|
|
|
|
Minorities and the State in the Arab World
Ofra Bengio and Gabriel Ben-Dor (eds.)
Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc.
1999
6. From Hegemony to Marginalism:
The Maronites of Lebanon
Meir Zamir
The political institutions, administration, infrastructure, and economy that were largely destroyed during the Lebanese civil war have, since 1990, been rapidly reconstructed. At the same time, Lebanon’s citizens have been engaging in an intense public debate over the causes of the war and the direction their state should take following the Ta’if Agreement. Lebanon’s ability to break free from Syria and rebuild itself as a major commercial-financial and cultural-intellectual center in the Middle East depends largely on whether, in the aftermath of the internecine violence, destruction, and loss of life, the Christians and Muslims can reach a genuine reconciliation. Such issues are being debated particularly among the Maronites, who are undergoing a severe crisis. Lacking leadership, they are deeply divided and overcome by despair and fear of their future in the Lebanese state. Having seen their dream of an independent sovereign Lebanon, for which they had striven for more than a century, disintegrate before their very eyes, they are now being relegated to a marginal status in a country that is rapidly assuming an Arab-Muslim character. Painfully they are coming to terms with the fact that, like their co-religionists in other Arab countries, their future is as a minority in a Muslim state. The hundreds of thousands of Maronites who fled Lebanon during the civil war remain disillusioned with their country, whose name has become synonymous with terror, violence, and religious and sectarian strife. They live in Europe or North America, and content themselves with short family visits in the summer. 1
The marginal status of the Maronites in what is called “the Second Republic”—namely the Lebanese state after the Ta’if Agreement—stands out in sharp contrast to their political, social, economic, and cultural dominance before 1975. The Maronites, who considered themselves to be the founders of the Lebanese state, assumed the role of guardians of its independence, sovereignty, and Christian character. They demanded and secured for themselves a preeminent position in its political and administrative systems and in the armed forces, initially with French assistance during the Mandate, and later after independence, when they exploited the National Pact of 1943 to retain and even enhance their privileged status. They not only controlled the presidency but also secured the position of commander-in-chief of the army and head of the judicial system. Indeed, their share in the administration was much greater than their proportion in the general population, and they took advantage of their dominance and access to state institutions to increase their power and wealth. The Maronites determined Lebanon’s national identity, which distinguished it from Syria and the rest of the Arab world. Together with the country’s other Christian communities, they established one of the most advanced educational systems in the Middle East, turning Beirut into a leading cultural-intellectual center. A wealthy Christian bourgeois elite emerged in Beirut that exploited its close ties with the politicians to shape Lebanon’s laissez-faire economy, promoting trade, finance, and tourism rather than agriculture and industry. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Christian financiers and traders of Beirut played a major role in transforming Lebanon into the “Switzerland of the Middle East.” 2
During the civil war the Maronites were under siege, fighting to preserve their community’s very existence. Their leaders consequently rejected criticism of their role in the war. They portrayed themselves as the victims of foreign forces—whether Palestinian, Syrian, or Israeli—who were seeking to take over Lebanon, and accused the Lebanese Muslims of lacking patriotism and of failing to rise up in defense of their country’s independence and sovereignty. But the violent conflicts among the Christians themselves, culminating in the clashes between Michel ‘Awn and Samir Ja‘ja‘, helped consolidate Syrian control of the country and nullified Maronite political power. This has forced the Maronites, both in Lebanon and abroad, to re-examine their role, not only in the civil war, but also prior to 1975. Many now blame their militia chiefs and their politicians for having pursued adventurous and irresponsible policies. For their part, the Maronite politicians who were involved in the war have been granting interviews and writing articles and books in which they attempt to justify their policies. 3
Notwithstanding the present debate over the responsibility of veteran politicians such as Camille Chamoun and Pierre Jumayyil; former presidents such as Suleiman Faranjieh, Elias Sarkis, and Amin Jumayyil; and commanders of the militias and armed forces such as Bashir Jumayyil, Samir Ja‘ja‘, Eli Hubayqa, and Michel ‘Awn, to name but a few, for their community’s predicament, questions should be asked concerning the Maronites’ role in exacerbating the political and socioeconomic problems that have plagued Lebanon since its establishment. Indeed, one can argue that the policies pursued by their politicians and militias during the civil war were determined, to a large degree, by their long-held perceptions of themselves, Lebanon, the Muslims, and the surrounding Arab world. The Maronites’ demise was not merely the result of the miscalculations of their leaders during the war; it was rooted in the hegemonic posture they had assumed since independence. 4
Between Vision and Reality
During Lebanon’s first three decades, the gap between what the founding fathers had envisioned for Lebanon and harsh reality widened. The country was controlled by a Christian minority that faced increasing numbers of restless Muslims. Although its Christian leaders professed their allegiance to the Arab world, it was the only Christian Western state in a region dominated by Arab Muslim countries. Lebanon claimed to be the sole democracy in the Arab world, yet its parliamentary system was based on sectarian representation according to a key that automatically guaranteed a governing majority to the Christian minority. With its capitalist laissez-faire economic system, the government was unable to solve the socioeconomic problems manifested in the widening gap between rich and poor. These problems threatened the stability of the state, as they reflected the deep sectarian and geographical division between the predominantly Christian Beirut and Mount Lebanon and the peripheral regions of both south and north Lebanon and the Biqa‘ Valley, with their large, mainly Shi‘i Muslim populations.
