Lebanon: What’s the Problem?: Can 1,600 Years of Strife Be Settled by the U.S. Marines?

Landrum Bolling was a war correspondent in World War II, then became a professor of political science and president of Earlham College (Richmond, Ind.), a Quaker school, for 15 years. He was president of the Lilly Endowment, and a professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He is now president of the Ecumenical Institute for Advanced Theological Studies at Tantur in Israel. During the 1960s he headed an international Quaker study team examining the Arab-Israeli conflict in depth. Since then he has traveled frequently to the Mideast to meet with leaders on all sides of the conflict and has been a consultant to several administrations in Washington on questions of Mideast policy.

Bloody conflict is no new thing to the beautiful land of Lebanon, whose mountainous shores are washed by the easternmost waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Long before the birth of Christ, a minor Old Testament prophet warned that those who deal unjustly with other nations may expect harsh retribution. Matter-of-factly, Habakkuk predicted dreadful consequences for those involved in the “violence of Lebanon.”

The recurring waves of foreign conquest and intertribal convulsions in and around Lebanon make up a history of lamentations too tedious to tell. Brutal strife has been the lot of the diverse peoples of the region, generation after generation.

Violence in Lebanon did not begin with the Israeli invasion of 1982. Nor did it arrive with the first hundred thousand Palestinian refugees who fled northward after the creation of Israel in 1948. Nor was it initiated by another 200,000 Palestinians who were dumped on Beirut and southern Lebanon when King Hussein threw the PLO out of Jordan in 1970 and 1971. Israelis and Palestinians have, of course, been killing each other for years on Lebanese soil, or along the border. Through armed political and religious factions, the Lebanese have gone through an unbelievable cycle of civil wars, assassinations, and attempted coups ever since the modern independent state of Lebanon came into being. Those factional struggles stretch back centuries.

What the Israelis and the Palestinians have done in their struggle with each other over the past decade has been to exacerbate the internal Lebanese feuds—and to encourage the Lebanese to join the Israelis and the Palestinians in theirs.

The sprawling land bridge between Asia and Africa—now divided into nation states called Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel, plus the Sinai district of Egypt—has been fought over since time immemorial. Old Testament passages tell of numerous wars. The great emperors from Alexander to Napoleon have sent their legions swarming over the region, and the European Crusaders held sway for a century.

Parenthetically, the Old Testament tells of friendly cooperation, as well as warfare, between peoples and rulers on both sides of what is now the international boundary between Israel and Lebanon. According to 1 Kings 5, confirmed by 2 Chronicles 2, when Solomon succeeded his father as king of Israel, Hiram, the king of Tyre (still the southernmost Lebanese port), sent congratulations to the new ruling neighbor. Solomon, in turn, asked for Hiram’s help in building the great temple. Quickly they struck a mutually advantageous business deal.

Solomon’s workmen, 30,000 of them, labored alongside the hewers and stonemasons provided by Hiram. In seven years their magnificent work was finished. As recorded in 1 Kings 5:12, “There was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and they two made a league together.” Who is to say that there cannot eventually be a genuine peace between present-day Israel and its neighbors to the north and east?

Ancient Alliances

Of all the overlapping conflicts in the Middle East, none is so complicated as the many-layered struggles among the Lebanese. It could be said that, at bottom, it is a more-than-millenium-long war between Christianity and Islam. That would be partly true, but only partly. Along with the ceaseless interfaith rivalry over the centuries, there have been long stretches of wary peaceful Christian-Muslim coexistence. Moreover, many of the conflicts have been of Muslim faction against Muslim faction, Christian sect against Christian sect. In recent times, there have been working political coalitions of some Christians with some Muslims against other Christians linked to other Muslims.

