Understanding how Lebanon’s complex history and sectarian fault lines are being exploited once again by Israel
While analyzing the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasarallah and subsequent developments one needs to understand the complex history of Lebanon and how the Israelis had in the past managed to exploit the inherent fault line to their advantage—and they are trying to do so again. Thus, the situation is somewhat different from Gaza, where Hamas did not have this disadvantage.
At the very outset it should be made clear in the mind that the Shias of Lebanon, like Sunnis, have been supportive of the Palestinian cause much before the February 11, 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran and creation of Hezbollah in 1982. Thousands of them had laid down their lives for this cause earlier too, but the western media deliberately link all these developments with the Iranian Revolution.
Lebanon after its independence on November 22, 1943 at the height of World War-II was considered as a Christian majority country, though no census has been conducted since 1932. Actually it was carved out from Syria by the colonial France in league with Britain and America. This project was always resisted by Syria which—as the creation of Israel five years later–saw a larger western design to create a Christian-dominated country in the region. Syria itself got independence on April 17, 1946, that is after the World War-II.
However, after the coming into being of a Zionist state of Israel on May 14, 1948 and the influx of lakhs of Palestinians into Lebanon,an overwhelming number of them Muslims,the demographic balance shifted in favour of the latter. Now Sunnis and Shias combined together to form majority, said to be about 60%. Both of them naturally had sympathy for the Palestinian refugees. The Christians, mostly Maronites, were inclined towards the West and Israel as they were the beneficiary of the colonialism. Civil Wars
As per the original agreement of Lebanon the President will be a Maronite Christian, Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of Parliament a Shia. The country got embroiled into a major crisis in 1958, but the social strife ended soon.
