In the second part of his history of modern Lebanon, Michael Lavalette explains how imperialist and Israeli interventions and invasions have repeatedly devastated the country

Part one here

Lebanon gained its formal liberation from French imperial rule in 1943, though the League of Nations ‘Mandate’ didn’t come to a formal end until 1946. Post Second World War, Lebanon was shaped by three key factors. First, it was wracked by internal contradictions that had their root in the imperial intervention in the region and in the making of the country. Second, Lebanon became a battlefield for regional forces and their proxies during the Cold War between Western and Soviet imperialisms in the post-war period. Finally, Lebanon’s fate would be deeply affected by the machinations of the Zionist entity on its southern borders.

Lebanon’s sectarian divide

The 1930s saw significant Arab opposition against their imperial masters. This was most notable in Palestine between 1936 and 1939 where the popular rebellion represented a fundamental challenge to British imperial rule. In Egypt, Arab nationalists obtained a measure of independence from Britain in 1936 (though the country’s foreign policy was still set by Britain, who also maintained military control of the Suez Canal). In Syria, popular protests pushed the French to concede independence.

These events had an impact on Lebanese politics. ‘Arabists’ pushed for incorporation within Syria; ‘protectionists’ wanted Lebanon to continue under some form of French guarantee. Arab nationalists objected to the confirmation of Lebanese borders based on the 1920 agreement, but also feared an enclave based on Mount Lebanon would act as an imperial outpost in Arab lands. The protectionists included the wealthy Maronites who feared incorporation into Syria would diminish their power, wealth and influence in the region.

These tensions intensified internal sectarian divisions in Lebanon. Further, the political regime imposed by the French stoked tensions. The constitution demanded that the president should come from the Maronite community, the prime minister from the Sunni community and the speaker should be Shia. Yet, this was never a triumvirate of equals. The most powerful position was that of the president, who had exceptional executive and legislative powers to run the country. The political settlement gave disproportionate power and influence to the Maronite community, or at least to the Maronite bourgeoisie.

From independence onwards, the links between the political elites and the interests of finance and industrial capitalists – many with historic links to France – have been ‘intimate’. Greed, corruption and class rule saw a minority enrich themselves, leaving the majority of Lebanese people facing poverty and hardship.

Poverty, hardship, class inequality and attitudes to the ‘national question’ have been the ground upon which both calls for unity and calls for sectarian division have fed. Those currents promoting unity and disunity have existed in each community within Lebanon.

From the 1930s, Lebanon witnessed the growth of a number of political parties and networks that reflected the interests of particular sectarian groupings. In 1932, the Syrian National Socialist Party was founded. It argued for pan-Arab unity, but as its name suggests, this was an anti-communist, anti-Jewish, corporatist organisation. Its main constituency was amongst non-Maronite Christians. In 1936, the Kata’ib Party (Phalange) was founded. Admirers of Hitler, they were Lebanese nationalists who argued Lebanon had a separate non-Arab (Phoenician) identity, and were primarily based in the Maronite community. The same year saw the creation of the Najjada (Rescuers) a party of Muslim independents who argued for Arab unity, but not necessarily the incorporation of Lebanon into Syria. The next year, 1937, saw the creation of Al-Tala’i (the Vanguards) as a Shia paramilitary organisation.

The growth of these organisations was a partial reflection of the ways that sectarianism had been hot-wired into the institutions of the Lebanese state by French imperialism. However, Lebanon was not simply a nest of right-wing and sectarian organisations. There were always networks that stressed both nationalist, anti-imperialist and social reform agendas. The trade unions, for example, or networks like the National and Democratic Congress, formed in 1938 as an initiative of the Lebanese Communist Party, and which attempted to establish a democratic, reformist, multi-sectarian network of the left. Arabist, pro-reformist and leftist currents also existed within each sect or community.

These tensions between left and right, between sectarianism and anti-sectarianism, between Arabists and protectionists and between different versions of Pan Arabism, Lebanese nationalism and ‘Phoenicianism’ have dominated Lebanese political life since the modern country’s creation. They have created a system that has always been immensely unstable, and this instability has its roots in the imperial intervention, creation and shaping of modern Lebanon.