One of the most ancient and powerful of the religious sects is the Maronite Christian. It coalesced in fifth-century Syria around a deviant view of the divinity of Christ, was persecuted, and fled into the Lebanon mountains. It reunited with the Roman Catholic church in the twelfth century. Its Phalange party, the political base of President Amin Gemayal, a Maronite, is backed by the most powerful of the private militias that operate in Lebanon, and it controls the traditional mountain village strongholds of the Maronites north and east of Beirut. Their most bitter enemies, the Druze, are concentrated in neighboring mountain villages to the south. Hatred and violence have characterized their relations since the early part of the nineteenth century when the Maronites pushed down into this region from northern Lebanon.

The Druze, a heretical offshoot of the Shi’ia division of Islam, have, like the Maronites, a long tradition as fighters. Back in 1860 their fighting against each other resulted in a massacre of Maronites that led to anti-Christian outbreaks throughout the area. This brought on direct intervention by the Europeans, including an expeditionary force from France, against the feeble protests of the sickly, disintegrating Ottoman empire, which controlled the region. Subsequently, the Turks created a semiautonomous district around Mount Lebanon, in which the Maronites had clear local control.

After World War I, in accord with a secret Franco-British agreement, the French acquired mandatory authority over the territories that became Syria and Lebanon, while the British took similar responsibility for an even larger expanse of land that they divided into Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine. The boundaries and basic government arrangements were imposed by the European mandatory allies.

A Map Fatefully Drawn

A primary concern of France was to make sure the Lebanese Christians could have a state in which they would have the dominant role. All the other Arab countries would be overwhelmingly Muslim; that was clear. There should be one place where the Christians could be in control, and there was already the old autonomous district of Mount Lebanon to start with. To this was added the port city of Beirut and enough good agricultural lands in the coastal plain and the mountain valleys to make possible a viable economy. Tragically, the French did not take into account the relative strength of the religious communities included. So, as the French and their Christian friends drew the map for the new Lebanon, they added to the core of Mount Lebanon and Beirut more and more Muslim territory—with far-reaching consequences that are being felt to this day.

Many of the Muslims affected had expected and wanted to be a part of the new state of Syria; they did not welcome the idea of becoming a minority in a Christian-run Lebanon, and some did not really accept the idea that there should be a separate country called Lebanon at all. Many Syrian politicians are accused of holding these ideas still. To abolish Lebanon or to reduce its territory today seems not a serious or desirable possibility; yet the idea that the Christians, now a minority in Lebanon, will maintain the upper hand the French intended them to have can no longer be taken for granted.

The necessity for reexamining the governing power in Lebanon has long been recognized. The basis of the constitutional system is a cumbersome, unwritten agreement negotiated by a few Christian and Muslim leaders in 1943. It affirms that Lebanon is an Arab country of many faiths, whose Muslim citizens should not be controlled by Muslim countries and whose Christians should not be dependent on or subservient to Western Christian powers.

According to the 1943 agreement, the country’s president and the commander of the armed forces are always drawn from among the Maronite Christians, the prime minister from among the Sunni Muslims, and the speaker of the National Assembly from the Shi’ia Muslims. The seats in the National Assembly are distributed on a ratio of six for the Christians to five for the Muslims—on the basis of the census of 1932! There has been no census since then. Meanwhile, it has become evident that the Shi’ia population is now the largest single bloc, the discriminated-against Druze may be now nearly as numerous as the dominant Maronites, and the Muslims in total outnumber the Christians.

The Palestinian Factor

However precarious the balance was earlier, it was drastically upset by the arrival of masses of Palestinian refugees from Israel in 1948, most of whom are Sunni Muslims. The struggle over the distribution of power is at the bottom of Lebanon’s troubles, compounded by the virtual universal distribution of lethal weapons and the widespread acceptance of the notion that using them is the way to settle political disputes. The PLO brought in a lot of weapons and endless grievances to justify their use.

The initially forgotten players in the whole tragic drama, the Palestinian Arabs, saw Israel as a usurper that had driven them from their homes. Gradually they developed a sense of national identity. Spurred on by their bitter experience of Israeli military power, grim camp existence, and dispersal over many lands, they began to agitate for a homeland of their own, presumably to be acquired by driving out the Israelis. For a time their hopes were fed by fiery rhetoric in the United Nations and bombastic broadcasts over Radio Cairo, but nothing happened to make them realize their dreams.

