SherriMunnerlyn
VIP Member
- Jun 11, 2012
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"The Lebanese civil war was a long and high intensity violent conflict that lasted from 1975 to the early nineties when the Taïf*(Saudi Arabia)*accords were signed and ratified in 1989. The tiny county of 10453 km2,*once known as the “Paris” of the Near East, still is a powder keg ready to explode in sporadic or sustained violence. The Lebanese civil war was in fact inevitable from the day the French Mandate took over the region known as Greater Syria. They carved a country out of historical Syria to create a homeland tailor -made for their traditional clients, the Christian Catholics called Maronites. The socio-political very complex and archaic system based upon religion that was worked out and survived to post colonial times, contained the seeds of guaranteed and interminable conflict and violence."
"It is very difficult to put a specific date to the end of the Lebanese civil war, but the official start has a very infamous date: April 13, 1975, when the Christian right wing Phalangist militiamen stopped a bus full of Palestinians returning from a celebration and passing through the working class suburb of Ain El Remmaneh. The Phalangist, in retaliation to an earlier attack on Christians, opened fire with automatic firearms, killing the mostly civilian passengers to death. The country was in total chaos and the civil war was “officially” on. The bus attack was the prelude to the indiscriminate attacks, killings and horrible violence."
"Broadly speaking, the Lebanese civil war is often thought and described as an inter-sectarian bloody conflict between the mostly right wing Christians, against a coalition of Muslim and leftist forces allied with the P.L.O. The War left hundreds of thousands dead, naturally mostly innocent civilians (no available official figure is possible). A long war, where the conservative Maronites did their best to resist change and fight for their very survival against the mostly Sunni, Druze, Shia and Palestinians. Therefore, “Christian against Muslim” became a common and somehow simplistic description of the Civil War. This narrative, however, disregards the fact that the warring sides were not monolithic or “pure” along ideology and religious lines. In this essay, I will argue that some of the most despicable, unpredictable and yet highly significant violence in Lebanon occurred within the “Christian” camp. These intra-Christian violence left more long lasting political schisms and consequence than say Maronite – Sunni killings, if we are to judge by the political affiliations and coalition of present day Lebanese politics. Old foes like mainstream Sunni and Phalange are now very close allies, while the various Maronite factions attacked by the Phalange are still bitter enemies."
Krikor Tersakian: The intra-Christian violence during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1989)
"It is very difficult to put a specific date to the end of the Lebanese civil war, but the official start has a very infamous date: April 13, 1975, when the Christian right wing Phalangist militiamen stopped a bus full of Palestinians returning from a celebration and passing through the working class suburb of Ain El Remmaneh. The Phalangist, in retaliation to an earlier attack on Christians, opened fire with automatic firearms, killing the mostly civilian passengers to death. The country was in total chaos and the civil war was “officially” on. The bus attack was the prelude to the indiscriminate attacks, killings and horrible violence."
"Broadly speaking, the Lebanese civil war is often thought and described as an inter-sectarian bloody conflict between the mostly right wing Christians, against a coalition of Muslim and leftist forces allied with the P.L.O. The War left hundreds of thousands dead, naturally mostly innocent civilians (no available official figure is possible). A long war, where the conservative Maronites did their best to resist change and fight for their very survival against the mostly Sunni, Druze, Shia and Palestinians. Therefore, “Christian against Muslim” became a common and somehow simplistic description of the Civil War. This narrative, however, disregards the fact that the warring sides were not monolithic or “pure” along ideology and religious lines. In this essay, I will argue that some of the most despicable, unpredictable and yet highly significant violence in Lebanon occurred within the “Christian” camp. These intra-Christian violence left more long lasting political schisms and consequence than say Maronite – Sunni killings, if we are to judge by the political affiliations and coalition of present day Lebanese politics. Old foes like mainstream Sunni and Phalange are now very close allies, while the various Maronite factions attacked by the Phalange are still bitter enemies."
Krikor Tersakian: The intra-Christian violence during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1989)
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