civil war in Lebanon. The role played by confessional hatred need not be demonstrated. But just as it is not ideology that makes history, confessionalism can in no way be considered the real cause of the Lebanese conflict. And just as weapons do not kill by themselves, confessional hatred does not explode spontaneously like thunder out of a clear sky.
13
LEBANON Another interpretation, this one leftist, is that the Lebanese civil war was a class war. In support of this thesis, which claims to lay bare the underlying character of the confessional division in Lebanon, we have the fact that the Maronite faction of the Lebanese bourgeoisie holds a majority position within that class as a whole and that the poorest regions and layers of the country are Muslim in their majority, Shiite more precisely. Without doubt, this observation explains why the dynamic of the struggle in the Muslim camp is, in a very general manner, more progressive than that of the Christian camp. But this does not at all mean that these two camps constitute opposed class camps. While the class struggle is universal in all class societies, it is not always expressed in every conflict. There are also struggles among factions of the same class, not only at the level of the rank and file (in terms of the social origins of the fighters), which is obvious, but also at the top. This is the case in the Lebanese conflict, in which representatives of the bourgeoisie stood at the head of both camps. The reactionary camp, the "Maronite" camp, was headed by two reactionary bourgeois parties, the Phalangists (Kataeb in Arabic), of semifascist and confessional origin, structure, and ideology, linked to the large comprador bourgeoisie and known for being in the pay of American imperialism, and the Parti National Libéral (PN - National Liberal party), led by Camille Chamoun (former president of the republic from 1952 to 1958, the man who called in the U.S. Marines in 1958), the party of that section of the large comprador bourgeoisie linked to Anglo-Saxon imperialism and to some reactionary Arab regimes. Other forces were also active in this camp: a series of reactionary and ultra-reactionary groups and grouplets representing a reactionary plebeian petty-bourgeois current supported by the lower Maronite clergy, a current whose influence extends into the rank and file of the two large bourgeois parties. Geographically, the reactionary camp included the Christian neighborhoods of the capital (Beirut), which include bourgeois and petty-bourgeois neighborhoods as well as the popular suburbs inhabited by middle and poor petty bourgeoisie and wage-earners; outside Beirut, the reactionary camp extended to the rural Christian regions, some of which are inhabited by a well-off petty-bourgeois peasantry, others by a modest and poor peasantry with the presence of an agricultural proletariat. The anti-reactionary camp is much more heterogeneous polifically. The force that speaks in the name of this camp is a cartel of Muslim bourgeois elements and notables representing the Muslim section of the Lebanese bourgeoisie, both big and middle, which can be politically labeled as moderate and timidly reformist inasmuch as the Muslim bourgeoisie has an Interest in modifying the confessional balance of the regime, which is presently unfavorable to the Muslims. This bloc is supported by a cartel of so-called progressive organizations including petty-bourgeois nationalist organizations that have a base among the 14
Sunni Muslim petty bourgeoisie of the coastal cities and whose nationalism is permeated with confessionalism, as well as the Stalinists of the Parti Communiste Libanais (PCL - Lebanese Communist party) and its ally, the Communist Action Organization of Lebanon (OACL), a group of centrist origin that has since stabilized on the line of the Communist party. The link between these two cartels is assured by the leader of the second, who is simultaneously a member of the first: Kemal Jumblatt, bourgeois reformist leader of the Parti Socialiste Progressiste (PSP — Progressive Socialist party); Jumblatt is also a former feudal landowner and a confessional leader of the Druze community, a minority within Islam in Lebanon. Geographically, this camp includes the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois Muslim neighborhoods of the capital, the Muslim coastal cities (Tripoli and Sidon), the popular Shiite Muslim neighborhoods of the Beirut suburbs, the neighborhoods of poor petty-bourgeois and proletarian layers, which constitute the main field of action for the working-class left, and the rural regions inhabited by middle and poor layers, predominantly Shilte. But this overview would be quite incomplete if we omitted the Palestinian Resistance, an essential component of the conflict whose predominant role is the clearest proof of the fact that beyond the Lebanese social or confessional antagonisms, the civil war in Lebanon is part and parcel of the conflict in the Middle East. Real nature of the conflict The recent Lebanese civil war unfolded on a political terrain that had been profoundly modified since 1968 by the emergence and development of the Palestinian Resistance on Lebanese territory. This development came into contradiction with two categories of convergent interests: first, the interests of the Lebanese comprador