By Dekel Avshalom in Israel
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Well over 60 people have been killed during the street fighting in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Maronite militias. What instigated the fighting was a decision of the Lebanese government to eliminate Hezbollah's telecommunications network. Hezbollah leaders regarded that move as a declaration of war on their movement and started an armed struggle against the government.
During the fighting, the utter impotence of the Lebanese state was clearly evident. It took only two days for Hezbollah to conquer the west of the capital city Beirut. Prime Minister Fuad Siniora ordered the army to intervene, but the army refused his command. The only ones that were prepared to fight for "stability" were the Maronite militias. After realizing the weakness of the state, Siniora backed down completely, announcing that Hezbollah's telecommunications network would remain intact.
The recent events show beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Lebanese state has no real power, and has stopped functioning. It is also clear that today Hezbollah is the most powerful political movement in Lebanon. Since the end of the 2006 war against Israel, there has been nothing to stop Hezbollah from taking control of the state and removing the minority-rule of the Maronite oligarchy. However, Hezbollah still seems to respect the Lebanese "rules of the game". It even expressed support for the Lebanese chief of staff - the Maronite Michel Suleiman - as the country's next president. What prevented Hezbollah from taking over lies in the nature of the Lebanese class struggle.
Class Struggle in Lebanon
Like many "post"-colonial counties, Lebanon is an artificial state, created by French imperialism. It was fashioned in a way that would allow the leaders of a Francophile religious sect - the Maronite Christians - to control the state while being a very small minority in the Muslim dominated Middle East.
A controversial ethnic survey conducted in 1932 showed that the Maronites were the largest ethnic group in Lebanon (although not having an absolute majority). The other two major groups were the Sunni and Shiite Muslims. This survey gave the Maronites the pretext to concentrate the bulk of political power in their hands. This pretext is used to this today, despite demographic changes in favour of the Shiites.
While the Sunni leaders were largely co-opted by the Maronites, the Shiite remained the most socially deprived group. Many still living in rural areas, and another sections in the poorer urban suburbs, the Shiites live in immense poverty, while the Maronites and the Sunnis benefit greatly from Lebanon's emerging role as a financial nexus for Middle Eastern petroleum-capital and investors from the West.
This situation could not remain stable for long. The Maronite oligarchy found itself facing increasing opposition from the entire Lebanese population (including many rank-and-file Maronites). They accused this opposition from below of promoting "separatism" - trying to destroy the "peaceful co-existence" of the different ethnic groups in Lebanon. Actually, the opposite was true. This opposition revealed the collaboration of various ethnic groups, Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, Palestinian refugees and Druze, all united in the fight against the exploiting class, that had been using the ethnic shield to retain political and economic power. The true separatists were the Maronites themselves - which consistently fought against uniting Lebanon with the rest of the Arab world, especially with Syria.
Tensions erupted in a civil war which started in 1975 and officially ended in 1990. During that war a new section emerged within the Shiite ruling class. While the co-opted Shiite landowners were largely supportive of the order in Lebanon, a more populist faction emerged from among the Shiite religious leaders. This faction - called Amal (Hope) - demanded equality for the Shiite poor and grew out of their support.
This populist yet reactionary organization managed to stop the influx of many Shiites into the Left and secular resistance movements. The secular Left opposition demanded true equality for all peoples in Lebanon and an immediate end to the ethnocratic nature of the Lebanese state. By detaching the most exploited section s of the population from the Left opposition, Amal turned a class struggle that united various ethnic groups into an ethnic struggle that kept these groups apart. In this way it perpetuated the deadlock that governed Lebanese society from its beginnings.
In 1982, the situation of the Maronites was most dire. In desperation they pleaded with Israeli imperialism to assist them. Israel invaded Lebanon using the pretext of bringing under control the PLO- the Palestinian national liberation movement. This invasion very quickly became a long-term presence designed to protect the Maronite oligarchy. The Shiite villagers were concentrated in the south of Lebanon, which meant that they suffered most from Israel's aggression. This brought forth radicalisation within the Shiites and their leadership. As a consequence, Hezbollah grew as a more radical faction of Amal and finally, with the aid of Syria and Iran, took over as the leader of the Shiite resistance movement.
Hezbollah is a Dead-End
Hezbollah and Amal diverted the Lebanese class struggle along reactionary ethnic lines. For that reason they play a counter-revolutionary role in Lebanon. By hijacking the Lebanese class struggle, Hezbollah receives great political support which enables it to be the leading force in the Lebanese political arena. However, its separatist and reactionary nature prevents it from being a progressive force that can mitigate the distress of the Lebanese people.
The Lebanese counter-revolution could not have been accomplished without the generous assistance of the imperialist powers. From the days of French colonial rule until the present conflict, the imperial powers have consistently intervened in order to maintain the pro-Western oligarchy in Lebanon. This intervention was required to fight the Arab secular Left which was affiliated to the Soviet Union and raised the progressive flag of uniting the Middle Eastern artificial countries into a single state. At times of great distress for the Maronites, Western troops were sent to defend them. In the uprising of 1958 American troops were sent in. In the uprising of the seventies and eighties Israel intervened. These interventions prevented the Left from taking over. Disappointed by the failures of the secular Left, many Lebanese turned to religion.
However, precisely because Hezbollah only represents a faction of Lebanese society, it cannot solve any of the contradictions in Lebanon, just as the Maronites cannot do. Hezbollah took part in destroying the supra-ethnic nature of Lebanon's mass resistance movement - the only type of resistance that can solve the problems created by ethnocracy. Hezbollah can only replace one type of ethnic rule with another - but unlike the Maronites, Hezbollah will find it much more difficult to maintain stability. First of all, the Lebanese bourgeoisie are mostly of Maronite and Sunni origin. The army is also controlled by these groups. They are not ready to give political power to the Shiites. Secondly, Hezbollah will find itself isolated in the international arena. It will not be able to recruit the entire Lebanese society to defend its rule.
This drives a more inclusive standpoint to Hezbollah's political approach. Hezbollah's domestic actions show that all it wants is a piece of the political pie, and not much more. Just as Hamas did not go forward after taking over Gaza, Hezbollah also shows unwillingness to disrupt the present order: if they get too greedy, they might lose it all. An example of this is Hezbollah's support for the economic policy of Lebanon's late Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, a flat income tax rate and the permission to import cheap Syrian labour in 2005, which utterly deteriorated the already poor conditions of the Shiites. Hezbollah was also silent about smuggling from Syria, which drove many Shiite farmers into bankruptcy. Hezbollah used funding from Iran to build a welfare network which gave it support from the same Shiites it had helped to push into even greater poverty. This example shows that Hezbollah would prefer political stability rather than the interests of its constituency, as long as it is getting its share of the pie.
The recent conflict in Lebanon was not about taking power, it was about maintaining it. Hezbollah retaliated to what appeared to it as an intention of the government to alter the status quo. Once the government backed down from its intentions, Hezbollah announced a cease-fire and withdrew from Beirut.
Thus, thanks to Hezbollah's counter-revolution, Lebanon will continue to be ruled by oligarchs, dividing up this tiny country among them, and completely paralysed in mending the social ruptures that they have provoked. The only hope for Lebanon is the re-emergence of the supra-ethnic class struggle that was derailed into a dead-end ethnic struggle. So far it seems that Hezbollah is stronger than ever: its victory over Israeli imperialism and the weakness of the Lebanese government has placed great power into its hands. However, this power is based on illusions: it cannot solve any of Lebanon's social problems.
There should be no mistake about it: Lebanon's problem is not an ethnic one, and not even a national one. It is an international problem. Lebanon is a small part of the international class struggle. The Maronite oligarchy is nothing but a puppet of global imperialism - earning their due in return for their contribution to preventing the Arab world from uniting. To bring true liberation for the peoples of Lebanon, it is necessary to go beyond arbitrary ethnic piece-of-the-pie struggles.
All over the Arab world, people are beginning to realize that the Islamic movements have no solutions. In Egypt, Jordan, Iran and Iraq we are beginning to see the mighty Middle Eastern proletariat reassemble itself for the next round of its battle against imperialism and the reactionary local elites that serve it. This is the only political power, the only hope for the plight of the Arab masses in Lebanon and in other countries. The international grip of imperialism can only be fought against by an international resistance of the workers. Any form of resistance that entails dividing workers along ethnic or religious lines will do nothing but maintain the imperial world order. RENEGADE EYE
Showing posts with label Lebanese History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lebanese History. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Lebanon's Cycle Continues
The obsession between the government and opposition to appear victors in this race has led this country into a stagnant stalemate without any chance of progress. There wasn’t any local, regional, or international initiative to allow both bourgeoisie camp leaders to reach a mutual face save deal, and hence the country is trapped in a time frame while the Proletariat suffer.
