Back to Introduction   Lebanon ­ Another 'Velvet Revolution'?   Early history The British and French mandates France and the Lebanon Syria and Arab nationalism Independent Lebanon and the 'National Pact' The Palestinian refugee problem The parties to the Civil War Syrian intervention Israeli intervention US intervention The Taif Agreement Hizbullah and Israel Danger of the anti-Syrian Campaign ­ Robert Fisk Danger of the anti-Syrian Campaign ­ Uri Avnery Conclusion   Initially my intention was to talk about this subject after the election which is supposed to be in May, because I don't want to predict the result which is unpredictable, especially since it is going to happen at a very critical time, when the polarisation is at its highest level for the last 15 years - since the end of the civil war, which has led many observers to think it may be the beginning of another civil war. Let me first try to talk about the history of the country, since history is a very important factor in the mindset of the people from that region, and then we will go from there. Lebanon is a small country (smaller than Wales) surrounded on the North and East by Syria and on the South by Palestine, which these days is known as Israel, and on the West by the Mediterranean sea.   EARLY HISTORY The known history of that region starts as anywhere else with writing which in this case begins with the ancient civilisation of Phoenicia. The people of the area, the Canaanites, lived in Palestine, Syria and the Lebanon which until the end of the Great War (1914-18) were all considered as one country. But in those days there were other empires, greater than Phoenicia, who wanted to dominate the area. These were the Egyptians and Babylonians. Then the Babylonians, based in Iraq, were defeated by the Persians. Then the whole area, including Lebanon and Iraq, was taken by the Alexander the Great and his successors. Lebanon was invaded by the Roman Empire (64 BCE). Iraq (Mesopotamia) had already fallen to another Iranian People, the Parthians, and then, from the third to the seventh century, to the Iranian Sassanids. But these Empires couldn't control them, which is why they supported two big powers in the region. In Syria and Lebanon it was the Ghasasina under the Roman Empire; and in Iraq it was the Manadhira under the Persian Empire. Both of these were local unions of tribes. That ended with the rise of the Islamic Empire which controlled all the Arabic world ­ first, the Amawy [Umayyads] in the 7th century, taking Damascus as their capital, to be replaced by the Abassya [Abbasids] after a century, taking Baghdad as their capital. This Arab Empire fell apart in the thirteenth century under the hands of the Mongols, who occupied that region for three centuries, to be replaced by the Ottoman Empire, which occupied the whole Arabic world with the exception of Morocco. As a result of the Ottomans' defeat in the Great War, Iraq and Syria, including Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and parts of Jordan, were divided between Britain and France.   THE BRITISH AND FRENCH MANDATES Here is an account of what happened from the historian Kamal Salibi: By the spring of 1920 agreement had been reached between Britain and France at San Remo on how the former Arab territories of the defunct Ottoman empire would be divided between them. The principal considerations taken into account were oil and communications. During the course of the war, the British had gone to considerable trouble to occupy Mesopotamia. The onset of the war had brought home the supreme strategic importance of oil; the British already had command over the vast oil resources of Iran, and they were determined to prevent the Germans, who were major shareholders in the Turkish Petroleum Company, from gaining access to the proven Mesopotamian oil resources of Kirkuk. In 1916, an agreement negotiated between Mark Sykes on behalf of Britain, and François Georges-Picot on behalf of France (the so-called Sykes-Picot Agreement), had assigned the Vilayet (Ottoman province) of Mosul, in northern Mesopotamia, to the French, and the Vilayets of Baghdad and Basra, in central and southern Mesopotamia, to the British. In Syria, France was to get the Vilayet of Aleppo and the northern parts of the Vilayets of Beirut and Damascus, leaving the southern parts of these two vilayets essentially to Britain, with the understanding that the Holy Land of Palestine would have an international status. During the last months of the war however the British, who already occupied much of Mesopotamia, took occupation of Palestine. Now, at San Remo, the wartime Sykes-Picot Agreement between the two sides was scrapped. [.....] Under the new agreement, the French were to have a free hand in the whole area which they were to hold as a mandate under the League of Nations - a continuous stretch of territory extending from the Euphrates river to the Mediterranean coast. On the other hand, the British, in addition to keeping the whole of Mesopotamia as a mandate, were also to have the mandate over all the southern parts of the Vilayets of Damascus and Beirut - a territory which they first called the Palestine east and west of the Jordan; then, more simply, Transjordan and Palestine. In effect, Britain came to control a stretch of north Arabian desert territory which secured the required contiguity between its Mesopotamian and Palestinian mandates, and an uninterrupted overland route all the way from the borders of Iran to the Mediterranean. Apart from its agreement with France over the partition of the Arab provinces of the Ottoman empire, Britain had made promises during the war to other parties concerning the same area. In central Arabia, there was a standing British alliance with Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud, the Wahhabi Emir of Riyad who was subsequently to become the founder of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Wahhabism was a movement of militant Islamic religious revival which had appeared in central Arabia in the middle decades of the eighteenth century, and the house of Saud had been politically associated with it since that time. In conflict with this British-Saudi alliance was the wartime alliance reached between Britain and Sharif Husayn, the Emir of Mecca, who enjoyed a special Arab and Islamic prestige as a recognised descendant of the Prophet, and whose family were called the Hashemites. In return for leading an Arab revolt against the Ottomans, the Sharif had been promised recognition as the head of an Arab kingdom the exact nature of which was left undefined. The Sharif, however, was led to understand that it would