bourgeoisie, since the power of the bourgeois state was counterbalanced by the emergence of a second center of power embodied in the armed organizations of the Resistance, and since in the long run the anti-imperialist dynamic of the Palestinian national struggle threatened the entire Lebanese socioeconomic edifice; second and most important, the interests of American imperialism and its Zionist bastion, since the development of the Palestinian Resistance was the major factor counteracting the Zionist-imperialist victory of June 1967. Thus, the Lebanese bourgeoisie (unanimous at the beginning), American imperialism, and the Zionist state all had an interest in crushing the Palestinian Resistance. After the battle of Karameh in Jordan in March 1968, it became obvious that the repression of the Palestinian Resistance would have to be carried out by Arab armies, because a Zionist intervention only stimulated the rise of the anti-imperialist mass movement. This task was accomplished with notorious success by the army of King Hussein in Jordan during 1970 and 1971. In Lebanon two similar attempts by the Lebanese army in 1969 had ended in flagrant failure, for two reasons: the weak-
ness of the Lebanese army (less than 15,000 soldiers) and the insurrection of the Lebanese Muslim masses, traditionally nationalist and anti-imperialist, in solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance (these masses feel that they are much better represented by the Palestinian Resistance than by the Lebanese army). The clashes concluded with the Cairo accords (signed at the beginning of 1970), which acknowledged the legitimacy of the Palestinian armed presence on Lebanese territory, while delineating the zones within which the fedayeen could act ("Fatehland, " the Arkoub region of southern Lebanon). Having acceded to power in 1970 as a representative of the bourgeoisie, President Suleiman Franjieh attempted to reconstruct a strong state by taking advantage of the decline of the Palestinian Resistance after its defeat in Jordan. In conjunction with Saeb Salam (a Sunni), then president of the council, Franjieh tried to restore the authority of the state, first of all against the Lebanese masses. This course was reflected in a brutal repression of social struggles, which caused victims among the ranks of workers and peasants. The strong state was progressively being imposed. But these efforts were interrupted by the operation carried out in Beirut in April 1973 by Zionist commandos, an operation that succeeded in murdering three leaders of the Palestinian Resistance. In reaction to the inaction of the state against this aggression, some 250,000 demonstrators accompanied the coffins of the three murdered Palestinians in an armed funeral procession with an extremely antigovemment character, Franjieh was cornered and had to act fast to prevent all his authoritarian efforts from being ruined. In May 1973 the Lebanese army once again confronted the Palestinian Resistance, this time on a broader scale. This undertaking was a partial failure. Militarily, neither of the two forces won a clear victory; moreover, the Muslim masses threatened to mobilize to aid the Resistance. The Melkart accords (named after the hotel in which they were signed) put an end to the clashes, following the mediation of the Arab states. These accords limited the areas in which the fedayeen could move about, prohibiting them from carrying arms outside the Palestinian refugee camps, except in the regions on the Israeli border. The agreement also called for a count and regroupment of all heavy weapons in the refugee camps located near Lebanese villages. But these accords were not implemented, because the existing relationship of forces prevented the Lebanese regime from enforcing them. Franjieh then changed his tactics. He tried to halt the rise of the movement of the masses by resorting to the collaboration of the reformists. After May 1973, ministers loyal to Jumblatt were added to the government. Concurrently, Franjieh fostered the training and arming of the militias of the Phalangist party, thus contributing to the creation of a genuine "Lebanese Resistance, " a paramilitary counterweight to the Palestinian Resistance. Finally, the army was strengthened and engaged in manhunt operations against outlaws, an attempt to polish up the army's image as the force restoring law and order. Events moved rapidly during 1975. On the one hand, American imperialism had decided to strike a heavy blow, to take a decisive step toward the implemenfation of its version of a political settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The year 1975 was to be the year of the Sinai accord. This implied a new attempt to strangle the Palestinian Resistance on its principle field of action, Lebanon. In January 1975 Pierre Gemayel, the head of the Phalangists, began making belligerent declarations against the Palestinian Resistance, suddenly breaking the "friendly" relations that had prevailed during the preceding year. On the other hand, the gravity of the situation was revealed by the insurrection in the city of Sidon. This town in southern Lebanon had been in turmoil because of a movement of solidarity with the fishermen of the city, who were struggling against the establishment of a capitalist monopoly on the fishing