Lebanese Civil War

From Hobson's Choice

Lebanon has suffered multiple civil wars: 1860, 1958, and 1975-1990. This article addresses the series of violent conflicts that raged between 1975 and 1990, which can be characterized as four civil wars and two foreign invasions:

1. PLO, et. al. vs. the Phalange (1975-1976)
2. Syrian intervention (1976)
3. Phalange/LF vs. multiple adversaries (1978-1999); Israeli intervention (1978)
4. Israeli invasion (1982-1983; residual occupation to 2000)
5. Shi'a 'Amal vs. Hizbullah (1982-1996)
6. Michel Aoun's 2nd Republic

The period from October 1976 to April 1981 was a stalemate accompanied by sporadic skirmishes; it was interrupted by the March '78 Operation "Litani" by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), who hoped to bolster the Phalange/LF takeover of southern Lebanon (so they could eliminated the PLO presence there). In June '82, Israel launched a comprehensive invasion of Lebanon, and full-scale civil war resumed. The 2nd phase of the Civil War (1982-1999) included two distinct conflicts (intra-Shi'a and the Phalange/LF's attempt to conquer the rest of the nation. Finally, in 1999-2000, Gen. Michel Aoun established a renegade government in East Beirut that was eventually liquidated by the Syrian and Lebanese armed forces.

Contents 1 Context 2 The PLO's Role 3 Syrian Intervention 4 The Shi'a Role 5 Israeli Invasion 6 Summary 7 External Links 7.1 Maps 7.2 Israeli Invasion (1982) 7.3 "2nd Republic" (1989-1990)

Context

(See related section)

The Lebanese Civil War was an extremely complex event that actually consisted of a sectional struggle among rival class and regional interests; confusingly, however,these interest groups were usually identified by their religious confession, since Lebanese civil society was formally pillarized along confessional lines. It was the extraordinary misfortune of Lebanon that its political factions were all very well-connected internationally, leading to combatants with resources far greater than a country as small as Lebanon could be expected to have.

The nation of Lebanon had suffered a severe crisis involving violent insurgency in 1958. During this period, the major issue was the conservative Christian-dominated government's pro-Western foreign policy, which came perilously close to aligning Lebanon with Israel. While the conflict generally pit pro-government (rightwing) Christians against anti-government (leftwing) Muslims and Druze, this split was very much blurred by the left's economic populism. An additional issue was the Interbank crisis of October 1966 (see "Golden Age" section), in which the entrenched elites, sidelined under Shehabism, had succeeded in engineering a run on the market-leading Intrabank; the bank's assets included 56% of Lebanese demand deposits at the time, and it was strongly linked to the Lebanese left.^[1] In the years that followed, the commercial banking sector did recover, but became devoted to laundering huge volumes of petrodollars; sectors that employed most Lebanese, such as agriculture and farming, were deprived of capital; the services sector boomed, but so did the slums to the south and east and Beirut.

The end of the Six-Day War probably spelled doom for Lebanon. Its swift outcome was such a shock for the Arab World that a certain edge now permeated political discourse. There was now a conviction in much of the Arab world that continuity or stability was an actively bad thing. At the same time, the United States was now unambiguously allied with Israel, and had established close ties to Bashir Gemayel, the leader of the Phalange party & militia (a movement inspired by the Spanish falange).^[2] A fresh influx of refugees from Palestine arrived in Lebanon, just as the government inhaled anarcho-capitalist bromides about minimal government. For huge segments of the Muslim population, the impact of the new banking boom was perverse: it fueled real estate development in farming areas, leaving tenant farmers out of a job as the land they farmed was sold out from under them. Yet the conservative elites, including the Sunni notables, were making fortunes from the renewed banking boom, and funneled the money into conservative Islamic charities. The Shi'a masses pouring into Beirut were suddenly dependent on charitable foundations associated with militant Islam.

