Why Civil War Break out in Lebanon in 1975 - Essay Example

Why civil war break out in Lebanon in 1975 Student’s Name Course Tutor Date Why civil war break out in Lebanon in 1975 Introduction Lebanon is one of the countries in the Middle East. It is found in Western Asia on the Mediterranean Sea’s eastern shores. On the North East there is Syria, and on its South it is bordered by Israel. Its location at the meeting point of the Arabian hinterland and the Mediterranean basin has given it a rich cultural, ethnic and religious diversity. The Lebanon civil war was fought beginning in 1975 and lasted for fifteen years. 1The war devastated the economy of Lebanon and caused huge losses in property and human life. Approximately 150,000 people died from the war with 200,000 being wounded. At the moment 350 000 people are still displaced. It resulted from a number of factors among them political, social, religious and economic all of which made their contributions to the war in one way or another. Lebanon’s political and civil war history set the stage for the 1975 civil war. The collapse of the rule of the Ottoman Turks in the region is believed to have contributed to the war. When the Ottomans left, Lebanon was divided into the Christians and Muslims and Druze and the two groups were adversarial to each other. 2The coming of Palestinian refugees was another factor that fueled the crisis. The emergence of guerilla factions belonging to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, economic monopolies supported by the state and the increasing resentment against the state at that time favored a civil war. The issues arising from the happenings of the Black September in Jordan also fueled the crisis. The war had four phases. The use of Lebanon by the Arab states as a platform for war between themselves served to increase instability in the country. In this essay there will be discussed the reasons that caused and contributed to the 1975 civil war in Lebanon. 3The context of the civil war, the stake holders and the circumstances in which it happened will be examined in detail. Causes of the civil war (1975-1981) Scholars do not have any consensus on what were the reasons that led to the civil war in Lebanon. Others have argued that the causes of the war could be traced to the political compromises and the conflicts encountered in the administration of Lebanon after the end of the Ottoman rule. 4Lebanon also suffered from the cold war since it had a big disintegrative effect on the country. Wars fought earlier in the country like the 1958 war of the Pashas were used to prepare the stage for future wars. 5The civil war in Lebanon was sparked on 13th April 1975 when four phalangists were killed by gunmen who were trying to gun down Pierre Jumayyil. Since the phalangists believed that those who had attacked them were Palestinian they planned and executed retaliatory attacks on a bus that was transporting Palestinian passengers in which they killed 26 people. The day that followed the level of fighting escalated with Palestinian militia confronting the phalangists. Before April 13 1975 the atmosphere had been set ready for war because of a number of factors. During the early 1970s problems were encountered over the coming of Palestinian refugees. Most of these refugees emerged after Arab-Israeli war of 1967, the secret Cairo agreement of 1969 that permitted the formation of Palestinian camps within Lebanon and the “Black hostilities” of 1970 in Jordan. Among those who arrived in 1970 was Yasser Arafat with the Palestinian Liberation Organization.6 After the state of Israel was created in 1948, refugees numbering between 100,000 and 170,000 from Palestine crossed into Lebanon. 7These refugees were mainly Muslims and almost all of them Arabs but among them were some Greeks, Circassians and Armenians. In their two first decades within Lebanon the refugees from Palestinian came out as major powerful players in politics. The amount of Palestinians within Lebanon increased because of the war between the armed forces of Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization and the resultant expulsion of many Palestinian guerillas originating in Jordan in 1970. To add to the Palestinian issue there was a growth in the differences between Christians and Muslims. In the 1948 Arab Israeli war, a huge number of Palestinian refugees that had run a way from the fighting or were flushed out of their homes went to Lebanon. 8Palestinians in later years were to play a crucial role on the civil conflicts in Lebanon. 9Israel being established also altered Lebanon’s local environment in a very radical way. In 1958 July a threat of civil war was experienced in Lebanon between Muslims and Maronite Christians. President Camille Chamoun had tried to end the stranglehold that Lebanese traditional families had on Lebanese politics. These families had maintained their appeal on the electorate by establishing strong client-patron relations with their particular local communities. This could not allow a political class that was education to emerge in parliament. Chamoun made it to sponsor a new breed of political candidates to join elections in 1957 resulting in the loss of positions by the families. In a revenge mission the families started war against Chamoun called the war of the Pashas. Because of the norm and the open political society and media of Lebanon, regional tensions became the excuse that the excluded political bosses used to begin insurrections. Other contributing factors to the civil war was the history of the Lebanon region under the Ottoman empire, Arab Nationalism, Arab socialism, Iran Iraq war, Iran revolution and Islamic fundamentalism. The events of the Black September or September 1970 also added their contribution to the tensions that resulted in the civil war in Lebanon. In that month when King Hussein of Jordan acted to destroy the militancy in Palestinian organizations and to restore the monarchy rule that he had over Jordan. 