The 1976 Lebanese civil war by Daniel BENSAID
Commanding a state barely as big as two French departements (or a couple of American counties or British coun ties), the Lebanese bourgeoisie has played a profitable role of intermediary between the Western market and the Arab hinterland.
While agriculture accounts for only 17% of the national income and industry for 20%, the services (commerce, banks, transport, tourism) - which employ only 10% of the economically active population make up the preponderant share -58%. And Lebanese industry is mainly light industry, serving as an appendage of the service sector.
The result of these facts is that a heterogeneous petty bourgeoisie constitutes the absolute majority of the population, and this helps to perpetuate the confessional character of the Lebanese state.
Since it was established, the state has remained very weak, torn by family rivalries and tribalism and undermined by corruption. It is organized on an openly confessional basis. In a 99-seat parliament, 30 seats are alloted to the Maronite Christians; 20 to the Sunni Muslims, 19 to the Shite Muslims, 11 to the Greek Orthodox, 6 to the Greek Catholics, 1 to the Armenian Catholics, 1 to the Protestants, and one is variable. The president of the republic is always a Maronite, the premier a Sunni, the chairman of the parliament a Shiite, and the vice premier a Greek Orthodox.
The presence of 400,000 Palestinian refugees, the majority of them in camps, could not help but shake the unstable equilibrium of this structure.
Since 1969, the Lebanese bourgeoisie has sought continually to rid itself of the Palestinians. In 1973, the failure of an attempt by the official Lebanese army to wipe out the camps led to the formation, arming, and growth of the Christian Phalange, the Kataeb. In 1975, the leader of this body, Beshir Gemayel openly proposed holding a referendum to decide whether or not the Palestinian resistance could remain in Lebanon.
On March 1 of the same year, a repressive operation by the Lebanese army against the Arab fishermen in Saida gave rise to fraternization between the poor Arab population and the Palestinian resistance, despite the proclaimed determination of the Palestinian organizations not to interfere in Lebanese affairs. The Lebanese bourgeoisie, five years after the Jordanian one, came to fear an inter-
PETER GRAHAM, locking of the Palestinian resistance and the class struggle in Lebanon itself.
In April, the Christian militias made an initial move, massacring 27 Palestinians. There was an immediate response. Things started to escalate. The right armed frantically, with the help of the U.S. In September, it launched a general offensive that proved fruitless. In January, it organized a new systematic massacre in the shantytown of la Quarantaine outside Beirut. The Muslim forces, Lebanese progressives and Palestinians, retaliated by a similar massacre in the village of Damour.
With the war stalemated, syria proposed to intervene to "safeguard the unity of Lebanon and prevent new massacres." On January 22, 1976, an accord was signed under its patronage. There were supposed to be "neither victor nor vanquished."
The confessionalism of the Lebanese system was reinforced, and no substantive reform was envisaged. From January to March 1976, the Christian right, the Muslim right, the Lebanese left, and the Israeli destruction in Beirut (DR)
Palestinian organizations all proclaimed their support for the Syrian intervention. The only discordant note in this chorus of approval was the denuncation of the Syrian regime and its role in Lebanon by some small far left groups.
However, immediately after the January 22 accords the Lebanese regular army began to break up. Dissident Arab offi cers formed an non," which started to snowball. Christian officers responded by forming a Lebanon liberation army. Along with the army, the Lebanese state itself was coming apart.
The clashes increased and the progressive forces advanced. On March 21, they occupied the center of Beirut. On March 24, President Frangieh fled and took refuge in Jounieh, the new capital of Christian Lebanon. In two weeks of bloody battles, the left and the Palestinian resistance movement gained control of more than two thirds of the country, and were in a position to achieve a military victory. This outcome, however, was to be blocked by Syrian intervention and the attitude of the leadership of the Palestinian-Progressive bloc.
On March 11, the Syrian mediators declared that they were helpless in the face of the new deterioration in the situation, and they left the country. They were called back by the Lebanese right, which was facing a military defeat that would have led either to a partition of Lebanon (with the Christian ministate losing its advantageous economic relations with the Arab countries) or by political concessions that would establish a new relationship of forces within the country.
