History. – According to Health-Beauty-Guides.com, the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, which took place from March 14 to June 13, 1978 – and which was followed by the creation, along the border with Israel, of a “ security belt ” entrusted, after the withdrawal of the forces of Tel Aviv, to a pro-Israeli militia led by Major Sa’ad Ḥaddād -, confirmed the condition of tension, instability and confusion that dominated the country. Nor does the installation in the South of United Nations contingents (UNIFIL, United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), nor the resolution of the Arab League for the continuation of the FAD (Arab Forces of Dissuasion), mainly made up of Syrian elements (26 October), substantially changed the situation, marked by a fragile balance and permanently put to the test by the opposition of alignments now incompatible with each other.
In fact, a legal government continued to exist, formed according to the criteria of the National Pact of 1943, which under the guidance of moderate Islamic personalities (Šafīq al-Wazzān, Rašīd Karāmī – assassinated in June 1987 -, Salīm al-Ḥuṣṣ) repeatedly, as inane, attempted to summon the forces in contrast to the democratic confrontation. But the far right of the Liberal National Party and the Falange (which became hegemonic with the force action of 6-10 July 1980 against the Liberal National since the mid-1970s by Labor governments and became massive with Begin’s rise to power in 1977, especially after his second electoral victory in 1981), he worked more and more explicitly for a different political order or at least to take power over a Christian canton. Faced with the Phalangist dynamism, even the center and left parties (eg the Progressive Socialist Party of Druze W. Ǧumblāṭṭ and the Communists) set up their own military structures. With the impetus given to the entire Islamic world by the Iranian revolution, particularly in the Shiite component, this sector of Lebanese society – the poorest from an economic point of view – got underway, giving life to its own political-military organizations (for eg the moderate Shiite Party Ǧumblāṭṭ and the Communists) set up their own military structures. With the impetus given to the entire Islamic world by the Iranian revolution, particularly in the Shiite component, this sector of Lebanese society – the poorest from an economic point of view – got underway, giving life to its own political-military organizations (for eg the moderate Shiite Party Ǧumblāṭṭ and the Communists) set up their own military structures. With the impetus given to the entire Islamic world by the Iranian revolution, particularly in the Shiite component, this sector of Lebanese society – the poorest from an economic point of view – got underway, giving life to its own political-military organizations (for eg the moderate Shiite Party Amal, led by Nabīh Barrī, and the extremist Shiite Party Ḥ izb Allāh). Finally, to complete the summary picture of the shattering that characterized the Lebanon at the beginning of the 1980s, the Palestinian guerrillas of the PLO, attested in particular in the South and in the capital, should be mentioned.
In this climate, referring to the claims on Lebanon which still dated back to the 1950s, the state of Israel judged it possible, with a new invasion (the ” Peace in Galilee ” operation), to achieve more results: the elimination of Palestinian guerrillas and the political disappearance of the PLO; the downsizing of Syria with the end of its hegemony over the Lebanese area; the establishment of a friendly regime in the country under the Phalangist leadership, which would have allowed the stipulation of an alliance and a normalization somewhat analogous to the Camp David agreements with Egypt. The Lebanon, however, was put to sword and fire for three years, from June 1982 to May 1985, when the Israelis retreated into the security zone, where the militia they financed was attested.
Questionable were the results achieved in this period by the presence in Beirut of the US, Italian, French and British soldiers of the multinational force. The results of the conferences in Geneva (31 October-4 November 1983) and Lausanne (12-20 March 1984) were inconsistent, in an attempt to re-establish a perspective of common work among the Lebanese parties. All things considered, the advantages for Israel of having imposed the appointment as President of the Republic, just conquered Beirut, before B. Bašīr al-Ǧumayyil (Gemayel), head of the Falange, and then, after the death of these in a attack, by his brother Amīn: on March 6, 1984 the Lebanese government abrogated the peace treaty with Israel that A. Ǧumayyil had signed on May 17, 1983.
