Nationalism and Politics in Lebanon
The Future Depends on Leadership and Regime Change
Mordechai Nisan
On Religion and State
In the 1943 National Pact, the distribution
of public office and power and representation in Lebanon was set forth for the
various communities: Maronite Christians would serve as president of the
Republic as well as the commander of the army, the prime minister was to be a
Sunni Muslim while his deputy a Catholic, and the speaker of the Parliament a
Shiite Muslim and his deputy an Orthodox Christian. This distribution of power
accorded with section 95 of the 1926 Lebanese constitution, and fixed the
confessional principle at the heart of public office despite the fact that the
same article called for the elimination of confessionalism, or religious
sectarianism, in politics.
The intention was thus to achieve a balance
between Christians and Muslims at the most senior political and military levels.
The 1989 Taif Agreement, orchestrated by the Saudis and the Syrians with key
American involvement as well, again called for removing confessionalism from
politics, while equalizing the status among the three “presidents” – the
Maronite president, the Sunni prime minister, and the Shiite parliamentary
speaker. This traditional Lebanese model of government froze the distribution of
political power and the political structure itself. Indeed, this arrangement
appeared appropriate to the pluralistic character of Lebanese society,
especially responding to the Christians’ anxiety for their fate in the Middle
East facing Muslim-Arab threats nearby.
The Parliament itself would, like the
government, be based on a confessional-religious political key. In the
beginning, the Christians enjoyed an edge of 6:5 deputies over the Muslims
(whose numbers confusingly include the Druzes). This numerical ration emerged
from the population census of 1932, which recorded a slight Christian majority
within Lebanon as a whole. In 1989 the Taif Accord equalized confessional
parliamentary representation, despite the widespread view that the Muslims were
enjoying a commanding demographic majority. The Chamber now is divided between
64 Christians (that include 34 Maronites) and 64 Muslims with equal membership of
27 for both the Sunnis and the Shiites respectively, eight Druzes and two
Alawites. Undoubtedly, the impressive legacy of the Maronite community as
founders of Lebanon, along with their educational achievements and economic
record, has granted them political primacy though their numbers have
proportionately dwindled.
The Shiite community, presently the largest
in Lebanon, attributes its growth to a very high birthrate. Their parliamentary
representation increased from 19 to 27 members, according to Taif, but this did
not satisfy their expectation and demand to carry greater political weight in
the country. As a result, Hizbullah, originally an extra-parliamentary group
though with parliamentary representation since the 1990s, provides a springboard
for radical Shiite supremacy within Lebanon as a whole.
It would seem correct to argue that
confessionalism in politics paralyzes the conduct of government in Lebanon.
Christians and Muslims maintain conflicting views and interests on a broad range
of domestic and foreign subjects. Developing national consensus is thereby a
difficult task. As a consequence, Lebanon as State and as Army remained on the
margins of the Arab-Israeli conflict and its wars, because Christians inclined
toward Israel while Muslims were disposed toward the Arabs. This political draw
prevented an active role for the Lebanese Army; and this paralysis is
illustrated against the background of the confessional balance of power:
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In 1958, the Lebanese Army declined to act
in the face of a civil war due to conflicting confessional interests –
Christians supported a foreign policy of the status-quo and a pro-West
orientation, while Muslims were enthusiastic about pan-Arab nationalism led by
Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser and his leftist and pro-Soviet
orientation.
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In 1969, the Lebanese Army succumbed in
the Cairo Agreement to the PLO armed presence in the country, which itself
undermined the sovereignty of the State.
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From 1975-1982, during the variegated war
within Lebanon, the government ceased to function as a centralized institution
for the following reasons: 1. Division between the Muslims and the Druzes on
the one hand - who sided with the Palestinians in their campaign against
Israel – and the Christians on the other hand who adopted an opposing
position. 2. Syria’s incremental domination over Lebanon and its institutions.
3. The dissolution of the Lebanese Army as an agent for order and security. 4.
The formation of the Lebanese Forces and the Lebanese Front as military and
civilian agents of the Christians in particular, parallel with the weakening
of the State institutions.
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From 1982-2000 and thereafter,
Hizbullah became a military-terrorist and a civilian-social force. Its
political status increased astoundingly while benefiting from intimate Syrian
and Iranian support, and in contrast to the withering of government in Beirut.