As the internal and external threats to Lebanon’s stability and to its very existence as an independent sovereign state increased, the Maronites took it upon themselves to defend their country. They were beset, however, by internal rivalry, with their leaders unable to reach a consensus on which direction to take. They rarely distinguished between their own and national interests. Instead of attempting to defuse the political and socioeconomic tension among the Muslims, which was threatening the delicate sectarian balance, they insisted on maintaining the status quo that guaranteed their privileged positions. Instead of strengthening the Muslims’ attachment to Lebanon by granting them an equal share in running the state, the Maronites claimed Lebanon almost exclusively for themselves. It was therefore not surprising that the Muslims, together with the radical leftist organizations whose ranks had been swollen by the disillusioned younger generation during the 1960s and 1970s, blamed the Maronite leadership for all of Lebanon’s ills. Although politicians and feudal bourgeois elites of other sects also abused state institutions and enhanced their power and wealth through nepotism and clientelism, Maronite politicians became particularly identified with this corrupt system. Indeed, many Muslims believed that the Maronites, under the pretext of a need to be protected from the Muslim majority, were holding the entire Lebanese state at ransom to further their own interests. 5
Although some Muslim politicians and leftist organizations advocated radical change—including the abolition of political sectarianism and the transformation of Lebanon into a secular or Arab Muslim state—before 1975 the majority favored maintaining it as a prosperous independent state with a pluralistic culture and mix of East and West. They insisted, however, on equality and that Lebanon be truly part of the Arab world. Indeed, those were the declared goals of the National Pact.
The 1943 National Pact, the unwritten agreement between the Maronite Bishara al-Khoury and the Sunni Riyad al-Sulh, has been the focus of controversy for the past half-century, as each side has interpreted it according to its own particular interests. The National Pact was, in fact, a compromise agreement between Christian and Muslim politicians over the division of political power in the independent Lebanese state, based on proportional sectarian representation and on Lebanon’s being a part of the Arab world while maintaining its uniqueness. At the time, the pact was viewed as a pragmatic solution, and it enabled Lebanon to gain independence from France, win the recognition of the Arab states, and become a founding member of the Arab League. But it was vague with regard to Lebanon’s national identity; and it perpetuated sectarian division and laid the ground for an inefficient and corrupt political system. The Muslims were willing to accept it for a transitional period only, as envisioned by Michel Chiha, its chief ideologist. Fully aware of the destructive potential of intersectarian violence, which had repeatedly beset Lebanon, he saw the pact and its provision for sectarian representation as an intermediate stage in securing a balance between the sects before all the different elements were integrated into one Lebanese nation. His views, however, were not shared by the majority of the Maronites, who not only insisted on maintaining the status quo indefinitely but exploited their privileged positions in the political system to strengthen their hold over the state. The presidency, which in accordance with the National Pact was allocated to the Maronites, became the means for attaining these goals. 6
The Presidency: Inherent Source of Instability
The presidency emerged as the symbol for Maronite hegemony in Lebanon; almost all the political crises in independent Lebanon were centered around this institution. Ambitious Maronite politicians divided their community and undermined the political system in their unremitting pursuit of the presidency. The Muslims, for their part, demanded that non-Maronites also be allowed to be elected for this position, or alternatively, that the power of the Muslim prime minister be increased at the expense of that of the president. But the first two presidents—Bishara al-Khoury (1943–1952) and Camille Chamoun (1952–1958)—did precisely the opposite. Under Khoury, Lebanon was transformed from a parliamentary democracy into a presidential republic, with the president wielding a strong influence over the government and Parliament. Although Khoury had professed himself defender of the constitution during the French Mandate, after independence he revised it to secure another term in office. He portrayed himself as the president of all the Lebanese, but under his reign his family, relatives, and friends, and the Maronite community as a whole, strengthened their hold over the administration, the judicial system, the army, and the intelligence services. He perfected what may be defined as a method of “control and share”—integrating the feudal bourgeois elites of the Sunnis, Shi‘is, and other communities into the political and economic systems in return for their support of the status quo. This may have provided Lebanon with a more stable political system, as those who benefited from it had a vested interest in maintaining it, but it led to widespread corruption. This modus operandi functioned as long as Khoury was able to maintain the delicate balance between the politicians, sects, and regions. But in September 1952 he was overthrown by a coalition comprising Camille Chamoun, who sought the presidency for himself, Kamal Junblatt, who called for reform, and Muslim politicians who demanded a greater share in running the state. 7
Although prior to his election Chamoun had undertaken to introduce political and social reforms, he, too, increased the power of the president, as well as Maronite influence over the state institutions, claiming this was necessary to counter the growing threat of the pan-Arabist Nasserism then sweeping through Lebanon. Yet his intervention in the 1957 parliamentary elections to assure the election of loyal deputies, and his apparent design to revise the constitution in order to secure a second term for himself, reinforced the suspicion that he, like his predecessor, was motivated primarily by a thirst for power. As he tightened the Maronite hold over the state, Chamoun also pursued a pro-Western policy manifested in his support of the Eisenhower doctrine. For the Muslims, this was further proof that, despite the demographic changes, the Maronites continued to regard Lebanon as their own state, linked more closely to the West than to the Arab world. Unable to revise the system through legitimate political channels, the Muslims took to the streets. 8
The 1958 civil war reinforced Maronite belief that the Muslims were alien to the “Lebanese idea,” and that radical Arab states, led by Egypt, which was then united with Syria in the United Arab Republic, would continue to undermine Lebanon and strive to transform it into a truly Arab country. This was borne out by the growing support of the Maronite masses for the Phalange Party and for Chamoun’s newly established National Liberal Party. Their fears were undoubtedly genuine, but they were also fueled by cynical politicians who had their own political agendas.