However, it should be emphasized that on the Lebanon, torn and divided, many external forces continued to press: the Palestinians of the PLO (on which Syria repeatedly tried to impose itself), who in order to maintain their remaining positions unscrupulously swayed between the various camps; Syria itself, which many Lebanese groups regarded as the only force capable of guaranteeing some prospect of independence and which by now was deeply involved in the fate of Lebanon; the Israelis who, not intending to give up their positions, continued to provide aid and support to the right; other Arab states which, out of rivalry with Damascus, tried to interfere in local affairs (῾Irāq).
When al-Ǧumayyil’s presidential term expired on 23 September 1988, faced with the need to choose his successor, all internal differences and external interference reappeared. Al-Ǧumayyil, shortly before the end of his post, unexpectedly appointed gen. M. ῾Awn (Aoun), while legal government continues to exist. ῾Awn locked himself up in the neighborhoods of Beirut and some nearby ports, effectively attempting to create an independent entity. Thus reopened the clash between the right-wing on the one hand, and the moderate and left-wing groups supported by Syria on the other, a clash that was unsuccessfully tried to resolve with reciprocal and repeated bombardments of artillery. The Arab League Summit, held in Casablanca in May 1989, also
At this point, a series of internal solicitations and rethinking and external pressures led to the convocation of the remainder of the Parliament elected in 1972 in Ṭā’if, Saudi Arabia, in September-October 1989, to elaborate a project of national revival. In fact, the majority of the Arab League (in particular Syria and Saudi Arabia), the government of Teherān, the Maronite patriarch Naṣr Allāh Ṣfayr with the apostolic nuncio P. Fuente, and the administration of the United States. The agreements of Ṭā᾽if, which tended to overcome the bottlenecks and anachronisms of the National Pact of 1943 by launching incisive constitutional reforms in a secular-liberal sense, allowed the election of the new President of the Republic (November 5) in the person of R. Mu’waḍ, who, however, was killed in an attack after a few days. On November 26, E. Hrawi was elected president of the Republic.
Unexpectedly, then, a pressure for the resolution of the internal Lebanese crisis came from the serious tension created in the Arabian Gulf with the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and the subsequent intervention against ῾Irāq by Washington and its allies, among which stood out Syria: that is, the need emerged from the anti-Iraqi coalition to eliminate the enclave controlled by ῾Awn as soon as possible with the support, among other things, of Baghdād. On 13 October 1990, a joint Syrian-Lebanese military action quickly liquidated all resistance, sweeping away the separatist plan: ῾Awn, who took refuge in the French Embassy, then moved to France.
Overall remaining on the margins of the Gulf War, Lebanon was able to engage in normalization with a long-term program: reopening between the Christian and Muslim sectors of the capital, demobilization of the various militias, reconstitution of the regular army, resettlement of refugees in the places of origin, start of the reconstruction. On December 19, 1990, O. Karāmī, son of the late leader, obtained the post of prime minister which he held until May 1992, when he was forced to resign due to unrest due to the economic crisis. He was replaced by Rašīd al-Ṣulḥ, who had to lead the country in the difficult test of the electoral consultation of August-October 1992. Despite the boycott of some Christian groups, the new Parliament (increased to 128 seats) managed to constitute itself: even three women were elected. On October 31 Rafīq al-Ḥarīrī, an influential businessman, was appointed chairman of the Council of a government of 30 members, committing himself primarily to the liberation of the South from the Israeli presence and to economic revitalization.
Indeed, the new government of Beirut assumed a firm attitude in the face of the expulsion in December 1992 of over four hundred Palestinians by Israel, which intended to transfer them to Lebanon: their entry into the country was prevented and the deportees remained camped in the ” no man’s land ” between the security belt and the area controlled by the Lebanese army. The expulsion of the Palestinians, who were subsequently allowed to return in batches, temporarily blocked the negotiation process underway since October 1991 between Israel, the United States, Syria, Jordan and a Palestinian representation of the territories occupied in 1967. Founded essentially on bilateral negotiations between Tel Aviv and the individual Arab interlocutors, this process resumed in April 1993, undergoing a breakthrough in September with mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. Regarding the negotiations between Israel and the Lebanon, the main problem remained the Israeli occupation of the security belt; it fueled an endemic conflict with Lebanese and Palestinian guerrilla forces, against whose bases Tel Aviv launched frequent attacks in southern Lebanon: particularly violent were those of July 1993, the largest since the 1982 invasion.
