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IF
ew are aware of !he
evenls lhal have led
up to the present
Lebanese morass.
From the 15th century
until just after World War
1,
Lebanon lay under the
yoke of Ottoman Turkish
rule. In the mid-19th
century, Lebanon was the
scene of fearful
perseculions. Lebanese
Moslems (of both the Sunni
and Shiite sects}, Druzes
(followers of a medieval
caliph of Egypl} and
Christians (Maroniles,
Greek Orthodox, Greek
Catholics and others}
fought savagely one
against the
other.
France and Brilain
evenlually inlervened. Peace
was reestablished. The
interna! silualion lhereafler
improved rapidly.
Afler !he collapse of
Olloman rule, Lebanon was
adminislered under French
mandale from 1920 lo
1941. Lebanon gained
complete independence in
1946, wilh the evacualion of
all foreign troops.
Unlil 1975, Lebanon
enjoyed relatively stable
government. 11 was the
resull of a carefully
balanced distribution of
power among that country's
various religious faclions.
Each religious group was
given a slice of !he polilical
pie.
Today, by contras! ,
Lebanon's central
government has all but
faded into oblivion. Little
more than a figurehead
authority, it has no political
punch. 11 struggles in vain to
establish sorne measure of
control over events
hopelessly out of
control .
A major factor in the
upselling of the delicate
balance of Lebanese politics
and society has been the
intrusion of Palestinian
politics.
Civil War Comes
to Lebanon
The Palestinians are those
Arabs native to the
territories occupied by Israel
in the Six Day War of 1967
They fled from mandated ·
Palestine in 1948 when the
state of Israel was founded
and again in 1967 from
Jordanian-ruled areas of
Palestine thal are now under
Israelí military rule.
Neighboring Arab countries.
country. The Palestine
Liberation Organization
(PLO) has used these
camps as training grounds
for guerrillas to make
attacks into Israel.
Aggravating the situation
was the arrival in Lebanon
in !he early 1970s of
lhousands of additional
armed Palestinian guerrillas
who had been driven from
neighboring Jordan by
troops of King Hussein. The
number of armed guerrillas
by
Keith W. Stump
including Lebanon,
opened their doors to
them.
The Palestinians now
seek to set up their own
fully sovereign nation on the
West Bank of the Jordan
River and in the Gaza Strip,
areas under Israelí
adminislration. (See
" Jordan's King Hussein–
Searching for Peace" in last
monlh's
Plain Truth.}
The presence in Lebanon
of refugee camps for sorne
450,000 homeless
Paleslinians was a major
factor leading lo polilical
dissension within the
in Lebanon swelled lo more
than 20,000.
In 1975, civil war erupted
in Lebanon between rightisl
Lebanese Chrislians and
leftist Lebanese Moslems.
Allied wilh !he Moslem
militants were !he Palestinian
guerrillas.
Palestinian guerrillas and
Lebanese Moslem torces
inflicled severe blows
against the Christian militias.
In April, 1976-at the
requesl of the Lebanese
governmenl and with the
acquiescence of the United
Slales and lsrael-30,000
Syrian troops intervened on
!he side of !he Christian
minority lo reestablish the
balance of power thal had
lipped in favor of !he
Palestinians and Lebanese
Moslems.
In mid-November, 1976,
!he Syrian army succeeded
in taking control of Beirut
and !he civil war ended in a
standoff. Nothing had been
resolved and sorne 60,000
lives had been lost. The
Arab League directed Syria
to lurn its army units wilhin
!he country into a
peacekeeping force.
In March, 1978, Israelí
troops invaded soulhern
Lebanon, destroying
Palestinian strongholds there
and chasing off Syrian
troops that had taken up
posilions near the frontier.
The lsraelis withdrew in June
following !he arrival of a
U.N. peacekeeping force.
The PLO, however,
infillraled the area alter the
Israelí wilhdrawal. Despite
!he presence of the
6,000-man U.N. conlingent ,
fighling continued on and off
between the Christian
militias and Palestinians, as
did Israelí retaliatory raids
on PLO bases in soulhern
Lebanon.
The Israelí attacks,
coupled with ongoing
lsraeli-Egyptian peace
negotiations, gradually
changed the Syrian
perspective. Syria and the
PLO-now effeclively under
Syria's control-began lo
share with Lebanon's
Moslems a fear of growing
cooperation between
Lebanese Christian mililias
and Israel.
Further increasing Syria's
insecurity, !he leader of the
Christian mililia in southern
Lebanon, Major Saad
Haddad, declared
independence for a
6-mile-wide strip along the
Israelí border in April , 1979,
calling il " Free Lebanon."
Major Haddad and his 4,000
Lebanese rightist militiamen
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