The Lebanese Army was defunct.
-
In 2006, after Hizbullah ambushed an
Israeli military patrol within Israel’s territory, a fierce war erupted
between this Shiite-Iranian organization and the State of Israel. The Lebanese
government and army played no demonstrable role, appearing perplexed and
disdained, while Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah ordered Hizbullah to fire short and
medium-range missiles into the Israeli north. Neither Lebanon’s president nor
prime minister took any authoritative decisions, rather Nasrallah in his
bunker directed Hizbullah’s private month-long war against Israel from within
Lebanese territory.
It is not uncommon for countries with
pluralist populations to act with less than determination in the face of
controversial and unresolved issues on the political agenda. Canada, for
example, found itself divided between her English and French communities
regarding military participation in the first two world wars. Switzerland, with
its varied population, has adopted a position of neutrality. In Lebanon, the
political communities agree not to agree instead of trying to shape and build a
shared identity and agreed-upon policies in the name of all communities and
their elite leaderships. As a result, the public space vacuum permitted violent
and insurgent forces, like the PLO in the 1970s and Hizbullah in the 1980s, to
erode and virtually destroy Lebanon’s independence, along with its historical
and normative national profile.
Is this really Lebanon, in its soul
and identity, peering from beneath the breakdown that has afflicted it for three
decades?!
The Political Reality of Lebanon
We would like to propose, in contrast to
the conventional view of a religious-ethnic standoff being at the heart of
controversy and conflict in Lebanon, that the real focus lies with political
issues. Lebanese nationalism, as an undercurrent in historical consciousness,
belongs not only to the Maronites and the Druzes as founding communities in
Mount Lebanon, but to all Lebanese communities. Religious identity is therefore
restricted and even secondary in importance in comparison with the inclusive and
comprehensive national identity as the first choice.
Let us clarify six basic points regarding
the national identity of Lebanon and its multiple political significances.
1. Cooperation between Christians and Muslims at the Base of
Lebanese Politics
Differences of religion and even religious
opposition have not prevented common efforts by Lebanese politicians. Beshar
al-Khoury the Maronite and Riad al Sulh the Sunni arrived at an agreement for
distributing political powers in 1943. Parallel to that Emil Edde, the Maronite
rival to al-Khoury, was supported by certain Sunni politicians concerning the
intra-Maronite leadership struggle. In the war in Lebanon in 1982, when Israel
applied great pressure to expel the Palestinian terrorists from Beirut, it was
in fact Sunni Prime Minister Shafiq el-Wazzan who worked to achieve this
objective. These few examples present a normative interpretation of the lack of
inter-religious conflict, without denying instances of such conflict which have
marred the tapestry of Lebanese politics and nationalism over the years. But
broadly speaking, Lebanese inhabitants from all communities have co-existed in
jointly inhabited villages, as have community elites cooperated in the political
arena. It would appear that so long as the politicians don’t interfere, the
people can get along very well.
That the politicians even today can also
get along we learn from two recent cross-confessional political alignments that
evolved in 2005-2006: the Sunni-Christian alliance between Sa`ad al-Hariri and
his Future Movement with Samir Geagea and the Lebanese Forces, and the
Christian-Shiite alliance between Michael Aoun and his Free Patriotic Current
with Hassan Nasrallah and the leader of Hizbullah.
2. Conflicts within Communities Characterize Lebanese
Politics
Family, clan, and party-political units,
striving for political power, have created severe struggles among members within
each community itself. In the 1960s, Saeb Salam and Rashid Karami confronted
each other for Sunni political leadership. Among notable Druze families, the Arslans and the Jounblatts competed intensely. Among the Maronites, political
rivalry descended at times into savage violence. For example, the Phalangists (Kata`ib)
under the leadership of the Jemayel family, decimated members of the Franjiyyeh
family in 1978. In 1980, in an attack on members of the Liberal Party led by the
Chamoun family, the Phalangists again carried out a massacre of their foes.
During the 1980s, the Shiites of Hizbullah and the rival Amel Party fought one
another mercilessly in the southern neighborhoods of Beirut. In the mid-1980s,
violent clashes erupted between the followers of Samir Geagea and Elie Houbeika
over the leadership of the (Christian) Lebanese Forces. The most severe
intra-communal bloodbath among the Maronites took place between LF Commander Geagea and General Michel Aoun, who commanded the Lebanese Army. Intra-Maronite
warfare ended in late 1990 with the collapse of the community and the completion
of Syrian occupation of Lebanon.