Syria responded to this appeal, and at the beginning of April threatened to close its borders to all arms shipments for the Palestinian resistance. The forces of the Saika, the Palestinian organization organically linked to the Syrian regime, tried in vain to block the offensive against the reactionaries. Then, 2,000 Syrian soldiers moved into Lebanese territory. The population of the Muslim areas raised the cry of treason. Yassar Arafat went to Damascus. Syria withdrew its troops in exchange for the left and the Palestinian resistance accepting a ceasefire at a moment when victory was in their grasp
On May 8, the Syrians showed their determination to assure that the election of a president took place in Lebanon, despite the continuation of the fighting. Sarkis was elected by 66 votes, with
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ese state backed up by the Phalangist militia of Amine Gemayel, and ally of Zionism. They can only bring new threats and new the purpose of the United Nations troops dangers for the Palestinian refugees and the Lebanese National
(UNIFIL), now stationed in south Lebanon for months? On
June 6, at the time of the Israeli invasion, they were content to The real demands of the hour are different:
let the Zionist tanks pass on their march towards Beirut. - Immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the Zionist army
What has been the purpose of the "Intervention Force" sent of occupation from Lebanon and all the occupied territories;
at the end of August as stipulated in the Habib plan? This force - Break diplomatic relations with the criminal regime of Begin organized the departure of the Palestinian combat units, and assured the presence of the Zionists in Lebanon. They backed - International recognition of the PLO as the authentic reprethe election of the Phalangist killer Bechir Gemayel for presi- sentative of the Palestinian people;
dent by a rump parliament, which met in a barracks guarded by - Total support to the Palestinian people in their fight to regain
They demolished the defense lines of the Pales- their legitimate national rights;
"14 the "Intervention Force" composed of ries and ity withe he Pilat inarment in the state of trac.
troops, left the sector, leaving LCR - Revolutionary Communist League (French Section of behind them a disarmed population facing the Zionist army, the Fourth International)
Phalangist militia and the mercenaries of the butcher Haddad. LCR - Revolutionary Communist League (Italian Section of
Whatever the exact identity of the murderers of Sabra and the Fourth International)
Chatila, they could only carry out their horrible task with the SWP - Socialist Workers Party (American organization in agreement and complicity of Israeli senior officials. The Wash- solidarity with the Fourth International*)
ington, Paris and Rome governments know all too well that this legislation prevents the SWP from being the
American Section of the Fourth International.)
of the Christian militias backed ing itself as an alternative power. In so abstentions, in an intimidation and corruption made into a more grotesque mascarade than ever. the Israeli army helped to en- it set itself:
The main rival of Sarkis - who was the candidate of the Christian right, the Syrians and the Americans — was Raymond Edde, former leader of the Marothis time supported by the Palestinian French, imperialism.
The left was disoriented and paralyzed by the accords concluded by Arafat in Damascus on the eve of the election. In the wake of the election, the same Arafat sent a message of congratulations to the new president. But the Palestinian organizations of the Rejection Front resumed military offensive. Al-Fatah forced to go along. Syria tried to nego-
La new agreement. The week that the election was marked by bloody battles.
On May 31, Syria intervened again, sending a corps of 20,000 soldiers (as
La mere 2,000 in April). The Palestinian-progressive forces resisted this intervention. Many Syrian tanks were destroyed. The uncertainty of the outcome led to the sending in of "Green Helmets" from the Arab countries. On June 23, the meeting in Ryad of repre-
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, and Syria confirmed the isolation of the Palestinians.
The relationship of forces began to turn to their disadvantage. On June 12, following bloody fighting, the Palestinian camp of Tell el-Zatar fell, under the the Syrian army. During this circle the Palestinians by putting military October 18, the Ryad accords sanctioned the 1975-76 civil war several lessons emerge that maintain all their force today.
The confessionalist system made it present the civil war as a religious war and cover up its real antiand class character. counterposition of poor Muslims and rich Christians is true only in a general way.
leaders of the Muslim big bourgeoisie were smart enough to line up with the Muslim camp to hold on to their clientele and work for a compromise that would safeguard the social structures of
On the other hand, a section of the Christian poor masses were forced to join the Phalange by the fear of religious massacres. The military methods used by both sides reinforced this partly deceptive confessional polarization.
The Palestinian-progressive front operated as a defensive front. Faced with the breakup of the Lebanese state, it was led to take on more and more tasks in proviproviding public health and police services in the camps. But it was careful not to challenge the official state bodies. It patched up the cracks in the legal governmental system without ever offerdoing, it was conforming to the limits
"The program of reforms presented socialist or communist programe ... It in reality constitutes a program for moving from the most backward sort of feudal regime toward a liberal and democratic capitalist system, in which the term democratic is to be understood in the bourgeois sense." (George Haoui, member of the Lebanese CP Political Bureau, in an interview with Agence France-Presse, December 29, 1975.)
Finally, the PLO leadership held to its official position of "noninterference in the internal affairs of the Arab regimes." But it could not prevent the Jordanian or Lebanese Arab masses from being with the same threats and the same problems as the Palestinian refugees - the threat represented by Israel and the repression exercised by their own bour-
Regardless of the intention of the Palestinian leaders, there is an inevitable tendency for these struggles to interlock. And if they try to avoid interfering in the internal affairs of the countries in which they have taken refuge, it is just as inevitable that the regimes in these countries in order to maintain their power will interfere in the affairs of the Palestinian resistance in the most brutal way, as was the case in Jordan in 1970, in Lebanon in 1975-76, and now once again.