Middle East Perspectives

Writing about the Middle East in general and Lebanon in particular, is not easy. Addressing all the challenges condensed in one book requires comprehensive and coherent knowledge to compile related reminiscences from beginning to end. No moment could be worse than the present one to advocate drastic analysis of what happened. Yet, from the author’s perspective as a contemporary observer, he recorded how the warlike spirit was being openly roused to a feverish heat against Israel as the first objective, with Lebanon becoming the arena of unbridled violence. With keen interests in what is perceived to be accomplished facts that may take years to refute. Still, an in depth delving into certain details of two decades of Lebanon’s history should prove more decisive, calling for equal analysis until the key players within this region are brought to their senses, rather than allow all the sacrifices of many wars to be lost in vain and Lebanon go down with it in economic ruin. We should regard the contemporary events in this country as useful experiences from which we and the region could learn valuable lessons.

The author endeavors to demonstrate that 1975-1988 proxy-war (or wars) in Lebanon was a force to be reckoned with in regional politics, but not a body of beliefs to be taken seriously. It was a war fought by others for others on the Lebanese arena, and its main purpose was to settle the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, something that both Palestinians and Lebanese always rejected. However, in fact, it was not Lebanese Christians fighting Lebanese Moslems, or vice versa, as the international media harped on the confessional side of the story. The media created a very bitter mood, any refutation at the time thought to be a betrayal of one’s religion, which would result in worse bloodsheds than ever before.

The silent majority in Lebanon continues to defeat the theories that 1975, and subsequent years, is no more a civil war than the disturbance of 1958 was a revolution. Full of whims, soon the combatants in Beirut and the beautiful mountains would condemn the older generation as secretly treacherous and heads would have to roll before they put things right. These young men must have believed themselves strong enough to conquer the world. Inasmuch as they would be the victors, international law had no sanctions that could apply to the customs of their armed conflicts. The proxy-wars in Lebanon have established not just a new government, but a multitude of regimes with differing agenda. The author, like so many, observed university students with no prior professional military training turning into colonels and generals. An era in which the Lebanese Army, bisected along sectarian lines, still refused to transform itself into a militia under the pressure of recent events.

In low spirits, long lines of young men and women seeking immigration visas were beginning to multiply. Executives, lawyers, engineers, academics, doctors, technicians, students, and even disgruntled militiamen began to flee.