3. Lebanese Patriotism is Not the Exclusive Possession of Any
One Community
It is historically uncontestable that
without the determined and talented Maronite community, Lebanon would not have
been established in 1920 as a distinct national and political entity separate
from Syria. And yet the Maronites cannot claim that the value of patriotism
belongs to them alone. When the Maronite Michel Aoun declared a “war of
liberation” against Syrian occupation in 1989, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese
from all communities surrounded the palace at Ba`abda in enthusiastic solidarity
with him and his goal. Rafiq el-Hariri, the Sunni, was a focus of patriotic
sentiment when he tried to wrest Lebanese independence from Syrian claws, paying
no less with his life when assassinated in February 2005, apparently by Syrian
agents. Walid Jounblatt, the primary Druze figure, has for many years and with
great courage denounced Syria’s destructive interference in Lebanese affairs.
Indeed, Lebanese patriotism fills the hearts of many in that tragic and
beleaguered country’s recent history.
It is worth noting in this connection the
successful inter-confessional experiment within the South Lebanese Army which
functioned until its dissolution in the year 2000. Most of its soldiers were
Christian Maronites though its heroic commander from 1976-1984, Sa`ad Haddad, was
a Greek Catholic. Overall, the ranks of the SLA were filled by Christians,
Druzes, and even Shiites who fought – and in the many hundreds who were killed in
battle - alongside the Israeli Army, facing Palestinian terrorists and Hizbullah
guerrillas. Thus, the SLA authentically represented the nationalism and
patriotism of the Lebanese people.
4. A Civil War Did Not Break Out in Lebanon in 1975
Despite widespread opinion to the contrary,
the war that erupted in 1975 in Lebanon was not caused by inter-communal
divisions or confrontation among members of the different Lebanese communities.
On April 13th, following confrontations with the Lebanese Army, armed Palestinians-foreign residents within the country – opened fire with the intention of
murdering Pierre Jemayel and the persons surrounding him on the steps of a
church in the Ayn al-Rummaneh neighborhood of Beirut. That day,
Lebanese-Palestinian fighting erupted and escalated into a war between Lebanese
and non-Lebanese. The PLO and its various factions considered Lebanon easy prey
on the road to fulfilling their goals of overwhelming Lebanon and destroying
Israel. The subsequent Syrian intervention in the war added another alien
element pitting Lebanese against foreigners. We can not however ignore the fact
that the evolution of the war assumed, among other features, the face of a civil
war between Christians on the one hand and Muslims and Druze on the other. But
the pluralistic confessional character of Lebanon did not light the match that
set fire to this terrible war.
Moreover, when inter-communal fighting had
indeed escalated into warfare – as in 1958 and 1975 – this took place because
external intervention from the Arab world had caused this to occur. Even civil
wars in the middle of the 19th Century between Christians and Druzes
erupted when French conspiracies and Ottoman intrigues from without catalyzed
warfare within Lebanon.
5. Shared Electoral Lists among the Various Communities
General elections in Lebanon are conducted
according to the following rules: The country is divided into many electoral
constituencies and in each one the number and religious identity of the elected
representatives are pre-determined. For example, in the Matn, eight deputies are
elected and they include four Maronites, two Orthodox Christians, one Greek
Catholic and one Orthodox Armenian. In another example, the electoral
constituency Ba`albek-Hermel sends 10 representatives to the parliament in
Beirut, that includes six Shiites, two Sunnis, and one each representing the
Maronite and Orthodox communities. These electoral lists carry far-reaching
national and inter-communal significance, because in distinction from the image
of inter-communal clashes and competitions, they call for cooperation during the
election period and subsequently in the parliament. The essential competition is
therefore among members of the same community who appear on the different and
competing electoral lists.
The formation of the electoral lists is in
the hands of a predominant personality or a group of major political figures.
