Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis

249 Pages·2009·3.517 MB·English

by  Barry Rubin (eds.)

LEBANON
THE MIDDLE EAST IN FOCUS
The Middle East has become simultaneously the world’s most controversial,
crisis-ridden, and yet least-understood region. Taking new perspectives on
the area that has undergone the most dramatic changes, the Middle East in
Focus series, edited by Barry Rubin, seeks to bring the best, most accurate
expertise to bear for understanding the area’s countries, issues, and prob-
lems. The resulting books are designed to be balanced, accurate, and com-
prehensive compendiums of both facts and analysis presented clearly for both
experts and the general reader.
Series Editor: Barry Rubin
Director, Global Research International Affairs (GLORIA)
Center Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA)
Journal Editor, Turkish Studies
Turkish Dynamics: Bridge across Troubled Lands
By Ersin Kalaycıog˘lu
Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos
By Patrick Clawson and Michael Rubin
Hybrid Sovereignty in the Arab Middle East: The Cases of Kuwait, Jordan,
and Iraq
By Gokhan Bacik
The Politics of Intelligence and American Wars with Iraq
By Ofira Seliktar
Hezbollah: The Story of the Party of God: From Revolution to Institutionalization
By Eitan Azani
Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis
Edited by Barry Rubin
L
EBANON
LIBERATION, CONFLICT, AND CRISIS
Edited by Barry Rubin
LEBANON
Copyright © Barry Rubin, 2009.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-60587-9
All rights reserved.
First published in 2009 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-37326-0 ISBN 978-0-230-62243-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230622432
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lebanon : liberation, conflict, and crisis / edited by Barry Rubin.
p. cm.—(Middle East in focus)
1. Lebanon—Politics and government—1990–2. Lebanon—Foreign
relations. I. Rubin, Barry M.
DS87.54.L39 2009
956.920494—dc22 2008052683
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: July 2009
CONTENTS
Contributors vii
Introduction 1
Barry Rubin
1 Reflections on Lebanon 9
William Harris
2 What Makes Lebanon a Distinctive Country? 25
Eli Fawaz
3 Lebanon’s Militia Wars 35
Tony Badran
4 Lebanon’s Roller Coaster Ride 63
William Harris
5 Demographic Dilemmas 83
Mark Farha
6 Lebanon’s Culture: Popular Music as a Case Study 99
Charles Paul Freund
7 Lebanese Economy between Violence and
Political Stalemate 109
Nimrod Raphaeli
8 Islamist Groups in Lebanon 131
Gary C. Gambill
9 Hizballah in Lebanon: Between Tehran and Beirut,
between the Struggle with Israel, and
the Struggle for Lebanon 155
Eyal Zisser
10 The Lebanese Shi’a as a Political Community 177
Omri Nir
vi CONTENTS
11 Israel and Lebanon: Problematic Proximity 195
Jonathan Spyer
12 America and the Lebanon Issue 213
David Schenker
Index 239
CONTRIBUTORS
Tony Badran is a research fellow for the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, where he focuses on Lebanon and Syria. His articles have
appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Quarterly, and Beirut Daily
Star, among other places. He also authors the weblog, “Across the Bay” and
is the editor of the Syrian Opposition Portal, a website tracking the news of
the Syrian opposition movements. Mr. Badran is currently completing his
doctorate at New York University.
Mark Farha is visiting assistant professor of comparative politics at
Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Doha, Qatar. He
obtained his Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard
University and is working on Secularism under Siege in Lebanon: Global and
Regional Dimensions of a Malaise.
Elie Fawaz is a Lebanese political analyst with the Beirut offices of the Lebanon
Renaissance Foundation that promotes democracy and the rule of law.
Charles Paul Freund has been a writer for The Washington Post, a columnist
for The New Republic, and a senior editor at Reason Magazine, where he often
wrote about Middle Eastern pop culture. His articles and essays have also
appeared in The Daily Star (Beirut), Slate, The New York Times, Los Angeles
Times, The International Herald-Tribune, L’Orient-Express (Beirut), and else-
where. He is currently managing editor of the AEI Press in Washington, D.C.
Gary C. Gambill is the editor of Mideast Monitor and was editor of the
Middle East Intelligence Bulletin from 1999 to 2004. Gambill publishes
widely on Lebanese and Syrian politics, terrorism, and democratization in
the Middle East.
William Harris is a professor in the department of politics at the University