industry. As part of its operations to restore bourgeois law and order, the army was ordered to intervene. This resulted in victims among the demonstrators. The city then rose up: its armed inhabitants erected barricades along the various entryways to the town; rank-and-file militants of the Palestinian Resistance from a nearby refugee camp joined the insurrection. The state had to back down. The hour had come to strike the great blow, both from the standpoint of the dominant reactionary faction of the Lebanese bourgeoisie and from the standpoint of American imperialism. The Phalangist party, instrument of these combined interests, intervened. The plan was rather simple: The Phalangists would intervene to provoke an armed conflict between Palestinians and Christian Lebanese; the army would then come Forward as an arbiter, seizing the reigns of power in order to attack the Palestinian Resistance and strangle it. Such was the aim of the Phalangist massacre of April 13, 1975. It is only in the light of this historical and regional context that it is possible to understand the civil war in Lebanon. It was first and above all a clash between American imperialism on the one hand, acting through the vehicle of the reactionary Christian militias, and the Syrian-PLO axis on the other hand, to which was allied the Muslim bourgeoisie and all the Lebanese anti-imperialist organizations. The real stakes of the conflict went beyond Lebanese frontiers. What was involved was a struggle between two different formulas for settling the Arab-Israeli conflict, the formula supported by imperialism and Zionism, which is to exclude the PLO from the settlement to the advantage of King Hussein of Jordan, and the formula advocated by Syria and the PLO, which insists on the necessity of PLO participation in the settlement as the representative of the Palestinians. And the civil war was temporarily ended by a compromise between American imperialism and Syria.
LEBANON
The stages of the conflict
*On April 13, 1975, in Beirut the reactionary militias ambushed a bus carrying Palestinians who were returning home from a meeting sponsored by the Rejection Front; twenty-seven people were murdered in cold blood. The clashes became generalized very quickly; militants of the Palestinian Resistance attacked headquarters and shops belonging to Phalangists. Already the fighting began to take a confessional turn: Palestinians against Christian Lebanese,
The Phalangist ministers in the government demanded the institution of a state of emergency. Rashid Korameh, the head of the government and a reformist
Sunni Muslim, refused to go along. A cease-fire was reached.
*In May the government was forced to resign and the field became clear. Clashes, provoked by the reactionaries, broke out again and on the night of
May 23 the formation of a military government implementing the reactionary plan was announced.
The regime was counting on the fear of the population. In fact, a generalized insurrection broke out in the Muslim neighborhoods and regions around the slogan "No to military government!" The bourgeois Muslims, Frightened by the insurrection, frightened that its dynamic would go in an anticapitalist direcfion because of the role being played in it by the left, held their first general meeting (in which Jumblatt participated). They demanded the resignation of the military government and designated Karameh, then leader of the bourgeois opposition, to form a new government. Franjieh gave in, for his plan had failed once again. *But he did not feel completely beaten. He set up a series of obstacles to the formation of the Karameh government, Tension mounted, In June clashes broke out again and the mobilization was general. Finally, a reconciliation summit of bourgeois Müslims and Maronites was held; the government that came out of this summit was clearly reactionary in composition. Chamoun, for example, held the post of minister of the interior. The truce lasted throughout the summer. This accord had been reached with the aid of a Syrian "mediation, " which indugurated the overt intervention of the Syrion leaders in the conflict in Lebanon. *The summer was a period of general preparation. All parties, tendencies, and groups were arming and training themselves. The number of available fighters in each camp multiplied. The reactionaries were intensely preparing to take the offensive again. In September the clashes broke out once again in a continuous escalation of confessional violence and hysteria. Between September 1975 and January 1976 the civil war was virtually uninterrupted. The reacfionary offensive seemed to have opted for a prolonged war, the reactionaries made some small gains by getting the army to intervene in certain regions, but these were cautious interventions obtained at the price of a reform of the army aimed at satisfying the Muslim bourgeoisie (increased participation of Muslim officers in the leadership of the army) and of the 16 forced resignation of the former chief of the army, an arrant reactionary.
*At the end of November a new cease-fire was suddenly proclaimed. Two messages calling for national reconciliation were broadcast, one from Franjieh, one from Karameh. The mediation of Couve de Murville, the emissary of French President Giscard d'Estaing, did not amount to much, despite appearances.