In the late 1960s, a little group of Palestinian exiles, working and making good money in Kuwait and other parts of the gulf, seized control of the Palestine Liberation Organization and embarked upon a “military option,” operating primarily from bases in Jordan. They raised funds, secured arms, set up training camps, and undertook raids into Israel and terrorist attacks against Israelis abroad. Yasir Arafat, their “chairman,” became a world figure. More than a hundred governments around the world gave the PLO diplomatic recognition, and its representative was accorded permanent official observer status at the United Nations. Meanwhile, terrorist activities and an apparent threat to the regime of King Hussein led him to expel the PLO in 1970 after bloody fighting.

In time, PLO terrorist activity was curtailed in favor of the “political option,” and dovish spokesmen were encouraged to make contacts with peace activists inside Israel. These peace feelers hinted at a “two state” solution, of a Jewish Israel and an Arab Palestine dividing the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. However, the PLO never came forward with concrete plans for meaningful negotiations, and within the loose structure of the PLO, with all its discordant factions, there was constant loud and public denunciation of the peace gestures that were made. Moreover, the notorious Abu Nidal gang, which had been kicked out of the PLO in the mid-1970s, went ahead with mindless atrocities, while the main body of the PLO, Al Fatah, built up its supply of Soviet-supplied arms and threatened more attacks across the Lebanese-Israeli border. The Israelis continued, naturally, to denounce all PLO members and supporters as “terrorists” and argued that there were no true “moderates” within the PLO, no Palestinians with whom they could negotiate. In any case, the vast majority of the Israelis rejected the “two state” solution.

Frustrated in their ambitions for a homeland of their own, the Palestinians set about building a ministate in the south of Lebanon. Among the more radical Lebanese the PLO found some sympathizers, but to a large percentage of the local people, the Palestinians were unwelcome intruders and oppressors. The PLO inevitably became the ally of certain Lebanese factions, generally Muslim and antiestablishment, and the enemy of the Christians, the affluent, and the factions in power.

When the quarrels of the Lebanese factions erupted into open civil warfare in April 1975, the PLO was quickly in the middle of the fighting—a major factor in helping the Lebanese tear their country apart. When the war ended, through Syrian intervention, in November 1976, the assorted militias still had considerable local power in various communities around the country, the Lebanese army was virtually nonexistent and the central government enfeebled, the PLO ruled in West Beirut and much of the South, and there was a Syrian “peace-keeping force” throughout much of Lebanon, north of a “Red Line” the Israelis warned the Syrians not to cross. The PLO, however, became a law unto itself in that forbidden zone, an irritant to the local people and a concern and an appealing target for the Israelis. The undisciplined, dictatorial ways of the PLO and the raids by the Israelis combined to drive many thousands of the local Lebanese to flee to the north, refugees in their own country.

Following Arafat’s zig-zag tactical maneuvers, the PLO tried to make credible both its “military option” and its “political option.” Neither one, in fact, was believable. The political option was never spelled out or seriously pursued. And there were never enough PLO weapons or trained military manpower to pose a real security threat to Israel. Still, with its Soviet-supplied Katusha rockets, the PLO could hit communities in northern Galilee in Israel. Even such limited damage was, of course, wholly unacceptable to the Israelis, and there was broad popular support in Israel for tough action against the PLO bases.

Israeli Invasions

The Israelis invaded southern Lebanon in 1978, drove the PLO north of the Litani river, then, under strong internal and foreign pressure, withdrew. The PLO came right back, and there were more thrusts and counterthrusts between these two bitter adversaries, culminating in an Israeli aerial raid on the center of Beirut in July 1981, aimed at destroying Arafat’s headquarters. About 300 people were reportedly killed, most of them civilians, many of them Lebanese. The resulting outcry spurred U.S. negotiators to obtain a cease-fire. The Israelis and the PLO negotiated a truce that held, so far as Lebanon was concerned, until April 21, 1982. On that day Israeli planes bombed Palestinian and Lebanese refugee settlements on the outskirts of Beirut, near the airport.