include all of Mesopotamia; all but a negotiable strip of coastal Syria; and the whole of peninsular Arabia, except for the parts which were already established as British protectorates. While the British relations with Ibn Saud were maintained by the British government of India, those with the Sharif were initiated and pursued by the British Arab Bureau in Cairo. Meanwhile, the British Foreign Office, in close touch with the World Zionist Organisation, had by 1917 formally committed itself to viewing with favour the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. Naturally, it was impossible for Britain after the war to honour simultaneously all these conflicting commitments fully. The need to reach a settlement with France over the area was most pressing, and this was taken care of by the San Remo agreement. During the last months of the war, as the British drove the Ottoman forces out of Syria, with the forces of Sharif Husayn's Arab Revolt protecting their right flank, the Sharif's third and most popular son, Faysal, was allowed to enter Damascus and establish an Arab government on behalf of his father in that ancient Arab capital. As the Allies met at San Remo to redraw the map of the Arab world, Sharif Faysal was proclaimed King of Syria, with a view to place Britain and France before an accomplished fact. Once the San Remo agreement had been concluded, however, the French, already in occupation of Beirut, made a show of trying to reach an accommodation with King Faysal; they then crushed his forces at Maysalun, outside Damascus, forcing him to abandon his short-lived Syrian kingdom. To compensate their gallant wartime ally for his loss, the British created another Arab kingdom for him out of the old Ottoman Vilayets of Mesopotamia, which now became the kingdom of Iraq. The British wartime commitment to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish National Home in the Palestine west of the Jordan, which again received high priority, was formalised in 1920 and included as a special article in the statutes of the British mandate for Palestine, as registered in the League of Nations. For the Palestine east of the Jordan, or Transjordan, a special administrative arrangement was soon made. In 1916, when Sharif Husayn solemnly declared the start of the Arab Revolt against the Turks in Mecca, he also proclaimed himself king of the Arabs, and the British actually recognised him as king of the Hijaz [the Western area of the Arabian peninsula, including the holy cities of Mecca and Medina - AL], which was the furthest they felt they could go at the time. After the war, however, Ibn Saud, with his Wahhabi forces, began to attack the Hijaz, and completed its conquest by putting an end to Sharifian rule there in 1925. [.....]   FRANCE AND THE LEBANON [With regard to Lebanon] In 1861, with the help of France, they [the Maronite Christians] had already secured a special political status for their historical homeland of Mount Lebanon as a mutesarrifate, or privileged sanjak (administrative region), within the Ottoman system, under an international guaranty. Since the turn of the century, however, the Maronites had pressed for the extension of this small Lebanese territory to what they argued were its natural and historical boundaries: it would then include the coastal towns of Tripoli, Beirut, Sidon and Tyre and their respective hinterlands, which belonged to the Vilayet of Beirut; and the fertile valley of the Bekaa (the four Kazas, or administrative districts, of Baalbek, the Bekaa, Rashayya and Hasbayya), which belonged to the Vilayet of Damascus. According to the Maronite argument, this 'Greater Lebanon' had always had a special social and historical character, different from that of its surroundings, which made it necessary and indeed imperative for France to help establish it as an independent state. While France had strong sympathies for the Maronites, the French government did not support their demands without reserve. In Mount Lebanon, the Maronites had formed a clear majority of the population. In a 'Greater Lebanon', they were bound to be outnumbered by the Muslims of the coastal towns and their hinterlands, and by those of the Bekaa valley; and all the Christian communities together, in a 'Greater Lebanon', could at best amount to a bare majority. The Maronites, however, were insistent in their demands. Their secular and clerical leaders had pressed for them during the war years among the Allied powers, not excluding the United States. After the war, the same leaders, headed by the Maronite patriarch Elias Hoyek in person, pursued this course at the Paris Peace Conference; and in the end the French yielded. On 1st September 1920 - barely four months after the conclusion of the San Remo agreement; barely two months after the flight of' King Faysal and his Arab government from Damascus - General Henri Gouraud, from the porch of his official residence as French High Commissioner in Beirut, proclaimed the birth of the State of Greater Lebanon, with Beirut as its capital. The flag of this new Lebanon was to be none other than the French tricolour itself, with a cedar tree - now hailed as the glorious symbol of the ancient country since Biblical times - featuring on the central white. Following the establishment of the State of Greater Lebanon, the French turned to deal with the rest of their mandated territory in the Levant, where they were at a loss what to do. In the case of Lebanon, the Maronites had indicated precisely what they wanted. Elsewhere, no community seemed willing to speak its mind unequivocally, which left the French to their own devices. To begin with, in addition to Lebanon, they established four Syrian states: two of them regional, which were the State of Aleppo and the State of Damascus; and two of them ethno-religious, which were the State of the Alouites and the State of Jebel Druze. In response to strong nationalist demands, the states of Aleppo and Damascus were subsequently merged to form the State of Syria, later reconstituted as the Syrian Republic, to which Jebel Druze and the Alouite country were ultimately annexed. Meanwhile, on 23 May 1926, the State of Greater Lebanon received a Constitution which transformed it into the Lebanese Republic. Thus the two sister republics came into being, Lebanon and Syria; both under French mandate, sharing the same currency and customs services, but flying different flags, and run by separate native administrations under one French High Commissioner residing in Beirut. Before long, each of the two sister countries had its own national anthem. But are administrative bureaucracies, flags and national anthems sufficient to make a true nation-state out of a given territory and the people who inhabit it? What about the question of nationality? [.....]   