The PLO's Role

In Jordan, the PLO had fallen under the leadership of Yassir Arafat's al-Fatah movement; Arafat was convinced that the Palestinian cause would get nowhere unless the Arab world were to become radicalized. His militia virtually took over control of Jordan, host to the greatest number of Palestinian refugees, and in September 1970 undertook to overthrow the monarchy. The uprising killed perhaps 3,500 Palestinians and Jordanians, and brought in an invasion by Syria. Hafez al-Assad, a conservative member of the Ba'thist junta and commander of the Syrian Air Force, had opposed the invasion of Jordan and in November that same year overthrew the Syrian government in the seventeenth coup of its history. Thereafter the PLO high command was forced to leave Jordan for Lebanon. A large contingent of Palestinian refugees moved to Syria and Lebanon; these tended to include the radicalized cohorts who believed governments such as that of Lebanon were an obstacle to Palestinian repatriation.

Sadat and Assad collaborated on the Ramadan War (Yom Kippur War, October 1973) in which Israeli forces were initially driven from positions in the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. This was the strongest showing to date of the Arab armies, and it was also accompanied by the economically decisive oil embargo. The effect of the embargo was to create a deep development wedge between the non-OPEC 3rd World (whose members ran up huge debts and then collapsed under them in the mid-80's) and the Developed nations, which actually absorbed huge volumes of petrodollars as bank deposits in the 1980's. ^[3] But in the end, it was the two frontline states which were forced-in different ways-to back down, at terrible cost to their own standing.

The burgeoning Palestinian refugee population was the proximate cause of the war. In '75, violence along the border with Israel and anti-government demonstrations in the refugee camps heightened the fears of the Maronite leadership that they would soon be fighting for the very existence of Lebanon. At the same time, the population of Beirut had exploded. The commercial orientation of the economy was leaving the countryside in the dust, and the city now had stupendous, squalid slum tenements as well as a stunning waterfront. The Shi'a population had become more prominent, moving to a plurality and filling in the vacuum left by the migration of Sunnis and Christians to Beirut. Between 1960 and 1975, the population of Beirut tripled, to become 50% of the national population.

Two factors changed the demographic composition of Beirut in the 1970s. The first was the dramatic growth, starting in 1973, of labor emigration to the Persian Gulf countries. At one point, the outflow included about half the entire work force of Beirut. The second was the series of battles that engulfed the city in a ferocious war. As for the levels of internal migration of various sectarian and ethnic groups at different times during the Civil War, three patterns can be discerned in terms of scope and duration: heavy migration, fast and temporary (the exodus from Beirut when it was besieged by the Israeli army in 1982); heavy migration, fast and permanent (the eviction of Palestinians and Shias from East Beirut in 1976 and the eviction of Christians from the Shuf Mountains in 1983); and the slow and intermittent migration of individuals and families.
"The War and Displacement in Beirut," Lebanon: a Country Study

A common problem of rapid urbanization such as this is the unbridgeable gap that forms between the country and the city. The relationship becomes like unto that between a developed country like the USA, and a poor country such as Mexico.

In April '75 an ambush on a busload of Palestinian refugees touched off an eruption of communal violence across the country.^[4] The instigator was a militia associated with the Maronite Phalangist Party. In opposition to it were armed factions of the Druze and the PLO; but also the regular government forces (which were, in turn, dominated by conservative Maronite interests). This, then, was a peculiar battle of the extreme right against the even-more-extreme right; the object of the Phalange was destroy radicalized Palestinian cells in the Beirut slums (particularly those associated with the PLO) and stamp out the pan-Arab movements among the Sunnis. Sunni and Druze naturally left the army to serve in militia devoted to protecting their communities. The actions of radical fedayeen along the border with Israel exposed the country to a rapidly intensifying threat of invasion. The Sunni, the Druze, and others initially won control of 70% of the country. And the dissolution of the state into warring militia caused the Shi'a to mobilize for the first time. This meant that the Lebanese government, holed up in the Ashariyyah Heights of East Beirut, was desperate for a savior.