Last year, when Pierre Gemayel was assassinated, the emotions of the duality reactionary camps were exploding to the extent riots broke up with Christians belonging to the Pro-Opposition and Pro-Government almost beating each other. One week later, on December 1st, the opposition launched the largest protest in the history of Lebanon, and the government remained standing. By late January of 2007, tension was high, the country almost entered a civil war. Two separate events broke out in January that almost dragged the country to immense bloodshed. The first was when the opposition decided to perform civil disobedience and swore to remain active till the government resigns, and the second would be the Arab University incident whereby one unknown sniper shot students whereby riots broke out (which caused Hassan Nasrallah to issue a direct fatwa telling the Shiites to remain home while Saad Harriri begged his audience the same).
We can consider January 2007 the verge of a civil war which the sect leaders clearly didn’t want to enter, nor their sponsors. The media played a massive role in igniting the masses into sect mobilization against each other (Shiite – Christian versus Durzi – Christian – Sunni coalitions). Yet, the leaders didn’t want a civil war, which I would definitely consider a good thing. However, this deadlock between the government and the opposition didn’t change anything, instead it made things worse for the people.
While the media remained charging the different groups against each other, the leaders remained failing to achieve what they promised their sect herds. A large faction of the people, just as anticipated, has lost hope with the future of their country. This means more and more people see their future outside Lebanon. The government and the opposition has disgusted people more and more just as collisions remain standing. Actually everything that happens, the government and the opposition try to take credit for. When the war with terror broke out at Nahr el Bared, the opposition and government remained accusing each other to the extent each called the other bluntly: “of funding Fatah Islam”.
The cycle became so monotonous that even the political assassinations seized to do any impacts because again people are simply fed up. The crowd for Pierre Gemayel, George Hawwi, and Samir Qassir for example were much larger than Antoine Ghanem, Walid Eido, and General Francois Hajj. The mobilizations in the earlier assassinations were more powerful than this year. This year though, towards the middle of it, witnessed media blackout in different location. Whenever riots broke out between the two camps, media didn’t emphasize on them as they used to in December/January. Now of course, we always have the exceptional comical figures like We’am Wahhab threatening the government with annihilation whenever he wants.
Hence, we reach the political void we all anticipated, the deadlock without a way out. The opposition insisted on having head of the army Imad Suleiman as head of the nation state, only to be rejected by the government since they insisted that anyone is welcomed to be a president as long as he/she are part of the 14th of March coalition. When the Syrian installed president Lahoud declined, and Michel Suleiman refused to comply with the president’s orders of imposing Martial Law in a case of emergency, the next day suddenly the government wanted him as a president. Actually, the opposition switched logic that “since you want a military figure, why don’t you choose Aoun (!)”. Hence, the cycle never stops. When the opposition and the government agreed in general on Michel Suleiman, suddenly Aoun adds more rules, such as he has to decide on key positions on the government. In fact, Aoun still holds the optimism of attaining the presidential chair. Last week, everyone thought that Aoun was abandoned by his allies, when they started to put a mechanism of “flexing” the constitution to elect General Suleiman with the Aounieh not attending (despite the fact that Aoun’s close ally Michel el Murr was there), suddenly people started praying that let it any president be a president, just end this fiasco. Suddenly, Aoun bombs the political arena that the Opposition appointed Aoun to spearhead the negotiations with the government. This makes the talks between Saad Harriri and Nabih Berri as a waste of time, and the people have to wait more for positive results without having a choice in the matter.
The Nahr el Bared Fiasco for example witnessed the Future Movement rushing to the streets with their flags in order to cheer for the army because they dominated Nahr el Bared (despite Hassan Nasrallah saying: Nahr el Bared Khat Ahhmar). When Francois Hajj was assassinated, 14th of March and the Opposition competed whose martyr it is. When the Matn elections occurred, both camps attempted to emerge victorious while in fact both lost drastically: 14th of March’s most powerful candidate lost, but he lost in the face of a coalition that swept Matn two years earlier. And now the presidential void…
The only people who would probably envy Lebanon’s position are our fellow Egyptian comrades who wrote to me: “You mean to tell me, comrade, that in Lebanon, there is no President? Wow, I wish we can switch situations if that is the case!” The face save deals are not appearing because none of the camps want to appear declining to the other what they promised to their followers as “all the way victory.” Hence, 14th of March cant step down because they convinced their people that they will block permanently Iran and Syria from touching Lebanon’s sovereignty, while the opposition convinced its followers that they will stand victorious against Condi’s puppet government. Hence if someone approaches to be a victor in their negotiations, the other will blow out everything. Even though Michel Suleiman did appear as the reconciliation president, he once even visited Hassan Nasrallah, then Samir Jaajaa in the same day: two leaders of two opposing sect parties.
As for General Michel Suleiman, several people I know started speculating that he will be the president following President Shehab’s logic of “the third force” (or non-alignment policy). His name started to appear in the July War when the army sent down 15,000 reservists to the South in the middle of the war with Israel and for the first time since Israel’s Litani operation in the 1970s, took perfect “control” symbolically of the South. Eventually, he remained neutral from all political fiascos. When the Down Town demonstration series broke out, he kept the army neutral. When the Civil Disobediance fiasco broke out, again he emerged as the neutral one. With Nahr el Bared exploding to new dimensions, he became the primary candidate. From one side, he simply obeyed what Elias el Murr (a 14th of Marcher) commanded him through the Ministry of Defense (mainly sending the army to Nahr el Bared to save Prime Minister Seniora’s face, plus disregarding ex-President Lahoud’s final orders). While on the other, he always advocated a resistance policy to Israel and made sure it was part of the Lebanese Army policy, which puts him on a positive side with Hezbullah.
In anyways, the economical situation has gotten worse. The prices of Gas, cheese, and basically a lot of day to day consumption commodities are higher. Taxes on the phone and electricity aren’t helping the middle and lower class either. With every assassination or political instability hitting Lebanon, the economic situation would shrink in size more and more. The only foreign investors interested in Lebanon these days are those foreign politicians and international institutions who want to see this camp or that one gaining an upper hand (or sustain their local allies in the face of the others). The gulf, the US, Iran, the World Bank, France, and others have different financial interests to see Lebanon exploding into raging fire. In any case, this leaves the Proletariat dangling in the open air. The rise of gas for example would decrease the purchasing power of the middle and lower class, which again would cause the overall market system to shrink in size. With the assassination of Francois Hajj prior to the seasons’ greetings, another blow came to the sector of tourism. In any case, the ones who remain visiting Lebanon are the already immigrants who don’t care about the situation and want to catch up with relatives/friends, foreign students, and business men (whenever that requires a visit). The bogus parliamentary meetings to decide when we will have a president also shuts down businesses and hurts those who are still struggling to continue with businesses. The on-going demonstrations in Down Town do not help also as clearly their job to oust a president, but of course they proceed to do a statement to wound the people instead the government.
One thing for sure, once a president is agreed on, several people expect re-alignment between the major political parties. Politicians get greedy, and the poor get poorer.
MarxistFromLebanon
Last year, when Pierre Gemayel was assassinated, the emotions of the duality reactionary camps were exploding to the extent riots broke up with Christians belonging to the Pro-Opposition and Pro-Government almost beating each other. One week later, on December 1st, the opposition launched the largest protest in the history of Lebanon, and the government remained standing. By late January of 2007, tension was high, the country almost entered a civil war. Two separate events broke out in January that almost dragged the country to immense bloodshed. The first was when the opposition decided to perform civil disobedience and swore to remain active till the government resigns, and the second would be the Arab University incident whereby one unknown sniper shot students whereby riots broke out (which caused Hassan Nasrallah to issue a direct fatwa telling the Shiites to remain home while Saad Harriri begged his audience the same).
We can consider January 2007 the verge of a civil war which the sect leaders clearly didn’t want to enter, nor their sponsors. The media played a massive role in igniting the masses into sect mobilization against each other (Shiite – Christian versus Durzi – Christian – Sunni coalitions). Yet, the leaders didn’t want a civil war, which I would definitely consider a good thing. However, this deadlock between the government and the opposition didn’t change anything, instead it made things worse for the people.
While the media remained charging the different groups against each other, the leaders remained failing to achieve what they promised their sect herds. A large faction of the people, just as anticipated, has lost hope with the future of their country. This means more and more people see their future outside Lebanon. The government and the opposition has disgusted people more and more just as collisions remain standing. Actually everything that happens, the government and the opposition try to take credit for. When the war with terror broke out at Nahr el Bared, the opposition and government remained accusing each other to the extent each called the other bluntly: “of funding Fatah Islam”.
