzes), conservative Sunni politicians (Sa'ib Salam, Rashid Karami, and Abdullah al-Yafi), as well as Yasir 'Arafat, leader of the PLO, participated in the meeting. These participants, according to Asad's July 20, 1976, speech, telephoned Asad, asking Syria to intervene in Lebanon. That intervention widened the gap between the conservative and pragmatic Zu'ama and the radical Muslims, who refused to come to terms with Syrian policies. The radicals' defeat at the hands of the Syrians and the indefinite prolongation of the 1972 parliament then helped the traditional politicians to preserve a measure of political influence, which at the height of the civil war seemed to have been eliminated by the radicals and their militias.

84

### The Shi'i Establishment

The military role played by the militant leadership of the Shi'i community in the civil war was hardly commensurate with its part in the developments leading to it. Imam Musa al-Sadr's Movement of the Disinherited did form a militia, al-Amal (also known as the Battalions of Lebanese Resistance), defining itself as a force defending southern Lebanon from Israel and combatting social injustice at home. It organized secretly, surfacing in the summer of 1975. While Shi'is in Beirut fought hard along the dividing line between al-Shiyah and Ayn al-Rumani (the Maronite quarter), their contribution to the overall military effort of the revisionist coalition was limited, a consequence of the leadership's complex relationship with Syria and perhaps also of a feeling that the community's quarrel was with the Lebanese political system and not with the Maronites.

But Sadr was very active politically. He participated in the Lebanese Muslim summit, took part in several mediation efforts between Syria and its opponents, and visited Arab capitals. During one of these visits, to Libya in August 1978, Sadr disappeared in mysterious circumstances. He was probably killed by political rivals, whose identity has remained a contentious matter. The traditional leaders of the Shi'i community, Kamel al-As'ad, Kazem al-Khalil, and Adel Usayran, faced a dilemma similar to that of the Sunni Zu'ama: their hold over their constituents had eroded, and they were wary of a conflict that might jeopardize the Lebanese system and play into the hands of the radicals. Yet their efforts at compromise and mediation had little influence on the course of the crisis, nor did their efforts restore their positions.

### The Palestine Liberation Organization

It is misleading to speak of one PLO role in the Lebanese civil war, which was significantly influenced by divisions and disagreements within the Organization.²³ Rather, distinctions should be made among three Palestinian groups: the PLO establishment, George

85

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

Habash's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and Zuheir Muhsin's al-Sa'iqa.

From the PLO establishment's perspective, embodied in the policies of the Fath and to a lesser extent the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP), the situation in prewar Lebanon was optimal. The Palestinians had an autonomous territorial base contiguous with Israel, and the Lebanese government was too weak to restrain them. And Israel, although it made raids into Lebanon, did not launch an all-out offensive because of Lebanon's close ties to the West. Thus, despite their criticism of the Lebanese political system and their affinity with its domestic foes, until January 1976, these Palestinians resisted being dragged into the fighting. Their reluctance was strengthened by the lessons learned after September 1970, when meddling in Jordanian politics had brought the PLO to the verge of catastrophe. Furthermore, in the summer and fall of 1975 the Organization was engaged in a political offensive that had already achieved impressive results in the United Nations and promised additional gains in the January 1976 Security Council discussions of the Palestinian issue. Involvement in the civil war was, therefore, officially shunned, and the Organization publicized its policy of nonintervention and sought the statesman-like roles of mediation and cease-fire supervision.

Reality, however, was more intricate. Units affiliated with the Organization did take part in the fighting, and the PLO leadership itself took advantage of the gains made by its Lebanese allies to improve the terms secured in the 1969 Cairo Agreement. The policy of nonintervention collapsed in 1976. *Syria's intervention in Lebanon* and its conflict with the Palestinians produced an entirely new situation. The issues at stake were no longer Lebanon's political future and PLO diplomatic ventures but the Syrian challenge to PLO autonomy and its status as "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people." The Syrian Ba'thi regime had asserted that Syria was not just another Arab state extending support to the Palestinians but that it had a special nexus with the southern part of Greater Syria (that is, Palestine).