A few weeks later came the justification for General Sharon to initiate another invasion of Lebanon, as he had been openly signalling for months. At the beginning of June, there was an attempted assassination of Israeli Ambassador Argov in London. According to Scotland Yard’s investigation, it was the work of the anti-PLO, anti-Israeli terrorists directed by Abu Nidal. Nevertheless, the Israelis blamed the PLO, and Sharon sent his planes and tanks into action.

“Operation Peace for Galilee,” as the Israelis and the world were told, had a simple objective: to push back the PLO roughly 25 miles so that their shells could no longer hit northern Galilee. That objective was virtually achieved in the first two days of fighting. Then Sharon announced he would push on to the outskirts of Beirut. That was accomplished within another couple of days. Then he swept up into the Shouf Mountains, cut the main road from Damascus into Lebanon, and moved into East Beirut. Warning the population of West Beirut to flee, he demanded that the surrounded PLO surrender.

Plo Pushed Out Of Beirut

Arafat’s answer, in effect, was, “Come and get me, if you can.” Thus, these two proud, arrogant, and ruthless men brought down upon a helpless half of a city, with close to 500,000 terrified inhabitants, one of the most horrible bombardments in the annals of modern urban warfare. It lasted 75 days, and in the end, after interminable negotiations through Lebanese Muslim leaders and U.S. mediator Philip Habib, the Israelis and the PLO (who still wouldn’t talk to each other directly) reached a withdrawal agreement. Arafat and some 16,000 of his fighters walked out proudly, holding their rifles in their hands—and impudently, naïvely, making the V-for-victory sign.

There were few reasons for anyone to celebrate: not the PLO, who lost their state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon and their political and military headquarters in Beirut; not the Syrians, who were soundly beaten and lost a large portion of the planes and military hardware supplied by the Russians; not the Soviet Union, whose weaponry was scornfully destroyed by the amazingly efficient Israelis and their top-of-the-line American equipment; not even the Israelis, either, who got stuck in a quagmire. And certainly the Lebanese, who were the greatest losers of all, had no reason for celebration.

The Phalange party of the Maronite Christians, whose militia had been equipped and trained by the Israelis, stood to gain most from the situation. Their flamboyant young leader, Bashir Gemayel, would become the new president of the country, with the full backing of the Israelis and the Americans. But even before he could be sworn into office, things began to unravel.

Whether it was because Gemayel proved to be too stubborn and uncooperative or that the Israelis were too demanding, their alliance was subjected to severe strains and harsh disagreement. Gemayel came back from a trip to Israel and a showdown meeting with Prime Minister Begin and his advisers in early September 1982, angry over the pressuring, but unsubdued.

The Israelis had already been humiliated and enraged by the clever stubbornness of Arafat and the public relations black eye they had received from the daily worldwide coverage of their savage siege of West Beirut. Now, they wanted a quick, comprehensive peace with a new pro-Israeli Lebanese government. It was not to be. Bashir felt he had to prove that he was not an Israeli puppet.

Before this quarrel could be resolved, Bashir was dead, the victim of a massive bomb blast at his party headquarters. The culprits, so far is now known, have never been identified or caught. The Gemayel family and the Phalange party rapidly regained a grip on things. With continuing support of their cautious Muslim allies, the older brother, Amin, was made president by the parliament. As soon as he was in office, it became evident that Amin was no more inclined to go along with Israeli wishes than had been his martyred brother. He would not sign an immediate peace treaty. The Israelis made it clear they would keep their forces in Lebanon until he did.