Syrian Intervention

(See main article)

The most likely candidate was Israel, since it had such a huge stake in preventing PLO control of one of its neighbors. However, no Arab government would dream of inviting Israel to occupy even more Arab land; and the IDF combat strategy was focused on punitive destruction of enemy assets, not policing a war zone. Syria's military had a large number of soldiers who could be cheaply deployed, and who could take casualties without clamoring for massive retaliation; the IDF did not.

The Syrian government therefore entered negotiations with the blessing of the Arab League, and eventually intervened (March-June 1976) to defend a peace agreement it was attempting to broker. The Syrian intervention was probably a very shrewd measure to prevent another Arab-Israeli War, but it was doomed by the thuggish opportunism of Amin Gemayel, who attacked pro-Syrian militia and the Tel az-Zaatar refugee camp. After '78, therefore, the Syrians were allied chiefly with the Druze and the Shi'a.

The Shi'a Role

In the '70's the Shi'a faced a grim political situation in Lebanon. They were largely rural, and shut out of the best jobs. An Iranian-born cleric, founded an organization "Movement for the Disinherited" which created a military wing known as the Amal (="hope" in Arabic).^[5] Initially, the Amal avoided taking sides in the Maronite-PLO dispute; after the '76 Syrian intervention-which was directed against the PLO and leftist Sunni organizations, and on behalf of the conservative Christian government-this isolated the Shi'a Amal, since most Lebanese Shi'a sided with the PLO and movements to the Left. (By "left," we mean advocates of Arab unity, abolition of the conservative Lebanese state, and a regimented economy). But in '78 Musa was disappeared while in Lebanon; and support for the PLO had evaporated among the Shi'a and most other groups in Lebanon. Also, there was a revolution in Iran.

The Amal had sided with the Syrian action in Lebanon; when Israel invaded the first time, the incursion was limited, and chiefly carried out by aircraft or naval vessels. But when the IDF returned in 1982, the Amal was already fighting the PLO and of course did not seek out confrontations with the IDF. After '83, however, the Islamic Amal broke off, demanded that Lebanon be made an Islamic state, and attracted a major following. In the meantime, the IDF had worn out its welcome with the Shi'a, who were now flocking to the Islamic Amal. So, the Amal swung left and joined the struggle against Israeli occupation.

These events caused the Amal to spread rapidly as an umbrella group but it also became dependent on the Syrian forces in Lebanon, which were costly to maintain. Syria's role in the war was to be quite cautious; it never acted unilaterally, for example. This meant that, in the increasingly polarized climate of Lebanon, it was outflanked on the "left" by groups such as Hizbullah. Syria was unable to reconcile with the PLO, either; the dynamics of this fragmented guerrilla movement, and the Lebanese allies it had, made it contemptuous of strategy or patience.

With the rupture between the Maronites and the Syrian government, and the proliferation of virulent terror organizations which rivalled the PLO (e.g., the PFLP and Abu Nidal) it was only a matter of time before Israel invaded Lebanon. Israeli participation in the Lebanese Civil War had actually begun before Syria's, in '75 with the creation of the Free Lebanon Army under Gen. Saad Haddad. Later known as the South Lebanese Army (SLA), its object was to ensure Maronite political control in the region where it was most precarious. The main obstacle to SLA victory was the PLO, naturally, and so in March 1978 the IDF attacked in retaliation for a fedayin attack which killed 37 people ("Operation Litani"). It advanced to the Litani River before evacuating. But the vacuum left by the PLO was occupied by the more virulent Hizbullah.

Israeli Invasion

(See main article)

The Invasion of Lebanon (6 June 1982) was a huge event. For one thing, it greatly escalated the intensity of the war, from petty sniping or desultory shelling, into a massive bombardment with weapons developed to stop a Soviet blitzkrieg.