The PLO obstruction of Asad's policy in Lebanon provoked Syria to assail the PLO position and was a justification for Syria's deter-

86

mination to punish the PLO leadership. Asad referred to this leadership in July 1976 as "those who are now speaking in the name of Palestine, who are absorbed in their imaginations, and ignore all the efforts we have invested on their behalf." In the same speech, he denied the PLO's right to take unilateral decisions on how and where the struggle for Palestine should be waged: "The Palestinians fighting in Mount Lebanon are by no means fighting for Palestine. He who wants to liberate Jounieh and Tripoli does not want to liberate Palestine, even if he claims to." And finally, "All talk about war, about the liberation of Palestine without Syria, is ignorance and a misleading of the masses." These themes were stated even more explicitly in private. According to Junblatt's testimony, Asad told Yasir 'Arafat that "you do not represent Palestine more than we do . . . and don't you forget one thing—there is no Palestinian people and there is no Palestinian entity—there is Syria."²⁴

Here, then, was 'Arafat's dilemma in the spring and summer of 1976. Syria had claimed a special role in Lebanon and, regarding the Palestinian issue, had challenged 'Arafat's status. Furthermore, it had acted in apparent concert with the United States. Would Syria now try to force the PLO to fit into the settlement scheme? And if so, should the PLO fight against superior Syrian troops without the benefit of real support from Syria's Arab rivals? The PLO was finally saved by Saudi Arabia, which exerted a moderating influence on Syria and summoned the conference that brought an end to the fighting. The Riyad conference also prepared the ground for a new effort to produce a comprehensive Arab-Israeli settlement in which the PLO and the Syrian-PLO connection would play a crucial role.

The notions of "conspiracy" and "liquidation," which 'Arafat and the PLO establishment adopted after the Syrian invasion, were formulated at the outset of the crisis by George Habash, the leader of the PFLP and his rejectionist colleagues. This being the case, they argued, they had to fight the war alongside their Lebanese partners. But their whole-hearted participation in the war had still deeper roots: most of the Marxist elements in the PLO believed in the ultimate futility of a political and military struggle. Social conditions had to be transformed and conservative regimes had to be overthrown before the full resources of the Arab world could be mobi-

87

THE WAR FOR LEBANON

lized for the decisive battle against Israel. Amman in 1970 was seen
as the equivalent of Hanoi; by 1975, the liberation of Tripoli and
Jounieh was seen as essential for the liberation of Palestine.

The PLO's predicament was compounded by the activity of al-Sa'iqa, its large constituent organization, which was controlled directly by Syria. It fought on the side of the Syrians and its leader, Zuheir Muhsin, faithfully echoed the political line in Damascus. He even went beyond his Syrian masters when he told a Dutch interviewer: "Between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese there are no differences. We are part of one people, the Arab nation. . . . only for political reasons do we subscribe to our Palestinian identity. . . . Palestinians must work together with Syria in the first place, and only after that with the other Arab states."25 Among Palestinians, al-Sa'iqa was regarded as merely a tool of Syrian policy, but for the larger audience watching the Syrian-Palestinian conflict, al-Sa'iqa's challenge to the PLO's established leadership added yet another question mark to a very confusing story.26

88

CHAPTER 4

The Lingering Crisis

THE SETTLEMENT OF October 1976 ended the Lebanese civil war but not the Lebanese crisis. Both the underlying and the immediate problems that had unsettled the Lebanese political system and had led to the outburst in April 1975 remained unsolved and were in fact exacerbated and compounded by the war and its repercussions. The issues, problems and actors concerned in this ongoing crisis can best be examined in terms of four facets: the continuing domestic conflict, Syria's quest for hegemony, the Palestinian issue, and Israel's policies.

These components were closely intertwined. Syria stayed in Lebanon for the stated purpose of preventing a resumption of the civil war, which was a likely possibility as long as the internal Lebanese conflict remained unresolved. But its very presence, while certainly helping to prevent a resumption of all-out fighting, seemed also to perpetuate the domestic conflict. Syria had a set of goals in Lebanon and a policy designed to achieve them. But the actual steps taken to gain them generated greater antagonism in those whose interests they threatened. Furthermore, Syria's presence in Lebanon—and that of the PLO—stimulated greater Israeli involvement. And although Israel argued that it had to support the local militias in southern Lebanon since there was no proper Lebanese army to police the border area, that support contributed to the further humiliation of Elyas Sarkis's weak central government.

