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Future for Lebanon

HANDBOOK: Lebanon's Divisive Sectarian Past

Pre-Civil War

Lebanon proclaimed its independence from France in 1941 and held general elections in 1943. Although French authorities were initially resistant to Lebanese sovereignty, exiling several prominent Lebanese politicians to the Castle of Rashayya (forty miles east of Sidon), Lebanon's Muslim and Christian leaders united and, with international support, pressured France into releasing the prisoners on November 22, 1943 -- henceforth known as Independence Day (French troops finally withdrew in 1946). Meanwhile, a fragile balance of power was forged via an unwritten agreement known as the National Pact. The pact states that Lebanon is an independent Arab nation with ties to the West that also cooperates with other Arab states, and that public offices should be distributed equally between the country's recognized religious sects. Specifically, the president of the republic should be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies a Shia Muslim. Overall, Christians held six offices to the five held by Muslims.

Between 1943 and 1976, Lebanon was controlled by various networks of prominent families within each religious sect. For instance, the Shihabs of the Maronites; the Karamis of the Sunnis; the Asads of the Shias; and the Jumblatts of the Druze (a small, Arabic-speaking religious group that grew out of Islam in the 10th century, although, today, the Druze are not considered Muslim by most Muslims). In 1958, tension between pan-Arab and pro-Western interests erupted into civil war. U.S. troops were dispatched in response to a request by the Lebanese government, which claimed Syria was assisting rebel fighters (and that the Soviet Union was assisting Syria). U.S. forces, however, played a symbolic rather than active role in the conflict -- and did not actively participate in battle. By October, they had completely withdrawn and some 2,000-4,000 casualties had occurred, largely in the Muslim areas of Beirut and Tripoli. After the war, political compromise, a neutral foreign policy, and extensive infrastructure development led to a period of stability and prosperity during the 1960s in which Beirut became a regional center for finance and trade as well as a successful tourist attraction.

Civil War

Although Lebanon declined to participate in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War (also known as the Six-Day War), a number of conflicts emerged in its aftermath that would lead Lebanon into civil war. Perhaps most significantly, Palestinian refugees fleeing the war landed in Lebanon, where a number of militant groups formed -- including the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) -- and began launching guerilla attacks on Israel. This led to reprisals from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and divided sentiments within Lebanon -- often along religious lines. Muslims, generally, tended to sympathize with the efforts of the Palestinian guerillas, while Christians were inclined to view the guerillas as a threat to national security and government authority. Occasional clashes between the guerillas and the Lebanese Army escalated in 1970 as the government began taking a harsher stance against the militants. Influxes of Palestinian guerillas, exiled from Jordan in 1970 and 1971, only added to the tension, and confrontations between guerillas and the Lebanese army continued -- as well as violence between Palestinians and right-wing groups.

Civil war finally broke out on April 13, 1975, in Beirut, when gunmen from a right-wing Christian militia, Phalange, ambushed a bus, killing 26 of its mostly Palestinian passengers -- supposedly in retaliation for an earlier shooting at a church. Palestinian forces joined predominantly leftist-Muslim factions and fighting spread from Beirut across the country. In 1976, diplomatic efforts by Syria failed to resolve the conflict until the arrival of Syrian troops that June quelled fighting. In October, Syria's military presence was validated by Arab summits in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Cairo, which established an Arab Deterrent Force (ADF) -- composed primarily of Syrian troops -- to enforce a ceasefire.

Order was restored, but only temporarily. Guerilla activity in southern Lebanon continued and in March 1978, Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon in retaliation for a PLO bus bombing in northern Israel. After U.N. demands for Israel's withdrawal and the creation of an Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the Israelis began turning over territory to an allied Christian Lebanese militia. Meanwhile, the Syrian-controlled ADF and various militias continued to battle for control of the country. In 1981, a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Syria, the PLO, and Israel lasted until PLO rocket attacks on northern Israel and an assassination attempt on the Israeli ambassador to the UK led Israel to invade Lebanon in June 1982, this time driving all the way up to East Beirut to eliminate PLO forces. In August, a multinational force, including U.S. forces, helped oversee PLO withdrawal from Lebanon and, as the country's various factions became more and more radical, there was an increase in terrorist activities. Hezbollah, a radical Islamic political party, was formed by Shia clerics in 1982, primarily as a result of the Israeli invasion. In 1983, the U.S. Embassy in West Beirut was attacked by a suicide bombing that killed 63 people, and two simultaneous attacks on U.S. and French military barracks left 298 dead. Hezbollah was implicated in these attacks, as well as the abduction of foreigners and the hijacking of aircraft. It was not until the Ta'if Agreement, brokered by the Arab League in 1989, that real progress was made toward peace. After more than 100,000 deaths, the war finally came to an end in 1990. Under Syrian Dominion

The Ta'if Agreement of 1989, which led to the end of Lebanon's civil war in 1990, sought to level the balance of power shared between the country's Maronite Christian minority and the Muslim majority. It reduced the power of the president and expanded the Chamber of Deputies to 128 seats, dividing them equally between Christians and Muslims (counting the Druze as Muslims). Although the agreement reasserted Lebanon's independence and unity, it also legitimized the presence of Syria's military within Lebanon, leaving the issue of how Lebanon would obtain complete sovereignty open for discussion. Syria had as many as 16,000 troops stationed across Lebanon -- in addition to the armed, Syria-backed Hezbollah militia, which remained intact at the end of the war when other militias were dissolved.

Israel, meanwhile, retained control over a self-declared "security zone" in the south as a way of preventing Palestinian cross-border attacks. In May 2001, though, Israel withdrew all its remaining forces. Three and a half years later, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1559, which called for the withdrawal of all remaining foreign forces from Lebanon -- as well as the disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias. The resolution was clearly aimed at Syria and Hezbollah. Syrian Foreign Minister, Faruq al-Sharah, called the resolution an illegal intervention in the relationship between Syria and Lebanon. But in February 2005, after the assassination of anti-Syrian, former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, public sentiment turned against Syria. Massive rallies called for the end of occupation and, in April, Syria withdrew all of its military forces -- although many suspected Syrian agents remained in Lebanon. Then, in the weeks leading up to and following Lebanon's June 2005 parliamentary elections, a number of car bombings cast a shadow over hopes for the flourishing of a stable, new Lebanese independence. Many felt Syria was behind the assassination of anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir and leftist politician George Hawi. For now, Hezbollah remains an officially recognized and influential political party, having won all southern Lebanon's available seats in the June elections.

Sources: U.S. Library of Congress, U.S. Department of State, CIA, BBC