Unlike the traditional Maronite politicians, the new president, Fu’ad Shihab (1958–1964), strove to defuse intersectarian tension by introducing limited social and economic reform, and pursued a foreign policy aimed at improving relations with Egyptian president Gamal Abd al-Nasser. He attempted to reform the political and economic systems shaped by the previous two presidents by bypassing the politicians, the government, and Parliament, and relying instead on the army, the intelligence services, and the technocrats. His reforms, however, were opposed by his community and its three prominent leaders—Camille Chamoun, Pierre Jumayyil, and Emile Eddé. They gave various explanations for their stand, such as the need to defend Lebanese democracy and the interests of the Maronite community, but, as before, personal political considerations prevailed. 9
Shihab considerably raised the Muslims’ expectations but accomplished only a part of his declared goals. Despite his achievements, intersectarian, political, and socioeconomic tension remained high. Many young Muslims, Shi‘is in particular, were attracted by militant leftist organizations seeking to totally revolutionize the Lebanese state. Paradoxically, Shihabism also reinforced the Muslim belief that the Maronites would not relinquish their hold over the state; although Shihab delegated more authority to the Sunni prime minister, the real power shifted to the army and the intelligence services, which were controlled by the Maronites. 10
Intersectarian, political, and socioeconomic grievances intensified under Charles Helou (1964–1970). He was a weak president who, while continuing to advocate the Shihabist reforms, lacked the resolve to implement them in the face of strong opposition from his own community. The Arab defeat in 1967 and the emergence of radical Palestinian organizations, which perpetrated acts of violence and terror against Israel from Lebanon, deepened the tension and division between the Christians and Muslims. It increased Maronite contempt for the Arab Muslim world and reinforced their fears that the radicalized Muslims and the leftist parties backed by the armed Palestinian organizations would force them out of their privileged positions and completely transform Lebanon’s unique character. The establishment of the Hilf—a coalition of the three main Maronite parties (Chamoun’s National Liberals, Jumayyil’s Phalange Party, and Eddé’s National Bloc)—on the eve of the 1968 parliamentary elections, was the product of those fears, as well as of the immediate political interests of their three leaders. The 1969 political crisis, precipitated by the Christian-Muslim disagreement over the armed Palestinian presence in Lebanon and the ensuing Cairo Agreement of November that year, reinforced the Maronites’ concerns that they had not merely to contend with Muslim demands for political concessions and socioeconomic reforms, but also to fight for their very existence in an independent, sovereign Lebanese state. Newly emergent militant organizations warned that in the face of the rapid natural increase in the Muslim population, augmented by 600,000 Syrian workers and 400,000 Palestinians, the Christians had to protect their position or, within a decade, lose their dominance and become a disadvantaged minority in the state they had created. 11
The Civil War: The Demise of Maronite Hegemony
For the past twenty years Christians, Muslims, and Palestinians have disputed the role of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in instigating the 1975 civil war. Kamal Junblatt and the Palestinian leaders have argued that the war resulted from political and social change within Lebanon and that, at the most, the Palestinian presence served as a catalyst. 12 In contrast, the Maronites view the 1975 war as the Lebanese people’s defense of their independence and sovereignty against foreigners who were attempting to create a state within a state. The PLO embodied everything that the Maronites feared and resented in the Arab Muslim world. Under the slogan of Arab solidarity and the sacred struggle against Israel, the Maronites believed, the PLO was jeopardizing Lebanon’s very existence. They regarded the Palestinian organizations as the tools of the militant Arab states, particularly Syria, Libya, and Iraq, sent to undermine Lebanon’s western, liberal, and Christian character. The Palestinians, they charged, were radicalizing the Muslims and the left and turning them against the Lebanese state. Furthermore, they legitimized the use of violence to achieve political and socioeconomic goals. Indeed, the revolutionary Marxist ideology pursued by some Palestinian organizations stood in sharp contrast to the capitalist laissez-faire system advocated by most Christians. 13
The Maronites’ mistake was not in overestimating the Palestinian threat to Lebanon, but in ignoring the effects of their confrontation with the Palestinians on their delicate relations with the Lebanese Muslims. Although the Maronites accused the Palestinians of disloyalty to Lebanon, the overwhelming majority of the Muslim politicians and citizenry upheld the principle of an independent sovereign Lebanese state. Indeed, many shared their Christian colleagues’ criticism of the Palestinians’ contempt for Lebanon’s sovereignty, while the Shi‘is in the south paid dearly for the Palestinians’ armed struggle against Israel. Yet the Muslim leaders, facing the radicalization of their communities, were forced to take a more militant stand in support of the Palestinian cause. Instead of promoting the common goals of the Lebanese Christians and Muslims, the Maronites accentuated the differences in the attitudes of the two communities toward the Palestinians. Instead of accepting some of the Muslim demands for political and socioeconomic reform and thereby mitigating intersectarian tension, they insisted on retaining control of the state and its resources. It is therefore not surprising that the Muslims and the leftist parties began to regard the Palestinians as a means to change the status quo and extract political concessions from the Maronites. 14
At the time of the presidential election of August 1970 the Maronites and Lebanon as a whole stood at a crossroads. Elias Sarkis, the Shihabist candidate, advocated caution and the continuation of the socioeconomic reforms to defuse the growing sectarian and social tension. Sulayman Faranjiyya, who had emerged as a last-minute compromise candidate backed by Camille Chamoun, Pierre Jumayyil, and Raymond Eddé, represented the militant and conservative Maronite stand. Faranjiyya’s election by a majority of a single vote resulted from political maneuvering—an integral part of all presidential elections in Lebanon. Yet it also marked Maronite resolve to pursue an uncompromising stand against both the Palestinian armed presence in Lebanon and the Muslims’ demands for reform. 15
Faranjiyya’s presidency proved to be disastrous for Lebanon. The country desperately needed a skillful and wise leader during the stormy period of the early 1970s, but Faranjiyya, a member of a feudal family from the Maronite stronghold of Zgharta, lacked the necessary political acumen in Arab and international foreign policy. His election led to a rise in nepotism, patronage, and clientelism, providing further confirmation for the Muslims’ conviction that the Maronites were exploiting the state for their own ends. Instead of dealing with their political and socioeconomic grievances, he exacerbated them. He proclaimed that he would restore law and order, but instead he weakened the authority of the army and the intelligence services. He also failed to mobilize the support of the Arab world, which Lebanon needed to withstand the Palestinians. In April 1973 he was drawn into a costly confrontation with the PLO that, coupled with erroneous political decisions, antagonized the Muslim leadership even more. The country thus began its rapid descent into the civil war that erupted two years later. 16
Many Lebanese have speculated whether a Sarkis victory in 1970 might have prevented the civil war. Perhaps, these people suggest, if Faranjiyya, Chamoun, and Jumayyil had made, a few years earlier, the political concessions they were eventually forced to make in February 1976, Junblatt and the PLO might not have been able to mobilize the Muslim masses against the Maronites’ hegemony.