But the interaction among the four components that stalemated

89

## THE WAR FOR LEBANON

the Lebanese crisis also had a balancing effect: no single factor could impose its will. Syria could not crush the PLO in 1976 nor the Maronite militias in 1978, but it did thwart the militias' attempt to expand their territorial base in 1981. Thus the period was marked by an unstable equilibrium among hostile and reluctant partners; each could seek to improve its position within the terms of the Lebanese equation but not to revise its contours.

This situation will be made clear in the ensuing account of political developments in the Lebanese crisis between October 1976 and May 1982. But first the international and regional context of the crisis and its four facets should be briefly explored.

### The International Setting

From 1976 to 1982, despite two changes of administration in Washington and many changes in the region, the essence of U.S. policy toward Lebanon did not change. The United States did not think an acceptable fundamental change in Lebanon likely, and did not give the Lebanese issue a high priority on its Middle East agenda. Instead it was inclined to encourage the consolidation of the status quo. The United States wanted primarily to prevent an acute crisis that would threaten regional stability and the success of its policies elsewhere in the Middle East.¹

The Gerald Ford administration, which opened the dialogue with Syria and sanctioned its intervention in Lebanon, was replaced soon after the Riyad and Cairo conferences by the Carter administration. The latter revised several aspects of its predecessor's policies in the Middle East but adhered to its policy toward the Lebanese crisis. During most of 1977, the Carter administration tried to sustain the dialogue with Syria and to open one with the PLO to prepare the way for a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This fact, the importance attributed by Washington to Saudi Arabia, and the Carter administration's ideological biases combined to support the view that the framework developed in October 1976 was the most propitious for dealing with the Lebanese problem. No immediate solution appeared feasible, but hope for the future lay in the gradual consolidation of the central government. Since Syria sup-

90

## THE LINGERING CRISIS

ported the Sarkis government and prevented a resumption of the fighting, it was perceived as playing a constructive role. The Palestinians, once integrated into the comprehensive settlement, should relax their pressure on the Lebanese political system. Although the Carter administration frowned upon Israel's support of the Lebanese Front and Sa'd Haddad's militias, it concentrated its influence with Israel on the Palestinian issue, and it thought it unwise to add yet another point of friction to an already strained relationship. The United States considered the Maronite militias, much to their chagrin, retrogressive, voices from the past, quite unlike their self-image, as described by Bashir Jumayyil: "A small population ... fighting alone for liberty, democracy, for the dignity of man against peoples and groups that deny these values ..."²

In the autumn of 1977, the Carter administration abandoned its original Middle East policy and replaced it with a reluctant endorsement of the Egyptian-Israeli dialogue and peace negotiations, putting aside its dialogue with Syria and its hoped-for dialogue with the Palestinians. But still the Lebanese crisis remained a marginal issue for the United States, completely overshadowed by the Camp David accords, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, and the events in Iran. In the euphoria immediately after the Camp David conference, resolution of the Lebanese crisis was mentioned; but the idea was abandoned as difficulties arose in the Camp David accords.

Subtle changes occurred in Washington's policy toward Lebanon when the Reagan administration began its term of office.³ The new president and his first secretary of state, Alexander Haig, saw the Middle East primarily through the prism of Soviet-American rivalries. From this angle, Syria and the Palestinians were seen in a negative light, in Lebanon and elsewhere, while the militias of the Lebanese Front, a conservative pro-Western force, were viewed more favorably than they had been by the previous administration. Accordingly, the new administration agreed early in 1981 to receive Bashir Jumayyil for a visit in Washington.