The Middle East and the Cold War

There is another element to add to the pot. From the 1950s, the Middle East became a key arena of the inter-imperialist rivalries between the US and the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, the US and the USSR sought influence with the regimes in the region (or with key opposition groups in countries that weren’t on their side of the divide).

The early 1950s saw the growth of Arab nationalism. When Nasser in Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956, the British and French invaded, with the support of Israel, to defeat Nasser, regain control of the canal and expand Israel’s borders into the Sinai. It was a military disaster. The Suez crisis dented British, French and, for a time, Israeli pretensions.

In the aftermath of Suez, Arab nationalist ideas spread. For a while (between 1958 and 1961) Syria and Egypt joined together as the United Arab Republic. A rebellion in Iraq in 1958 overthrew the (pro-Western) monarchy and established a pro-Pan-Arab regime in the country. The Pan-Arabist regimes and groupings were cultivated by the Soviets and were open to help, support and backing from the USSR.

In the West, there were fears that other Arab countries would fall to the Arab nationalist wave and this would tilt the region in favour of the Soviets. The British dispatched troops to Jordan to ‘defend’ the monarchy. And in Lebanon the first ‘mini civil war’ erupted.

In the regional crisis of the late 1950s, the Lebanese President Camille Chamoun came out against Nasser. In the Suez Crisis, he refused to break diplomatic links with France and Britain. He sought out the protection of Lebanon’s ‘tender mother’ (i.e. imperialist France!) and he made it known that Lebanon was a Westward-looking country opposed to Arab nationalism and Soviet interference, and open to working with Israel. At the same time, Chamoun institutionalised vote rigging and gerrymandering to ensure he would remain in office.

In response, Shia Muslim and Druze networks took up arms against the presidential coup. Syria offered arms and training to the rebels. In the north of the country, Sunni Muslims announced their secession from Lebanon and applied to join the United Arab Republic.

In defence of ‘Christian Lebanon’, Phalangist militias entered the fray. Jordanian troops were given permission to cross Israel to defend Chamoun as a Western ally and anti-Nasserist. Israel offered troops to protect and defend Christian Lebanon from Syrian incursion.

For a while, the Lebanese government was reduced to a rump controlling only the traditional Christian areas of Mount Lebanon and East Beirut. However, they would be saved by US military intervention which imposed General Chehab from the Lebanese army as the new President. He was Maronite, but an Arabist and, with US backing, he was able to restore some sense of calm.

What the ‘mini civil war’ did emphasise was that Lebanon’s sectarian instability was vulnerable to the machinations of Soviet and US imperial interests, alongside those of the various sub-imperial powers in the region, who were willing to support different sects and parties as proxies for their interests in the country. This dynamic would again raise its head in the long civil war of 1975-1990. Increasingly, Lebanon would become the battleground of other people’s wars.

The Palestinian presence in Lebanon provoked increasing Israeli intervention into Lebanon. The Israelis attacked Palestinian camps, individuals and militants, but also attacked Lebanese targets because they claimed the Lebanese were not doing enough to control the Palestinians and curb their actions. This intensified tensions between the various groups and sects inside Lebanon and their attitude to the Palestinian presence in the country. These tensions would eventually lead to the civil war of 1975-1990.

The long civil war began when right-wing Christian militiamen attacked Palestinian refugees on a bus heading to their homes at the Tal al Zaatar refugee camp. Twenty-seven Palestinians were killed and another nineteen were injured. Tal al Zaatar was a large Palestinian camp located in (Christian) East Beirut. The attack led to a series of tit-for-tat retaliations that gradually drew in wider groupings.

Alliances were gradually formed with leftist groups and Muslim factions initially joining the Palestinians, though over the fifteen-year period, alliances shifted and changed. Syria (from 1976) and Israel (from 1978) got involved directly in Lebanon, but other countries intervened to offer support for their chosen faction (Libya, Iraq and Iran, for example).