Beirut suffered grievously between June 6, 1982, when Israeli troops first crossed the Lebanese border, and September 16, when they completed their seizure of West Beirut. Normal economic activity was brought to a standstill. Factories that had sprung up in the southern suburbs were damaged or destroyed, highways were torn up, and houses were ruined or pitted by artillery fire and rockets. Close to 40,000 homes-about one-fourth of all Beirut's dwellings-were destroyed. Eighty-five percent of all schools south of the city were damaged or destroyed. The protracted closure of Beirut's port and airport drastically affected commerce and industry. By 1984 the World Bank and the CDR agreed that Beirut would require some US$12 billion to replace or renovate damaged facilities and to restore services that had not been properly maintained since 1975.

For another, it was the one thing that the Syrians and other responsible actors had sought to avoid. The Syrian airforce and defensive batteries were destroyed at their bases in the Bekaa Valley, and soon after the IDF was hunting PLO cells in their erstwhile safe haven. The PLO was evacuated to Tunis, ending its role in Lebanon, while the US and other nations now sought to extricate the IDF from Lebanon.

Sharon had also pushed the idea of Operation "Peace for Galilee"

The subject of the Palestinian population in Lebanon, from among whom the terrorist organizations sprang up and in the midst of whom their military infrastructure was entrenched, came up more than once in meetings between phalangist leaders and Israeli representatives. The position of the Phalangist leaders, as reflected in various pronouncements of these leaders, was, in general, that no unified and independent Lebanese state could be established without a solution being found to the problem of the Palestinian refugees, who, according to the Phalangists' estimates, numbered half a million people...; Therefore, the Phalangist leaders proposed removing a large portion of the Palestinian refugees from Lebanese soil, whether by methods of persuasion or other means of pressure. They did not conceal their opinion that it would be necessary to resort to acts of violence in order to cause the exodus of many Palestinian refugees from Lebanon.^[6]

Sharon, as defense minister, must have approved the complex battle plan for cutting off the PLO and encircling it in West Beirut (along with its Lebanese allies, the mostly-Sunni Murabitun (Nasserist Militia), and Syrian forces trying to shield West Beirut from the Phalange. This battle plan very often required little battlefield action by the Phalange, since the IDF was afraid it would run into trouble and require rescuing. Moreover,

During the meetings that the heads of the Mossad held with Bashir Jemayel, they heard that [his] intention ...was to eliminate the Palestinian problem in Lebanon when he came to power - even if that meant resorting to aberrant methods against the Palestinians in Lebanon ...Similar remarks were heard from other Phalangist leaders. Furthermore, certain actions of the Phalangists during the war indicated that there had been no fundamental change in their attitude toward different segments of the Lebanese population, such as Druze and Palestinians, whom the Phalangists considered enemies. There were reports of Phalangist massacres of women and children in Druze villages, as well as the liquidation of Palestinians carried out by the intelligence unit of Elie Hobeika ...These reports reinforced the feeling among certain people - and especially among experienced intelligence officers - that in the event that the Phalangists had an opportunity to massacre Palestinians, they would take advantage of it. ^[7]

The Phalange Militia had carried out an earlier massacre (August 1976) at the Tel az-Zaatar Refugee Camp (on the eastern outskirts of Beirut). According to Robert Fisk, Arafat had deliberately provoked this onslaught by having his commandos fire upon Phalange positions from within the camp. ^[8]

The Massacre in the Camps was internationally condemned, in Israel as it was in the rest of the world. The PLO had been drastically reduced; nothing would ever replace the elaborate structure of control and logistics it had achieved in Lebanon. But the Massacre had represented a bleaker picture of Israeli ideology, a war fought for demography. What had Sharon expected would happen? Based on the report cited in the footnote below, the Kahane Commission Report-damning of Sharon as it is-still appears to have been a whitewash of the scope of the IDF's activities. The Kahane Commission implies that Sharon had been sloppy. A more compelling interpretation is that Sharon and the framers of the Kahane Commission report themselves had believed the camps in Lebanon were enclaves of "terrorists." Other rhetoric insists on equating huge swathes of the Palestinian population with terrorism, despite the fact that we are talking about an immense displaced population. There is evidence to suggest the plan of the war was kept hidden by Sharon, in order to allow Sharon himself to present the Cabinet and the world with a fait accompli. But the fait itself was evidently self-validating.