SYRIA AND ARAB NATIONALISM For a brief term, they [the Syrians] had had an Arab kingdom, with its capital in historical Damascus, once the seat of the great Umayyad caliphs and the capital of the first Arab empire. The French had destroyed their kingdom and established statelets on its territory, among them Lebanon. The Maronites, they argued, were perhaps entitled to continue to enjoy the sort of autonomy they had enjoyed since the 1860s in the Ottoman Sanjak of Mount Lebanon, although they had no real reason to feel any different from other Syrians or Arabs. On the other hand, they had no right securing for their Greater Lebanon Syrian territory which had formerly belonged to the Vilayets of Beirut or Damascus, and which had never formed part of their claimed historical homeland. From the Arab nationalist point of view, it was not permissible to accord the French-created Lebanese Republic recognition as a nation-state separate and distinct from Syria. Moreover, from the same point of view, the Syrian Republic itself was not acceptable as the final and immutable achievement of the aspirations of its people. The Syrians, after all, were Arabs, and their territory, historically. which had always included Palestine and Transjordan along with Lebanon, was not a national territory on its own, but part of a greater Arab homeland: a homeland whose ancient heartlands were Syria, Iraq and Arabia, but which, since Islam, had also come to include Egypt and the countries of North Africa all the way to the Atlantic. During the war years, the Allies had cheated the Arabs. The British had promised them national independence on their historical homelands, but they had failed to honour their promises. Instead, they had partitioned this Arab territory with the French, and committed themselves to hand over a particularly precious part of it, namely Palestine, to the Jews. To accept all this, or any part of it, would be nothing less than high treason. Equally unacceptable in principle, though admittedly problems of a less pressing nature, were the continuing British control of Egypt; the Italian colonisation of Libya; and the French and Spanish imperial presence in the remaining parts of North Africa. This concept of one indivisible Arab national homeland extending all the way from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic was expressed by the Damascene nationalist and man of letters, Fakhri al-Barudi, in a song which enjoyed wide circulation: The countries of the Arabs are my homelands: From Damascus to Baghdad; From Syria to the Yemen, to Egypt, and all the way to Tetuan. Significantly, the Syrian national anthem written by another Damascene nationalist, Khalil Mardam, did not sing the virtues of Syria as a nation-state standing by itself, but as the 'lion's den of Arabism', its glorious historical 'throne', and its sacred 'shrine'. By contrast the Lebanese national anthem, written by the Maronite poet Rashid Nakhleh, sang of the old men of Lebanon and the young, in the mountains and the plains, responding to the call of the historical fatherland and rallying around the 'eternal' cedar flag to defend 'Lebanon forever'. Clearly, in the case of the Syrian Republic, the French had put together a state but failed to create a special nationality to go with it. The same, in a way, applied to Lebanon where, contrary to the claims of the national anthem, the concept of a natural and historical Lebanese nationality was meaningful to some people in the country, but not to others. The case was no different in the countries created by the British in their own mandated Arab territories. (From A House of Many Mansions - The History of Lebanon Reconsidered, I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 1993. Kamal Salibi is Emeritus Professor at the Department of History and Archaeology at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon)   INDEPENDENT LEBANON AND THE 'NATIONAL PACT' On the settlement in Lebanon, Hassan Krayem comments: Political systems have their assets and liabilities, and Lebanon is no exception. During the two decades preceding the 1975 civil war, many Western scholars referred to Lebanon as the "most stable democracy" in the Arab world (Shils, E. 1966. "The prospect for Lebanese civility," in Politics in Lebanon, ed. L. Binder. New York: John Wiley and Sons Inc., 1-12); however, the political system fell far short of being democratic. As Salim al-Hoss asserted, "the system has always had plenty of freedom but suffered from a lack of democracy." (al-Hoss, S. 1984. Lubnan ala al-Muftaraq [Lebanon at the crossroads]. Beirut: Beirut Arab Center, 217- 219). In other words, democracy was deficient as a system because equal opportunities for citizens as well as political accountability and political responsibility of officials and institutions were lacking. Lebanon had and still maintains a confessional system based on a formula allocating political and administrative functions to the major sects. Such a system has historical roots but it was the National Pact in 1943 that rigidly institutionalised it. The National Pact was an unwritten agreement between President Bishara al-Khuri and Prime Minister Riad al-Sulh. It involved two major groupings: the political elite of the Maronites representing the Christians in general and the political elite of the Sunnis representing the Muslims. In the National Pact, many issues were settled by the two leaders. First, they agreed to view Lebanon as a neutral, independent and sovereign entity having an Arab character (wajh arabi). Second, they agreed that Lebanon would not seek unity with Syria and the Arab World nor special ties to France in particular or the West in general. In effect, the latter aspect led many observers to label the Pact as the "double negation agreement." Third, the National Pact established a confessional formula providing for the representation of Christians and Muslims in a six to five ratio throughout government. Furthermore, the offices of President, Prime Minister and Speaker of the House were assigned to the Maronite, Sunni and Shia sects respectively. This confessional formula of representation, balanced according to the census of 1932, assigned the dominant role to the Maronite sect. The constitution gave the Maronite president ultimate executive authority while not providing a mechanism for presidential accountability, especially since parliament could question the cabinet, but not the president. Moreover, in addition to the presidency, other