In the spring of 1981, the United States seemed to be considering trying to end Syria's military presence and political influence in Lebanon. This was the significance attached at the time to Secretary Haig's specific denunciation of Syria's role in Lebanon during his first official tour of the Middle East. In a press conference held with

91

THE LINGERING CRISIS FOR LEBANON

Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Jerusalem on April 6, Haig addressed himself to the Syrian-Phalangist clashes in Zahle: "With respect to the situation in Lebanon, I think there are few differences [between the United States and Israel] that I am aware of. We view the brutality of the Syrian action against the Christian enclosure as a very very serious turn of events, which is unacceptable by any measure of appropriate international standards of conduct . . . and the consequences of a failure to return to a cease-fire of course are most, most serious."⁴

But if Haig did accurately reflect the Reagan administration's intentions in Lebanon, these intentions were abandoned when the Syrian-Israeli missile crisis erupted later in April. A Syrian-Israeli war would divide the United States—which would be seen to be supporting Israel—from its conservative Arab allies—which would support Syria (albeit without enthusiasm). Moreover, Syria's Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union might force a U.S. confrontation with the Soviets. And then there were influential members of the administration, the secretary of defense in particular, whose outlook on the Middle East (and consequently on the Lebanese crisis) differed radically from that of the secretary of state.

Aiming to avert a Syrian-Israeli war, Washington sent Philip Habib to mediate the missile crisis. The scope of his mission soon expanded as it became evident once again that no one aspect of the Lebanese crisis could be addressed in isolation, and Habib tried with Saudi Arabia's help to reach a settlement of the broader crisis. Given Saudi Arabia's active role, this attempt was conducted within the framework first devised in 1976-77. Thus, during the latter part of 1981 and the early months of 1982, it was generally believed that the indications of change in early 1981 had been a passing episode and that the Reagan administration's Lebanese policy was essentially a continuation of the policies of its two predecessors.

It is significant that despite the collapse of the American-Syrian dialogue and the reverses sustained by the United States in Iran and Afghanistan, it was the United States that drew the external contours of the Lebanese crisis. America's position was based on its influence in several important Arab countries, on Syria's and the PLO's desire for a dialogue with the United States, on a residual belief in America's interest in and concern for Lebanon, and, most

92

THE LINGERING CRISIS

important, on the widely held view that the United States was the only power capable of influencing Israel. Egypt's gradual disenagement from the military dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which culminated in the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty had given Israel a decisive military advantage over Syria, and Israel now could conceivably seek a military solution to the Lebanese crisis. Although America's capacity to prevent, moderate, or condone Israeli military activity in Lebanon generated much Arab criticism, it strengthened American influence over the course of the Lebanese crisis.

However, as a case study in the superpower-client relations in the region, the Lebanese crisis more often than not disclosed the limitations and disappointments inherent in such relationships for the senior partner. American and Israeli outlooks on the crisis often diverged, and the American government discovered it could not always compel its junior partner to act in accordance with its wishes in matters that Israel considered to be vital and the United States to be inconsequential. But Washington's occasional consternation was mild compared with Moscow's sustained discomfiture. The Lebanese crisis clearly demonstrated the limits of Soviet influence in the Middle East and the extent of the United States's success in the mid-1970s in restoring its ascendancy in the core of the area. Although clients and friends of the Soviet Union played important roles in the civil war, they spent the crucial phases of it fighting each other. Syria, the Soviet Union's most important client in the Arab world after Egypt's defection, acted in coordination with the United States and blatantly rejected Moscow's advice.

Even the eventual Soviet-Syrian rapprochement and the disruption of the incipient Syrian-American dialogue failed to improve Moscow's standing. Syria's continued presence in Lebanon endangered the very existence of the Ba'thi regime and risked a Syrian-Israeli war, in which the Soviet Union would be identified with the weaker side, which would be fighting outside its frontiers.

President Hafiz al-Asad's precarious domestic position and the prospect of a Syrian-Israeli war in Lebanon seem, indeed, to have been two of the considerations behind the Soviet Union's change of mind regarding a treaty relationship with Syria. During most of the 1970s, the Soviet Union had sought to formalize its relations with Syria through a treaty of friendship and cooperation, while Ba'thi

93

United Press International

An Israeli border guard surveys the Lebanese countryside from his watchtower

Israelis, in a Warning to Syrians,
Show Off Armor Near Lebanon

Continued From Page 1

non since Sunday's regular weekly meeting.

[Prime Minister Rabin stressed in a speech at a meeting of conservative Jews that Israel would not tolerate the presence of Syrian troops or Arab terrorists in southern Lebanon, The Associated Press reported. "What steps to take and when is Israel's business," he added, "and we will decide according to our needs."]

Afterward some officials raised questions privately about whether Israel could hold the Syrians responsible for preventing terrorist attacks from southern Lebanon when they were prevented from policing the area. These officials said the Government might consider a reinterpretation of its policy to allow limited Syrian forces into the area.