The fifteen-year war impoverished Lebanon and led to the deaths of approximately 150,000 people. A further one million left the country to rebuild their lives elsewhere. However, the civil war emphasised the impact that the Israeli state had in destabilising the region and Lebanon in particular.

Zionist intervention  

The third factor that impacts upon modern Lebanon is its relationship with the Zionist entity on its southern border. Elements within the Zionist movement have always had eyes on parts of Lebanon. In the debates at the League of Nations to formalise the borders between Lebanon and Palestine, they argued to expand the borders of Palestine (as a future Jewish homeland) up to the banks of the Litani river. Supporters of Eretz Yisrael (Greater Israel) have always wanted to expand the Israeli land mass by colonising parts of Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon, claiming this is their ‘God given right’.

The Israeli state has always followed two inter-related approaches to securing and expanding its borders. Firstly, direct military intervention, using their support from Western imperial backers, to inflict defeat on near neighbours and reinforce their ‘iron wall’. Secondly, extensive interference in the internal life of countries to promote conflict and build alliances with ‘minorities’ in Arab lands. Over the last 76 years, the Israelis have pursued both strategies in Lebanon.

Historically, there have been attempts to build alliances with Lebanon’s Maronite community. They argue that both Maronites and Israel’s Jews are minority communities in a sea of Middle Eastern Arabism. Both communities, so the argument goes, are advanced, outward looking and Europeanised and stand as a bulwark against Arab backwardism. A ‘Christian Lebanon’ would, it was thought, be a ‘natural ally’ of Israel. Yet equally strongly, there have been advocates for direct Israeli intervention and for Israel to annex the land (at least) as far as the Litani.

The state of Israel was founded in May 1948 as a result of the partition of Palestine by the UN. Fifty-five per cent of Palestine was granted to the minority Jewish population of Palestine, with the vast majority of the population, the indigenous Palestinian Arab population, given a mere forty-five per cent of the land. Not surprisingly, the Palestinian population objected to the greater part of their land being given away.

In the run up to the official declaration of the state of Israel, Zionist terror gangs were operating against Palestinian villages and towns. Israel’s foundation was marked by the launch of the Nakba and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to expand Israel’s borders. During the Nakba, armed forces of neighbouring Arab states, plus a volunteer Arab Salvation Army, fought against Israeli forces. But they were badly armed and ineffectual. Further, many of the Arab states fought for their own interests over those of the Palestinians (the most obvious example being Jordan).

In 1948, Lebanon was the only external country which the Zionist forces entered and from which captured territory. Israeli armed forces secured the land up to the Litani, but then voluntarily withdrew and gave the area back to Lebanon. At the time, Israeli leader David Ben Gurion was more concerned with the perceived greater threat emanating from Syria, Jordan and Egypt. He also believed that Lebanon had been a reluctant entrant to the war and that non-intervention would strengthen pro-Zionist groups, like the Phalange, in the country.

One significant outcome of the Nakba for Lebanon was that it was one of the main countries to receive Palestinian refugees, primarily from the Upper Galilee. Somewhere in the region of 750,000 Palestinians became refugees in 1948. Around 110,000 of them arrived in Lebanon, where they would eventually take up residence in one of the twelve over-crowded camps in the country.

From the beginning, the refugees were treated as second-class citizens. Undoubtedly, the sectarian nature of Lebanese society was to blame; they were mainly Sunni Muslim refugees and those in power feared they would harm the ‘balance’ (i.e. Maronite control) of society.

They faced structural discrimination and poverty. They were denied access to certain types of work, refused the right to buy property in the country, and had their basic political rights blocked. In the unstable Lebanese political mix, the Palestinians became another key player in Lebanon’s unfolding tragedy.

The Palestine resistance movement, and the development of the fedayeen (the armed resistance of the Palestinian factions) grew most dramatically amongst the displaced refugee populations. Initially, the centre of the Palestinian resistance was Jordan. However, after ‘Black September’ in 1970 (when the Jordanian state turned on the fedayeen), the leadership of the PLO and their main site of operations moved to Lebanon. Lebanon became the main base of resistance operations into Israel.

