With the anti-Syrian protests underway in Lebanon right now grabbing the headlines, a reader asked for some background on the situation and an explanation of the various factions involved. The purpose of this post is to provide that background.

THE OTTOMAN ERA (1517-1918)
It might be said that modern Lebanon has its roots in the centuries of Ottoman rule. Historically, what is now Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan were all part of what might be called “Greater Syria.” (Although Palestine, and Jerusalem especially, was often occupied by whatever power dominated Egypt.) The coastal cities of Syria had a history of sea-borne commerce that stretched back into ancient times, and this helped set them off somewhat from the Syrian hinterland.

This differentiation was accentuated over time by two interrelated factors. One, the coastal areas Islamized much more slowly than interior areas, and they therefore remained more predominately Christian than Muslim. Two, during the Ottoman era there developed a system referred to as “the Capitulations.” This system essentially gave religious minorities of the empire autonomy from direct Ottoman rule, and subjected them to the civil and economic regulation of a European power with which they identified religiously. The most prominent of these were the Christian Maronites of Lebanon, who, being close to Roman Catholicism, were protected by France. Although the capitulations were originally viewed as grants of autonomy made out of the munificence of the Sultan, with time they gave European powers and their local allies almost total legal and economic immunity from Ottoman rule. By the 19th century the Christian areas around Mount Lebanon were more a colony of France than the Ottomans, especially in the 1861-1914 period (following a massacre of Christians which took place in 1860).

THE PERIOD OF EUROPEAN COLONIALISM (1918-1932)
Formal European rule of Lebanon was relatively brief. During the First World War the Allies took over Syria, including Lebanon, from the Ottomans, and French rule was eventually agreed to (it had been presaged by the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916). The original plan was for France to have direct rule under the League of Nations Mandate System in Lebanon, and a more indirect protectorate in Syria, which was to be ruled by Feisal, son of Hussein, Sharif of Mecca. The French kicked Feisal out of Syria in 1920, and he went to rule as king of Iraq.

Lebanon was given independence in 1932 (French rule in Syria lasted only a few years longer) under a constitution which gave Christians, mainly Maronites, majority control and the presidency, with the prime ministership going to Sunni Arabs. This left the Shia Arabs, and the Druze, a heretical sect of Islam, with little power. Even so, it was rigged in favor of the Maronites, as the census which gave them a majority was thought to have over-counted the more urban Christian population, and even if it did not, higher rates of fertility among Muslims and emigration among Christians made them at most a plurality very quickly. The demographic balance was further shifted in favor of Muslims in 1948 when 150,000 Palestinian refugees settled in Lebanon following their losing war with the Israelis. Nevertheless, this precarious political arrangement survived until the civil war of the 1970s made what was once the “Switzerland of the Middle East” into a byword for a war zone.

MODERN LEBANON
Despite some trembles, in particular in 1958, Lebanon held together until 1975 through their “National Pact.” Part of the undoing was simply the accumulated pressures over time, as it became increasingly clear that the Christians were not only not the majority, but were not really even close. While Christian Palestinians were assimilated, this was not true as to Muslim Palestinians. In 1970, Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) were kicked out of Jordan and set up camp in Lebanon. This added another pressure point to the system. Furthermore, the Shia Muslims were gaining in population, and they began demanding a greater share of the power.

The entire structure blew apart in 1975, and Lebanon was plunged into civil war. Syria intervened in the following year, thus beginning the Syrian presence which is the focus of the current crisis. Although Syria’s ruler, Hafez Assad, originally favored the Muslims, he turned on them when they (and the PLO) rejected a ceasefire he had arranged, and essentially beat them into submission.

Yet the civil war continued, and a new dimension was added when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 in order to drive out the PLO, which was sponsoring attacks on Israel. The conflict that ensued brought about not only the PLO’s ejection from Lebanon (to Tunisia), but also Hizbullah, a Shia terrorist organization supported by Iran and Syria. Israel largely withdrew from Lebanon in 1985, except for a small strip in the south, and in 1999 it withdrew from this buffer zone as well. Syria maintained troops in Lebanon during the 1980s and 1990s, purportedly to maintain Lebanon’s stability and to free southern Lebanon from Israel, but in reality to loot Lebanese and to pressure Israel into returning land taken from Syria in the 1967 war by supporting Hizbullah.

The civil war was largely ended by the Taif Accords in 1989. Rafik Hariri, a wealthy Sunni businessman, was elected Prime Minister in 1992, a position he retained until 1998. Hariri, who was widely credited with the rebuilding of Lebanon following the civil war, was elected again in 2000 but resigned in September 2004 to protest Syria’s continued control over Lebanon’s political process. Simultaneously, Lebanon’s Syria-controlled parliament extended the term of the pro-Syria Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, and a joint U.S.-French resolution demanding Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon was endorsed by the United Nations. Hariri, who was said to be planning to run again on an anti-Syrian platform, was assassinated on February 14. That essentially brings matters up to the present time.

The contemporary factions, then, include the Christians (mainly Maronites and Greek Orthodox), the Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, the Druze, and unassimilated Palestinian refugees. If Syria can be ejected, and something like a democratic settlement can be reached, expect that power will be largely shared by the former three groups. The main keys to Lebanon’s future stability, aside from keeping Syria out, will be containing Hizbullah and repatriating the Palestinians that remain in the country, preferably to an independent Palestinian state, if the conflict to the south is ever resolved.

Contributed by Kirk H. Sowell at Window on the Arab World, and More!