The cycle became so monotonous that even the political assassinations seized to do any impacts because again people are simply fed up. The crowd for Pierre Gemayel, George Hawwi, and Samir Qassir for example were much larger than Antoine Ghanem, Walid Eido, and General Francois Hajj. The mobilizations in the earlier assassinations were more powerful than this year. This year though, towards the middle of it, witnessed media blackout in different location. Whenever riots broke out between the two camps, media didn’t emphasize on them as they used to in December/January. Now of course, we always have the exceptional comical figures like We’am Wahhab threatening the government with annihilation whenever he wants.
Hence, we reach the political void we all anticipated, the deadlock without a way out. The opposition insisted on having head of the army Imad Suleiman as head of the nation state, only to be rejected by the government since they insisted that anyone is welcomed to be a president as long as he/she are part of the 14th of March coalition. When the Syrian installed president Lahoud declined, and Michel Suleiman refused to comply with the president’s orders of imposing Martial Law in a case of emergency, the next day suddenly the government wanted him as a president. Actually, the opposition switched logic that “since you want a military figure, why don’t you choose Aoun (!)”. Hence, the cycle never stops. When the opposition and the government agreed in general on Michel Suleiman, suddenly Aoun adds more rules, such as he has to decide on key positions on the government. In fact, Aoun still holds the optimism of attaining the presidential chair. Last week, everyone thought that Aoun was abandoned by his allies, when they started to put a mechanism of “flexing” the constitution to elect General Suleiman with the Aounieh not attending (despite the fact that Aoun’s close ally Michel el Murr was there), suddenly people started praying that let it any president be a president, just end this fiasco. Suddenly, Aoun bombs the political arena that the Opposition appointed Aoun to spearhead the negotiations with the government. This makes the talks between Saad Harriri and Nabih Berri as a waste of time, and the people have to wait more for positive results without having a choice in the matter.
The Nahr el Bared Fiasco for example witnessed the Future Movement rushing to the streets with their flags in order to cheer for the army because they dominated Nahr el Bared (despite Hassan Nasrallah saying: Nahr el Bared Khat Ahhmar). When Francois Hajj was assassinated, 14th of March and the Opposition competed whose martyr it is. When the Matn elections occurred, both camps attempted to emerge victorious while in fact both lost drastically: 14th of March’s most powerful candidate lost, but he lost in the face of a coalition that swept Matn two years earlier. And now the presidential void…
The only people who would probably envy Lebanon’s position are our fellow Egyptian comrades who wrote to me: “You mean to tell me, comrade, that in Lebanon, there is no President? Wow, I wish we can switch situations if that is the case!” The face save deals are not appearing because none of the camps want to appear declining to the other what they promised to their followers as “all the way victory.” Hence, 14th of March cant step down because they convinced their people that they will block permanently Iran and Syria from touching Lebanon’s sovereignty, while the opposition convinced its followers that they will stand victorious against Condi’s puppet government. Hence if someone approaches to be a victor in their negotiations, the other will blow out everything. Even though Michel Suleiman did appear as the reconciliation president, he once even visited Hassan Nasrallah, then Samir Jaajaa in the same day: two leaders of two opposing sect parties.
As for General Michel Suleiman, several people I know started speculating that he will be the president following President Shehab’s logic of “the third force” (or non-alignment policy). His name started to appear in the July War when the army sent down 15,000 reservists to the South in the middle of the war with Israel and for the first time since Israel’s Litani operation in the 1970s, took perfect “control” symbolically of the South. Eventually, he remained neutral from all political fiascos. When the Down Town demonstration series broke out, he kept the army neutral. When the Civil Disobediance fiasco broke out, again he emerged as the neutral one. With Nahr el Bared exploding to new dimensions, he became the primary candidate. From one side, he simply obeyed what Elias el Murr (a 14th of Marcher) commanded him through the Ministry of Defense (mainly sending the army to Nahr el Bared to save Prime Minister Seniora’s face, plus disregarding ex-President Lahoud’s final orders). While on the other, he always advocated a resistance policy to Israel and made sure it was part of the Lebanese Army policy, which puts him on a positive side with Hezbullah.
In anyways, the economical situation has gotten worse. The prices of Gas, cheese, and basically a lot of day to day consumption commodities are higher. Taxes on the phone and electricity aren’t helping the middle and lower class either. With every assassination or political instability hitting Lebanon, the economic situation would shrink in size more and more. The only foreign investors interested in Lebanon these days are those foreign politicians and international institutions who want to see this camp or that one gaining an upper hand (or sustain their local allies in the face of the others). The gulf, the US, Iran, the World Bank, France, and others have different financial interests to see Lebanon exploding into raging fire. In any case, this leaves the Proletariat dangling in the open air. The rise of gas for example would decrease the purchasing power of the middle and lower class, which again would cause the overall market system to shrink in size. With the assassination of Francois Hajj prior to the seasons’ greetings, another blow came to the sector of tourism. In any case, the ones who remain visiting Lebanon are the already immigrants who don’t care about the situation and want to catch up with relatives/friends, foreign students, and business men (whenever that requires a visit). The bogus parliamentary meetings to decide when we will have a president also shuts down businesses and hurts those who are still struggling to continue with businesses. The on-going demonstrations in Down Town do not help also as clearly their job to oust a president, but of course they proceed to do a statement to wound the people instead the government.
One thing for sure, once a president is agreed on, several people expect re-alignment between the major political parties. Politicians get greedy, and the poor get poorer.
MarxistFromLebanon
Monday, September 17, 2007
25th Memory of the Sabra - Shatila Massacres/Story (September 1982)
Introduction:
The Sabra and Shatila massacres will always be remembered as the greatest butchery of civilian life in the history of Lebanon, and the second would probably be Tel el Zaatar. Unlike Tel el Zaatar though, Sabra & Shatila camps lacked any militants, and the camps were similar to what the US diplomat Morris Draper compared the entrance of Elie Hobeika’s elite squad (faction of the Lebanese Forces) to the camp as bunch of Ku Klux Klan militants, with most advanced weapons, unleashed on African – Americans surrounded by troops forbidding them to escape the camps. I recommend in order to understand better the overall story to read these two articles (Regarding Bashir Gemayel's Elections - The Other Story, Investigating Bashir Gemayel (Part I): Bashir and the Israelis
The Background:
Ever since Cairo 1969, the Palestinian Refugee Camps were transformed in general as military base-points for the PLO, under the hand of Yasser Arafat. With the war breaking out, Palestinian Camps outside the West Beirut became pocket enclaves for the PLO against their opponents and their allies the Lebanese National Movement.
With the brutal Israeli siege of West Beirut butchering the Lebanese civilians, Phil. Habib succeeded to broker a deal, against all odds and Sharon’s obstacles, between the United States and the PLO: which was to evacuate them outside Lebanon, and the militants to be distributed in Jordan, Syria, and Tunisia (all three countries accepted with severe hesitance because no country in the right mind would welcome the heavily armed PLO). The only country that fully volunteered to accept the whole PLO faction was Iraq, but the PLO were quick to decline Saddam’s offer because they didn’t want to be in the Iraqi fronts fighting Iran. In return, Bashir Gemayel gave his word of honor that the families of the PLO and the civilians shall not be touched. Sharon also was not supposed to enter West Beirut because it will backfire on the US Foreign Policy and the US administration’s ties with the Arab nations, specially Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan.
The Multi-Nationals who oversaw the evacuation of the PLO militants were supposed to remain for a month after the PLO were evacuated from West Beirut. The purpose of the evacuation was to block the Israelis any alibi to remain in Lebanon, which primarily was the eradication of the PLO through their own forces and the Lebanese Forces. The Multi-Nationals, composed from the US (taking the primary role of the evacuation) Marines, the French (being second politically), and the Italians. Other than the fact several encounters between the US marines and Israeli Defense Forces took place during the evacuation, the PLO were evacuated up to suspected capacity of 95%. Philip Habib returned to his retirement, after Sarkis presented him with the highest medal of honor existent in the Lebanese Government (whatever was functional of it then), and everything went from bad to worse.
Bashir Gemayel was expected to last six years and bring order to Lebanon, according to US calculations; however, what the US didn’t calculate that the “other Lebanon” would do the impossible to assassinate him, since in their eyes he invited the Israelis over for his private usage. When Bashir Gemayel was assassinated, all hell broke loose. The Multi-Nationals already withdrew hastily (first by the decision of the new Secretary of State Schultz, and hence triggered a domino effect with the Italians and French to withdraw hastily). By the end of the month after the massacre, Reagan announced the return of the Multi-National Forces back to Lebanon. Morris Draper became the head of the US Presidential Diplomatic Convoy to Lebanon.
With Bashir Gemayel dead, the Israelis entered West Beirut under the allegation of protecting the Muslims of West Beirut (strangely they fired at the residents of West Beirut Smart Bombs and prohibited weaponry, not to forget the 16 hour marathon of bombing) whereby only Lebanese civilians were slaughtered.