In public, the rupture between the US White House and the Israeli government appeared 6 August (five-six weeks before the Massacre) when the IDF entered West Beirut. West Beirut was significant because the IDF's thrust had bypassed the extensive suburbs to the south of the city (where three large refugee camps stood) and had moved through the (mostly Christian) districts of East Beirut to the Green Line. The IDF's assault on the city was believed to have killed nearly 18,000 residents and demolished a quarter of the buildings.

After the Massacre (estimates of the dead range from 600-1,000), Israel's international repution was in ruins. US, Italian and French forces arrived as the core of the Multinational Force (MNF II) at the behest of Amin Gemayel (Bashir's brother). As Beirut began to mop up from the carnage, theater of war now moved to the rugged terrain south of the Shuf Mountains. Sharon, the Great Perpetrator, had resigned in favor of Moshe Arens, who was determined to mop up the damage to relations with Washington and the rest of the world.

The IDF's shift in policy was to leave the country exposed to an entirely new phase of its history. A tiny faction of zealots in the Ministry of Defense had hijacked the Cabinet, then the Knesset, the IDF and the nation of Israel; they had done something so audacious it had stunned the world and utterly turned the tables on their enemies; and then fallen headlong on their faces. Israel had lost 344 men in "Operation Peace for Galilee," a stupendous war which had been launched under a cloak of lies and secrets... and now the quagmire was beginning. There was not going to be a "Camp David Agreement" with Lebanon or Syria.

The US Envoy, Philip Habib, brokered an agreement among the central government of Lebanon and Israel. While this happened a suicide bomber attacked the US Embassy, killing 60 people (mostly Beirutis), but apparently did not affect the negotiations. Syria was not included in these negotiations, but conducted others to create the National Salvation Front (NSF). While the May 17 Agreement looked to end the war on terms favorable to Israel and the Maronites, the NSF and Syria announced their rejection of it; the NSF members, which included the Druze, moderate Christians, a major component of the Sunnis and the Shi'a Amal, controlled much more territory than the Lebanese government. Moreover, the government was now essentially the Phalange militia. This caused fighting between the NSF (mainly the Druze) and the central government. After IDF forces withdrew from Beirut (4 Sept '83), the fighting erupted into a massive battle between the Druze and the Phalange/Lebanese government for control of the Shuf mountains, with the USS New Jersey shelling Druze positions. In October the Multinational Force also began to withdraw as the Lebanese government's control evaporated. The suicide bombings which killed 243 US Marines and 58 French soldiers (23 Oct) caused the MNF participants to doubt that any outsider could end the renewed violence.

Israeli forces had become pinned down in their zone of occupation in the south. Syria, hitherto the static, vulnerable sphinx at the gate, was replaced by Israel, whose occupation was a bargaining chip, but which had no interlocutor with whom to bargain. Syria's National Salvation Front (NSF) was able to force the Lebanese government to repudiate the May 17 agreement (March '85) and negotiate another, one that notionally brought together once more the main actors in the civil war. ^[9] This was the Bikfayya Agreement (June). ^[10] It did almost nothing to quell the violence, however, as personal feuds between warlords now drove the war in Beirut. These battles dragged out, increasing in complexity, as Syrian agents scrambled to link up anyone who take their side.