It was no mere coincidence that the Phalange Party, the most radical Maronite faction, was involved in the April 1975 incident with the Palestinians that sparked the war. Escalation into a full-blown civil conflict was rapid. Years of pent-up fear, animosity, and political and socioeconomic tension erupted violently. The clashes between the Maronites and the Palestinians soon expanded into a Muslim-Christian war, as each community upstaged its opponents with acts of terror. Innocent civilians were kidnapped and slaughtered merely because of their religion or sect. The Maronites’ worst fears were realized: instead of ruling Lebanon, they were fighting for their very survival.
For more than three decades the Maronites had disregarded the declared goal of the National Pact: the creation of a pluralistic and tolerant Lebanese society with no sectarian or religious discrimination. It can be argued that in the unstable and divided Middle East this was a utopian and unattainable goal. But it was the Maronites who, during the Mandate, had rejected attempts to strengthen the Christian majority by reducing Lebanon’s territory, or by adopting a decentralized system in which each region would maintain a large degree of autonomy. In fact, the efforts to create a pluralistic and just society under a parliamentary democracy were never really given a chance; the Maronites were determined to retain their hegemony at any cost, whether because of fears rooted in their past, or because of greedy and ambitious politicians who saw their own interests as synonymous with those of their community and of Lebanon as a whole.
The Price of Miscalculation
The same politicians who had played a key role in the escalation into the civil war were responsible, together with the new generation of militia leaders, for their community’s demise. During the fifteen years of the war, the Maronites’ freedom of action became increasingly limited, while the price they had to pay for making the wrong decisions rose sharply. In the early stages they were still able to mobilize their resources and defend the Christian regions to a degree that surprised even their opponents. Money was collected, weapons were purchased, and thousands of young Maronites left their jobs, schools, or universities to volunteer for the militias to protect their families and homes. As the war continued however, the shortsightedness and irresponsibility of their leaders became ever more apparent. Decisions were increasingly influenced by young militant militia commanders who advocated the use of force. Moderation was regarded as treason, and leaders who believed in accommodation and reconciliation were either ignored or forced to flee the country. The consequences for the community were dire. Under growing pressure, a small number of leaders and groups made a series of fateful decisions that precipitated the Maronites’ downfall. These included: their acquiescence in Syria’s intervention in the summer of 1976; Bashir Jumayyil’s decision in 1978 to wage a war against the Syrians; the collaboration with Israel that resulted in its invasion in June 1982; and ‘Awn’s “war of liberation” against Syria in 1988–1990. At the same time, the community was demoralized by internal strife, which culminated in the violent clashes between the Jumayyil and Faranjiyya clans, between the Lebanese forces and Chamoun’s Numur militia, and between Michel ‘Awn and Samir Ja‘ja‘.
The request by Faranjiyya and Jumayyil in May 1976 for Syria to send its forces into Lebanon had far-reaching consequences: it changed the nature of the civil war, led to Israeli and U.S. involvement in Lebanon, and caused a deep rift within the Maronite community. The Maronites, who had always distrusted and feared that the Syrians would be well aware of their ambitions to dominate Lebanon, should have known that after inviting them into their country it would be extremely difficult to force them out. They should also have known that by acquiescing in Syrian military intervention, they were surrendering their freedom of action, granting the Syrians the role of arbitrator, and enabling them to dictate a political solution to the civil war. Moreover, they should have realized that Syria’s policy in Lebanon would be determined not only by its desire to secure its interests there but also by broader considerations, including its rivalry with Israel, its position in the inter-Arab arena, and its relations with the superpowers. 17
It can be argued that the Maronites’ request to Syria for help was hasty and made in panic, as they feared that the Christian forces would be unable to withstand the combined offensive of Junblatt’s National Front and the PLO. The conditions of the deal were clear, however: Asad would protect the Maronites against the Druze, the leftist organizations, and the PLO, and impose a political solution based on the Constitutional Declaration of February 1976; in return, the Maronites would agree to Syria’s “special role” in Lebanon.
Despite strong domestic opposition, Asad largely kept his promise during the second half of 1976 and early 1977. The Druze, the leftists, and the Palestinian forces were defeated, and Kamal Junblatt, who had led the offensive against the Maronites, was assassinated in March 1977. The Maronites recovered their military and political power; Asad now expected them to fulfill their part of the deal.