10The violence that was caused claimed the lives of people in their thousands many of them being Palestinians. Armed conflict did not end before July 1971when the Palestinian Liberation Organization was expelled together with thousands of Palestinian fighting groups to go Lebanon. The fishermen strike in February 1975 at Sidon can be seen as the first significant episode that caused the beginning of hostilities. 11The event was triggered by a particular issue. Former President Camille Chamoun who was also the head of Maronite-oriented National Liberal Party attempted to monopolize fishing activities on the Lebanon coast.12 The fishermen perceived injustices that evoked sympathy from several people in Lebanon and also reinforced antipathy and resentment that were felt on a wide scale against the state as well as the economic monopolies. The demonstrations carried out against the fishing company rapidly took a new turn when they turned into political action with support from the political left and their friends within the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The state made attempts to suppress demonstrations and a popular city figure was killed by a government sniper. The man who was killed Maruf Sad was popular for opposing the government and offering strong support to Palestinians13. The nature and political structure of Lebanon was a major contributing factor to the civil war. Lebanon as a state is made up of communities which are set up in a way that no one community can get the opportunity to dominate the others.14 This power balance forced into the Lebanese society democracy as being the only suited solutions between various communities. Another factor is the distribution of the class income between those sects that were to take part in the civil war in 1975. Every community had its elites and its lower income earners as well. This divided the society into people of higher social status and those of the lower social status namely the rich and the poor. This division is a big social problem and it proved to be so in Lebanon. In the 1960s there was seen a rise in inequality in class in the various communities that made the main sect leaders begin mobilizing their own people against the other people in an easier way. Another factor was the way the Muslims and the Christians perceived Lebanese Nationalism. 15The Christians looked at Lebanese Nationalism as strictly Lebanese as long they retained power and nothing more or less than that. 16The Muslims looked at Lebanese Nationalism as complementing Arab Nationalism and they did not have a problem with having both. This was something that was going to play a significant role in the various factions that later came to ally with Palestinians. The existence of these Nationalism double standards threatened the sense of Lebanese independence among the Christians. Fearing to lose this independence the Christian groups could only but get armed and fight for it. The activities of the Palestinians in Lebanon beginning in the late 1960s and the coming of huge combatants from the Black September increased the tensions. The balance of power was tipped among the communities in Lebanon since the left wing thought that the army of Lebanon had a bias for Christian leaders in Lebanon and that the mass arrival of the PLO could balance power against the Christian leaders that were using the ‘isolationist’ system. 17The Palestinians made use of Lebanon since late 1967 as a military base for launching their operations against Israel. This served to spread much fear in the Christians that the independence of Lebanon was being marginalized which would render them a minority within Lebanon. The PLO had learned their mistakes form the 1970 experience in Jordan and from this had supplied arms to its allied parties within Lebanon. They went ahead to establish networks because the Palestine Liberation did not have any other place to go since it was only in Lebanon that they were allowed to launch their military operations. 18The Muslims particularly the Sunni was the group through which solidarity was expressed. 19This solidarity was aimed at changing the system in a limited way while the left-wing Lebanese National Movement was aiming at the demolition of the sect based system. With time the PLO transformed Western Beirut into its own stronghold. The army did not have the capability to control or have dominance on the PLO. The army of Lebanon was weak when compared to the strength of the armies of the neighboring countries such as Jordan, Israel, Egypt and Syria. Pierre Gemayel the head of the Phalange party advocated that the purpose of the army was that the strength of the nation was going to be its weakness. Even with its weaknesses the army was the major institution that was balancing power between the other communities and the Christian militias. 