As 1986 dragged to a close Syrian troops took direct control over West Beirut again. Exactly what the method was that the Syrians used is difficult to say. Obviously, when a war spinters into such multiple polarities as Lebanon's did, it becomes pointless to enumerate the shifting of factions and positions. Lebanese society had become entirely nebulized. On the micro level, where militia battled in the streets of Beirut or in the redoubts of the Shuf mountains, the battle lines were consistent: the Shi'a were consistently battling to defend their neighborhoods from the Christian militia, and so were the Sunni. Sometimes the Sunni made common cause with the Shi'a and sometimes they did not. In the Shuf Mountains the Druze consistently battled the Maronites as they had for the entire course of the war. In the Beka'a Valley, the Syrian state had a relatively easy time maintaining the support of the factions who controlled the area. But the Syrians won by resisting ideological purity. The military and intelligence backed whichever region was likely to win in a particular region at a particular time, and in the end this strategy left Lebanon under the control of forces beholden to Damascus.

There was a final chapter to the war. President Amin Gemayel, whose clan had founded the Phalange and which had secured its control over the Maronite community, had been "elected" to complete the term of his assassinated brother. That term came to an end in '88, which left an impasse as no agreement could be reached as to a successor. By the 22 Sept, the parliament was still at loggerheads and Pres. Gemayel, with minutes to spare, appointed a highly successful general of the 8th Brigade (Lebanese Army) as his successor. ^[11] This was Michel Aoun (Awn)], who was deserted by the existing government; Awn therefore formed one national government in East Beirut, while Selim Hoss formed another in West Beirut. Awn did not have Syrian or US backing, since Washington had no intention of upsetting the Beirut applecart at this juncture; but he courted and won the support of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, who was eager to get revenge on Assad for having sided with Iran during Saddam's invasion. ^[12] Aoun was therefore able to take the offensive, blockading the port and shelling his rival's positions in Beirut. Finally, in March '89 Aoun declared a "war of liberation" against Syria. This was the first time Lebanon had suffered from rival states (before, the militia fighting all over the country were affiliated with confessionally-based parties). While the '89 War killed perhaps 1,000 Lebanese, it accounted for about 2% of Civil War casualties (setting aside those killed by "Operation Peace for Galilee") and was the only phase of the war resolved by diplomacy. The Ta'if Accord, reached by parliamentarians in Saudi Arabia, agreed to a new government (and ultimately, constitution), which was eventually accepted by the Phalange. When the Phalange accepted, Aoun was without the support of Iraq; France also withdrew support, as did the Vatican. In October '90 an assault on the presidential palace ended Aoun's tenure, and he took political asylum in the French Embassy. A year later, he relocated to France.

Aoun was, in the region he controlled, very popular. He was able to muster mass demonstrations against Elias Hrawi and appeared to restore a sense of self-mastery to many in Lebanon. There are web sites set up to honor him; the Syrian Occupation, now confined to a small presence in Beka'a, is compared to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. But Aoun alienated all the power brokers in Lebanon, including both the USA and Syria (Israel was now tied up with a disastrous occupation in the South), and eventually failed to hold onto his initial popularity with the Muslim middle class.

After Aoun's ouster, the Lebanese government had returned full circle. The new power structure was narrowly plutocratic and required a foreign enemy to validate its rule. So, it became not merely a satelite of Damascus (as it had been since 1987) but an otherwise conventional Arab state, dedicated to resisting Israel and supporting any movement that was fighting against the IDF. Since the early 80's the IDF had armed and uniformed both the Lebanese Phalange and the South Lebanese Army (SLA). The SLA was the more flagrantly collaborationist of the two, totally dependent on Israeli support and entirely failing to win the approval of the once-sympathetic Shi'a. Hizbullah's tactics improved steadily, while cooperation with the PLO deepened. Thus, the occupation in the south restored in large mesure the vital PLO infrastructure of power it had lost in '82. In 1999 the SLA collapsed in fighting with Hizbullah, and in March 2000 the IDF itself withdrew from the Security Zone. "Operation Peace for Galilee" had initially achieved, and now lost, the goal of eliminating the PLO's base in Lebanon. As Isreali occupation fades into a painful memory, Sharon's tenure as PM of Israel has re-inflamed bitter memories of the siege of West Beirut (18,000 dead; 25% of buildings destroyed). Hizbullah has several seats in the Lebanese parliament. Clashes occasionally erupt in the refugee camps between fundamentalists and the PLO, accompanied by car bombings, but Beirut remains a recovering city with an amazing construction boom.