key positions in government were held by Maronites. Members of this sect were to occupy major positions in key ministries, in the army and in the courts. Such positions included the commander-in-chief of the army, the highest Judicial position (President of the Court of Cassation), the positions of the Director-General of both internal security and intelligence and that of Governor of the Central Bank. (Hassan Krayem: The Lebanese Civil War and the Taif Agreement)   THE PALESTINIAN REFUGEE PROBLEM The biggest threat to the stability of Lebanon started in 1948, when many Palestinians fled their country because of the creation of Israel, taking refuge in the Lebanon. At the end of 1957 there was a rumour that the President, Camille Chamoun, was intending with US support to amend the constitution to have another term as president. When the rumour was confirmed it was seen by the Druze, Muslims, other kinds of Christians and even some of the Maronites themselves, as unacceptable. There were uprisings and demonstrations in many cities. Chamoun told Eisenhower that the Opposition were Communists and Nasserites and promised him that with the help of the US and Lebanese army he could crush them and break the United Arab Republic (the union between Egypt and Syria which was seen by the US as a major threat, an expansion of Nasser's ambitions). The biggest ally of the US in the region - the Iraqi kingdom - had just fallen to the revolt led by General Kassem (1958) and that made them all the more committed to supporting Chamoun and bringing the monarchy back to Iraq. But they were in for a big surprise when they found that Lebanon's army opposed Chamoun which is why they had to save face and reach a compromise with Nasser, favouring Fouad Shehab, the Commander in Chief as the main candidate for President and withdrawing. Shehab was succeeded in 1964 by Charles Helou who was followed in 1970 by Suleiman Franjieh. The Six Days war fought by Israel in 1967 brought more disturbance to Lebanon with more Palestinian refugees, this time including militant groups founded after the formation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, who started to attack Israel from South Lebanon. In retaliation, Israel continuously attacked southern Lebanon. At the end of 1968, Israeli commandos raided Lebanon's airport, destroying thirteen civilian aircraft in retaliation for an Israeli airliner hijacked to Athens by Palestinians. In 1969 after clashes between the Lebanese army and the PLO the relations between the PLO and the Lebanese government were regularised in the 'Cairo Agreement', through the influence of Egypt's President Nasser. In September 1970, 'Black September', a major confrontation between the Jordanese army, supported by the US, and the PLO led to the PLO being driven out of Jordan and fleeing to Lebanon. This was disastrous both for the PLO and for the Lebanese. In 1973, the Phalange Party (Al Kataeeb) which had been founded in 1936 by Pierre Gemayel, attacked Palestinian camps, and Israeli commandos assassinated three Palestinian leaders in Beirut. In the following year Israel bombed Sabra and Shatila, Palestinian camps in Beirut.   THE PARTIES TO THE CIVIL WAR Here we can see how the history, the unwritten constitution and the external and internal factors had led to the civil war. The spark that set this off occurred in Beirut on the 13th April 1975 when the militia of the Phalange Party attacked a bus that was carrying mainly Palestinians, killing around thirty people, after accusing the Palestinians of trying to assassinate Pierre Gemayel earlier on the same day. From then on every party started to create its own militia, and the polarisation reached its peak. At the bottom of the conflict was the issue of confessionalism out of phase with the true balance of religious groups in the country ­ a minority (the Maronites) refusing to share power and economic opportunity with other sects in the society. Kamal Jumblatt formed and led a democratic, progressive and non-sectarian front that later allied itself with the Palestinians. This group brought together several Nationalist and Leftist parties and organisations who formed the Lebanese National Movement (LNM). The conservative forces led by the Christian Kataeeb ('Phalange') Party formed another bloc called the Lebanese Forces (LF). The LNM advanced a comprehensive plan for political reform which called for the total abolition of political confessionalism and the implementation of wide democratic reforms of the political, electoral and administrative systems. The LF rejected this and advocated an alternative, though less clearly articulated, plan that varied from maintaining the status quo to political decentralisation and federalism. The presence of the Palestinian resistance movement in Lebanon and the support it enjoyed from wide segments of the Lebanese population complicated the situation further. The vulnerable political system could not stand the pressure and internal compromise became harder to achieve.   SYRIAN INTERVENTION Syrian influence in Lebanon had always been considerable. Initially they gave verbal support to the LNM and their Palestinian allies until the Spring of 1976, when it became evident that the balance of forces was tipping dramatically in the LNM's favour. The LNM were almost victorious. They reached the presidential palace in Ba'ada and bombed it. On 1st June 1976, Syrian troops entered Lebanon on the invitation of the President, Elias Sarkis and of the LF. The Syrians supported the LF in holding back the LNM and the Palestinian armed forces. The Syrians met heavy resistance and suffered many casualties. The Syrian intervention was endorsed by the Arab League who established an Arab deterrent force, 90% of which was Syrian. At that time the conflict was more complicated than just a sectarian war and the Lebanese army started to fragment. One part of it, led by Sa'ad Hadad, established the South Lebanese Army (SLA), with encouragement from Israel which supplied him with weapons and equipment; another part joined the LNM. Patrick Seale says in his book (Asad of Syria - The Struggle for the Middle East, London, IB Tauris, 1988) that Assad had been duped by Kissinger into believing that if he did not enter the war to rein in the PLO and LNM, Israel would have to go in and do the job itself - a prospect Assad found terrifying. Kissinger played on Assad's fears and succeeded in dividing Arabs further for the benefit of Israel. After the retreat of the LNM and Palestinians, relative calm returned to Lebanon, with 44,000 dead and about 180,000 wounded and many thousands emigrated or displaced within the country. Much of the once magnificent city of Beirut was reduced to rubble and divided into Muslim and Christians sectors by the 'Green Line'. The Druze leader, Kamal Jumblatt was assassinated in 1977, which led the Druze to engage in a series of massacres in Christian towns and villages. But by this time the LNM was in retreat and, especially after the assassination, their ability to influence political events declined. In the meantime a major conflict blew up between Syria and the LF. Syrian forces were forced to evacuate the LF heartland in East Beirut, which led Syria to shift its alliance to the Palestinians and the LNM.   