Though pursuing agreements with Lebanese Maronite politicians, Israel increasingly conducted operations inside Lebanon. This included the targeted assassinations of activists (like Ghassan Kanafani, for example, who was killed by Mossad in a car-bomb explosion in July 1972). The targeting of specific sites, like the attack on Beirut airport in 1968 when Israeli Special Forces attacked and blew up twelve aircraft belonging to Middle East Airlines and Lebanese International Airlines. Or the bombing of Lebanese villages, particularly in the south of the country as they claimed these were being used by Palestinian militants.

However, from the mid-1970s, the Israelis have also conducted a series of direct military interventions into the country. The first invasion into Lebanon took place in 1978. Code-named Operation Litani, the Israelis attacked Lebanon to push Palestinian fighters away from the border region and to offer support to the (Christian militia proxy) South Lebanese Army led by Saad Haddad. The Israelis attacked villages and killed an estimated 2000 people. It came to an end when it was revealed that they had used US-supplied cluster bombs and had given US-supplied arms to Haddad’s militia. Both actions broke the terms of agreement for US-supplied munitions and US President Jimmy Carter threatened to cut all US arms supplies if it didn’t stop. In response the Israeli Prime Minister Begin ended the operation.

A second invasion took place in 1982. Code named ‘Peace for Galilee’, the attack started on 6 June and was an attempt to drive the Palestinians out of Lebanon and to establish a pro-Zionist government in the country. The Israelis attacked from air, sea and land. A force of 60,000 Israeli troops moved through the country meeting fierce resistance in each Palestinian camp as they went north.

By 14 June, they had established themselves around Beirut and for the next seven weeks, the city was under siege. Beirut was bombed from land, air and sea. Water and food supplies were cut. Yet the resistance fought heroically. On 10 August, a US peace plan was under discussion, but Israeli ‘Defence Minister’ Ariel Sharon ordered an aerial bombing in which 300 people died. US President Ronald Reagan picked up the phone to Israeli Prime Minister Begin and told him they’d gone too far. Just like in 1978, the operation came to an end after the twenty-minute call.

The siege of Beirut ended with a negotiated settlement that would see Palestinian fighters leave Beirut. US envoy Philip Habib gave assurances to the PLO that the Palestinians left in the camps would be protected. Yet, no sooner had the fighters left than the Israelis lit up the night skies of Beirut with flares, allowing their Lebanese proxy forces to enter the camps of Sabra and Shatila and carry out a dreadful slaughter of women, children and the elderly. Perhaps as many as 2,000 people lost their lives.

Although the fighting stopped, the Israelis didn’t leave Lebanon. They went on to occupy southern Lebanon up until 2000. Israel’s brutal occupation of southern Lebanon led to a growth in the Lebanese resistance movements, and most notably, to the birth and growth of Hezbollah which was formed in 1985 with the aim of expelling the Israeli occupation.

On 12 June 2006, Israel invaded Lebanon once more. This time, their stated goal was to defeat Hezbollah with whom they had been exchanging fire over the previous months. The Israelis bombed south Lebanon and Beirut heavily, both from air and sea. They used cluster bombs and used white phosphorus weapons against civilians. However, as ground troops entered the country, they found themselves facing a well-trained and well-armed Hezbollah force. Israeli progress was very slow and casualties high. After a month, the Israelis withdrew in what was a significant blow to their self-image as an ‘undefeatable’ army.

Modern Lebanon’s history has been fundamentally shaped by imperialist intervention and by the actions of the US watchdog state in the Middle East, the Zionist entity on its southern borders. The US interventions to end Israel’s attacks on Lebanon in 1978 and 1982 also emphasise the power the US holds over Israel, and underlines that, if they wanted, the US could stop the slaughter in Gaza and Lebanon today. Lebanon’s agony will only come to an end when imperialist intervention and interference in the region is brought to an end and the colonial entity on its border replaced by a free, liberated and democratic Palestine running from ‘the river to the sea’.