(It seems that the Americans tried to cut the French intervention off.) In fact, it appears that an agreement was reached between the Americans and the
Syrians on the main lines of a compromise: Within the framework of this agreement, Syria would commit itself to reestablishing a strong state in Lebanon, while the Americans would accept the principle of PLO participation in the Arab-Israeli settlement under certain conditions. This agreement was reflected in two facts: Damascus invited a Phalangist delegation to meet with Syrian leaders; more important, on November 30, 1975, the United States voted for the UN Security Council resolution linking extension of the UN forces" mandate in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to the discussion of the Palestinian problem at the United Nations on January 12, 1976, with representatives of the PLO present. The Israeli government was furious. *But on December 6, the very day of the Phalangist visit to Damascus, the fighting broke out again, touched off by a huge massacre committed by reacfionary militias. Behind the "spontaneity" of this new outburst of violence, under the pretext of reprisals for the murder of four Christians, lay a maneuver of the reactionaries: Given the inevitability of compromise, they were seeking to create conditions under which their opponents, their Lebanese opponents to begin with, would have to grant maximum concessions. There was one way of doing this: threaten to partition the country. The reactionary militias carried out a series of operations aimed at partitioning Lebanon. But this was not the real aim of the reacfionary general staffs, for it would have meant the ruin of the Maronite comprador bourgeoisie, courtier of the West before the Arab countries. In reality, the point was to frighten the Muslim bourgeoisie, and the blackmail paid off: At the end of December a draft political reform worked out by Syria was announced. Only ridiculously insignificant reforms were involved: Essentially, the election of the president of the council by the parliament (previously, the post had been appointed by the president); equal division of parliamentary seats between Muslims and Christians (the previous balance had been six to five in favor of the Christians). The Muslim bourgeoisie and the left cartel were not happy about the draft, but they were unable to reject it. *Satisfied - at least relatively - about the interLebanese settlement, the reactionaries moved to the second aspect of the settlement: the Palestinian Resistance. After proclaiming that their struggle was against the Palestinian Muslims and Christians, at the beginning of January the reactionaries organized
a blockade of the Palestinian refugee camp of Tell Zaatar. Fighting broke sut again. The reactionary militias occupied another Palestinian camp, Dbayé, which was easy prey, it was a camp of Christian Palestinian refugees, which fact served as an after-thefact explanation of the meaning of the reactionary declaration. Then it was the turn of the Qarantina neighborhood, inhabited by squatters, most of them from Syria. In response, the common forces of the Palestinian Resistance and the Lebanese organizations occupied the Christian village of Damour, acting in a manner virtually identical to that of the reactionaries. *At the end of January Kissinger went to Moscow. Manifestly, an agreement was reached between American imperialism and the Kremlin bureaucrats on the Middle East. The Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) moved into Lebanon. The PLA is composed of regular Palestinian forces stationed in Syria, theoretically dependent on the PLO but actually dependent on the Syrian army. Neither American imperialism nor the Zionist leaders protested: The PLA, in fact, did not infervene to support the anti-reactionary camp: but instead as a repressive force, manipulated by Syria, to impose "order" in the Muslim regions. The PLA intervened with the blessing of imperialism. The meaning of the accord Franjieh's visit to Damascus last February 14 sealed the accord that had been reached. The main lines of this agreement and the channels by which it will be applied os they are taking shape right now may be summed up as follows: *Syria, acting through the PLA, will commit itself to gradually imposing a return to normal in the Muslim zones, which means a ban on the circulation of arms, dismantling of the barricades, suppression of looting, murders, and kidnapping. In doing this, Syria will permit the Lebanese bourgeois state to be reconstituted (the state apparatus had reached an almost total decomposition) and will aid in this process. *An insignificant political reform has been worked out; it is aimed at bolstering the foundations of the future strong state. *Syria, again through the vehicle of the PLA, as well as Saiqa, the Palestinian organization under Syrian hegemony, will take charge of imposing application of the Cairo accords of 1970 and the Melkart accords of 1973, which would represent an important step backward for the Palestinian Resistance in Lebanon, It is even possible that all the Palestinian armed forces will be integrated into the PLA. *Then, a Palestinian government "in exile" would be formed in which a strangled Palestinian Resistance would participate alongside notables loyal to Hussein. This government would be a member of a tripartite federation including Syria, Jordan, and the PLO, the structures of which are already being prepared:
Syria is in the process of unifying its diplomatic staff with Jordan's; in addition, a unified Syro-Palestinian command exists. This federation would negotiate with the Zionist state for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank of the Jordan River, which would give rise to a Palestinian rump state federated to Syria and Jordan and under their dual control. In sum, what is involved is a Syro-American compromise concerning the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Lebanese reactionaries will see their desires fulfilled, the only difference being - and this is a rather big difference → that their objectives will be attained thanks to the Syrian regime, Thus, the future Lebanese strong state will rest on two pilTars: American imperialism and the Syrian regime. Syria has already indicated some of the features if wants to lend the state that will be under its tutelage. Shortly after a statement by the Syrian minister of foreign affairs that there was "too much" freedom of the press in Lebanon, the headquarters of two antiSyrian newspapers (more or less linked to Iraq) were attacked and burned by the Saiga organization. The Syrian regime has been the major beneficiary of the Lebanese civil war. This regime has now imposed Itself on American imperialism as the privileged in= terlocutor in settling the Arab-Israeli conflict; if has imposed itself as the major guarantor of order in Lebanon; and, last but not least, it has imposed its tutelage over the PLO as never before. Nonetheless, it cannot be said that the Lebanese civil war is over. Various sources of conflict remain: the American presidential elections this year may bring some surprises; the internal situation in Israel still does not permit the Zionist regime to participate in the planned settlement without problems; the sitvation within the Palestinian Resistance may still evolve. The Rejection Front is not at all coming to the fore right now, but on the other hand the Fateh apparatus has initiated a subterranean struggle against Syrian tutelage, which could redefine the alliances within the Resistance. The Lebanese Muslim bourgeoisie, as well as the left cartel, feels extremely frustrated; they are increasingly manifesting their discontent, compelling Syria to resort to means of persuasion. A struggle over who will be the next Lebanese president could well flare up. The agreement with Syria may well have entailed Syrian support for the candidate of the Franjieh group (Lucien Dahdah), to the great discontent of the apposition. Finally, the Lebanese masses may well block the reconstitution of the strong state; it will not be easy, for example, to disarm these masses. The present task of the vanguard in Lebanon is precisely to give an impetus to an independent movement of the toiling masses in order to prevent the bourgeoisie of all stripes and the Syrian leaders from realizing their objectives at the expense of the thousands of workers and fighters who have fallen victim to confessional blindness. March 5, 1976
17
The Zionist army. is certainly a reactionary one, but it is a "popular" army nevertheless. The armies of the Arab regimes, on the other hand, are not. Without exaggerating too much, one can affirm that the same paradox existed in the Lebanese civil wart The popular mobilization in the reactionary camp was far more effective than the popular mobilization in the opposing camp. In itself, this fact is a reflection of the bankruptcy of the dominant forces in the antireactionary camp and, more particularly, of the forces of the Lebanese left. The reactionary Lebanese militias are not mercenary armies, even though they do resort to the services of mercenaries for tasks of technical organization and training. It is impossible to deny the fact that the reactionary right in Lebanon was able to benefit from genuine mass support; this support may be explained, but it cannot be denied. The explanation for it lies in the deep ideological and even psycholagical motivation of the Maronite Christion masses; the sociological explanation is only partially correct. The Maronite masses are deeply motivated by their confessionalism. It is not so much religious fanaticism as a pronounced particularism, a ghetto mentality, the sentiment of being a minority that lives in an environment that is perceived as foreign and hostile. Some far-right grouplets go so far as to call this particularism "nationalism, * elaborating a theory of a so-called Lebanese nation, allegedly secular but actually based on confessionalism. Historically, Maronite confessionalism is combined with a pro-West attitude, but its intensity has not been constant. There have been ups and downs in consonance with the political evolution of Lebanon and the Arab region. One thing, however, is certain: Maronite confessional ism has been stimulated by the Maronite faction of the Lebanese comprador bourgeoisie every time social struggles in Lebanon or anti-imperialist national struggles in the Arab region have experienced an upsurge. This confessionalism, moreover, completely reveals its actual non-religious, politically reactionary character. For example, one of the great heros of the Christian Maronites has always been King Hussein of Jordan, who is nevertheless a descendant of the family of the prophet of Islam.
Today, Sadat has taken his place in the hierarchy of Maronite heros. 18