At the beginning of 1978 the Maronite community faced three options. Faranjiyya, who had maintained close ties with the Syrians for many years, and who was grateful to Asad for preventing his ouster from the presidency, advocated close cooperation with Syria. Sarkis, who had been elected president in May 1976, proposed probably the most pragmatic solution under the circumstances: to seek a reconciliation between the Christians and Muslims, and rebuild the state, while limiting the Syrian presence in Lebanon with the help of other Arab countries and the United States. Chamoun and Jumayyil, who now led the Lebanese Front, a coalition of Christian parties and organizations, could have supported Sarkis, who represented the legitimacy of Lebanon and Maronite control of the presidency. Yet they ignored him and undermined his authority, regarding him as merely a Syrian tool. Pressured by Bashir Jumayyil, who had emerged from the first two years of the war as a charismatic and popular militia leader, they backed his armed struggle against the Syrian forces in Lebanon. The consequences proved costly. Support for Jumayyil by the Lebanese Front deeply divided the Maronite community, provoked Syria’s rage, and undermined all efforts to end the civil war. 18
Bashir Jumayyil had originally opposed collaborating with Syria and considered its armed presence in Lebanon as a foreign occupation. With the Maronites’ political and military position improving, and with Asad facing increasing domestic opposition, in early 1978 he and his close advisers concluded that conditions were favorable for forcing the Syrian army out—initially from the Christian region and later from Lebanon as a whole. He confronted the Syrian Army, hoping that this would galvanize the Maronite community and win its support for his stand and, at the same time, mobilize international pressure on Syria to withdraw. By the end of the year most of the leaders of the Lebanese Front, headed by Chamoun, backed his strategy. But this was a dangerous ploy, failing as it did to take into account Asad’s ruthlessness and ability to exploit the personal and intersectarian rivalry within Lebanon. 19
In the late 1970s and early 1980s the Syrian regime was indeed in deep trouble. At home Asad was opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood and criticized by his own party for supporting the Maronites against the Palestinians and the left—Syria’s traditional allies in Lebanon. Sadat’s peace initiative had left him with no credible military option against Israel. In the inter-Arab arena Syria was challenged by Iraq and, after the outbreak of the Iraq-Iran war, it became increasingly isolated. Relations with the United States also deteriorated following its opposition to the peace process. With his regime threatened both at home and abroad, the Syrian president could not sustain a defeat in Lebanon. Bashir presented him the opportunity to abandon his controversial cooperation with the Maronites and return to the traditional Syrian policy of supporting the Muslims and the left in Lebanon. It also allowed him to settle his differences with the PLO in the aftermath of Sadat’s peace initiative. Syria thus escalated its attacks on Bashir’s forces, supported the Maronites’ opponents, and took every opportunity to sow discord in the Maronite camp.
The conflict with Syria deeply divided the Christians and reinforced Bashir’s determination to impose his will on all the Christian militias by force. Yet Tony Faranjiyya’s assassination in June 1978 and the ensuing feud between the Jumayyil family and the Lebanese Forces on the one hand, and Sulayman Faranjiyya and his followers in Zgharta on the other, considerably weakened the Maronite community and allowed the Syrians to maintain their hold over the Christian area in north Lebanon. With the submission of Danny Chamoun’s Numur militia in July 1980, Bashir now had control over most of the Christian forces. The Maronites’ fate now lay in the hands of one man—Bashir Jumayyil. 20
Raising the Stakes: The Alliance with Israel
Bashir Jumayyil and the Lebanese Front compounded their mistake of confronting the Syrian Army with an even more dangerous decision—to seek a strategic alliance with Israel against Syria. The Maronites had established close ties with Israel back in 1976, when it supplied them with weapons and trained their militias. This cooperation had been limited, however, as Israel’s Labor government had refused to intervene directly in the civil war. As the Lebanese forces escalated their armed struggle against the Syrian Army, and the West showed itself reluctant to come to their aid, Bashir came to believe that only Israel, the strongest military power in the region, could save the Maronites. He hoped that, under the rightist Likud government, Israel would invade Lebanon, defeat the PLO and the Syrian Army, ensure his election as president, and restore Maronite hegemony. For his policy to succeed, however, the Israeli leaders had to be persuaded to wage a war against not only the Palestinian forces in the south, but against the PLO and the Syrian Army in Beirut. 21
Here again the Maronites chose a course of action without sufficiently weighing its chances of success or the price of failure. As in the spring of 1976, when they had appealed to Syria for help, they disregarded that Israel’s intervention in Lebanon would be primarily determined by its own interests, as well as its domestic and international constraints. More significantly, Bashir ignored the consequences of such an alliance on Maronite relations with the Muslims in Lebanon, with Syria, and with other Arab countries. Convinced that only by cooperating closely with the Arab world could they ensure Lebanon’s political stability and economic prosperity after independence, Maronite politicians had been anxious to dispel any accusations of disloyalty to the Arab cause. By collaborating with Israel, the Arabs’ most vilified enemy, Bashir Jumayyil deligitimized the entire Maronite community in the eyes of the Lebanese Muslims, the Syrians, and the rest of the Arab world. He disregarded the fact that once Israel fulfilled the task expected of it by the Christians and withdrew from Lebanon, the Maronites would have to continue to coexist with the Muslims. Moreover, his policy transformed the Maronites and Lebanon into a direct strategic threat to Syria. The stakes for Asad were now high—he had to ensure Syrian control over a Lebanese state in which the Maronites could no longer endanger Syria’s interests.