20Between 1967 and 1969 the army went into many confrontations with Palestinian commandos in an effort to rid the borders of the major allies of the Kamal Junballat, the left wing and PLO until the signing of the Cairo agreement. 21After 1970 the PLO were still widening their networks and advancing their operations against Israel and Christian parties made a move to form militias from their parties. The leaders of the left wing planned for massive demonstrations against the attempted crackdown of the army on the PLO. The general situation in the region also had a role to play among the contributing factors that led to the civil war in Lebanon. After the Six Day War ended there was massive support given to the PLO by gulf nations to compensate them to the humiliating defeat they faced at the hands of Israel. The drafting of the Cairo agreement involved the head of the army of Lebanon and the PLO. 22It was then approved by the parliament of Lebanon giving the PLO the legitimacy on the camps, free movement of arms from Syria and West Beirut was made a safe haven for the warriors of the PLO. 23The aftermath of the Cairo agreement made Christian leaders to focus on their strengths seeing the influx of many more PLO warriors coming from Jordan. Arab states prevented the operations of PLO on their borders but condoned and encouraged PLO to use arms and get support in Lebanon. Syria had had some Palestinian militia called Sa’iqa fighting in Lebanon. They always supported the activism of the PLO especially in cases where the PLO was pressured by the Lebanese army militarily. Kamal Junblatt the interior minister was a major PLO ally something that Christian leaders did not like and so it aggravated the already volatile situation. The international community had its role to play in the negotiations. Kissinger the then U.S secretary of state never used to strike any deal with PLO. He chose to do it with Syria and Egypt after the war of 1973. The PLO was seen as refugees that had no rights of any kind. This forced the PLO leadership to force their way through Lebanon so that they could be recognized and be given a bargaining card. 24The policy of Israel was so dramatic and it escalated the tension between the PLO and Christian leaders. Any operation launched by the PLO received a response from Israel on the refugee camps and the South. Matters were also intensified when Lebanon was divided into two camps. The Lebanese front leaders refused to lose a single bit of their own political advantage and the recruitment benefits of the public sector. Imam el Sadre made his Shiite base more radical and went closer to the coalition of President Suleiman Frangieh and in this he isolated the left wing and the Sunni sect. 25The left wing was trying to link its demands with problems being encountered in the south. Junballat turned out to be the Arab world Muslim leader who was recognized in the Arab world. This was so because he got support from Egypt and Syria together with the PLO groups that were armed and he broke the domination of the Christians.26 His bargaining was to be narrowed down in reforming the system and in return there was to be limited air strikes by PLO against Israel. Camille Shamoun and Pierre Gemayel were unwilling to lose any privileges because their parties stressed and went with the army as they clashed with the PLO. Due to the interest of the two camps the state lost its legitimacy in the view of the left wing camp. State erosion began when commandos from Israel went in Western Beirut in 1973 and left after assassinating three PLO figures. 27The presence of the army at the scene did not affect the turn of events. Escalations took place from what was to become the leaders of the Lebanese Front Alliance (LFA) and the Lebanese National Movement (LNM). As from 1970 the future leaders of the LNM organized demonstrations any time the PLO was attacked by the army in most cases with the backing of phalange supporters. 28Tension and instability in the political structure of Lebanon occurred because Lebanon never responded when the Israelis attacked the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Palestinians were bitter because of this since the displacement of these refugees was caused by Israel and more attacks from them were being directed to the refugee camps.29 The political system of Lebanon was remained powerless, demoralized and destabilized after the Israelis successfully invaded and raided Lebanese skies and cities. Because of this the Palestinians saw that because the state was weak it could not be dependent upon and so they ignored the state and decided to act like the state thereby engaging in direct confrontations that led to the war. 30Two occurrences triggered the civil war in Lebanon in 1975 although some confrontations took place between the phalange militia and Junblatt’s socialists to the zero hour. The first one was a demonstration in Saida led by Maruf Saad an MP against Protein Corp. A major shareholder in the corporation was Ahhrar’s Camille Shamo’un. The demonstrators were shot at by the army and Sa’ad a pro Nasserite died together with other people. Riots started between the Nasserite and the army, the leftist and the Palestinian supporters. 