The Lebanese Civil War

Abstract

In April 1975, a small incident in the Beirut suburb of Ain al-Rummanah sparked off a civil war which was to destroy the fragile unity of Lebanon. It also set a pattern for over fifteen years whereby the Lebanon became the proxy battlefield for the Arab-Israeli conflict and, just as importantly, for a number of destructive inter-Arab conflicts and disputes. As such, the Lebanese civil war, which lasted until autumn 1976, can be considered as the antithesis of the Rabat Summit. While Rabat had been a visible demonstration of Arab unity and collective Arab purpose, the Lebanese civil war highlighted the continuing salience of Arab disunity and the political and ideological tensions in inter-Arab relations. Both at Rabat and in Lebanon, the PLO played a central and formative role. However, while at Rabat the PLO had been the catalyst for forging an Arab unity around the Palestine question, in Lebanon it was a principal cause of a violent intra-Arab conflict which was to destroy much of Lebanon’s social fabric.