ISRAELI INTERVENTION In March 1978, Israel moved into Lebanon as far as as the Litani river with 30,000 soldiers to strengthen the SLA and make direct contact with the Lebanese Front. This operation led to the deaths of some 15,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. Some, but not all, the Israeli forces then withdrew, handing more territory over to the SLA which then declared a 'Free Lebanon' in the South. The UN Security Council issued Resolution 425, ordering Israel out of Lebanon, but for 22 years, until 2000, the Israelis refused to comply. The UN set up a 5,000 man peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) supposed to help the Lebanese government control all its land, but Israel refused to allow it to reach as far as the Israeli border. Meanwhile the fighting continued between the Syrians and Christians in Beirut . The Shia continued to grow in importance. Their only militia in 1980 was Amal. Initially a simple defence force it was increasingly developing a political role. On the Christian side, the LF split up and a bitter conflict between the Phalange led by Bashir Gemayel and the Tigers, led by Dani Chamoun, left Bashir in a very powerful position. At the same time the LNM began to build bridges to the leaders of the Islamic movement. Lebanon's security deteriorated significantly in late 1981/early 1982, with clashes in almost every city and region. In Syria, there was an Islamic rising in the towns of Hama and Hims, supported by the US, Jordan and Israel. This led Assad to bomb those towns to eliminate them. On 3rd June, 1982, Israel's ambassador to the UK was shot by a member of the Abu Nidal Group. Abu Nidal was hostile to Yasser Arafat and to the PLO, and the group was based in Iraq and Libya not in Lebanon, but Israel used this as an excuse for a massive invasion of Lebanon on 6th June, with 100,000 troops. It was perfect timing since the country was in the throes of an election. Within one week the Israeli army had encircled West Beirut and begun a three month siege which saw heavy air, naval and artillery bombardment. The invasion had long been planned by Prime Minister Begin as a way of neutralising Syrian and PLO opposition to Israel's plan to annex the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as a means of gaining control of the water rights to Lebanon's rivers. As a result of the diplomatic mediation of the US envoy, Philip Habib, the PLO began to evacuate its troops and to head for Tunis. This was a major blow to Syria and the LNM and it dramatically strengthened the LF, bringing its leader, Bashir Gemayel to the presidency, but within days he was assassinated and his brother Amin elected in his place. Under the command of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli army took West Beirut and occupied the whole city. Two days later the Phalange militia entered the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila and massacred the residents. The killing continued for two days and three nights and the record reached 2,000 deaths among the civilian population in the area under the control of Ariel Sharon ­ the man described by George Bush as a 'man of peace'. Prior to the Israeli invasion there was a great deal of discomfort among the Shia population with the behaviour of the Amal militia - its leader, Musa al-Sadr, had disappeared in Libya and it had fallen into the hands of Nabih Berri. Two spiritual leaders - Mohamad Hussain Fadlullah and Mohamad Mahdi Shamsuddin - were trying to form another movement, not to get involved in the civil war but to defend Lebanon from Israel and the US. The invasion was a golden opportunity to launch the movement. This was the beginning of Hizbullah but its existence was not declared officially until 1985. Its first General Secretary was Subhi al-Tufayli. He was replaced in 1991 by Abbas al-Musawi, who was assassinated by Israel in 1992. The post was then taken by Hassan Nasrallah. Hizbullah was never involved in the civil war, which is why they claim now that they are not a 'militia' but a movement of resistance against occupation.   US INTERVENTION By late August 1982, the 'Multinational Force' (MNF) had arrived in Beirut to monitor the evacuation of the PLO, which is why many Lebanese considered that it was working for Israel, especially since it did nothing with regard to the Israeli occupation. It consisted initially of troops from the US, France and Italy, joined in Feb 1983 by the UK. On April 1983 a suicide bomber blew up a van in the US Embassy killing 63 people. On 17th May 1983 an agreement was signed under US supervision between the Lebanese President Amin Gemayel and Israel. It was a small peace treaty. It was opposed by Syria who wanted Israel to withdraw without gaining any advantage from its invasion. The agreement led to an Israeli withdrawal from Beirut and from the Shouf mountain, heartland of the Druze. The Lebanese Forces then moved into the mountain meeting opposition from the LNM, backed by Syria. This led US warships to begin shelling Druze positions in the mountain and Syrian positions elsewhere making it clear to everyone in the Lebanon except the LF that the US could no longer be regarded as a neutral force. At the end of October, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by a suicide bomber driving a truck loaded with explosives. 241 marines died. Twenty seconds later and four miles away another bomb exploded in a building housing French paratroops. 58 soldiers were killed. 10 days later another truck bomb blew up the HQ of the Israeli army in Sour (Tyre), killing 29 Israeli troops with more than 30 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners. These attacks lead to the withdrawal of the MNF by February 1984. Amin Gemayel felt that he had been abandoned by Israel and by the US and, under the pressure put upon him by many Lebanese factions and by Syria he was forced in March 1984 to cancel the agreement he had made with Israel. In the same year Syria gained a great deal of respect especially among ordinary people in the Lebanon by arranging a conference for Lebanese MPs which took place in Geneva and Lausanne. By 1985, Syria had recovered most of the power over Lebanese affairs which it had lost to Israel and the US following the Israeli invasion in 1982. 