31President Frangieh refused to accept that the army was accountable and the phalange supporters demonstrated severally to show solidarity with the army. 32The organization of Lebanon in terms of the political, social, religious and economic institutions of the Middle East and Lebanon in particular was greatly influenced by the rule of the Ottoman Turks. With the collapse of the regional political integration under the Ottoman Turks there was civil strife that surfaced as a result. Lebanon was then partitioned into the Christian part led by a Maronite chieftain with the other part being Muslim and Druze. These two districts were at par with each other with conflicts arising all the time. An impression was painted that the power of the state over Palestinian organizations and Muslim parties was going down. Indeed the state was getting lesser and lesser powerful. This made the political parties dominated by Maronites to arm themselves and start operating like military institutions to fight for the independence of Lebanon. The Sunnis and the Palestinians also took up arms to defend the Palestinian Arab Nationalist Movement.33 The two factions at war were seen to be as Christian and Muslim; they had a more complex individual composition. Before the civil war began in 1975 the state had a smaller number of arms compared to those that were in the hands of the militias, political parties, religious groups and revolutionary groups. Lebanon was therefore very unstable. This is in consideration of the fact that Arab states had been using it as a platform for war between them owing to their different political policies and ideologies.34 On a wider scale it has been argued that the lack of social and economic success in the Arab world to match the western world and other places has been a frustrating thing to many of them. Many Arab countries would pour out their frustrations through war and sponsoring of war in their region. This would appear to many authors as the factor leading to the use of Lebanon as a stage for war by Arab states and mounting of tensions that contributed to the civil war. Conclusion In conclusion the essay has examined the factors that led to the civil war of Lebanon in 1975. Authors have not agreed yet on the real factors that led to the civil war in Lebanon. However it is believed that there are several factors that contributed to this war. Some factors are major others are minor. 35Other factors can only serve as a provocation to the fighting groups that had been nurturing tensions between themselves for some time. Some of the most notable factors could have been class inequality in the sects which made the ‘sect defenders’ to marshal their troops against the others, the new power balance between Christian militia and leftists, the presence of the Lebanese army and the PLO guerilla all dictated the situation in Lebanon towards a civil war. 36The coming to Lebanon of Palestinian refugees, the aftermath of the Black September in Jordan, and the participation of Syria in Lebanon through Palestinian militia led to the civil war. The setting of the stage in Lebanon politically, economically, socially and religiously as a result of the dominion of the Ottoman Empire was another contributing factor. The society was divided between Muslims and Christians after Ottoman rule and this resulted in the simmering of tensions over the years before the war. Arab states increases instability in Lebanon by using it as a stage for war. 37The Arab world could have been pouring out its frustration because of its failure to develop economically and socially that has put it under the influence of the western world for years. The civil war was therefore was a result of many factors and the possibility of the war being avoided was very slim. When the stage was ready the war broke out and lasted for fifteen years. Bibliography Primary sources Lebanese civil war from 13 April 1975 to 13 October 1990 & War on Lebanon 2006 Full of pictures. “Another Battle of Beirut ” (Time Magazine, 14 May 1973) “The Palestinian Fedayeen” (Declassified CIA Report, 1971) The Lebanese civil war and the Taef agreement Full Lebanese War Photo System A 15-episode documentary about the Lebanese Civil War, 1975-1990 Hijab, Nadia. Survival in Beirut: A Diary of Civil War. London: Onyx Press, 1979. Hiro, Dilip (1993) Lebanon: Fire and Embers: A History of the Lebanese Civil War  Fisk, Robert (2001) Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War  Dawisha A. I. (1980) Syria and the Lebanese Crisis  Deeb M. (2003) Syria's Terrorist War on Lebanon and the Peace Process  Secondary sources Chamie, Joseph. “The Lebanese Civil War: An Investigation into the Causes.” World Affairs 139 (1976/77): 171-188. Fisk, Robert. The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2005. Hudson, Michael C. “The Palestinian Factor in the Lebanese Civil War,” Middle East Journal 32 (1978): 261-278. Rasler, Karen. “Internationalized Civil War: A Dynamic Analysis of the Syrian Intervention in Lebanon.” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 27 (1983): 421-456. Reynal_Querol, Marta. “Ethnicity, Political Systems, and Civil Wars.” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 46 (2002): 29-54. 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El (2000) The Breakdown of the State in Lebanon, 1967-1976  Read More