Summary

We have presented a very brief summary of the war in Lebanon (1975-1990). The war was stupendously complicated and difficult to understand. There were essentially four main antagonists, plus a few others that took part in phases of the war but were not decisive in the final outcome.

The Maronite Christian Community: the main actor; determined to retain its detached homeland within the Arab world. The Maronites and their allies within Lebanon wanted, for example, to remain neutral in the Arab conflict with Israel; they also wished to maintain a strongly pro-business, urban-oriented economy. This was to create an explosive rift with the rural communities (mainly Shi'a and Druze).

The PLO: wanted precisely the opposite. The object of the PLO leadership was to radicalize the Lebanese state and turn it into a military base for the reconquest of Israel. The position of the PLO was undoubtedly stronger in Jordan (pre-1970) than it was in Lebanon, since

• There were fewer than 20% as many Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as in Jordan
• Syria, a strong ally of the PLO before 13 November 1970, was intensely hostile afterwards
• In addition to the Christian community in Lebanon (solidly opposed to the PLO), there was deep anti-PLO feeling amongst the Shi'a community

Nonetheless, the PLO was dedicated to overthrowing conservative Arab governments in order to stimulate a "people's war" against Israel. It did not accept the legitimacy of any Arab state not dedicated to this. There was widespread sympathy for the PLO everywhere in the Third World, especially since virtually every post-colonial government had to make unpopular compromises with the West in order to survive; so it was widely believed that the governments not in active confrontation with the West were its stooges.

Ba'thist Syria: would successfully woo, arm, and assist the Shi'a militia in Lebanon, particularly in the Baqa'a (Beka'a) Valley. It may be a surprise to many readers that the Syrian government was dedicated to avoiding a direct confrontation with Israel after '74. Assad was alarmed by Israel's air superiority and knew an all-out war was likely to end in his ouster. He went so far as to intervene in the Lebanese Civil War in 1976 on the side of the Maronites, rather than provoke an Israeli invasion of the country—it happened anyway. After "Operation Peace for Galilee" (1982), Assad successfully managed to gain the cooperation of most Shi'a militia and prevent the implementation of the US-brokered "May 17 Accords," which were unfavorable to Syria. ^[13] The last serious challenge to Syrian influence in the region was Gen. Michel Aoun (Awn's) short-lived presidency and "War of National Liberation." In March 2000 the IDF withdrew from Lebanon with only failure to show for its toughness against Lebanon. Syria retained effective control over Lebanon, while attacks continued against Israel unabated.

Israel: Menachim Begin , PM since '78, had represented a signal break with the old Labor traditions in Israel. Begin was the ghost of Vladimir "Ze'ev" Jabotinsky , but Sharon went far beyond Jabotinsky. Sharon was attempting to launch his own revolution, a turning of the tables, a shattering of the boundaries; he did not accept the legitimacy of international laws governing Israel because they had failed to protect the Jewish state from terrorism.^[14] Sharon attempted to stage a coup de main by launching an invasion far in excess of what even Begin's cabinet would countenance-let alone the Reagan Administration. Although Sharon's plans were liquidated, and Sharon was compelled to step down as minister of defense, the ideology now became the other pole of Israeli politics. Sharon, of course, became the handgun in the bedroom drawer; now he is, so to speak, drawn and his ideology has shown to be an abject failure.

