The deepening hostility towards Israel of Islamist movements in Lebanon and Syrian forces based there continues to be reflected in statements in the Lebanese media and in the support for Palestinian groups opposed to the Middle East peace process. These anti-Israeli statements are sometimes inflected by antisemitism, particularly when religious rhetoric is invoked. Conspiracy theories that allege Jewish-Zionist-US plots are also propounded. Furthermore, increasing support for Roger Garaudy indicates that Holocaust denial has gained credence, particularly among the intellectual elite.
In the Israeli-controlled area of southern Lebanon, the so-called 'security zone', fighting continues between the Islamist movement Hizbullah and the Israeli-backed South Lebanese Army, including air raids by Israeli forces. In 1998 guerrilla activity in the area escalated further, leading to a renewal of the debate within Israel about the possibility of unilateral withdrawal and a growing recognition that withdrawal would have to be negotiated with Syria.
Demographic data
General population: 3.6 million
Jewish population: 50 (in Beirut)
Political data
Political system: constitutional parliamentary republic which allows for a Maronite Christian president, a Sunni Muslim prime minister and a Shi'a Muslim speaker of the chamber of deputies
Government: In October 1998 General Emile Lahoud, former head of the Lebanese army, was elected president by parliament, following the enactment of a constitutional amendment allowing senior government officials to run for this office. Earlier in the year, Selim al-Hoss replaced Rafiq al-Hariri as prime minister, and for the first time since 1953, municipal elections were held in Lebanon. In the 1996 parliamentary elections, Shi'ite Muslim parties, Amal and Hizbullah, won the largest bloc of representatives in the national assembly.
After fifteen years of civil war between Muslim and Christian factions, which ended in 1990, Lebanon has made significant progress in the reconstruction of state and society. This new stability has been constrained, however, by the impasse in the Middle East peace process. The presence of an estimated 30,000 Syrian troops continues to ensure Syrian influence over Lebanese domestic and foreign policy. The 1998 changes in the political leadership reflected an ever-tightening Syrian grip.
Economic data
GDP per capita: c. US$5000
The eighteenth century witnessed an influx of Sephardic Jews from Turkey and elsewhere, who settled in the Shouf mountains. Until the 1860 Maronite-Druze war the Jews were economically and socially integrated with the Druze communities. During the war, however, the Jews moved to Beirut, Aley and Saida, where their contacts with the Maronite Christians and Sunni Muslims increased. In 1929 there were some 5,000 Jews in Beirut alone. As one of twenty-three minorities in Lebanon they were treated with great tolerance and enjoyed complete religious, economic and legal freedom. Moreover, they maintained open contacts with the Jews of Palestine.
Following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the number of Jews was swelled to an estimated 13,000 by Jewish refugees from Syria and Iraq who either remained in Lebanon or crossed into Israel. During successive wars in 1948, 1958, 1967, 1973 and 1975, Lebanese troops protected the Jewish quarter of Wadi Abu Jamil from possible Arab hostility. Jewish emigration from Lebanon began after the Six Day War in 1967. The Jewish community diminished further owing to the civil war from 1975.
It was not until the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982 and the Sabra and Shatilla massacres that Lebanese Jews became particularly vulnerable, especially to the hostility of emerging radical Shi'ite organizations. On the eve of the redeployment of Israeli forces, Israel's Maronite allies evacuated the Jewish community. Since then, the few remaining Jews have lived in east Beirut, Jounieh and the mountains.
Between 1984 and 1986 eleven Lebanese Jews, including prominent members of the community, were taken hostage by the Organization of the Oppressed of the Earth, which has links with Hizbullah. Despite international appeals, only four bodies have been recovered to date.
Cultural life
For several years the Lebanese cultural elite has reacted against any positive representation of Jews, especially in film. In 1993 most Lebanese cinemas banned Steven Spielberg's film Schindler's List because it dealt with the Holocaust, and in 1996 the feature film Independence Day was heavily criticized in the Lebanese press as being an example of 'Jewish propaganda'. There is now speculation as to whether Roberto Benigni's La Vita Bella, the award-winning comedy about the Holocaust, will be screened in Lebanon. On 11 November 1998, the author of an article in the English-language newspaper, The Daily Star, commented: 'Will an Italian Catholic's film on the killing of Jews by Germans make it to the cultural capital of the Arab world? One suspects not.'
Arabic translations of classical antisemitic texts such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion continue to circulate in Lebanon. Beirut also remains a centre for the publishing of antisemitic literature that is distributed throughout the Arab world. An example is 'Prominence of the Torah from Abraham to Herzl' by Musa Mutlaq Ibrahim, which cites Jewish texts as evidence of Zionist conspiracies and negative Jewish traits. In 1998 the French far-right publication Rivarol was also sold in Lebanon (see France).
Public support for French Holocaust-denier Roger Garaudy (see France) has increased since his highly-publicized visit to Lebanon in 1996 to promote his latest book, Les Mythes fondateurs de la politique israelienne (Founding Myths of Israeli Politics). In January 1998 the Lebanese bar association issued a statement in support of Garaudy, on trial in France for questioning crimes against humanity. Hundreds of lawyers and intellectuals gathered to lobby members of parliament in his favour, including Karim Pakradouni, deputy leader of the Kataeb (Phalange), who was quoted in the local press: 'France will not give up its tradition of free speech . . . to the Jews.' A group of seven Lebanese lawyers from Beirut volunteered to travel to Paris to help defend Garaudy during his trial. Intellectuals in Lebanon were not, however, united in their support for Garaudy (see Countering antisemitism).
Holocaust denial was also expressed in Islamist circles. On 22 March 1998, for example, the chairman of the Supreme Shi'ite Council in Lebanon, Sheikh Muhammad Mahdi Shams Al-Din, reportedly stated: 'The Catholic Church in particular and the church in general do not have to be sorry for the Jews and the Zionists for the myth connected with Hitler. This myth is nothing but a collection of lies published by western scientists and is one of the Zionist means of blackmailing the world.'
As in previous years, militant Islamists in Lebanon continue to invoke the antisemitic notion that Jews are bent on discrediting Islam. The spiritual leader of Hizbullah, Sayyid Muhammed Husayn Fadlallah, describes hostility to Israel as part of an 'old struggle of Muslims against the Jewish conspiracy against Islam'. In many of his speeches, the distinction between anti-Israel positions and antisemitism is blurred, for example, by allegations of Jewish conspiracies.
In February 1998 the Lebanese weekly al-Nahar published
an article strongly denouncing the French Holocaust-denier Roger Garaudy
and all those intellectuals in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Arab world who
support him.
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© JPR 1999
