The Levantine Crescent:    Israel | Jordan | Lebanon | Palestine | Syria

Under the Ottoman Empire, the Damascus Senjak (region) comprised today’s Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Transjordan. When the French came in, during the 1920 Mandate, they created a separate region which separated predominantly Moslem Syria and Turkish Antakia from the melange of religious communities, mostly Christian, which had grown up around Mount Lebanon and the Mediterranean coast. Before the partition which created Israel, pundits pointed approvingly to the creation of Lebanon as a model for the Jewish state. If centuries of Christian/Moslem squabbling could be eliminated with a little judicious redistricting in Lebanon, then surely it would work in Palestine. But, alas, time and circumstance intervened, and the ancient lands of Phoenicia soon became embroiled in a long and bloody civil war.

Since the 5th century there have been Christians around Mount Lebanon; to this day Lebanon’s Maronite Catholics are the only church which still uses the Syro-Aramiac language spoken by Jesus and his disciples. St. Maron came there to escape strife in Antioch; his followers remained in the area. The rugged terrain offered them protection first against the Byzantine rulers who considered the Maronites heretics, then later against their Druze and Sunni Moslem neighbors. The Ottomans did little to quell this constant conflict, in accordance with their typical “divide and conquer” strategy. The French took a more active interest in the Maronite Christian community. When they drew up the new boundaries of Lebanon, they included not only the predominantly Christian area around Mt. Lebanon, but also the towns of Tripoli and Sidon and the fertile ground of the Bek’aa valley – areas which had a predominantly Moslem population. This “favor” would later result in a demographic nightmare, especially after 1948 when Lebanon found itself dealing with an influx of several hundred thousand Moslem refugees.

Under Lebanon’s constitution, power was to be shared between the various sects. The specifics of this led to immediate discontent, as Christians who made up 25% of the population controlled 40% of the Parlimentary seats. The Christian parties emphasized their “Phoenician” as opposed to their “Arabic” identity; they were traditionally right-wing, pro-Western and anti-Palestinian. Soon angry Palestinians joined forces with Lebanese Moslems in an effort to overthrow the Christians. In response, the Christians formed militias of their own, and by 1975 Lebanon was embroiled in a multifactional shooting spree.

As is all too often the case in this region, fighters on all sides received support from their neighbors. The Israelis favored the Christians and their Phalangist military, while the PLO, Syria and other Arab nations provided moral, financial, and materiel support to the Moslems. This only served to increase tensions. Things came to a head when Maronite President-Elect Bashir Gemayel was assassinated in 1982. After they were allowed into Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra and Shatilla by the Israelis, Phalangists retaliated by murdering some 500 Palestinians. The Americans came in to restore order – only to leave not long after a suicide bomber killed over 200 U.S. Marines. Then, despite UN resolutions urging them not to do so, the Israelis invaded south Lebanon and set up a “security zone” against continuing P.L.O. attacks. Finally, in 1990, the Syrians stepped in and enforced order with the aid of some 25,000 soldiers – soldiers who remain stationed in Lebanon.

This, like everything else in Lebanon, is the source of some controversy. On the one hand the Syrians have succeeded in maintaining order, and have tolerated no hanky-panky from Christians, Moslems, or Druze. The loud anti-Syrian and anti-Moslem rhetoric which was once so much a part of Maronite politics has become muted, as Lebanon tries to recover from a war which claimed over 150,000 lives and did irreparable damage to a country once known as “the Switzerland of the Levant” for its beautiful mountains and its well-established banks and businesses. Yet there is still considerable discomfort and nervousness about Syria’s future role in Lebanon. Syria’s miserable human rights record and dismal economy hardly give the Lebanese much to emulate, or to hope for. As for the Syrian government; it has never recognized the existence of an independent Lebanon, considering it just another province of Greater Syria. While Syria has recently withdrawn many of its troops, it has not withdrawn its claim on Lebanon… nor is Assad unaware of the recent alliances between anti-Syrian Christian and Druze leaders.

Lebanon has the misfortune of being trapped between giants, its future dependent not only on its leaders but on the course of world events. The Israelis left Lebanon in 2001; since that time, they have faced continued harassment and shelling from Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon and Syria. Most of Lebanon’s population has long since grown weary of fighting, and seeks only to rebuild after decades of chaos. Alas, the radicals still remain, as do many of the old sectarian grudges. As the situation worsens in the Middle East, it is likely that the Lebanese people will once again find themselves punished for the actions of others.