1985 saw the beginning of the wave of kidnapping of westerners and of the suicide bombings against the Israeli occupation which led Israel to withdraw from the Awali river to the Litani river. The Israelis established an occupation zone which they called the Security Belt and embarked on their 'iron fist' policy against villages in Southern Lebanon and their civilians but this failed to inhibit the counter attacks. Based on their experience in Lebanon Israel had to face the painful fact that Arab guerrilla warfare could be waged against them, a fact that was not lost on Palestinians resisting Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In March 1985 a car bomb exploded in West Beirut in front of the flat of Mohamad Hussain Fadlullah, godfather and spiritual leader of Hizbullah, killing 80 people and wounding 200, though Fadlullah himself was unhurt. It was later reported in Washington that the CIA had been involved. At the end of the year, with Syrian support, the leaders of the Lebanese Forces, Amal and the Druze Progressive Socialist Party met in Damascus and reached an agreement known as the Tripartite Agreement on political reforms designed to end the civil war. However, early in 1986, Amin Gemayel and Samir Geagea, the intelligence chief of the Lebanese Forces, organised a coup against the LF leader Elie Hobeika. He was ousted from his position and the agreement rendered null and void. In the same year, the Israelis completed a project to divert the Litani river towards Israel. By mid 1987 the war had reached its worst period. The Prime Minister Rashid Karami was assassinated. The political situation was paralysed and lawlessness increased. Amin Gemayel's term as president came to an end in September 1988 and the failure to appoint a successor created a political vacuum which threatened partition. Gemayel appointed an interim cabinet with the army Commander-in-Chief Michel Aoun as Prime Minister but his authority was only accepted in East Beirut while in West Beirut and other regions the original cabinet headed by Salim al-Hoss was recognised as legitimate. In March 1989, following severe shelling by Druze and Muslim forces backed by Syria, Aoun declared:'The battle for liberation from the Syrians has begun.' Syria had 40,000 troops in Lebanon and, at the end of the same month, Aoun rejected a truce with Syria and the Druze and Muslims saying he would settle for nothing less than a complete Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. Next month he went one step further and called on all Lebanese to attack Syrian interests throughout the world. Aoun was supported and armed by Iraq which, since the end of the eight years war with Iran in 1988 had sought to punish Syria for supporting Iran and for refusing Iraq right of way for its oil pipeline to the Mediterranean Sea after the Persian Gulf had been blockaded. Iraq had been joined more discreetly in its support for Aoun by Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia because of their support for the American interest in the region.   THE TAIF AGREEMENT Beirut began to look like a ghost town as thousands finally gave up and fled the country by sea to Cyprus. It was estimated that two thirds of the population had fled. In October 1989, 62 MPs out of 99 ­ those still alive who had been members of the Parliament elected in 1972 ­ began intense discussions in Taif, Saudi Arabia, with support from the Arab League and from Syria, with the aim of agreeing upon a new charter to replace the unwritten constitution of 1943. 31 of the MPs were Christians, representing the main sects (Maronite, Orthodox, Catholic, Armenian), 31 were Muslim Sunni, Muslim Shia and Druze. Within two weeks, they reached agreement which mandated a shift in the balance of power away from Maronite domination towards increased Muslim power along with recognition of Syria's right to maintain influence in Lebanon as long as Israel had a foot in the country. The biggest loser was Aoun. Power was transferred away from the President to the Prime Minister and the Chairman of Parliament; executive power was to be wielded by a council of ministers divided equally between Christians and Muslims. The number of seats was to increase from 99 to 128 and to be divided equally between Christians and Muslims. Taif marked the real end of 15 years of civil war in Lebanon. The final clause of the Taif Agreement emphasised the special relationship with Syria that derived its strength from the roots of blood ties, history and joint interests. This made it clear to everyone that Syria would be in Lebanon for a long time. This would become an issue for the USA in 2005 but, in a statement following a summit meeting in Malta, the US and USSR expressed the international community's support for the agreement; in addition it was supported by a statement from the UN Security Council on 31st October 1989. In November 1989, René Mouwad was elected as President. Aoun issued a decree dissolving the Parliament and rejected the election, together with the Taif agreement, as illegal. Less than three weeks after his election René Mouwad was assassinated. A few days later, Elias al-Harawi was elected as President. Aoun rejected this election as well which led Harawi to replace him as Commander in Chief by Emil Lahoud (the current - in 2005 - President) and to deliver an ultimatum to Aoun to surrender the presidential palace, where he was holed up in a bunker. Aoun refused. At the end of January 1990 another war broke out, this time between Aoun and the Lebanese Forces led by Samir Geagea. Neither was able to win it. In October, with the approval of the US (who guaranteed Syria a free hand in Lebanon in order to secure Syrian support in the first war against Iraq) a joint Lebanese-Syrian military operation against Aoun forced him to capitulate and to take refuge in the French Embassy where he stayed until August 1991 when a 'special pardon' was issued enabling him to leave Lebanon safely and go to exile in France. All the militias were dissolved in May 1991 with the exception of Hizbullah which was not included in the Parliament's definition of a 'militia'. In May 1992 the last hostage was released. From 1992 to 1998 Rafik al-Hariri was Prime Minister. He was a Lebanese business man, a billionaire who made his fortune working in Saudi Arabia. He had a big advantage through his relations with the Saudi monarchy. He rebuilt Beirut and sent many students to study abroad out of his own pocket; but he also benefited personally from many contracts. He became Prime Minister again from 2000 to 2004.   