Members of all communities residing in the constituency vote, most frequently,
for proposed lists as promoted during the electoral campaign. Thus, voters from
all the communities give their support to candidates representing the different
communities. In southern Lebanon, in the Shiite stronghold, Hizbullah will
present a list of candidates that includes not only Shiites but also a Christian
candidate for Jezzine, who will subsequently be elected by the Shiite supporters
of this intensely Shiite party. In order for that particular Christian to be
elected, voters who favor him will also be voting for the Shiite candidates
adhering to Hizbullah doctrine, who appear on the same multi-confessional
electoral list. Other Christian candidates appearing on alternative lists will
compete for that single Christian seat in Jezzine. In another example, Druze
candidates appearing on different lists will compete for the single Druze deputy
to be elected in the Ba`abda constituency south of Beirut.
Therefore, the complex electoral system
both rests upon a confessional key while the mechanism and implementation of the
system contribute to alliances and coordination among candidates from among the
various communities. The government established following the elections will
also reflect the multiplicity of communities and their representation in the
executive branch. Despite debates and disagreements that will characterize the
conduct of cabinet business, this forum will illustrate the vitality of Lebanese
nationality in its unique form. Regarding the war between Hizbullah and Israel
in the summer of 2006, Sunni, Christian, and Druze ministers jointly adopted a
voluble anti-Hizbullah position.
6. A Maronite President is Everyone’s Preference
It has been broadly accepted over time
that, despite the relative decline of the Christian population, the Maronite
community continues to hold the office of president. This would seem to be the
optimal choice, at least now. From a political point of view, both Sunnis
and Shiites prefer that the office of the president not be given into the hands
of the other respective Muslim community. The Sunnis, for example, prefer a Maronite president rather than what would be perceived as a threatening and
fanatical Shiite one, who might threaten Sunni resources, status, and future in
Lebanon. The Druzes, numerically a small community, should prefer the Maronites
over the Muslims for both historical and religious reasons. The conclusion is
that a Maronite president constitutes no threat to any of the communities, and
thus this political arrangement has been widely accepted since Lebanon’s modern
foundation.
The Maronite patriarch, dwelling in Bekerke
north of Beirut, adds an additional spiritual component to the Maronite
community in the country. The patriarch indeed is considered to be the Patriarch
of Lebanon and not just of the Maronites. People of all faiths visit him and
seek his counsel, in a way in which religion and politics carry their special
national flavor in the Lebanese arena.
The Missed Revolution and the Third Republic
The assassination of Rafiq el-Hariri in
February 2005 led to the extraordinary anti-Syrian demonstration in Beirut a
month later on March 14th attended by a quarter of Lebanon’s
population, with the participation of Muslims, Christians and Druzes alike. The
“Cedars Revolution” was thus born in defiance of foreign occupation and
oppression that Damascus had exercised over Lebanon for three decades. During
the following months of April and May, supported by increasing international
pressure upon Syria, Lebanon witnessed the withdrawal of Syria’s army, and
thereafter the holding of general elections. Fouad Saniora formed a new
government in July and it seemed that major change was coming. But hopes were
dashed and the situation worsened. A series of assassinations and assassination
attempts, with suspicion directed at Bashar Asad, Syria’s president, indicated
that Lebanon was not as yet to enjoy full security and sovereignty.
Except for Pierre Jemayal, son of the
former president of the same name, all ministers of the new government had been
in one way or another connected to former Lebanese governments during the period
of Syrian occupation. Moreover, for the first time two ministers from Hizbullah
were members of the government and a third, foreign minister Fawzi Saloukh, was
appointed with the blessing of Hassan Nasrallah. Not surprisingly, both
President Emil Lahoud and Speaker of the Parliament Nabil Berri continued to
maintain their political posts. Syria and Iran pursued their interventionist
strategies unhindered with the transfer of military matériel to
Hizbullah. Likewise, Hizbullah defined the political and ideological tone toward
Israel by propagating its “resistance” to Israeli occupation of the Shaaba
Farms.
Lebanon’s revolution manquée lacked
an ideological compass, suffered from the absence of a new constitution or
regime, without new policies and without new leaders. Mediocre and corrupt
politicians dominated the public scene as before. Lebanon was in dire need of a
pure leader who loved his people, tradition, and land, a patriot whose record
demonstrated these noble ideals. Without such a singular leader, there could be
no true revolution or liberation from the polluted politics of egoism,
cowardice, and treason – and from foreign involvement that eroded the integrity
of Lebanese culture and political freedom.