In the summer of 1982 Bashir’s gamble appeared to have paid off; Israel invaded Lebanon, defeated the PLO and the Syrian Army, laid siege to west Beirut, and forced the Palestinians and Syrians out of the city. The United States and other Western powers, whose intervention the Christians had been seeking unsuccessfully since 1975, sent forces to supervise the PLO evacuation of Beirut. The euphoria in the Christian camp reached its peak after Bashir Jumayyil’s election as president. But the basic faults in Bashir’s policy were instantly apparent. He had been elected with Israel’s backing but declared himself president of all the Lebanese. He also quarreled with Prime Minister Menachem Begin over his refusal to conclude an immediate peace treaty with Israel. His assassination in September 1982 by a Syrian agent was inevitable and marked the beginning of the Maronite community’s demise. He left a weak and divided Christian camp, lacking leadership or a clear direction, to face a vengeful Syrian regime. 22
With the rise of the militant Shi‘i organizations, and with Syria determined to punish the Maronites and restore its hold over Lebanon, even a strong and charismatic president would have found it difficult to unite the Maronite community, initiate a national conciliation, and bring an end to Lebanon’s status as a battlefield for Syro-Israeli confrontation. Amin Jumayyil, the new president, possessed no such skill. He was a mediocre politician who lacked the charisma and self-confidence of his younger brother and was elected at this time of crisis only because he carried the Jumayyil name. During his six years in office (1982–1988) the Christian camp disintegrated rapidly and Lebanon descended into an even deeper quagmire. 23
Facing the Syrian Rage
After the failure of their gamble on Syria in 1976 and on Israel in 1982, the Maronites turned to the United States, which had played a key role in solving Lebanon’s civil war a quarter century earlier. The United States, they assumed, would persuade Israel, its close ally, to withdraw from Lebanon at minimal cost, pressure Syria into evacuating its forces, and rebuild Lebanon’s government and army, in which the Maronites would continue to enjoy considerable influence. But again they miscalculated. They ignored the possibility that the U.S. administration, having resisted direct intervention in Lebanon since 1975, might back down in the face of strong domestic opposition; that the Israeli government, under pressure from its own public, would insist on a peace treaty to justify its war in Lebanon; and that Asad would react violently to what he saw as an American-Israeli-Maronite plot to isolate and humiliate Syria in the aftermath of the Camp David Accords and Ronald Reagan’s peace initiative. After a series of suicide-bomb attacks by Shi‘i fundamentalists on U.S. targets, the United States pulled out of Beirut in early 1984. It was soon followed by France, Britain, and Italy, whose troops were serving in the multinational forces. Israel followed suit in 1985 but retained its security zone in south Lebanon. Amin Jumayyil and the Maronite community were left to confront a vindictive and hostile Syrian regime. 24
Syria was no longer willing, as it had been in 1976, to content itself with maintaining its influence in Lebanon by sponsoring a political solution. It insisted on a formal agreement that would subjugate Lebanon in order to safeguard Syria’s long-term interests there. The Tripartite Militia Agreement it initiated in 1985 was intended to secure these goals by allowing it to station its forces permanently in Lebanon, supervise the rebuilding of the Lebanese Army and security services, and control Lebanon’s foreign policy. When the Maronite leadership rejected the agreement, Syria boycotted Amin Jumayyil’s administration, undermined all efforts to end the civil war, and encouraged its allies in Lebanon, including those in the Christian camp, to attack the regime. 25
During his final year in office, Amin Jumayyil desperately sought to renew a dialog with Asad and persuade him to offer a less humiliating deal for the Christians, but to no avail. He was despised and ignored by the Syrian president and lacked any real influence over the Lebanese Forces or the army command, which were becoming increasingly intransigent toward the Syrian occupation. The final fiasco came in the summer of 1988 when Jumayyil failed to persuade his community to heed the U.S. administration’s advice to accept the candidate whom Syria had proposed as the next Lebanese president. In a last-minute effort to prevent the prime minister, Salim al-Huss, from declaring himself acting president, Jumayyil appointed General Michel ‘Awn, the commander of the army, as prime minister. Lebanon now had two prime ministers—one Maronite and the other a Sunni. Lebanon was thus left without an elected president—the last symbol of Maronite political hegemony. 26
The crisis over the presidency and the threat of renewed large-scale intersectarian violence, in which the Syrians would be involved directly, prompted the United States and its ally, Saudi Arabia, to renew efforts to seek a political solution. This initiative, in which the Arab League was involved, ended in the Ta’if Agreement of October 1989. Isolated, weakened, and beset by internal strife, the Maronites were forced to make long-overdue political concessions. The agreement stipulated that power be transferred from the Maronite president to the Sunni prime minister and the Shi‘i speaker of the house, and that Christians and Muslims be equally represented in the Parliament. Although Syria’s unique position in Lebanon was recognized, its military presence was confined both in space and time. Indeed, Asad was far from pleased with the agreement. 27
Michel ‘Awn: The New Savior?
The Ta’if Agreement offered the best opportunity, after fourteen years of civil war, to begin a national reconciliation under Arab supervision and limit Syrian hegemony in Lebanon. The Maronites had again to make a fateful decision: either to pursue national reconciliation and rebuild their state, and only later—with Arab and international help—demand the withdrawal of the Syrian Army, or to continue the struggle to free Lebanon from Syrian domination before solving the internal crisis. Evidently they had learned nothing from their previous mistake of confronting the Syrians alone. Once more the militants gained the upper hand, and Michel ‘Awn, who had emerged as the popular hero and “new savior” of the Maronites, declared a war of liberation against the Syrians. 28
Throughout the following year ‘Awn, supported by many young Maronites, conducted a self-defeating struggle against the Syrians and the Ta’if Agreement. Like Bashir Jumayyil before him, he sought first to impose his authority over the entire Christian camp. In violent clashes with the Lebanese Forces led by Samir Ja‘ja‘, thousands of Maronites were killed or wounded, and the Christian strongholds in East Beirut and Mount Lebanon, which had sustained the attacks of leftist organizations, the Palestinians, and the Syrians, were largely destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Christians who had remained in Lebanon during the civil war now fled the country. Each faction had more than sufficient arms and ammunition to wreak havoc among its opponents. Saddam Husayn, who had ended his war with Iran in 1988, was happily supplying both sides with weapons in order to undermine his rival Hafiz Asad’s position in Lebanon. 29
The Maronite leaders’ gamble had again backfired. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, and Syria’s decision to join the Arab coalition led by the United States and Saudi Arabia, gave Asad a free hand in Lebanon. When the Syrian Army finally attacked ‘Awn’s headquarters in the presidential palace in Ba‘abda in September 1990, his forces surrendered with little resistance and he himself sought refuge in the French Embassy and later in Paris. Determined to teach the Maronites a lesson, the Syrians massacred hundreds of ‘Awn’s supporters and imprisoned and tortured many more.