HIZBULLAH AND ISRAEL Until the year 2000, the South of Lebanon was the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbullah and Israel. Hizbullah took the fight to the North of Israel with its Katiusha rockets. In 1992, as we have seen, Israel had killed Abbas al-Musawi, General Secretary of Hizbullah. He was replaced up until the present time by Hassan Nasrallah, who lost one of his sons in the fight against the occupation. In 1993, Israel launched a series of bombardments throughout Lebanon. These continued for over a week. More than a thousand Lebanese were killed and more than 250,000 people displaced and made homeless. In April 1996, hundreds of Lebanese were killed by Israel's two week operation 'Grapes of Wrath'. 106 people, most of them women and children, took refuge in a United Nations compound in Qana when Israel bombed it. This was to be known as the 'Qana massacre'. Similar events on a smaller scale took place in 1997. In 1998 Israel agreed to the UN Security Council Resolution 425, originally passed in 1978, to withdraw from Lebanon on condition that Lebanon and Syria would guarantee the safety and security of Northern Israel, but Lebanon and Syria refused to agree to any conditions. In the same year Emil Lahoud was elected as President. In 2000, Israel finally withdrew from Lebanon under pressure from Hizbullah, turning its position over to its ally, the South Lebanese Army, but the SLA collapsed, obliging the Israelis to accelerate their withdrawal. This was completed by 25th May 2000 which is regarded in Lebanon as a day of liberation. Hizbullah is highly regarded in the Arabic world because this was the first defeat inflicted on Israel and it is always said that Israel withdrew from the Lebanon with its tail between its legs. That was a major source of inspiration to Hamas and Islamic Jihad in launching the second intifada based on Nasrallah's saying that this world doesn't understand anything but the language of force.   DANGER OF THE ANTI-SYRIAN CAMPAIGN ­ ROBERT FISK But Lebanon is now facing a new danger. It is well summed up by Robert Fisk: Lebanon confronts a nightmare ...As the Syrian army begins its withdrawal from the country ... after mounting pressure from President George Bush - whose anger at the Syrians has been provoked by the insurgency against American troops in Iraq - there are growing signs that the Syrian retreat is reopening the sectarian divisions of the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war ... Have we forgotten 150,000 dead? Have we forgotten the Western hostages? Have we forgotten the 241 Americans who died in the suicide bombing of 23 October 1983? This democracy, if it comes, will be drenched with blood - but the blood will be that of the Lebanese who live here, not that of the foreigners who wish to bestow freedom upon them ... Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the chairman of the Hizbullah Shia guerrilla movement, a loyal if somewhat unwilling Syrian ally which drove the Israelis out of Lebanon in 2000, called for a massive demonstration ... to support the "unity and independence" of Lebanon, but also to thank the Syrians for their "protection" of Lebanon in bygone years. Nasrallah invited Christians and every other religious group to join their demonstration. But most of those present are bound to be Shias - who, like their co-religionists in Iraq - are the largest community in the country.  And of course, thousands of Lebanese now fear that when the Syrians do leave, they may be asked to pay a price for this: that in the absence of these "sisterly" Syrian soldiers, civil conflict might suddenly - mysteriously - return to Lebanon ... How swiftly a Middle Eastern country which had become a bedrock of financial stability and security - even for thousands of new Western tourists - can fall into the abyss. Within 24 hours of Hariri's murder, hundreds of Saudi landowners were closing down their properties in Lebanon - after paying their condolences to Hariri ... President Assad said that 63 per cent of Syria's army in Lebanon had been withdrawn since the year 2000 and that the "international media" had paid no attention to this. He was right. Nasrallah, in his press conference in Beirut yesterday, said that American demands for the withdrawal of the Syrians and the disarmament of the Hizbullah itself were "a photocopy" of Israel's plans for Lebanon. He, too, was right.  But here is the real problem. The Syrians and Hizbullah say that Syrian forces are withdrawing from Lebanon under the terms of the inter-Arab 1989 Taif agreement which ended the civil war here.  This called for a Syrian withdrawal from Beirut - already accomplished by the Syrian army but not by its intelligence services - to the Mdeirej ridge in the mountains east of Beirut, and then to the Bekaa Valley and, after talks with the Lebanese and Syrian governments, to Syria itself.  UN Security Council Resolution 1559 calls for pretty much the same - but also for the disarmament of the Hizbullah guerrilla movement in southern Lebanon, which still attacks the Israelis in the Shebaa farms area, which belonged to Lebanon under French mandate law but which the Israelis have occupied since 1967 ... The Hizbullah will be against their own disarmament. They will be against UN resolution 1559 ... For 30 years, America has tolerated - even supported - Syria's military presence in Lebanon. In 1976, both the Israelis and the Americans wanted Syrian troops in Lebanon - because they would be able to "control" the 300,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon - but now Mr Bush's real concern is Syria's supposed support for the insurgency in Iraq.  The irony is extraordinary: 140,000 American troops occupy Iraq - we shall leave the Israeli occupation forces in Palestinian lands out of this equation - while their President demands the withdrawal of 14,000 Syrian troops from Lebanon.  