An authoritative source said, however, that this proposal had not been raised at the Cabinet meeting. The ministers reportedly supported the premise that the Syrians, with more than two divisions in Lebanon, had enough leverage against Palestinians to control them without approaching the Israeli border.

Syrians Considering Push

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 23 (AP) — Syrian troops scouted across southern Lebanon

on near the coast today as their leaders considered whether to risk confrontation with Israel by pushing into southern Lebanon.

An Arab League spokesman said peace-force commanders were "weighing the pros and cons of a push southward" to try to break up fighting in the southern region between Lebanese Christian forces and the alliance of leftist Moslems and Palestinians. The Syrians have occupied the rest of Lebanon, and the southern area is the last crisis point in the waning civil war.

The spokesman refused to comment on the Israeli buildup, but he said: "Our task is to end the Lebanese civil war, not to start a new war with Israel."

Syria Blames Israel for Tension

DAMASCUS, Syria, Nov. 23 (UPI) — Syria charged today that Israel was worsening tension in the Middle East by moving troops to its northern border and "scheming" to control southern Lebanon.

"Israeli Jews are closing in one the south," said an editorial in Al Baath, newspaper of the governing Baath party.

"Israel is escalating the Middle East situation by taking the issue of south Lebanon and its fears of developments there as a ruse to turn Arab and international attention away from the basic problems," the editorial said. "The Zionist enemy is scheming to control the

The New York Times/Nov. 24, 1976

Israelis are keeping watch on
Lebanese area south of Litani.

south or impose a specific solution there."

Kissinger Urges Restraint

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 (UPI) — Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger urged restraint on all sides in the Middle East today after hearing of Israeli concerns about a possible buildup of hostile forces in southern Lebanon.

Mr. Kissinger met over breakfast with Ambassador Simcha Dinitz. The Israeli warned that his country could not accept a return to pre-civil war conditions when Lebanese territory, along Israel's northern border, was used to stage guerrilla attacks into Israel.

WAS who could open an Organized partnership the end of the war. The French point is a proper opening. The refusal of Jiryis, flected, to the barrassing of the infidel, is a good reason to appear. Since it appears to be the question of the situation, Henry him in all tions. No force should be used to stop the French. But force, the law of P.L.O. is ton as tions. These last week's office of Mr. Kissinger had no mem- ory, the mil- cil, the ing to

An important a- tion, said, the visitor. But the rec- tion" as applied to Israel, Daprym, informed the States. That

In his with- the said he

In a noon, had given application for the return from ties.

He is an Israeli not a traitor, I

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NY Times

11/25/76

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1976

# Israelis Seek Christian-Held Lebanon Border Zone

By WILLIAM E. FARRELL
Special to The New York Times

JERUSALEM, Nov. 24 - Israeli officials are promoting the idea that the best way to avert a confrontation between Israeli and Syrian forces - the Lebanese border - would be the creation of a buffer zone patrolled by Lebanese forces responsible to President Elias Sarkis.

The idea, which is being fostered by officials here, would require the consent of Damascus because Syrians form the vast bulk of the Arab peacekeeping force that is in control of most of Lebanon. Officials of the Foreign and Defense Ministries said today that the border was quiet and that there were no signs of major movements by the Syrians to southern Lebanon, which has a winding 80-mile fenced border with Israel. In recent days, as Syrians have gradually moved in to impose order in the major warring areas in Lebanon, the Israelis have been concerned about Syrian movements toward the frontier.

On at least two occasions, the Israelis have expressed caution to Damascus, with the United States acting as intermediary. The most recent warning to the Syrians was after rocket-shells had been fired from Lebanon at the Israeli town of Nahariya, causing some property damage.

## Israelis in Border Display

In the last two days, the Israelis have bolstered their military forces at the border and have sought to make this display of strength a further form of caution to the Syrians. In addition, Israeli officials have said that the Syrians, since they now control Lebanon, would be responsible for preventing incidents such as the shelling of Nahariya, which presumably was by Palestinian guerrillas.

Since the Syrians intervened some months ago in the Lebanese conflict, Israel has said that it would take no military counteraction so long as the Syrians did not cross-what is-called "the red line."

