Lebanon - History



The geographical features of Lebanon have had a major effect on its history. Its mountains enabled the minority communities to survive the despotisms that submerged the surrounding areas. The sea provided trade routes in ancient times for exports from Lebanese cedar and spruce forests, and for commerce in copper and iron during the time of the Ptolemies and the Romans. Both Lebanon and Syria were historically associated from early times as part of Phoenicia (c.1600–c.800 BC ), and both were later swept up into the Roman Empire. In the 7th century AD , the Arabs conquered part of Lebanon. Maronite Christians had long been established there; Islam gradually spread by conversion and migration, although the country remained predominantly Christian. In the 11th century, the Druzes established themselves in the south of the Mount Lebanon area as well as in Syria. Parts of Lebanon fell temporarily to the Crusaders; invasions by Mongols and others followed, and trade declined until the reunification of the Middle East under the Ottoman Empire.

For the most part, Ottoman officials of the surrounding areas left the Mount Lebanon districts to their own emirs and sheikhs. Fakhr ad-Din (1586–1635) of the Ma'an family set out to create an autonomous Lebanon, opened the country to Western Europe through commercial and military pacts, and encouraged Christian missionary activity. In 1697, the Shihab family acquired dominance, and from 1788 to 1840, except for a few intervals, Mount Lebanon was ruled by Bashir II of the Shihab family, who extended his power and was partly successful in building a strong state. The Egyptian occupation of Syria (1832–40) opened the Levant to large-scale European penetration and tied Lebanese affairs to international politics. It also heightened the antipathy between Christians and Druzes, with the occupiers from time to time using armed groups of one against the other. The British invasion of 1840–41 served to deliver Lebanon from Egyptian rule and forced Bashir II into exile, but it also involved France and the United Kingdom in the problem of finding a modus vivendi for the religious factions. A partition of government did not work. Economic discontent was inflamed by religious antagonisms, and the Druzes, feeling their power dwindling, organized a major onslaught against the Christians in 1860. When the latter, fearing annihilation, requested European intervention, major powers sent fleets into Syrian waters and the French sent an army into Mount Lebanon. Under European pressure, the Ottoman government agreed to the establishment of an international commission to set up a new, pro-Christian government; an autonomous province of Mount Lebanon was created in 1864, with a Christian governor who, though the servant of the Ottoman state, relied upon European backing in disputes with his sovereign.

The entry of the Ottoman Empire into World War I led to an Allied blockade, widespread hunger, and the destruction of Lebanese prosperity. An Anglo-French force took the country in 1918, and in 1920, an Allied conference gave France a mandate over Syria, in which Mount Lebanon was included. The French separated from Syria the area they called Greater Lebanon (Grand Liban), which was four times as large as the traditional Mount Lebanon and included a Muslim population almost as large as the Christian. The mandate years were a time of material growth and little political development.

Lebanon came under Vichy control in 1940, but in 1941, Lebanon and Syria were taken by a combined Anglo–Free French force. The Free French proclaimed Lebanese independence in November 1941, but when a strongly nationalistic government was created in 1943, the French intervened and arrested the new president, Bishara al-Khuri. An insurrection followed, prompting UK intervention and the restoration of the government. In 1945 agreement was achieved for the withdrawal of both UK and French forces, and in 1946 Lebanon assumed complete independence.