of Otago, New Zealand. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Durham.
Professor Harris is the author of The Levant: A Fractured Mosaic (Markus
Wiener, Princeton, 3rd edition, 2008), which won a Choice Magazine
Outstanding Academic Title award, and The New Face of Lebanon (Markus
Wiener, Princeton, 2nd edition, 2005). He is currently working on a history
of Lebanon since the Islamic conquest for Oxford University Press.
Dr. Omri Nir is a lecturer at Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University, and
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. His fields of expertise are
viii CONTRIBUTORS
Lebanese politics, Lebanese Shi’a, and Shi’a in the Arab world. Among his
publications, he has written “The Shi’ites during the 1958 Lebanese Crisis,”
Middle Eastern Studies. Forthcoming publications include a political
biography of Nabih Berri.
Nimrod Raphaeli joined the Middle Media Research Institute in August
2001 after 28 years in the World Bank serving both in managerial and advi-
sory capacity. Upon his retirement from the World Bank he was retained as
a consultant at both the Bank and the International Monetary Fund. During
his service at the World Bank Mr. Raphaeli has served on economic and tech-
nical assistance missions to more than 30 countries including Iran,
Afghanistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Yemen, Tunisia, Nigeria, the Philippines
and most countries in eastern and southern Africa. He was born in Iraq in
1932. He immigrated to Israel in 1951 and eventually went to the United
States on a Fulbright scholarship. He received his Ph.D. from the University
of Michigan. He has published numerous articles in professional journals.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs
(GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International
Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (sev-
enth edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition
of The Truth about Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of
Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom:
The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
David Schenker is a senior fellow and director of the Program in Arab pol-
itics at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. In 2002–2006 he
served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as Levant country director,
the Pentagon’s top policy aide on the military and political affairs of Syria,
Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories. In 2005, he was awarded
the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service.
David has authored two books: Dancing with Saddam: The Strategic Tango
of Jordanian-Iraqi Relations (2003) and Palestinian Democracy and
Governance: An Appraisal of the Legislative Council (2001). His writings
have appeared in scholarly journals and newspapers, including Middle East
Quarterly, The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Boston Globe. He has
appeared as a featured commentator on NPR, CNN, Fox News, and
Politically Incorrect. David holds an M.A. from the University of Michigan
in Modern Middle Eastern History and a B.A. in Political Science from The
University of Vermont. He has lived in the Middle East for four years, in-
cluding two years in Egypt researching and studying Arabic.
Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International
Affairs Center, IDC, Herzliya, Israel. He is the author of The Rise of Nationalism
in the Middle East (Mason Crest, 2007) and “Lebanon 2006: Unfinished War”
(Middle East Review of International Affairs, March 2008). Jonathan Spyer’s
articles and analysis of the current political situation in the Middle East are
published in a number of important journals, including the Guardian, Times,
CONTRIBUTORS ix
Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, MERIA Journal, Toronto Globe and Mail, British
Journal of Middle East Studies, Israel Affairs, and others.
Eyal Zisser is the director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern
and African Studies and the head of the department of Middle Eastern and
African History, both at Tel Aviv University. Zisser has written extensively
on the history and the modern politics of Syria and Lebanon and the Arab-
Israeli conflict. Among his books are the following: Assad’s Syria at a
Crossroads (Tel Aviv, 1999); Asad’s Legacy–Syria in Transition (New York,
2000); Lebanon: The Challenge of Independence (London, 2000); Faces of
Syria (Tel Aviv, 2003); and Commanding Syria, Bashsar al-Asad’s First Years
in Power (London, 2006).