Nadene Goldfoot
Why was it that Lebanon fell for Hezbollah and lost their government to them? It's Hezbollah that rules. How is the Lebanese army every going to stand up to Hezbollah and be a barrier for Israel if that is to be the intention?
Lebanon was a unique country in this sea of an Islamic population. A neighbor of Israel, Jews have had homes there since bible days. They had good relations with the king when Solomon built the Temple, buying cedar tree wood from Lebanon. Lebanese forces invaded Israel during their War of Independence of 1948, though. In 1944 there were 6,261 Jews living there. Syrian Jews then joined them. By 1964 there were 5,000 to 7,000 Jews living in Lebanon. After 1967 most moved to Israel. 1,000 remaining by 1975 left during the Lebanon Civil War and by 1990 only 100 remained.
Politics in Lebanon is based on a sectarian power-sharing structure created on independence from France in 1943. The constitution guarantees all 18 religious sects in the country are ensured representation in government, the military, and the civil service.
Christian Lebanese made up a minority population that existed alongside the Muslims. Religion plays a crucial and somewhat paralyzing role.
A Maronite Christian must serve as president,
a Sunni Muslim as prime minister and
a Shia Muslim as the speaker of Parliament.
Pierre Amine Gemayel, also spelled Jmayyel, Jemayyel or al-Jumayyil ( 6 November 1905 – 29 August 1984), was a Lebanese political leader. A Maronite Catholic, he is remembered as the founder of the Kataeb Party (also known as the Phalangist Party), as a parliamentary powerbroker, and as the father of Bachir Gemayel and Amine Gemayel, both of whom were elected to the presidency of the republic in his lifetime.
Amine Pierre Gemayel born 22 January 1942) is a Lebanese politician who served as the 8th president of Lebanon from 1982 to 1988. At the age of 40 years, Amine was the youngest president to take office.
He was born in Bikfaya to Pierre Gemayel, the founder of the Christian Kataeb Party (also known as the "Phalanges"). He worked as a lawyer, then was elected as a deputy for Northern Metn in 1970 by-election, following the death of his uncle, Maurice Gemayel, and once again in the 1972 general election. At the start of the Lebanese Civil War, the Phalanges were a member of the Lebanese Front, allied with Syria against the leftist National Movement. However, Syria became their enemy, while they started receiving the support of Israel.
This phase saw the rise of Amine's brother, Bachir, who had disputes with Amine about the military leadership, such as uniting the Christian militias by force. Endorsed by the United States and Israel, he was elected on 23 September as the eighth president.
In 1982,his brother, Bachir, was elected to presidency, but was assassinated before taking office. Bachir Pierre Gemayel ( 10 November 1947 – 14 September 1982) was a Lebanese militia commander who led the Lebanese Forces, the military wing of the Kataeb Party, in the Lebanese Civil War and was elected President of Lebanon in 1982. He founded and later became the supreme commander of the Lebanese Forces, uniting major Christian militias by force under the slogan of "Uniting the Christian Rifle".
Gemayel allied with Israel and his forces fought the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Syrian Army. He was elected president on 23 August 1982, but he was assassinated before taking office on 14 September, via a bomb explosion by Habib Shartouni, a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. Gemayel re-organized the Lebanese Army, receiving support from the Multinational Force in Lebanon and despite fierce internal opposition, he reached the May 17 Agreement with Israel in 1983, which stipulated the withdrawal of the Israeli forces and ending the state of war between the two countries, but didn't ratify it. Under his command, the army, allied with the Lebanese Forces, clashed with Jammoul, a Syrian-backed alliance led by the Druze Walid Jumblatt, in what is known as the Mountain War. By the end of the conflict, the government suffered heavy defeat, and lost control over wide areas of Mount Lebanon. It was followed by February 6 Intifada, where the army was expelled out of West Beirut, and disintegrated into sectarian groups.
All religious sects are represented in the government, the military and the civil service, and political parties are "defined more by religious affiliations than economic or social policy".
The system may look like an attempt to "ensure equality", but it is more of a "division of power between the elites" rather than a recipe for "ensuring good governance". The effect is a "weak, corrupt, patronage-based system", and a government "largely made up of competing bureaucratic fiefdoms rather than a single unit attempting to govern the Lebanese state".
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