The 1950s and 1960s were generally characterized by economic and political stability. Beginning in 1952, Lebanon received increased US aid and also benefited from an influx of Western commercial personnel and from growing oil royalties. It also seemed the calmest center of the Middle East, taking little part in the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 and no action in the wars of 1967 and 1973. In 1958, however, a reported attempt by President Camille Chamoun (Sha'mun) to seek a second term precipitated a civil war, and in July the United States sent forces to help quell the insurrection; this move was in keeping with the Eisenhower Doctrine, which pledged US military and economic aid to any country requesting it in order to counter a Communist threat. The crisis was settled when General Fu'ad Shihab (Chehab), who was supported by both government and opposition groups, was elected president in July. By October US forces were withdrawn, and public security was reestablished.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Lebanon's economy was disrupted by conflict in the Middle East, vividly brought home by the presence, near the border with Israel, of thousands of well-armed Palestinian guerrillas, many of whom had come from Jordan following the "Black September" fighting there in 1970–71. Serious clashes between them and the Lebanese army occurred in 1969. Fearing civil war, the government that year signed the so-called Cairo Accord with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which virtually made it a state within the state. The PLO gained the right to establish military bases and launch cross-border raids into Israel. This inevitably led to Israeli reprisals, and PLO interference in Lebanese affairs accelerated a slide toward anarchy. In April and May 1974, a series of Palestinian attacks on Lebanese villages killed scores of persons and injured hundreds. Government efforts to deal with the problem were denounced as insufficient by Christian rightists, while Muslim leftists defended the Palestinians, and both factions formed private militias.

Intermittent fighting between the armed factions continued, and raids by Palestinian guerrillas based in southern Lebanon drew Israel into the conflict. In March 1978 the Israeli army invaded southern Lebanon, destroyed PLO bases, and then withdrew when the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was established to keep the peace. Continuing PLO rocket attacks on northern Israel and Syria's installation of antiaircraft missiles in the Bekaa Valley prompted Israel to launch a full-scale invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. Israeli forces quickly destroyed PLO bases in the south and in Tyre and Sidon, penetrated to the outskirts of Beirut, and disabled the Syrian missile bases. Several cease-fires arranged by US envoy Philip Habib broke down, but following a two-month Israeli siege of West Beirut, where the Palestinians were encamped, a truce was agreed to by Israel, the PLO, and Syria; by 1 September, more than 14,000 Palestinian and Syrian fighters had been evacuated. The Lebanese estimated their war casualties at more than 19,000 dead and 30,000 wounded (figures disputed by Israel). A multinational peacekeeping force, comprising British, French, and Italian soldiers and US marines, was stationed in the Beirut area in early September.

During the early months of 1975, sporadic violence between the two factions gradually erupted into a full-scale civil war that pitted Maronite Christians against Muslims and against other Christian sects, and rightist militants against Palestinian guerrillas and other leftist Arab forces. At least 100,000 people on all sides were killed and some 600,000 persons displaced during the eighteen months of fighting. In April 1976 Syrian forces entered Lebanon, in an apparent effort to prevent an all-out victory by left-wing Muslims and Palestinians; by the fall, some 20,000 Syrian troops controlled the Bekaa Valley. A cease-fire arranged through the mediation of Sa'udi Arabia and other Arab countries enabled a peacekeeping force (including Syrian troops) to separate the combatants and end the war in October. The conflict not only devastated Lebanon economically, but so weakened the central government that effective power lay with the Syrians, the Palestinians, and some thirty sectarian militias. In general, the Christian Phalangists held sway over east-central Lebanon; fighters loyal to Major Sa'ad Haddad, a right-wing Lebanese army officer, controlled the southern border area, in a security zone set up by Israel; and the PLO, other Muslim leftists, and Syrian forces occupied northern and eastern Lebanon.

Despite the truce, the violence continued. On 14 September Bashir Gemayel, a Phalangist leader who in August had been elected president by the Lebanese parliament, was assassinated. Almost immediately, Israeli troops moved into West Beirut to wipe out pockets of Palestinian resistance causing tens of thousands of casualties. Phalangist forces were allowed into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, and at least 600 Palestinians, many of them civilians, were massacred; a subsequent Israeli government inquiry was critical of senior officials for indirect responsibility for the killings. In 1983 Israeli and Syrian troops still occupied large portions of Lebanon, and they became targets of attack by Muslim and Druze forces. In May 1983 Lebanon, Israel, and the United States signed an agreement by which Lebanon and Israel agreed to end their state of war. Israel agreed to withdraw all its forces, and both countries agreed to establish a security zone in southern Lebanon patrolled by Lebanese forces and joint Israeli-Lebanese teams. However, Syria opposed it and the agreement, never implemented, was repudiated by Lebanon in 1984.