You will notice, my fellow readers, that again I will quote my favorite two books, Boykin’s “Cursed is the Peacemaker”, and Traboulsi’s “A History of Modern Lebanon”, for one reason only, these two bothered heavily to reconstruct history as it happened with references that are rarely mentioned elsewhere.
Draper was informed by Begin that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will move to checkpoints on West Beirut “with the object of keeping things quiet and insuring that there were no incidents to mar the peace.”
On the US Versus Israeli Level
And I start my quoting:
“Three hours later, Draper arrived in Beirut for Bashir’s funeral and saw that ‘the city was in flames.’ Despite Begin’s assurances that the IDF was taking ‘strictly limited precautionary measures,’ Draper saw the IDF going at it hot and heavy with tank and artillery fire. The funeral could wait. He ordered his car turned around and headed off to the IDF headquarters outside Beirut “where I essentially could get only incomplete information and pap to the effect that ‘everything was fine’. Draper felt he’ been had. “Begin told me as a representative of the United States government that the Isrealis were not going to move into the heart of Beirut..” He told a straight out, 100 percent, baldfaced lie to the United States government, his great friend. I mean, a solemn undertaking by the prime minister of a friendly state? Unheard of!.”
“In a nasty meeting the next day, Thursday, September 16, raper and Sam Lewis confronted Sharon about his violation of the Habib agreement and the damage it had done to Habib’s, America’s, and Israel’s credibility. Sharon’s icey reply: “Circumstances changed, sir.’”
“It was all the PLO’s fault, Sharon argued. They had violated the agreement. They had left behind vast stores of weapons and 2,500 terrorists to use them. Those terrorists, Sharon said, were hiding in the Palestinian refugee camps of West Beirut, including Sabra and Shatila. Sharon now had the camps surrounded.” (Cursed is the Peace Maker, Roy Boykin, Applegate Press – 2002 – P. 267 – 268).
The US diplomats knew that Sharon was exaggerating the numbers left behind.
Hence, “Draper kept asking the Israelis for the source of their belief in thousands of stay-behind terrorists, but he never got a good answer. ‘At most there were a handful of guerrillas; left behind, he says. “There were a few armed men in the camps… BUT THEY WERE ALL MEN OF SIXTY OR SEVENTY YEARS OLD. THEY MAY HAVE HAD OLD SHOTGUNS, BUT THEY WERE OT A THREAT. Essentially, THE CAMPS WERE DISARMED.” (Ibid, P. 269)
With Bashir Gemayel dead, the US diplomats lost a major actor on the Lebanese arena, and there was no one to control that powerful militant party Phalange/Lebanese Forces. The US would say the following: “
The nearest American equivalent to sending the Phalange into the camps would be sending heavily armed Ku Klux Kansmen into an African-American neighborhood with a license to kill. Chosen to lead the operation was the head of Phalange Intelligence, Elie Hobeika. Dillion knew him from his services as Bashir’s personal bodyguard and describes him as a “Pathological killer….”
Most of his squad belonged to an intelligence unit that the Israelis considered specially trained in “discovering terrorists.” HIS SQUAD APPARENTLY HAD LITTLE TRAINING IN DISCOVERING ANYONE OTHER THAN TERRORISTS, GIVEN THEIR VIEW THAT ‘PREGNANT WOMEN WILL GIVE BIRTH TO TERRORISTS; THE CHILDREN WHEN THEY GROW UP WILL BE TERRORISTS,” and both were thus fair game. THE PHALANGISTS’ REPUTATION PROMPTED THE IDF TO REPEATEDLY INSTRUCT THEM TO KILL ONLY TERRORISTS, NOT CIVILIANS. SINCE BOTH CONSIDERED TERRORIST AND PALESTINIAN ORE OR LESS SYNONYMOUS, THIS WAS SORT OF LIKE GIVING THE KLAN A LICENSE TO KILL ONLY AFRICAN – AMERICANS THEY CONSIDERED TROUBLEMAKERS.” (Ibid, P. 269)
Begin insisted to the US diplomats that he was entering West Beirut afterwards to protect the Muslims of West Beirut from Phalange aggression, which the US diplomats compared his justification of a coyote entering in to protect the chicken. IDF General Eitan told Morris Draper: “The Phalange… are obsessed with the idea of revenge…. I’m telling you that some of their commanders visited me, and I could see in their eyes that it’s going to be a relentless slaughter.” (Ibid, P.270) That was on September 16, and as Eitan was speaking, the massacres began in Sabra – Shatila. The IDF knew the Phalange will out of revenge for the assassination of their leader Bashir Gemayel will seek revenge blindly, but they had to make sure they are directed towards the Palestinian civilians rather the Muslims.
The Sabra-Shatila massacres lasted days. The Israeli intelligence informed Sharon that there were no terrorists four hours after this massacre of 3000 civilians began.
“But what Sharon apparently did not anticipate was that his intelligence reports were wrong: The Phalangists found rather few people in the camps who fit any but the most all-inclusive definition of terrorist. INDEED, THE IDF INTELLIGENCE OFFICER ON THE SPOT MONITORING EVENTS REPORTED WITHIN HOURS OF THE PHALANGISTS’ ENTRY, “THERE ARE EVIDENTLY NO TERRORISTS IN THE CAMP.” So the Phalangists slaughtered pretty much whoever they did find: defenseless women, children, old men, even cats, dogs, and horses. Whereas actual PLO fighters had fought rabidly earlier in the invasion, the Phalangists encountered hardly any resistance in the camps.
From the Earliest Hours, the IDF ha clear indications that the Phalangists were killing civilians, lots of civilians. To stanch that hemorrhaging, they again approached the Lebanese Army Forces (not to be mistake with Lebanese Forces) go into the camps,” Sharon said to Draper on Friday, apparently neglecting to mention that the Phalange was already in the camps. ‘They can kill the terrorists. But if they don’t, we will.” The LAF again refused, saying they could not cross the IDF ring around the camps to do anything without looking like a tool of the IDF.
By Friday evening, Genral Drori, the Israeli commander in Lebanon, had heard enough and halted the operation – sort of. HE ORDERED THE PHALANGISTS OUT, BUT GAVE THEM ABOUT 12 HOURS TO GET AROUND TO LEAVING. NO ONE KNOWS HOW MANY PALESTINIANS HAD BEEN SLAUGHTERED BY THE TIME THE LAST PHALANGISTS STRAGGLED OUT AFTER 38 HOURS IN THE CAMPS.” (Ibid, P.270)
From the very words of the US ambassador Dillon: “The Israelis, who had promised to stay out of Beirut, immediately invaded to ‘restore order’. That was just a pretext; there was no disorder.” He adds that restoring order doesn’t mean killing civilians. Morris Draper’s exact words to Sharon on Saturday morning: “You must stop the acts of slaughter. They are horrifying. I have a representative in the camp counting the bodies. You should be ahamed. The situation is absolutely appalling. They’re killing children! You have the field completely under your control and are therefore responsible for that area.” (Ibid, 271)
The Israelis openly sponsored Elie Hobeika’s elite squad. “The IDF quite openly sponsored their business, keeping the camps surrounded and the Palestinians trapped inside, allowing in Phalange reinforcements, hosting Hobeika in their forward command post near the camps while he stayed in radio contact with his men inside, and providing maps and aerial photos of the camps, a bulldozer, and illumination flares through the night.” (Ibid, P.270)
Phases/Summary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre:
Fawaz Traboulsi, using latest references, divides the massacre into three phases.
“The next morning, Israeli troops entered West Beirut, which had resisted them for over three months, ostensibly ‘in order to prevent a bloodbath’; in fact, they initiated one. On Wednesday the 15th and for a whole of Thursday the 16th and early Friday the 17th, hundreds of special security units of the Lebanese Forces, seconded by regular troops stationed at the airport, were mainly responsible for committing the massacre of more than a thousand Palestinians (and no less than a hundred Lebanese) in the twin camps of Sabra and Shatila, not to speak of hundreds who disappeared. They were let in by the Israeli troops who were encircling the camps and helped by the hundreds of flares launched by these same troops. Ariel Sharon had visited Bikfaya the day beore and informed the mourning Jumayils that Bashir ha been killed by Palestinians. George Schultz , then US Scretary of State, later recalled that on Friday 17 September 1982, Ariel Sharon informed Maurice Draper that he had asked the Lebanese army to enter the camp and ‘clean them out’. He added: ‘They can kill the terrorists. But if they don’t we will.’ The Lebanese army failed to do so. [MFL notes: Phase 1]: On Wednesday 15th, units of the elite Israeli army ‘reconnaissance’ force, the Sayeret Mat’kal, which had already carried out the assassination of the three PLO leaders in Beirut (the one Ehud Barak led in Verdun in the early 1970s), entered the camps with a mission to liquidate a selecte number of Palestinian cadres. [MFL notes: Phase 2 & 3] The next day, two units of killers were introduced into the camps, troops from Sa’d Haddad’s Army of South Lebanon, attached to the Israeli forces in Beirut, and the LF security units of Elie Hobeika known as the Apaches, led by Marun Mash’alani, Michel Zuwayn, and Georges Melko.” [Fawaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, Pluto Press – 2007, P. 218]
He adds: “Ariel Sharon was found ‘indirectly responsible’ for the massacre by the Israeli Kahan commission of inquiry and had to resign his post as minister of defense. The US administration’s responsibility was considerable. The American peace-keeping force that oversaw the evacuation of the PLO was also assigned the task of guaranteeing the safety of ‘law-abiding Palestinian non-combatants in Beirut, including the families of those who have departed’. However, the US administration withdrew the Marines detachment two weeks before the end of its 30 days mandate, forcing the French and the Italian forces to follow suit. George Schultz later confessed to the fact that the Marines of the MNF had been ‘hurriedly withdrawn.
