Lebanon
is back in the news. This tiny country on the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean Sea suddenly has America
and Europe issuing high-stakes demands on its
behalf. The Arab nations that traditionally support it, such as Syria,
are running for cover. The tumultuous last 50 years of its history have hidden
its origins and the causes of that tumult. But even a cursory examination
reveals that its current character and troubles stem from questions of
religion.
For most of
the last 2,300 years, Lebanon
has been part of Syria.
This began with Alexander the Great and the subsequent Hellenistic Syrian
Empire of the third century B.C., continued through the Roman and Byzantine
(Christian) empires and then into
the various Muslim empires after the seventh-century A.D.
Despite
this union, the northern-most end of the Great Rift Valley, which begins in
Africa, divides the territory of Lebanon from the rest of Syria. The valley, locally known as
the Beka (Biqa) Valley, has
mountain ranges on both sides. This isolation has given Lebanon a varied religious and cultural
development that differs significantly from Syria proper.
Rather than the strong Sunni Muslim majority found in
the rest of Syria, Lebanon
is home to large groups of Maronite Christians,
Shiite Muslims, and Druze. Sunnis make up only a quarter of the Lebanese
population.
From the
1500s to World War I, the Ottoman Empire ruled Lebanon. In the 1860s, after a
period of instability, European nations helped organize a political deal
between the two groups that made Lebanon,
and its capital Beirut,
into a stable haven for western-oriented and supported businesses, education
and scholarship.
After World War I, France controlled Syria
and Lebanon.
It ensured Lebanon remained
independent from Syria
to protect the Christians and other minority religious groups. When Lebanon
gained its independence in 1943, its political organization was founded on a
religious power-sharing agreement.
The president should be a Maronite
Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of parliament a
Shiite Muslim. The cabinet was to consist of six Christians and five Muslims.
This balance lasted until the civil war of 1975.
In 1975, a
different set of religious issues finally erupted. After the Israeli War of
Independence in 1948, Lebanon
acquired over 100,000 Palestinian refugees, mostly Muslim and a few Christian.
These settled in the southern part of the country. Over the decades, the number
of Palestinians increased. In 1971, Yasser Arafat,
the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and several hundred thousand
Palestinian refugees living in Jordan,
tried to overthrow King Hussein and make Jordan into a Palestinian state.
They failed and Jordan drove
them out into Lebanon.
In Lebanon,
the Palestinians became a destabilizing force and in 1975 the nation erupted
into civil war. The Christian militia, the Phlangists,
fought a coalition of Sunnis, Druze and Palestinians. With the Phlangists about to be defeated in 1976, Syria sent in 40,000 troops on
their side.
This ended the current hostilities. From that time, Syria
has effectively dominated the Lebanese government.
By 1978,
the Palestinians fired shells and rockets into northern Israel across the southern Lebanese
border. In 1978 and 1982, the Israeli army invaded Lebanon,
the second time advancing to Beirut
itself. Their allies were the Christian Phlangists.
Most of the PLO was evacuated out of Lebanon
then, with the assistance of the United States. Israel remained in control of southern Lebanon
until 2000, with most of the military activities being carried out by the Phlangists.
The gap
left by the evacuated PLO was filled by a new group, the Shiite organization
Hezbollah. Spreading their efforts into activities as diverse as poverty
alleviation and terrorism, Hezbollah became the de facto rulers of southern
Lebanese society. When the Israelis left in 2000, Hezbollah was credited with
their exit. When they quickly got the electricity and water running in the following
months, which the Israelis had never managed to do, they became a major player
in Lebanese politics.
This brief sketch provides an idea of the religious character of Lebanon
and of how political and military strategies and events are always funneled
through questions of religion.