Lebanese Reluctance

Thus began a long drawn-out process of negotiating an Israeli-Lebanese agreement, with American diplomats sitting in as constant observers and advisers. Slowly, many issues were resolved. In the end, though, the Lebanese were reluctant to sign; President Gemayel and his colleagues feared internal upheaval and denunciation from their Arab brothers, particularly the Syrians. The Americans assured the Lebanese that they were getting the best deal it was possible to get out of the Israelis and that the Americans and the Saudis would find ways to persuade the Syrians to go along—in short, that both the Israeli and Syrian troops would soon be withdrawn.

Tragically, the Lebanese fears were fulfilled even more disastrously than they had imagined, and the American assurances proved undeliverable. The Syrians stayed put, and so did the Israelis. The domestic opposition to the agreement turned into a new civil war—with the Syrians egging it on, with the Druze and the Maronites killing each other again, with the new, fledgling Lebanese army unable to preserve order, with the Israeli occupation army in the south taking casualties every day, and with the Americans and the French of the multinational peace-keeping forces being killed and wounded on a scale undreamed of. Meanwhile, inside Israel, deep divisions developed over whether Sharon should ever have been allowed to wage war as he did, and both the doves and leading hawkish politicians called for unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon. Prime Minister Begin, obviously a broken man from both personal and public tragedies, resigned. And then, in a kind of obscene sideshow, came the brutal, mindless destruction of life and property in and around Tripoli in the north of Lebanon as the Syrian-backed PLO rebels tried to annihilate Arafat and his “too moderate” followers.

Lessons To Be Learned

What does all this mad violence say about the role of the United States in Lebanon and the Middle East? It says a lot.

First of all, it says that we do not have wisdom enough, strength enough, will enough, compassion enough to solve the problems of the Middle Eastern peoples for them on our own. Delusions of American omnipotence or omniscience serve us and them poorly. If ever we needed the help of a wisdom and strength beyond what we have for the defining and executing of foreign policy, it is now, in the Middle East.

It says that peoples who are filled with hurts and fears and hatreds will do unspeakable atrocities against those they perceive to be their enemies, and against those they think are helping their enemies.

It says that fanatical believers in a cause, just or unjust, reasonable or unreasonable, who are willing to sacrifice themselves can inflict severe damage on even the most overwhelmingly superior adversary. High-tech armaments give no guarantee against the individual killer who is not afraid to die. Obviously, there are thousands of fanatics in the Middle East who believe their cause is just and are not afraid of death.

It says that quick-fix solutions that do not take into account the grievances and vital interests of all the parties concerned are almost certain to fall apart.

It says that in the midst of crisis negotiations, the negotiators, including our own, may be so anxious for a “success” that they make promises and predictions they cannot fulfill. This means we need to improve our knowledge and skills in the peace process.

It says that in the great, shattering conflict of the Middle East, the role of the honest broker is more critically important than ever before, but that the United States is no longer viewed as that honest broker. Now we are viewed as the unmistakable (if not always reliable) ally of the Israelis and, in Lebanon, of the embattled, minority Gemayel faction. Yet, curiously, even Arabs who now hate us with a passion see America still as the only hope for negotiating a settlement. But they are less and less hopeful that any peaceful settlement can ever be reached. This means that we face grave new threats of increased terrorism and, conceivably, the overthrow of the conservative Arab governments that have been our friends.

The pain and violence of Lebanon says, above all, that we and all the parties to the Middle East conflict must reevaluate the potentials and limits of military power, must try to educate the people involved on the costs of continued warfare and the benefits of peace, must try again and yet again to work our way through the thickets of anger and hatred to bring all the interested parties into the processes for building a peaceful solution. This will take patience and dedication and courage comparable to that shown by the U.S. Marines, whose bravery is no substitute for a clear-eyed and determined diplomatic strategy for peace.

Tim Stafford is a free-lance writer living in Santa Rosa, California. He is a distinguished contributor to several magazines. His latest book is Do You Sometimes Feel Like a Nobody? (Zondervan, 1980).

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