The American embassy in Beirut was bombed in April 1983, and US marines were harassed by sniper fire. On 23 October, 241 of them were killed by a truck-bomb explosion in their barracks at Beirut airport; on the same day, a similar bombing caused at least fifty-eight deaths at a French paratroop barracks. Shortly before, Lebanon and Syria had agreed to a cease-fire pending a reconciliation conference, which began in Switzerland in November, with all major Lebanese political factions participating. Meanwhile, fighting broke out between a radical Syrian-supported PLO faction and guerrillas loyal to Yasser Arafat, chairman of the organization; defeated at Tripoli, Arafat withdrew from Lebanon in December.

As 1984 began, the position of the government headed by Amin Gemayel, who had been elected president to succeed his brother, was deteriorating. In February the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy pulled their ground troops and nonessential personnel out of the Beirut area. In March, the Lebanese reconciliation conference dissolved without reaching substantial agreement. The following month a "national unity" government was formed, bringing together the leaders of all the major warring factions. But it almost never met and could not pacify the country; intermittent clashes between factions continued. Israel's withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon (except the south) in early 1985 left in its wake renewed fighting for the evacuated territory. In December a Syrian-sponsored cease-fire agreement that included constitutional reforms was signed by the Druze, Amal (Shi'i), and Christian factions, but its terms were never implemented. The general lawlessness encouraged terrorist groups of all kinds to promote their own ends by assassinations, kidnappings, and bombings. Among the most feared was the Hezbollah, or Party of God, which was aligned with fundamentalist Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

In 1985–86 there was sporadic fierce fighting between Palestinian and Shi'i Amal militia. Syria pushed for political reform and, when opposed by Gemayel and militant Christians, influenced Muslim ministers not to deal with the president, thus paralyzing the government. With the economy in serious decline, Prime Minister Rashid Karami was assassinated to be succeeded by Salim al-Huss. The badly divided factions could not agree on a successor to Gemayel when his term expired in September 1988. Christian Army Commander Michel Aoun asserted himself as prime minister, giving Lebanon two governments, a Muslim one in West Beirut and a Christian one in East Beirut. Aoun was opposed by the Syrians and Muslims and by rival Christian factions.

In January 1989 the Arab League appointed a committee on Lebanon which eventually, in September, arranged for a seven-point cease-fire and convened a meeting of Lebanese parliamentarians in Taif, Sa'udi Arabia. The Taif Accord that resulted in November led to the election of Elias Hrawi, a Maronite Christian, as president. He named al-Huss prime minister. When forces of General Aoun (who was technically deposed by Hrawi) attacked Christian and Syrian positions, they retaliated in strength and finally obliged him to take exile in France in 1991.

In 1991–92 the government gradually began to reassert its authority. Militias, except notably Hezbollah and the Israeli-backed army of South Lebanon, were dissolved in May 1991. Palestinian militants were repressed in Sidon in July. In May 1992 the last western hostages were released after years of confinement. Lebanon joined the Israeli-Arab peace talks in Madrid in October 1991. Internally, the poor economy aggravated political instability, but parliamentary elections, the first in twenty years, were scheduled for 1992. Poor preparations, widespread irregularities, and Christian abstention produced results that did not prepare Lebanon for an assured future. Yet, the appointment of Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri in November 1992 promised a serious effort at reconstruction.

Al-Hariri, a self-made billionaire who made his fortune in Sa'udi Arabia, was perceived by many to be a savior of sorts for the war-torn country. He had a long history of philanthropic giving, donating large sums to rebuild Beirut, for instance. As prime minister, he has been frequently accused of corruption and of making sure government rebuilding efforts were directed toward companies under his control. Still most Lebanese approved of his efforts to stabilize the country and unite its many long-warring factions. In 1996, al-Hariri was reelected prime minister in a unanimous vote of parliament.

