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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Lebanon
Index
By the summer of 1970, attention turned to the upcoming
presidential election of August 17. Sulayman Franjiyah (also cited
as Franjieh), who had the backing of the National Bloc Party and
the center bloc in the Chamber of Deputies, was elected president
by one vote over Ilyas Sarkis, head of the Central Bank, who had
the support of the Shihabists (those favoring a strong executive
with ties to the military). Franjiyah was more conservative than
his predecessor, Hilu. A Maronite leader from northern Lebanon, he
had a regional power base resulting from clan allegiance and a
private militia. Although Franjiyah had a parochial outlook
reflecting a lack of national and international experience, he was
the choice of such persons as Kamal Jumblatt, who wanted a weaker
president than Sarkis would have been. Franjiyah assumed office on
September 23, 1970, and in the first few months of his term the
general political atmosphere improved.
The expulsion of large numbers of Palestinian guerrillas from
Jordan in late 1970 and 1971, as a result of severe clashes between
the Jordanian army and the PLO, had serious repercussions for
Lebanon, however. Many of the guerrillas entered Lebanon, seeing it
as the most suitable base for launching raids against Israel. The
guerrillas tended to ally themselves with existing leftist Lebanese
organizations or to form various new leftist groups that received
support from the Lebanese Muslim community and caused further
splintering in the Lebanese body politic. Clashes between the
Palestinians and Lebanese right-wing groups, as well as
demonstrations on behalf of the guerrillas, occurred during the
latter half of 1971. PLO head Arafat held discussions with leading
Lebanese government figures, who sought to establish acceptable
limits of guerrilla activity in Lebanon under the 1969 Cairo
Agreement.
The Chamber of Deputies elections in April 1972 also were
accompanied by violence. The high rate of inflation and
unemployment, as well as guerrilla actions and retaliations,
occasioned demonstrations, and the government declared martial law
in some areas. The government attempted to quiet the unrest by
taking legal action against the protesters, by initiating new
social and economic programs, and by negotiating with the guerrilla
groups. However, the pattern of guerrilla infiltration followed by
Israeli counterattacks continued throughout the Franjiyah era.
Israel retaliated for any incursion by guerrillas into Israeli
territory and for any action anywhere against Israeli nationals. An
Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon, for example, was made in
retaliation for the massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich
in September 1972. Of particular significance was an Israeli
commando raid on Beirut on April 10, 1973, in which three leaders
of the Palestinian Resistance Movement were assassinated. The
army's inaction brought the immediate resignation of Prime Minister
Saib Salam, a Sunni Muslim leader from Beirut.
In May armed clashes between the army and the guerrillas in
Beirut spread to other parts of the country, resulting in the
arrival of guerrilla reinforcements from Syria, the declaration of
martial law, and a new secret agreement limiting guerrilla
activity.
The October 1973 War overshadowed disagreements about the role
of the guerrillas in Lebanon. Despite Lebanon's policy of
noninvolvement, the war deeply affected the country's subsequent
history. As the PLO's military influence in the south grew, so too
did the disaffection of the Shia community that lived there, which
was exposed to varying degrees of unsympathetic Lebanese control,
indifferent or antipathetic PLO attitudes, and hostile Israeli
actions. The Franjiyah government proved less and less able to deal
with these rising tensions, and by the onset of the Civil War in
April 1975, political fragmentation was accelerating.
Data as of December 1987
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