On 20 September, President Reagan recalled the MNF back to Beirut. [Ibid, P.219]
Couple of years ago, Elie Hobeika was assassinated in a bomb explosion, one week before he was traveling to Belgium to testify against Ariel Sharon in the International Court Tribunal. His assassins are unknown,it can be the Israelis, it can be one of his previous allies, Palestinians, or anybody as a matter of fact.
May the innocent killed find peace, and the living find peace with themselves…
MFL
The Sabra and Shatila massacres will always be remembered as the greatest butchery of civilian life in the history of Lebanon, and the second would probably be Tel el Zaatar. Unlike Tel el Zaatar though, Sabra & Shatila camps lacked any militants, and the camps were similar to what the US diplomat Morris Draper compared the entrance of Elie Hobeika’s elite squad (faction of the Lebanese Forces) to the camp as bunch of Ku Klux Klan militants, with most advanced weapons, unleashed on African – Americans surrounded by troops forbidding them to escape the camps. I recommend in order to understand better the overall story to read these two articles (Regarding Bashir Gemayel's Elections - The Other Story, Investigating Bashir Gemayel (Part I): Bashir and the Israelis
The Background:
Ever since Cairo 1969, the Palestinian Refugee Camps were transformed in general as military base-points for the PLO, under the hand of Yasser Arafat. With the war breaking out, Palestinian Camps outside the West Beirut became pocket enclaves for the PLO against their opponents and their allies the Lebanese National Movement.
With the brutal Israeli siege of West Beirut butchering the Lebanese civilians, Phil. Habib succeeded to broker a deal, against all odds and Sharon’s obstacles, between the United States and the PLO: which was to evacuate them outside Lebanon, and the militants to be distributed in Jordan, Syria, and Tunisia (all three countries accepted with severe hesitance because no country in the right mind would welcome the heavily armed PLO). The only country that fully volunteered to accept the whole PLO faction was Iraq, but the PLO were quick to decline Saddam’s offer because they didn’t want to be in the Iraqi fronts fighting Iran. In return, Bashir Gemayel gave his word of honor that the families of the PLO and the civilians shall not be touched. Sharon also was not supposed to enter West Beirut because it will backfire on the US Foreign Policy and the US administration’s ties with the Arab nations, specially Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan.
The Multi-Nationals who oversaw the evacuation of the PLO militants were supposed to remain for a month after the PLO were evacuated from West Beirut. The purpose of the evacuation was to block the Israelis any alibi to remain in Lebanon, which primarily was the eradication of the PLO through their own forces and the Lebanese Forces. The Multi-Nationals, composed from the US (taking the primary role of the evacuation) Marines, the French (being second politically), and the Italians. Other than the fact several encounters between the US marines and Israeli Defense Forces took place during the evacuation, the PLO were evacuated up to suspected capacity of 95%. Philip Habib returned to his retirement, after Sarkis presented him with the highest medal of honor existent in the Lebanese Government (whatever was functional of it then), and everything went from bad to worse.
Bashir Gemayel was expected to last six years and bring order to Lebanon, according to US calculations; however, what the US didn’t calculate that the “other Lebanon” would do the impossible to assassinate him, since in their eyes he invited the Israelis over for his private usage. When Bashir Gemayel was assassinated, all hell broke loose. The Multi-Nationals already withdrew hastily (first by the decision of the new Secretary of State Schultz, and hence triggered a domino effect with the Italians and French to withdraw hastily). By the end of the month after the massacre, Reagan announced the return of the Multi-National Forces back to Lebanon. Morris Draper became the head of the US Presidential Diplomatic Convoy to Lebanon.
With Bashir Gemayel dead, the Israelis entered West Beirut under the allegation of protecting the Muslims of West Beirut (strangely they fired at the residents of West Beirut Smart Bombs and prohibited weaponry, not to forget the 16 hour marathon of bombing) whereby only Lebanese civilians were slaughtered.
You will notice, my fellow readers, that again I will quote my favorite two books, Boykin’s “Cursed is the Peacemaker”, and Traboulsi’s “A History of Modern Lebanon”, for one reason only, these two bothered heavily to reconstruct history as it happened with references that are rarely mentioned elsewhere.
Draper was informed by Begin that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will move to checkpoints on West Beirut “with the object of keeping things quiet and insuring that there were no incidents to mar the peace.”
On the US Versus Israeli Level
And I start my quoting:
“Three hours later, Draper arrived in Beirut for Bashir’s funeral and saw that ‘the city was in flames.’ Despite Begin’s assurances that the IDF was taking ‘strictly limited precautionary measures,’ Draper saw the IDF going at it hot and heavy with tank and artillery fire. The funeral could wait. He ordered his car turned around and headed off to the IDF headquarters outside Beirut “where I essentially could get only incomplete information and pap to the effect that ‘everything was fine’. Draper felt he’ been had. “Begin told me as a representative of the United States government that the Isrealis were not going to move into the heart of Beirut..” He told a straight out, 100 percent, baldfaced lie to the United States government, his great friend. I mean, a solemn undertaking by the prime minister of a friendly state? Unheard of!.”
“In a nasty meeting the next day, Thursday, September 16, raper and Sam Lewis confronted Sharon about his violation of the Habib agreement and the damage it had done to Habib’s, America’s, and Israel’s credibility. Sharon’s icey reply: “Circumstances changed, sir.’”
“It was all the PLO’s fault, Sharon argued. They had violated the agreement. They had left behind vast stores of weapons and 2,500 terrorists to use them. Those terrorists, Sharon said, were hiding in the Palestinian refugee camps of West Beirut, including Sabra and Shatila. Sharon now had the camps surrounded.” (Cursed is the Peace Maker, Roy Boykin, Applegate Press – 2002 – P. 267 – 268).
The US diplomats knew that Sharon was exaggerating the numbers left behind.
Hence, “Draper kept asking the Israelis for the source of their belief in thousands of stay-behind terrorists, but he never got a good answer. ‘At most there were a handful of guerrillas; left behind, he says. “There were a few armed men in the camps… BUT THEY WERE ALL MEN OF SIXTY OR SEVENTY YEARS OLD. THEY MAY HAVE HAD OLD SHOTGUNS, BUT THEY WERE OT A THREAT. Essentially, THE CAMPS WERE DISARMED.” (Ibid, P. 269)
With Bashir Gemayel dead, the US diplomats lost a major actor on the Lebanese arena, and there was no one to control that powerful militant party Phalange/Lebanese Forces. The US would say the following: “
The nearest American equivalent to sending the Phalange into the camps would be sending heavily armed Ku Klux Kansmen into an African-American neighborhood with a license to kill. Chosen to lead the operation was the head of Phalange Intelligence, Elie Hobeika. Dillion knew him from his services as Bashir’s personal bodyguard and describes him as a “Pathological killer….”
Most of his squad belonged to an intelligence unit that the Israelis considered specially trained in “discovering terrorists.” HIS SQUAD APPARENTLY HAD LITTLE TRAINING IN DISCOVERING ANYONE OTHER THAN TERRORISTS, GIVEN THEIR VIEW THAT ‘PREGNANT WOMEN WILL GIVE BIRTH TO TERRORISTS; THE CHILDREN WHEN THEY GROW UP WILL BE TERRORISTS,” and both were thus fair game. THE PHALANGISTS’ REPUTATION PROMPTED THE IDF TO REPEATEDLY INSTRUCT THEM TO KILL ONLY TERRORISTS, NOT CIVILIANS. SINCE BOTH CONSIDERED TERRORIST AND PALESTINIAN ORE OR LESS SYNONYMOUS, THIS WAS SORT OF LIKE GIVING THE KLAN A LICENSE TO KILL ONLY AFRICAN – AMERICANS THEY CONSIDERED TROUBLEMAKERS.” (Ibid, P. 269)
Begin insisted to the US diplomats that he was entering West Beirut afterwards to protect the Muslims of West Beirut from Phalange aggression, which the US diplomats compared his justification of a coyote entering in to protect the chicken. IDF General Eitan told Morris Draper: “The Phalange… are obsessed with the idea of revenge…. I’m telling you that some of their commanders visited me, and I could see in their eyes that it’s going to be a relentless slaughter.” (Ibid, P.270) That was on September 16, and as Eitan was speaking, the massacres began in Sabra – Shatila. The IDF knew the Phalange will out of revenge for the assassination of their leader Bashir Gemayel will seek revenge blindly, but they had to make sure they are directed towards the Palestinian civilians rather the Muslims.