In 1996 Lebanon was still subject to political violence, especially in the Israeli occupied south, where that year 255 people were killed (twenty-seven Israeli soldiers) in violence. Fifty-four of the dead were members of Hezbollah, and nineteen were militiamen in the Israeli-controlled South Lebanon Army (SLA). The violence continued into 1997.

The President Ilyas Hrawi had been elected to the six-year post in 1989. In 1995 when his term was set to expire in accordance with the constitution, parliament extended his term for an additional three years. Hrawi proved to be a weak leader and his standing with the Maronites was low. Emile Lahoud, of a prominent Maronite family, had been promoted to major-general in 1985, and general and army commander in 1989. In 1998 his name surfaced as a potential successor to Hrawi. In October 1998 the Assembly introduced an unparalleled amendment to the constitutional clause requiring senior public officials to leave office before running for president. Within two days Lahoud was elected president of the National Assembly. Lahoud was sworn in on 24 November 1998 as Lebanon's eleventh president. On 4 December 1998 Salim al-Huss began his fifth term as prime minister after Hariri's sudden resignation.

In early 1999 fighting in southern Lebanon escalated as the Hezbollah staged attacks on Israeli forces and the Israeli-backed SLA. Israel retaliated on Hezbollah strongholds, and by February expanded air strikes beyond the "security zone" to southern and northern Lebanon. The al-Huss government's fiscal austerity aimed at reducing the deficit, which had grown to 15% of gross domestic product, met with resistance from the trade unions. On 24 June 1999 Israel destroyed bridges and power stations with its heaviest air raids in three years. In July 1999 the UN Security Council renewed for six months the mandate for UNIFIL, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, and restated its support of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.

At the end of 1999 in anticipation of elections in August 2000, the government passed a law creating fourteen constituencies of suspiciously varying sizes based on rewarding or punishing political foes or friends. A bill to curb the media, limiting all elections news, advertisements, and coverage to the state-run Tele-Liban and Radio Liban, and limiting campaign spending was also drafted. On 24 May 2000 Israel made a quick withdrawal from southern Lebanon. With the Israeli withdrawal the SLA disintegrated. The exact border between Lebanon and Israel remained unsettled as they disputed ownership of the Shabaa Farms. The Lebanese government sent police and intelligence officers to the newly liberated area, but refused to deploy troops until there was evidence of stability or a comprehensive peace treaty with Israel.

In March 2001, Lebanon began to divert waters from the Wazzani River to supply villages in southern Lebanon. The Wazzani feeds into the Hatzbani, which in turn flows into the Jordan River watershed and Lake Kinneret (Lake Tiberias or the Sea of Galilee), a major source of Israel's water supply. In September 2002, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon identified measures to divert water from Israel as a cause for war.

Syrian troops withdrew from Beirut in June 2001 to redeploy in other parts of Lebanon, in response to greater Lebanese criticism of Syria's presence there. In February 2003, the Syrian army completed its redeployment out of north Lebanon. Up to 4,000 troops left north Lebanon for central Syria. The majority of the Syrian army left in Lebanon is assembled in a stretch of the Bekaa Valley on the Syrian border. In February, Lebanon warned Israel against expelling Palestinians to Lebanon if war were to break out in Iraq, stating such a move would be akin to declaring war. In response, Israel stated it had no such plans. As of early 2003, there were approximately 350,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Also in February, lsraeli warplanes flew over southern Lebanon, particularly over the Shabaa Farms, carrying out mock raids, at which Hezbollah fired anti-aircraft weaponry. Hezbollah and Israeli forces exchanged fire over the Shabaa Farms in January 2003, the first such exchanges since August 2002. Israel and Hezbollah are locked in a territorial dispute over the Farms, an area Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 war. Lebanon claims the region, although the UN holds that it belongs to Syria, and that Syria and Israel should negotiate its fate.

Parliamentary elections held 27 August and 3 September 2000 resulted in the appointment on 23 October of Rafiq al-Hariri as prime minister once again.



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