The political blockage in Lebanon stands in
sharp contrast to the lessons of political change that occurred in other
countries. Lech Walesa in Poland symbolized and led a sweeping change when the
Communist regime was thrown into the dustbin of history, as Vaclav Havel did in
the Czech Republic, and so too Nelson Mandela in South Africa. The multitudes
that congregated in Martyr’s Square in Beirut in March 2005 failed to move from
a mass popular demonstration to then proceed to seize the Presidential Palace at
Ba`abda in order to throw out Emil Lahoud. Ever more so, the Lebanese voted in
the 2005 elections according to the constituencies’ map that had been imposed
earlier by Syria, detrimental to the Christian communities and their political
representation.
Indifference, weakness, and fear
characterized the Lebanese people with the eruption of war between Israel and
Hizbullah in July 2006, this following the Shiite movement’s provocations and
attacks against Israel. As a result of intense Israeli aerial attacks, tens of
thousands fled from the south to Beirut – while the government failed to direct
the course of affairs and take political matters into its own hands. There was
no effective leadership in Beirut, because Hizbullah ruled all of Lebanon.
Instead of the government acting responsibly to disarm Hizbullah of its weapons
- according to the 1989 Taif Agreement and UN Security Council Resolution 1559
from 2004 – Hizbullah succeeded in crushing Lebanon into political smithereens.
The establishment of a strong and
responsible government requires a clarification of Lebanese nationality and
nationalism. The question to be asked is: To what degree are all of the Lebanese
bound by a shared common ethos that defines and distinguishes Lebanon from her
neighbors? An initial response would illuminate the following: Lebanon is
a land of refuge for small and persecuted communities who differ from the
surrounding Arab environment – for Maronites and Armenians, Druzes and the
Shiites. This is a country made famous for its cultural vitality, robust media
and commercial savvy, seeking liberty and peace. Lebanon’s political identity
rejected false and smothering pan-Arabism and fanatical Islam. Unlike the Arab
states, she was historically free of dictatorship and oppression. Those Lebanese
who had initially opposed a separate Lebanese entity in the 1920s would not
dream today of union with Syria and its repressive Arabism. Despite years of
suffering, the sons and daughters of Lebanon will not change her for another.
Is There a Real Leader on the Horizon?
Every people that respects itself, and
certainly that has gone through the trials and tribulations as the Lebanese
people have, needs a leader who will express its yearnings and dreams,
especially in such difficult times. No such leader has yet ascended the
political stage in Beirut. Abu Arz, Lebanese freedom-fighter from 1975 who
established and led the Guardians of the Cedars Party, recently wrote from
his place of exile with poignancy and desperation about the political arena and
its players, and generally on Lebanon’s condition:
...the need for a new
state...to come in place of this defective government and its political
leaders [February 17, 2006]...The Lebanese people dream of a president who
will be cast in the image of a hero and holy man [March 25, 2006]...The
addiction of the politicians to crawl to the gates of foreign capitals [April
1, 2006]...We are surprised how American and European leaders and officials
continue [after the beginning of the war on July 12, 2006] to deal with the
corrupt and failed political level...and what solutions can we ask from those
who are the cause of pushing the country into the pit that it is in...and how
people still rely on this political echelon whose members are divided when
they meet, lie when they promise, deceive when they talk, and stick a knife
into the back of those who believe in them, treasonous when they rule. The
saying, that the people get the leaders they deserve, is not correct. The
opposite: the leaders must be worthy of the people. So what are you waiting
for? [July 28, 2006].1
Lebanon’s “satanic sectarianism” is not the
problem. The problem is a lack of leadership, or more exactly, the absence of a
leader who will guide the entire Lebanese people from servitude to freedom, from
division to unity, from hatred to love, from war to peace.
In the beginning of the 17th
century, Fakhr al-din II led Mount Lebanon by allying the Maronites and the
Druzes to fight courageously against the Syrians and the Arabs. His efforts
consummated in a Lebanese state from the area of Aleppo in the north toward
Haifa in the south.
In the beginning of the 19th
century, Bashir II the Shihabi, in leading Mount Lebanon, asserted the country’s
independence from the Ottoman Turks.