The Sabra-Shatila massacres lasted days. The Israeli intelligence informed Sharon that there were no terrorists four hours after this massacre of 3000 civilians began.
“But what Sharon apparently did not anticipate was that his intelligence reports were wrong: The Phalangists found rather few people in the camps who fit any but the most all-inclusive definition of terrorist. INDEED, THE IDF INTELLIGENCE OFFICER ON THE SPOT MONITORING EVENTS REPORTED WITHIN HOURS OF THE PHALANGISTS’ ENTRY, “THERE ARE EVIDENTLY NO TERRORISTS IN THE CAMP.” So the Phalangists slaughtered pretty much whoever they did find: defenseless women, children, old men, even cats, dogs, and horses. Whereas actual PLO fighters had fought rabidly earlier in the invasion, the Phalangists encountered hardly any resistance in the camps.
From the Earliest Hours, the IDF ha clear indications that the Phalangists were killing civilians, lots of civilians. To stanch that hemorrhaging, they again approached the Lebanese Army Forces (not to be mistake with Lebanese Forces) go into the camps,” Sharon said to Draper on Friday, apparently neglecting to mention that the Phalange was already in the camps. ‘They can kill the terrorists. But if they don’t, we will.” The LAF again refused, saying they could not cross the IDF ring around the camps to do anything without looking like a tool of the IDF.
By Friday evening, Genral Drori, the Israeli commander in Lebanon, had heard enough and halted the operation – sort of. HE ORDERED THE PHALANGISTS OUT, BUT GAVE THEM ABOUT 12 HOURS TO GET AROUND TO LEAVING. NO ONE KNOWS HOW MANY PALESTINIANS HAD BEEN SLAUGHTERED BY THE TIME THE LAST PHALANGISTS STRAGGLED OUT AFTER 38 HOURS IN THE CAMPS.” (Ibid, P.270)
From the very words of the US ambassador Dillon: “The Israelis, who had promised to stay out of Beirut, immediately invaded to ‘restore order’. That was just a pretext; there was no disorder.” He adds that restoring order doesn’t mean killing civilians. Morris Draper’s exact words to Sharon on Saturday morning: “You must stop the acts of slaughter. They are horrifying. I have a representative in the camp counting the bodies. You should be ahamed. The situation is absolutely appalling. They’re killing children! You have the field completely under your control and are therefore responsible for that area.” (Ibid, 271)
The Israelis openly sponsored Elie Hobeika’s elite squad. “The IDF quite openly sponsored their business, keeping the camps surrounded and the Palestinians trapped inside, allowing in Phalange reinforcements, hosting Hobeika in their forward command post near the camps while he stayed in radio contact with his men inside, and providing maps and aerial photos of the camps, a bulldozer, and illumination flares through the night.” (Ibid, P.270)
Phases/Summary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre:
Fawaz Traboulsi, using latest references, divides the massacre into three phases.
“The next morning, Israeli troops entered West Beirut, which had resisted them for over three months, ostensibly ‘in order to prevent a bloodbath’; in fact, they initiated one. On Wednesday the 15th and for a whole of Thursday the 16th and early Friday the 17th, hundreds of special security units of the Lebanese Forces, seconded by regular troops stationed at the airport, were mainly responsible for committing the massacre of more than a thousand Palestinians (and no less than a hundred Lebanese) in the twin camps of Sabra and Shatila, not to speak of hundreds who disappeared. They were let in by the Israeli troops who were encircling the camps and helped by the hundreds of flares launched by these same troops. Ariel Sharon had visited Bikfaya the day beore and informed the mourning Jumayils that Bashir ha been killed by Palestinians. George Schultz , then US Scretary of State, later recalled that on Friday 17 September 1982, Ariel Sharon informed Maurice Draper that he had asked the Lebanese army to enter the camp and ‘clean them out’. He added: ‘They can kill the terrorists. But if they don’t we will.’ The Lebanese army failed to do so. [MFL notes: Phase 1]: On Wednesday 15th, units of the elite Israeli army ‘reconnaissance’ force, the Sayeret Mat’kal, which had already carried out the assassination of the three PLO leaders in Beirut (the one Ehud Barak led in Verdun in the early 1970s), entered the camps with a mission to liquidate a selecte number of Palestinian cadres. [MFL notes: Phase 2 & 3] The next day, two units of killers were introduced into the camps, troops from Sa’d Haddad’s Army of South Lebanon, attached to the Israeli forces in Beirut, and the LF security units of Elie Hobeika known as the Apaches, led by Marun Mash’alani, Michel Zuwayn, and Georges Melko.” [Fawaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, Pluto Press – 2007, P. 218]
He adds: “Ariel Sharon was found ‘indirectly responsible’ for the massacre by the Israeli Kahan commission of inquiry and had to resign his post as minister of defense. The US administration’s responsibility was considerable. The American peace-keeping force that oversaw the evacuation of the PLO was also assigned the task of guaranteeing the safety of ‘law-abiding Palestinian non-combatants in Beirut, including the families of those who have departed’. However, the US administration withdrew the Marines detachment two weeks before the end of its 30 days mandate, forcing the French and the Italian forces to follow suit. George Schultz later confessed to the fact that the Marines of the MNF had been ‘hurriedly withdrawn.
On 20 September, President Reagan recalled the MNF back to Beirut. [Ibid, P.219]
Couple of years ago, Elie Hobeika was assassinated in a bomb explosion, one week before he was traveling to Belgium to testify against Ariel Sharon in the International Court Tribunal. His assassins are unknown,it can be the Israelis, it can be one of his previous allies, Palestinians, or anybody as a matter of fact.
May the innocent killed find peace, and the living find peace with themselves…
MFL
Thursday, April 12, 2007
April 13, 1975: The Civil War in Lebanon began
Tomorrow, the painful memory of the beginning of the civil war began. I will try to put a summary of a summary on why the war broke.
There are several factors that tackle the events that led to the break-out of the Lebanese Civil War. Theodor Hanf (in his book Irrevocable Covenant) and others discuss different reasons that become entangled in the end, and trigger the Lebanese Civil war in 1975.
The first reason according to Hanf that the war broke out is due to the nature of Lebanon and its political structure. Lebanon is a state composed of communities whereby one community can never dominate the rest. This balance of power forced into Lebanon democracy as the best solution between the different communities. The second factor would be the class-income distribution between the sects to be involved in the 1975 clash. All the communities got their elites as well as their lower income wage earners. The 1960s witnessed class inequality on the rise among the different communities which made the major Sect leaders aim to mobilize the masses easier against the others. A third factor is the perception of the Muslims and Christians of Lebanese Nationalism. To the Christians, Lebanese Nationalism is strictly Lebanese and nothing else (as long as they were in power) while the Muslims regarded Lebanese Nationalism as complementary to Arab Nationalism and didn’t mind having both. This would play a major role in the different factions who would ally with the Palestinians. These double standards of Nationalism would threaten the Christians’ sense of Lebanese independence.
Another dimension to Theoder Hanf was the Palestinians’ activities in Lebanon starting from the late 1960s and the arrival of large quantity of combatants in 1970 after Black September in Jordan. This tipped the balance of power among the Lebanese communities as the Left-Wing considered that the Lebanese army was already biased for the Lebanese Christian Leaders and the PLO’s mass arrival can balance the power against the “isolationist” Christian Leaders. The Palestinians used Lebanon since the late 1967 as a base to launch operations on Israel. This spread fear among the Christians that Lebanon’s independence was marginalized and they became a minority in Lebanon as the PLO learnt their errors from the Jordan 1970 experience and armed its allied parties in Lebanon. They further established networks, since the PLO got no place else to go and Lebanon was the only country allowing them to launch their military operations. Solidarity to the Palestinians was expressed through the Muslims (mostly the Sunni) but with the aim to change the system in a limited manner while the left-wing Lebanese National Movement aimed to demolish the sect-based system. The PLO eventually transformed the Western Part of Beirut into its stronghold.