While not publicly defined, the line has been construed to mean no advance by Syrian forces to the south of the Litani River, which flows into the Mediterranean five miles north of Tyre.

Officials here also say that the red line is not merely geographic but refers as well to "the nature and character" of any military movement near the Israeli border. There has been speculation that Israel would be agreeable to a movement by a small number of Syrians into Tyre to bring the area under control but only if the Syrians promised to ban the return of Palestinian guerrillas to southern Lebanon, an area the guerrillas used in the past to organize raids across the border into Israel.

All along, the Israelis said they would not tolerate a return of the Palestinians to southern Lebanon, a position reiterated yesterday by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

## U.S. Seeks to Calm Israel

By BERNARD GWERTZMAN

Special to The New York Times

for the Syrians to occupy the border area and thereby be able to prevent any Palestinian raids, just as they are able to do in the Golan Heights area. In Golden Gulf, Palestinian guerrilla units are not permitted to cross the border between Syria and Israel.

American officials, in private comments, also express irritation with Israeli press reports that the United States was relaying the Israeli warnings to Syria.

One official said that the United States was in active consultation with Syria and Israel and was urging both sides to show restraint.

Some analysts are speculating that the rash of comments from Israel about the situation in Lebanon was prompted by political rivalry between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Defense Minister Shimon Peres, contenders in parliamentary elections next year.

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United Press International

of Lords as new ses-
Philip, her husband.

ention was made of a
the North Sea oil-bear
Scand.

the Government would
on inflation, working
unions and employers-
iven to manufacturing
was no mention of any
leasures to satisfy the
etary Fund, to which
ed for a loan. But a
budget is expected in-

the South

which reflects the
government of President
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the attention of the
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estion that Syria was
c its forces closer to
in response to the re-
ary movements.

and Edde, a prominent
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a view toward-forcing
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center a new round of
the Arab nations to-
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Border Towns

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oradie shelling of towns
oslem and Palestinian
aeli border.

A Palestinian forces control the
1, a few miles from the

ian rightist forces have
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ating Israel from the
alestinians. There have
attempts by either the
forces or the rightist
out attacks that would
y situation on the Leba-
order.

been construed to mean no advance by
Syrian forces to the south of the Litani
River, which flows into the Mediterra-
nean five miles north of Tyre.

Officials here also say that the red line
is not merely geographic but refers as
well to "the nature and character" of
any military movement near the Israeli
border. There has been speculation that
Israel would be agreeable to a movement
by a small number of Syrians into Tyre
to bring the area under control but only
if the Syrians promised to ban the return
of Palestinian guerrillas to southern Leba-
non, an area the guerrillas used in the
past to organize raids across the border
into Israel.

All along, the Israelis said they would
not tolerate a return of the Palestinians
to southern Lebanon, a position reiterat-
ed yesterday by Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin.

U.S. Seeks to Calm Israel

By BERNARD GWERTZMAN

Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24.—State Depart-
ment officials say they are less con-
cerned than Israel that the recent Syrian
moves in Lebanon—in particular develop-
ments in southern Lebanon near the
Israeli border—pose a serious danger to
stability in the area.

In recent days, Israelis here and in
Jerusalem have been pressing Secretary
of State Henry A. Kissinger and other
officials to warn the Syrians that the Is-
raelis will not permit a major Syrian ad-
vance across the Litani River.

American officials, who have often dif-
fered with Israel about Syrian behavior,
usually taking a more relaxed view of
Syrian intentions than do the Israelis,
have expressed resentment at what they
regard as Israeli attempts to leave an
impression that Washington agrees with
their concern.

Mr. Kissinger invited Simcha Dinitz,
the Israeli Ambassador, to discuss the
situation yesterday morning before Mr.
Kissinger flew to Acapulco, Mexico, for
a Thanksgiving rest before attending the
inauguration of the new Mexican Presi-
dent in Mexico City next week.

In the discussion, Mr. Kissinger is un-
derstood to have told Mr. Dinitz that Is-
rael cannot have it both ways—it cannot
issue warnings to deter Syrian troop
movements to the region of the Israeli
border and at the same time hold the
Syrians responsible for military actions
that Palestinian groups might undertake
near the border.

In the American view, it might be better

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