With its regional and international standing on the rise, and the Maronites defeated and isolated, Syria unilaterally revised the Ta’if Agreement. Elias Hirawi, the new president, began to rebuild the state institutions under close Syrian supervision. The sectarian militias were forced out of Beirut and were later disarmed and incorporated into the Lebanese Army, while Syrian officers helped organize the army and intelligence services. In May 1991 the Lebanese Parliament, many of whose members had been appointed by Syria, ratified the Treaty of Brotherhood and Cooperation between the two states. Lebanon thus became politically, militarily, and economically linked to Syria. No longer able to influence the political system, the Maronites boycotted the July 1992 parliamentary elections. Their boycott however, made little difference. Indeed it helped the Syrians ensure the election of their Christian candidates to the Parliament. The political marginalization of the Maronites in Lebanon was thereby complete. 30
Coping with Marginalism
Writing in 1985 on the future of the Christians in Lebanon, Ghassan Tueni argued that they faced three options. The first could be defined as the “Maronite option”—a militant strategy of isolation and confrontation with the Arab Muslim world. This policy had already backfired, leaving the Maronites weakened in the face of a hostile Muslim majority. The second, the “Coptic approach,” which he also rejected, was one of silence and submission, of a closed community content with religious freedom. Tueni proposed adopting the strategy of his own Greek Orthodox community, namely a synthesis of the first two options. The Christians, he argued, should unreservedly participate and contribute to the Lebanese society, in which they should enjoy equal rights. 31
Now, more than a decade later, the Maronites still face similar options. Some, particularly in the diaspora, are still hoping that regional and international changes will enable them to restore their influence or introduce a decentralized system into Lebanon, one that would allow them to enjoy a certain degree of autonomy in Mount Lebanon. Others believe that in light of the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism, particularly among the Shi‘is, the Christians should strive to abolish sectarianism and turn Lebanon into a liberal, secular democratic country. Such hopes, however, are unrealistic in view of the demographic, political, social, and economic transformation that Lebanon has undergone in the past twenty years. The number of Christians is declining rapidly as the young, educated, and better-off continue to emigrate, leaving behind the older and weaker sectors of the community. Even the economy, particularly trade and finance, formerly dominated by the Christians, is being taken over by wealthy Sunnis and Shi‘is. It is no mere coincidence that the reconstruction of Beirut as a major regional and international financial and commercial center is being carried out by a company controlled by Lebanon’s prime minister, Rafiq Hariri. 32
In recent years, Maronite leaders, including those in the church, have been calling for the community to adjust to the new reality, claiming that accommodation, compromise, and cooperation with the Muslims is the only way to secure their rights. They argue that the Maronites should end their historical conflict with Syria and the Arab Muslim world, and stress their Arabism and their community’s contribution to the emergence of Arab nationalism. Paradoxically, some have even gone so far as to endorse Syria’s presence in Lebanon both to prevent it from becoming an Iranian-style Islamic republic and to ensure their community’s influence in the political system, through their hold on the presidency. Many Maronite leaders who had supported Israeli intervention in Lebanon are either denying or trying to justify their involvement with Israel. 33
In 1920 the Maronites, helped by France, had established Greater Lebanon as a homeland and refuge for persecuted Christians in the Arab Muslim world. Whatever the future holds for the Maronites, Christian Lebanon under the Maronite hegemony, which had existed until 1975, is a thing of the past. The Maronites now share the fate of other Christian minorities in the Middle East, whose rights and very survival depend on the goodwill of the Muslim majority.
Endnotes
Note 1: See a series of articles: “The Christians in Lebanon in the Second Republic,” in al-Hayat (London), February 1994; al-Shira‘ (Beirut), 15, 22, and 29 August, and 5 September 1994. Back.
Note 2: Edward E. Azar and Renée E. Marlin, “The Cost of Protracted Social Conflict in the Middle East: The Case of Lebanon,” in Gabriel Ben-Dor and David B. DeWitt (eds.), Conflict Management in the Middle East (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1987), pp. 29–44; Kamal Salibi, “The Maronite Experiment,” Middle East Insight 5, no. 1 (January–February 1987), pp. 21–30. Back.
Note 3: K. S. Salibi, A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); Amin Jumayyil, Al-Rihan al-kabir (Beirut: Dar al-Nahar, 1988); Joseph Abu-Khalil, Qissat al-Mawarina fi al-harb (Beirut: Sharikat al-Matbu‘at lil-Tawzi‘ wal-Nashr, 1990). Abu-Khalil was editor of the Phalange newspaper al-Amal and a close aide of Bashir Jumayyil. Back.
Note 4: Raymond G. Helmick, “Internal Lebanese Politics: The Lebanese Front and Forces” in Halim Barakat (eds.), Toward a Viable Lebanon (London: Croom Helm, 1988), pp. 306–323; Michael Hudson, “The Problem of Authoritative Power,” in Nadim Shehadi and Dana Haffar Mills (eds.), Lebanon: A History of Conflict and Consensus (London: The Centre for Lebanese Studies, 1988), pp. 229–230; Tewfik Khalaf, “The Phalange and the Maronite Community: From Lebanonism to Maronitism” in Roger Owen (eds.), Essays on the Crisis in Lebanon (London: Ithaca Press, 1976), pp. 43–57. Back.
Note 5: Al-Shira‘, 29 August 1994; Ghassan Tueni, Une Guérre pour les Autres (Paris: Jean-Claude Lattes, 1985), pp. 99–100; Helmick, “Internal Lebanese Politics”; Paul Salem, Bitter Legacy: Ideology and Politics in the Arab World (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1994), pp. 237–239. For a critical and even hostile view of the Maronite role in Lebanon, see Kamal Joumblatt, I Speak for Lebanon (London: Zed Press, 1982). Back.