A third dimension to several authors is the Army and its incapability to dominate or control the PLO. The Lebanese Army was always a weak army compared to the neighboring armies’ strength of Jordan, Syria, Israel, and Egypt. The purpose of the army, as advocated by head of the Phalange Party, Pierre Gemayel, that the nation’s strength would be its weakness. Having a weaker army means discouragement for other nations to feel threatened. Nevertheless, despite its weakness compared to other institutions, the army has been the core balancer of power between the Christian Militias and the rest of the communities. The Army from 1967 till 1969 entered several confrontations with the Palestinian Commandos in order push away the PLO from the borders, primary allies of Kamal Junblatt and the Left-wing, till the Cairo agreement was signed. After 1970, with the PLO still expanding their networks and continuing with their operations on Israel, the Christian Parties decided to transform their parties into militias. The Left-wing leaders organized mass demonstrations against the Army’s crackdown attempts on the PLO.
The Regional Situation also played a role into contributing factors that would eventually lead to the break out of the Lebanese Civil War. Ever since the end of the Six Days War, the PLO received massive support from the gulf nations in compensation to the great humiliating Arab Defeat. The Cairo agreement was drafted between the PLO and the Head of the Lebanese Army, which was approved by the Lebanese Parliament, gave the PLO legitimacy over the camps, safe influx of arms from Syria, and made West Beirut the safe-haven for the PLO warriors. The Cairo Agreement’s aftermath also made the Christian Leaders, after the influx of more PLO warriors from Jordan, to focus on their own strengths. According to Dr. Moubarak, the Arab states blocked PLO operations from their borders but encouraged the PLO’s use of arms and support in Lebanon. (Walid Moubarak, Position of A Weak State In An Unstable Region: Case of Lebanon (The Emirates Center For Strategic studies & Research ,2002), P. 3) Syria on the other hand, had its own Palestinian Militias active in Lebanon, the Sa’iqa. They were always a support to the PLO’s activism specially if the Lebanese Army pressured the PLO in a military sense. What aggravated the situation more was the fact Kamal Junblatt was the Minister of Interior, who was the PLO’s primary ally, to this, the Christian Leaders never liked it.
The International Arena also played a role into negotiations. Kissinger never struck deals with the PLO, rather with Egypt and Syria after 1973 war. The PLO were regarded as Refugees with no rights whatsoever which forced its leadership to bomb its away to attain recognition and a bargaining card via Lebanon after they changed policy and have a Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza (which will happen in the Oslo agreement). Israel’s policy was also dramatic which increased the tension between the Christian Leaders and the PLO. Whenever the PLO launched an operation, Israel responded mainly on the South and the refugee camps. When Israel bombed in 1968 the 12 Middle East Airlines, Israel signaled a message to all leaders of Lebanon to control their half of the borders and cripple the PLO. The development of the Peace Treaties between Egypt and Israel via Henry Kissinger got al-Assad to develop the three nation (Syria, Jordan and Lebanon) – four people unity strategy (Lebanese, Syrians, Palestinians, and Jordanians).
The US administration, under Kissinger’s dominion, was bothered with the turn of events inside Lebanon. With the escalation of the Lebanese situation, Kissinger was worried that Israel would be dragged to war with Lebanon, which in turn would trigger another regional war in less than a year. Furthermore, Kissinger didn’t want to see Israel entering a war because finally an Arab nation (supposedly the strongest military then), Egypt, decided to follow the Step-By-Step with the Zionist State. Nevertheless, PLO operations threatened a regional war. Syria already took a positive step with the States after the 1973 war, and agreed to follow the disengagement plan. The problem was Syria always supported the PLO from cross-border artillery, or its Palestinian made militias: the Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA). This did not stop Syria from establishing good contacts with the Christian Militias, in case, according to Syrian calculations, the other side dominated. To the Syrians, they wanted intervention into Lebanon, but not a left-wing Lebanese Party establishing a socialist government that would shake the whole region. Worse, they wanted to dominate the PLO politically in order to become the sole spearheads for the “Arab Cause”. This clicked with Kissinger on a latter stage to cripple the PLO.
The Division of Lebanon into Two Camps intensified matters. The Leaders of the “Lebanese Front” declined to lose one bit of their political advantage and public sector recruitment benefits (6:5). Imam el-Sadre radicalized his Shiite base and moved closer to President Suleiman Frangieh’s coalition hence forth isolating the Sunni Sect and the Left-Wing (who were attempting to link their demands with the crisis of the South). Junblatt became the recognized Muslim leader in the Arab world, as he got the support of Syria and Egypt as well as the presence of the PLO armed groups broke the hegemony of the Christian domination. His bargaining would be narrowed down to reform the system in return of limited strikes of the PLO against Israel. Pierre Gemayel and Camille Shamoun wouldn’t want to lose any privileges for their parties stressed and accompanied the army in their clashes with the PLO. Should the Christian leaders accept any declines, the warring Lebanese factions probably would have been avoided with a new Status Quo (Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, Pluto Press (2007), P. 180)
The state, due to the interests of both camps, has lost legitimacy in the eyes of the left-wing camp. The erosion of the State started when Israeli Commandos entered West Beirut and assassinated three PLO figures in 1973. The Army was present and didn’t do anything as Ehud Barak stated he remained for one hour in the Verdun area disguised as a blond woman in a skirt. Escalations occurred from the soon to be Lebanese Front Alliance and the Lebanese National Movement leaders. Since 1970, the future LNM leaders called for demonstrations every time the Army (usually backed with Phalange supporters) attacked the PLO.
Two incidents will trigger the Lebanese civil war in 1975 despite the fact some confrontations occurred between Junblatt’s socialists and the Phalange militia earlier to the zero hour. The first is the demonstration led my MP Ma’ruf Sa’ad against Protein Corp. in Saida. The corporation itself has the Ahhrar’s Camille Shamo’un as one of its primary shareholders. The army shoots on the demonstrators, and the Pro-Nasserite MP Sa’ad is killed among others. Riots break up between the Army and the Nasserite, leftist, and Palestinian supporters. President Frangieh refutes to hold the army accountable while the Phalange supporters did several counter – demonstrations in solidarity with the army. After a month Frangieh transfers two officers from Saida while its governor was placed on probation. Eventually Pierre Gemayel objects on the rotation of the Army’s officer transfer. A month later, the Project of establishing Protein in Saida was abandoned and the government decides to compensate the fishermen. The Next day, April 13,1975, a shoot out takes place in Ain el-Remaini at the Phalange (which is assumed an operation on Pierre Gemayel) while the Phalanges retaliate by shooting a bus going to Tel el-Zaatar camp. The war would break and would last for a decade and a half. (Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, Pluto Press (2007), P. 183).
Different factors boiled down to trigger the Civil War in Lebanon. Whether it was class inequality among the sects which allowed the “Sect-Defenders” to mobilize their supporters against the “other”, or the newly balance of power between the Leftists and the Christian militias has triggered down the civil war. The presence of two armies, the PLO guerilla warfare organized commandos and the Lebanese Army, definitely shoved the direction of Lebanon towards a new civil war. Philip Habib once compared Lebanon to a vacuum that sucked in the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Israelis, the United States, and others into its whirlpool.
Keep in mind that this is just a summary of a summary for the causes why the Civil War broke, I didn’t tackle the events of the war. All are to be blamed. Just to make a remark, the causes which triggered the war on Lebanese level, the Christians and the Left, changed as the civil war, accompanied with different foreign interventions, progressed till 1990. The war is divided into different reasons, which changed as the turn of events progressed. This reflects also the expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland triggered a chain reaction that reflected badly on Lebanon. In the end, the Proletariat suffered the greed of the elites.
Renegade Eye & Marxist From Lebanon
There are several factors that tackle the events that led to the break-out of the Lebanese Civil War. Theodor Hanf (in his book Irrevocable Covenant) and others discuss different reasons that become entangled in the end, and trigger the Lebanese Civil war in 1975.
The first reason according to Hanf that the war broke out is due to the nature of Lebanon and its political structure. Lebanon is a state composed of communities whereby one community can never dominate the rest. This balance of power forced into Lebanon democracy as the best solution between the different communities. The second factor would be the class-income distribution between the sects to be involved in the 1975 clash. All the communities got their elites as well as their lower income wage earners. The 1960s witnessed class inequality on the rise among the different communities which made the major Sect leaders aim to mobilize the masses easier against the others. A third factor is the perception of the Muslims and Christians of Lebanese Nationalism. To the Christians, Lebanese Nationalism is strictly Lebanese and nothing else (as long as they were in power) while the Muslims regarded Lebanese Nationalism as complementary to Arab Nationalism and didn’t mind having both. This would play a major role in the different factions who would ally with the Palestinians. These double standards of Nationalism would threaten the Christians’ sense of Lebanese independence.