In the beginning of the 21st
century, a leader with uncontestable requisite stature, to unite all of Lebanon
and repulse enemies within and without, is the political order of the day. The
strengthening and renewal of a centralized government in Beirut would save
Lebanon from total internal collapse. Following the first republic (1926-1943)
and the second republic based on Taif from 1989, a third republic waits in the
political wings of modern Lebanese history. A new regime will prohibit political
parties with foreign agendas and programs that deny the territorial and national
integrity of Lebanon, like the Ba`ath and the Syrian Social National Party.
Thereby Lebanon will clarify that she is not a part of the Arab world, or at the
least not subjugated to it, despite many points of contact between the two.
Meanwhile, high-level leaders and
officials, both American and Israeli, advocate accommodating and accepting the Saniora government rather than weakening it, based on the assumption that it has
the capability and certainly the authority to find the solution concerning the
crisis regarding Hizbullah and the war with Israel. In truth, the Saniora
government is the problem and not the solution. After Security Council
Resolution 1701 determined the need for an international force in southern
Lebanon, it would seem that this step delayed dealing directly and immediately
with the root malaise of government in Beirut. For the real test facing Lebanon
requires a fundamental change that would make of the president and the
government sovereign decision-makers in the state. Distant diplomacy cannot
replace political healing at home.
The sluggish Lebanese revolution requires a
political boost-stage that only a great leader can provide. It is not reasonable
that Michel Aoun, former commander of the army, who in February 2006 signed an
agreement with Hizbullah and no less praised the movement’s role in defending
Lebanese territory against Israel in the July war, is the kind of personality to
launch the necessary change. The real leader, when he appears on the scene, will
implement UN resolutions calling for disarming Hizbullah, while the national
army assumes full control of order and security in the south. In fact,
stationing the national army in the south represents a major achievement for
Lebanon and its sovereignty, while the gain for Israel, to the degree there is
one, is not the heart of the matter at all.
If Abu Arz would hold the reins of power in
Ba`abda, he would undoubtedly send Shiite soldiers from the national army to
disarm Hizbullah. This daring move would reflect the texture and strength of
Lebanese nationalism for all to see. In the opinion of Abu Arz, religion does
not block or limit the scope of patriotism. In this regard it is for each person
within Lebanese society to believe in the special narrative of Lebanon, its land
and people. There is no greater and authentic Lebanese than Abu Arz to recount
the national tale with pathos and faith to the Shiite community in Nabatiya,
Beirut, and Baalbek.
* * *
Let us conclude with an anecdote that Abu
Arz related about a conversation he had with former Lebanese President Suleiman
Franjiyyeh, in 1978. Abu Arz was a young man then, approximately half the age of
his interlocutor. Franjiyyeh remarked with desperation that it is necessary to
divide Lebanon, suffering from conflict between Christians and Muslims, because
“a country with two heads [a Maronite president and a Sunni prime minister]
cannot live.” Abu Arz wanted to reply with: “If there really was one head, there
would be no need for another head – but Lebanon never had one real head.”
But rather than this definitive (and humiliating) response, Abu Arz chose to
explain that it is impossible to divide Lebanon, not geographically -
considering the lay of the land with its mountains and valleys and the proximity
of villages inhabited by different communities – and ever more so
confessionally, because of the very existence of mixed villages and towns
(Christian-Muslim, Druze-Maronite). But then Abu Arz added another dimension to
rejecting Franjiyyeh’s call for political division, and said: “If you succeed to
divide Lebanon, I will go live with the other side [the Muslims]. That’s because
in the Christian-Maronite state, they [the Christians] will kill each other.”
These words astounded Franjiyyeh, causing
him to jerk forward, his cigarette in the holder dangling from his mouth.
Subsequent developments however validated what he had heard from Abu Arz. Within
two months, savage violence struck the Maronite community from within in a fight
that became a massacre: Phalangists mercilessly killed 33 people including
Suleiman’s son, Tony, at the family home, in Ehden in northern Lebanon.
Recently, an enthusiastic and steadfast
activist from the Guardians of the Cedars in Beirut stated: “Without Abu Arz,
there is no Lebanon.”
Maybe his moment has finally arrived.
* * *
Endnote
-
Taken from the Guardians of
the Cedars Internet site
www.gotc.org. For an article written by Etienne Sakr (Abu Arz) see, “The
Politics and Liberation of Lebanon”, MERIA, volume 9, number 4,
December 2005.