Note 6: Farid Khazin, “The Communal Pact of National Identities: The Making and Politics of the 1943 National Pact,” Papers on Lebanon, no. 12 (1992), and N. Shehadi, “The Idea of Lebanon,” Papers on Lebanon no. 5 (1987); Salem, Bitter Legacy, pp. 232–233. Back.
Note 7: Michael Hudson, The Precarious Republic: Political Modernization in Lebanon (New York: Random House, 1968); Nawaf Salam, “The Institution of the Presidency in Elections in Lebanon” in Nadim Shehadi and Bridget Harney (eds.), Politics and the Economy in Lebanon (Oxford: The Centre for Lebanese Studies, 1989), pp. 69–74. Back.
Note 8: Hudson, The Precarious Republic, pp. 108, 273–290; Tueni, Une Guérre, pp. 74–75. Back.
Note 9: K. S. Salibi, Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon 1958–1976 (London: Ithaca Press, 1976), pp. 3–20. Back.
Note 10: Michael Hudson, “The Problem of Authoritative Power” in Shehadi and Mills, Lebanon, pp. 238, 263. Back.
Note 11: Charles Helou, Hayat fi dhikrayat (Beirut: Dar al-Nahar, 1995); Abu-Khalil, Qissat al-Mawarina, pp. 17–20. Back.
Note 12: Joumblatt, I Speak, p. 64; Rashid Khalidi, “The Palestinians and Lebanon,” in Barakat, Toward a Viable Lebanon, pp. 133–144. Back.
Note 13: Abu-Khalil, Qissat al-Mawarina, pp. 25–28; Theodor Hanf, Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon: Decline of a State and Rise of a Nation (London: The Centre for Lebanese Studies and I. B. Tauris, 1993), pp. 373–393. Back.
Note 14: Hanf, Coexistence, pp. 402–403; Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam: Musa al-Sadr and the Shi‘a of Lebanon (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 150–161; Owen, Essays on the Crisis, pp. 48–50. Back.
Note 15: Meir Zamir, “The Lebanese Presidential Elections of 1970 and Their Impact on the Civil War of 1975–1976,” Middle Eastern Studies 16, no. 1 (January 1980), pp. 49–70. Back.
Note 16: Ibid.; Tueni, Une Guérre, pp. 87–90. Back.
Note 17: Abu-Khalil, Qissat al-Mawarina, pp. 57–64; Karim Pakradouni, La Paix Manquée (Hebrew translation) (Tel Aviv: Ma‘arachot, Israel Ministry of Defense, 1986), pp. 21–25, 35–40; Itamar Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 1970–1985 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 51, 60–67. Back.
Note 18: Pakradouni, La Paix Manquée, pp. 96–102; Meir Zamir, “Politics and Violence in Lebanon,” The Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 25 (fall 1982), pp. 3–26; Salim Al-Huss, Zaman al-amal wal-khayba (Beirut: Dar al-‘Ilm lil-Malayin, 1992). Al-Huss served as prime minister under Elias Sarkis. Back.
Note 19: Abu-Khalil, Qissat al-Mawarina, pp. 209–217; Pakradouni, La Paix Manquée, pp. 131–137; Hanf, Coexistence, pp. 231–234. Back.
Note 20: Abu-Khalil, Qissat al-Mawarina, pp. 77–81; Pakradouni, La Paix Manquée, pp. 133–134. Back.
Note 21: Abu-Khalil, Qissat al-Mawarina, pp. 41–55, 103–105. The author took part in the negotiations with Israel from 1976. See also Ehud Ya‘ari and Zeev Schiff, Israel’s Lebanon War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984). Back.
Note 22: Abu-Khalil, Qissat al-Mawarina, pp. 225–238. Back.
Note 23: Jumayyil, al-Rihan al-kabir, pp. 27–47; Tueni, Une Guérre, pp. 84–85. Back.
Note 24: Jumayyil, al-Rihan al-kabir, pp. 194, 208–213; Tueni, Une Guérre, pp. 261–279. Tueni served as Lebanon’s ambassador to the United Nations in 1977–1982. See also George W. Ball, Error and Betrayal in Lebanon: An Analysis of Israel’s Invasion of Lebanon and the Implications for US-Israeli Relations (Washington, D.C.: USA Foundation for Middle East Peace, 1984). Back.
Note 25: Jumayyil, al-Rihan al-kabir, pp. 133–251; Abu-Khalil, Qissat al-Mawarina, pp. 365–379. Back.
Note 26: Abu-Khalil, Qissat al-Mawarina, pp. 433–436; Hanf, Coexistence, pp. 567–572. Back.
Note 27: Josef Maila, “The Document of National Understanding: A Commentary,” Prospects for Lebanon, no. 4 (Oxford: The Centre for Lebanese Studies, 1992). Back.
Note 28: George Nader, “Interview with General Michel ‘Awn, Prime Minister of Lebanon,” Middle East Insight 6, no. 3 (fall 1988), pp. 24–27. Back.
Note 29: Hanf, Coexistence, pp. 598–601. Back.
Note 30: Deirdre Collings (eds.), Peace for Lebanon? From War to Reconstruction (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1994), pp. 52–60. Back.
Note 31: Tueni, Une Guérre, pp. 125–127. Back.
Note 32: See interviews in al-Shira‘ with Michel ‘Awn, 27 June 1994, and Amin Jumayyil, 4 July 1994. See also 22 August 1994. Back.
Note 33: Helou, Hayat fi dhikrayat, pp. 229–253, Ghassan Tueni’s interview with Charles Helou, broadcast on Lebanese television, 4 June 1993. See also an interview with Nasrallah Sfayr, the Maronite patriarch, in Middle East Insight 10, no. 3 (March–April 1994), pp. 12–19. Back.
Email this citation