Another dimension to Theoder Hanf was the Palestinians’ activities in Lebanon starting from the late 1960s and the arrival of large quantity of combatants in 1970 after Black September in Jordan. This tipped the balance of power among the Lebanese communities as the Left-Wing considered that the Lebanese army was already biased for the Lebanese Christian Leaders and the PLO’s mass arrival can balance the power against the “isolationist” Christian Leaders. The Palestinians used Lebanon since the late 1967 as a base to launch operations on Israel. This spread fear among the Christians that Lebanon’s independence was marginalized and they became a minority in Lebanon as the PLO learnt their errors from the Jordan 1970 experience and armed its allied parties in Lebanon. They further established networks, since the PLO got no place else to go and Lebanon was the only country allowing them to launch their military operations. Solidarity to the Palestinians was expressed through the Muslims (mostly the Sunni) but with the aim to change the system in a limited manner while the left-wing Lebanese National Movement aimed to demolish the sect-based system. The PLO eventually transformed the Western Part of Beirut into its stronghold.
A third dimension to several authors is the Army and its incapability to dominate or control the PLO. The Lebanese Army was always a weak army compared to the neighboring armies’ strength of Jordan, Syria, Israel, and Egypt. The purpose of the army, as advocated by head of the Phalange Party, Pierre Gemayel, that the nation’s strength would be its weakness. Having a weaker army means discouragement for other nations to feel threatened. Nevertheless, despite its weakness compared to other institutions, the army has been the core balancer of power between the Christian Militias and the rest of the communities. The Army from 1967 till 1969 entered several confrontations with the Palestinian Commandos in order push away the PLO from the borders, primary allies of Kamal Junblatt and the Left-wing, till the Cairo agreement was signed. After 1970, with the PLO still expanding their networks and continuing with their operations on Israel, the Christian Parties decided to transform their parties into militias. The Left-wing leaders organized mass demonstrations against the Army’s crackdown attempts on the PLO.
The Regional Situation also played a role into contributing factors that would eventually lead to the break out of the Lebanese Civil War. Ever since the end of the Six Days War, the PLO received massive support from the gulf nations in compensation to the great humiliating Arab Defeat. The Cairo agreement was drafted between the PLO and the Head of the Lebanese Army, which was approved by the Lebanese Parliament, gave the PLO legitimacy over the camps, safe influx of arms from Syria, and made West Beirut the safe-haven for the PLO warriors. The Cairo Agreement’s aftermath also made the Christian Leaders, after the influx of more PLO warriors from Jordan, to focus on their own strengths. According to Dr. Moubarak, the Arab states blocked PLO operations from their borders but encouraged the PLO’s use of arms and support in Lebanon. (Walid Moubarak, Position of A Weak State In An Unstable Region: Case of Lebanon (The Emirates Center For Strategic studies & Research ,2002), P. 3) Syria on the other hand, had its own Palestinian Militias active in Lebanon, the Sa’iqa. They were always a support to the PLO’s activism specially if the Lebanese Army pressured the PLO in a military sense. What aggravated the situation more was the fact Kamal Junblatt was the Minister of Interior, who was the PLO’s primary ally, to this, the Christian Leaders never liked it.
The International Arena also played a role into negotiations. Kissinger never struck deals with the PLO, rather with Egypt and Syria after 1973 war. The PLO were regarded as Refugees with no rights whatsoever which forced its leadership to bomb its away to attain recognition and a bargaining card via Lebanon after they changed policy and have a Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza (which will happen in the Oslo agreement). Israel’s policy was also dramatic which increased the tension between the Christian Leaders and the PLO. Whenever the PLO launched an operation, Israel responded mainly on the South and the refugee camps. When Israel bombed in 1968 the 12 Middle East Airlines, Israel signaled a message to all leaders of Lebanon to control their half of the borders and cripple the PLO. The development of the Peace Treaties between Egypt and Israel via Henry Kissinger got al-Assad to develop the three nation (Syria, Jordan and Lebanon) – four people unity strategy (Lebanese, Syrians, Palestinians, and Jordanians).
The US administration, under Kissinger’s dominion, was bothered with the turn of events inside Lebanon. With the escalation of the Lebanese situation, Kissinger was worried that Israel would be dragged to war with Lebanon, which in turn would trigger another regional war in less than a year. Furthermore, Kissinger didn’t want to see Israel entering a war because finally an Arab nation (supposedly the strongest military then), Egypt, decided to follow the Step-By-Step with the Zionist State. Nevertheless, PLO operations threatened a regional war. Syria already took a positive step with the States after the 1973 war, and agreed to follow the disengagement plan. The problem was Syria always supported the PLO from cross-border artillery, or its Palestinian made militias: the Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA). This did not stop Syria from establishing good contacts with the Christian Militias, in case, according to Syrian calculations, the other side dominated. To the Syrians, they wanted intervention into Lebanon, but not a left-wing Lebanese Party establishing a socialist government that would shake the whole region. Worse, they wanted to dominate the PLO politically in order to become the sole spearheads for the “Arab Cause”. This clicked with Kissinger on a latter stage to cripple the PLO.
The Division of Lebanon into Two Camps intensified matters. The Leaders of the “Lebanese Front” declined to lose one bit of their political advantage and public sector recruitment benefits (6:5). Imam el-Sadre radicalized his Shiite base and moved closer to President Suleiman Frangieh’s coalition hence forth isolating the Sunni Sect and the Left-Wing (who were attempting to link their demands with the crisis of the South). Junblatt became the recognized Muslim leader in the Arab world, as he got the support of Syria and Egypt as well as the presence of the PLO armed groups broke the hegemony of the Christian domination. His bargaining would be narrowed down to reform the system in return of limited strikes of the PLO against Israel. Pierre Gemayel and Camille Shamoun wouldn’t want to lose any privileges for their parties stressed and accompanied the army in their clashes with the PLO. Should the Christian leaders accept any declines, the warring Lebanese factions probably would have been avoided with a new Status Quo (Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, Pluto Press (2007), P. 180)
The state, due to the interests of both camps, has lost legitimacy in the eyes of the left-wing camp. The erosion of the State started when Israeli Commandos entered West Beirut and assassinated three PLO figures in 1973. The Army was present and didn’t do anything as Ehud Barak stated he remained for one hour in the Verdun area disguised as a blond woman in a skirt. Escalations occurred from the soon to be Lebanese Front Alliance and the Lebanese National Movement leaders. Since 1970, the future LNM leaders called for demonstrations every time the Army (usually backed with Phalange supporters) attacked the PLO.
Two incidents will trigger the Lebanese civil war in 1975 despite the fact some confrontations occurred between Junblatt’s socialists and the Phalange militia earlier to the zero hour. The first is the demonstration led my MP Ma’ruf Sa’ad against Protein Corp. in Saida. The corporation itself has the Ahhrar’s Camille Shamo’un as one of its primary shareholders. The army shoots on the demonstrators, and the Pro-Nasserite MP Sa’ad is killed among others. Riots break up between the Army and the Nasserite, leftist, and Palestinian supporters. President Frangieh refutes to hold the army accountable while the Phalange supporters did several counter – demonstrations in solidarity with the army. After a month Frangieh transfers two officers from Saida while its governor was placed on probation. Eventually Pierre Gemayel objects on the rotation of the Army’s officer transfer. A month later, the Project of establishing Protein in Saida was abandoned and the government decides to compensate the fishermen. The Next day, April 13,1975, a shoot out takes place in Ain el-Remaini at the Phalange (which is assumed an operation on Pierre Gemayel) while the Phalanges retaliate by shooting a bus going to Tel el-Zaatar camp. The war would break and would last for a decade and a half. (Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, Pluto Press (2007), P. 183).
Different factors boiled down to trigger the Civil War in Lebanon. Whether it was class inequality among the sects which allowed the “Sect-Defenders” to mobilize their supporters against the “other”, or the newly balance of power between the Leftists and the Christian militias has triggered down the civil war. The presence of two armies, the PLO guerilla warfare organized commandos and the Lebanese Army, definitely shoved the direction of Lebanon towards a new civil war. Philip Habib once compared Lebanon to a vacuum that sucked in the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Israelis, the United States, and others into its whirlpool.
Keep in mind that this is just a summary of a summary for the causes why the Civil War broke, I didn’t tackle the events of the war. All are to be blamed. Just to make a remark, the causes which triggered the war on Lebanese level, the Christians and the Left, changed as the civil war, accompanied with different foreign interventions, progressed till 1990. The war is divided into different reasons, which changed as the turn of events progressed. This reflects also the expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland triggered a chain reaction that reflected badly on Lebanon. In the end, the Proletariat suffered the greed of the elites.
Renegade Eye & Marxist From Lebanon
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)