Democracy indeed! ('Is Lebanon walking into another nightmare?', The Independent, 7th March, 2005)    DANGER OF THE ANTI-SYRIAN CAMPAIGN ­URI AVNERY and by the Israeli journalist, Uri Avnery: Exactly 50 years ago a secret, heated debate took place among the leaders of Israel. David Ben-Gurion (then minister of defence) and Moshe Dayan (the army chief of staff) had a brilliant idea: to invade Lebanon, impose on it a "Christian major" as dictator and turn it into an Israeli protectorate. Moshe Sharett, the then prime minister, attacked this idea fervently. In a lengthy, closely argued letter, which has been preserved for history, he ridiculed the total ignorance of the proponents of this idea in face of the incredibly fragile complexity of the Lebanese social structure. Any adventure, he warned, would end in disaster. At the time, Sharett won. But 27 years later, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon did exactly what Ben-Gurion and Dayan had proposed. The result was exactly as foreseen by Sharett. Anyone who follows the American and Israeli (there is no difference) media, gets the impression that the present situation in Lebanon is simple: there are two camps, "the supporters of Syria" on the one side, the "opposition" on the other. There is a "Beirut Spring". The opposition is a twin sister of yesterday's Ukrainian opposition, and loyally imitates all its methods: demonstrations opposite the government building, a sea of waving flags, colourful shawls and, most importantly, beautiful girls in the front row. But between Ukraine and Lebanon there exists not the slightest similarity. Ukraine is a "simple" country: the east tends towards Russia, the west towards Europe. With American help, the west won. In Lebanon, all the diverse communities are in action. Each for its own interest, each plotting to outfox the others, perhaps to attack them at a given opportunity. Some of the leaders are connected with Syria, some with Israel, all are trying to use the Americans for their ends. The jolly pictures of young demonstrators, so prominent in the media, have no meaning if one does not know the community which stands behind them ... It is difficult to foresee what will happen if the Syrians accede to the American ultimatum and leave Lebanon. There is no indication that the Americans are concerned with the creation of a new fabric of life for the Lebanese communities. They are satisfied with babbling about "freedom" and "democracy", as if a majority vote could create a regime acceptable to all. They do not understand that "Lebanon" is an abstract notion, since for almost all Lebanese, belonging to their own community is vastly more important than loyalty to the state. In such a situation, even an international force will be of no help. The re-ignition of the bloody civil war is a distinct possibility. Civil war: Iraq. If a civil war breaks out in Lebanon, it will not be the only one in the region. In Iraq, such a war - if almost secret - is already in full swing. The only effective military forces in Iraq, apart from the occupation army, are the Kurdish "Peshmerga" ("Those who face death"). The Americans use them whenever they are fighting the Sunnis. They played an important role in the battle of Fallujah, a big town that was totally destroyed, its inhabitants killed or driven out. Now the Kurdish forces are waging a war against the Sunnis and Turkmens in the north of the country, in order to take hold of the oil-rich areas and the town of Kirkuk, and also to drive out the Sunni settlers who were implanted there by Saddam Hussein. How can such a war be practically ignored by the media? Simple: everything is swept under the carpet of the "war against terrorism" ... Civil war: Syria. If the Americans succeed, with our [Israeli] discreet help, in breaking the ruling Syrian dictatorship, there is no assurance at all that it will be replaced by "freedom" and "democracy". Syria is almost as splintered as Lebanon. There is a strong Druze community in the south, a rebellious Kurdish community in the north, an Alawite community (to which the Assad family belongs) in the west. The Sunni majority is traditionally divided between Damascus in the south and Aleppo in the north. The people have resigned themselves to the Assad dictatorship out of fear of what may happen if the regime collapses. It is not likely that a full-scale civil war will break out there. But a prolonged situation of total chaos is quite likely. Sharon would be happy, though I am not sure that it would be good for Israel. Religious fervour: Iran. The main American objective is, of course, the overthrow of the ayatollahs in Iran. (It is a little bit ironic that, at the same time, the Americans are helping to install the Shi'is in power in neighbouring Iraq, where they insist on introducing Islamic law.) Iran is a much harder nut to crack. Unlike Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, this is a homogeneous society. Israel is now openly threatening to bomb the Iranian nuclear installations. Every few days we see on our TV screens the digitally blurred faces of pilots boasting of their readiness to do this at a moment's notice. The religious fervour of the ayatollahs has been flagging lately, as happens with every victorious revolution after some time. But a military attack by the "Big Satan" (the US) or the "Little Satan" (us [- Israel]) may set fire to the whole Shi'i crescent: Iran, south Iraq and south Lebanon ... It is easy to ignite a civil war, whether out of fanaticism or out of intolerable naivete. George Bush ... runs around the world hawking his patent medicines, "freedom" and "democracy", in total ignorance of hundreds of years of history ... Every human being and every people has a right to freedom. Many of us have shed their blood for this aim. Democracy is an ideal that every people has to realise for itself. But when the banners of "freedom" and "democracy" are hoisted over a crusade by an avaricious and irresponsible superpower, the results can be catastrophic. ('The Next Crusades', Ramallah Online, 14th March 2005)   CONCLUSION I think that the media is bringing us a fantasy about civilian demonstrations with flags and dressed in different colours leading to the collapse of governments and bringing the opposition to power. If that is how things happen I wonder why the demonstration of over a million people in Britain against the war did not prepare the way for the collapse of Blair's government, bringing the Lib Dems to power, or indeed any of the other major demonstrations throughout the world. From Georgia to the 'Orange Revolution' in Ukraine to the 'Cedar Revolution' in Lebanon, all of them just to serve the American dream of controlling events around the world. Thomas Friedman described the Iraqi election as the 'purple finger revolution'. That is another colour. And why don't we hear anything about the demonstrations that have been taking place every day for the last two weeks in Egypt? Is it because they have been led by the Muslim Brotherhood? Or because Hosni Mubarak is a good ally? An Iraq writer said that the Iraqi Sun of Freedom is shining over the Arab world but I believe rather that the whole world is being blinded by the Iraqi fog.