After the creation of the Israeli Security Zone, two more major attacks were launched against Lebanon by the IDF. "Operation Accountability" (1993) and "Operation Grapes of Wrath" (1996) were executed by Labor governments and carried out mostly by air. The latter ended in disaster, when 102 civilian refugees in a UN center were killed] by Israeli shelling. ^[15]However, behind the controversy lies the problem that the IDF has increasingly been in control of Israeli foreign policy, rather than the other way around; and that the IDF strategy was to switch the agenda from "land for peace" (since there was no likelihood the Knesset would ever agree to adequate concessions in this matter) to "peace for peace," meaning that the IDF wanted to make terror as painful to the Lebanese government as it was to the Israeli polity. ^[16] But while the "peace for peace" strategy has been proven a manifest failure in the Lebanese lab, it has a grip on Israeli public opinion: concessions are a loser's game.

Iran: had literally experienced a revolution that rendered it internationally isolated. The appearance of Hizbullah in Lebanon during the siege of West Beirut, therefore, was especially fortuitous. ^[17] Prior to '82 many Israelis had hoped for an alliance between the IDF and the Shi'a Amal. Sharon's ham-fisted actions in the region shattered that, and betweeen 1985 and '96 about 200,000 Shi'a have been displaced internally (mostly by IDF or SLA actions). In particular, "Operation Grapes of Wrath" (April '96) touched off immense hatred for Israel within the once-sympathetic Lebanese Shi'a community. Iran, in turn, has gratified many in the Arab world for taking the most implacable official position towards Israel. As the Occupation of Lebanon and the intifada in the OT moved to the top of priorities for Arab politicians, Iran's position was rehabilitated. Hizbullah is now a very popular political party and also public works cooperative in Lebanon; it has a massive logistical base in the south and has shown itself to be the most effective force ever to fight against Israel. Since the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon (March 2000) Hizbullah has continued to launch rockets, mortars, or incursions into N. Israel or the Occupied Golan Heights on a weekly basis.^[18]

In contrast, Israel's government since 1978 has been in the grips of a revolution that has become progressively more radical. The revolutionary sentiment is that the Arab world can and must be entirely defeated-in effect, a mirror image of the most radical Arab nationalist ideology. Those who sought to end the settlements have found themselves isolated within Israel and viewed with contempt abroad. The view seems to be that Israel can shatter all Arab opposition and force its neighbors to end guerrilla action, if—and only if—the public is sufficiently accepting of atrocities against its enemies. In the face of a revolution, negotiation becomes difficult if not impossible. US pressure could cause the cabinet to bend, but not much else. And thereby hangs a tail.

External Links

• Lebanese Civil War timeline Encyclopedia of the Orient
• Library of Congress
  • Helen Chapin Metz., ed., A Country Study: Israel (1990)
  • Thomas Collelo, ed., A Country Study: Lebanon, Library of Congress (1989)
  • Thomas Collelo, ed., A Country Study: Syria, Library of Congress (1988)
• al-Mashriq (indispensible)
• "[Lebanon: Reconstruction and Security]," Canadian Immigration & Refugee Board (November 1995)
• Gangs of Beirut by George Azar. This is both artistically brilliant and deeply moving.

Maps

• Lebanese Refugee Camps (outstanding map-lots of information)
• Green Line; click on segments to see more detai, including photo montages of districts; *Map of the Israeli Occupation Zone (1998)

Israeli Invasion (1982)

• Outline of the Sabra and Shatila (Chatila) Massacre by Stephen Brenner; includes regional background
• Yossi Melman, "In and out of a nightmare," Haaretz (25 May 2000)
• Sandia Analysis (with maps, charts) of IDF activity in Lebanon
• The Seige of Beirut (Globalsecurity.org). This supplies very detailed information on the tactics and evolution of the situation during the Battle of Beirut. According to it, this was the most intensely covered battle to that time. It was also unusual insofar as it was an actual land battle whose victims were mostly civilians.

"2nd Republic" (1989-1990)

• Paul E. Salem, "Two Years of Living Dangerously: General Awn and Precarious Rise of Lebanon's Second Republic," Lebanese Center for Policy Studies

James R MacLean 03:31, 13 April 2008 (PDT)