Making sense of Lebanon: Palestinian pawns

Labour Briefing no. 38, 25 February 1987, p. 15

Transcribed or corrected by hand from the printed page.

The western news media, obsessed with the kidnapping of Terry Waite and other western hostages, at first ignored the increasingly desperate plight of the Palestinian refugees trapped in their Lebanese camps under attack from the Shi'ite Amal militia.

Only as the refugees face starvation and the attacks threaten to become a full-scale massacre has the seige attracted media attention.

The Palestinians are now desperate; thousands have already died, and thousands more may die in coming weeks. Such is the "normality" of daily life in Lebanon. Once again, the ordinary Lebanese people and the Palestinian refugees have become the victims of competing foreign powers and contending militia groups.

The western media can make no sense of it. They prefer to see the Lebanese tragedy in terms of frenzied terrorists and sinister war lords. But there is a logic which unites the hostage crisis, the seige of the camps, and the role of the US and Israel. It is the logic of the struggle to dominate Lebanon, and the rise of the Shi'ite movement.

The key power in Lebanon is Syria. Syrian president Assad maintains an army of 30,000 in the country to secure the domination which makes Syria a frontline power in the struggle with Israel, and gives Assad a central role in Middle East politics, as well as huge financial subsidies from other Arab states.

The dominant militia leaders in Lebanon — Nabi Berri of Amal, Walid Jumblatt of the Druze PSP, as well as various Christian factions — all pay tribute to Assad in return for military, financial, and political patronage.

The seige of the Palestinian camps is a Syrian-sponsored attempt to prevent the re-emergence of Yasser Arafat's PLO. Assad is only prepared to tolerate Palestinian groups in Lebanon which are under his own control.

The most dramatic change in Lebanese politics since the 1982 Israeli invasion whch ejected the PLO, has been the rise of the Shi'ite Amal movement.

The Shi'ites have been Lebanon's poorest community, but also its fastest growing. For years they were excluded from any major share in the power structure, but in the 1980s they have asserted themselves politically and militarily through Amal ("Hope"). After the Christian Maronites, they have become the strongest movement in the country.

On the fringes of Amal grew up fundamentalist Shi'ite groups, especially the Hizbollahs and "Islamic Jihad". These groups, linked to Iran, have been the main hostage-takers. They have tried to use the hostages towards two different ends.

First, the Hizbollahs and Iran have made deals with the US. The Irangate scandal was one pay-off — huge shipments of arms for hostages. Hostages have also been used as bargaining counters for the release of Islamic militants held in Kuwait after an Iranian-organised bombing campaign.

The second purpose involves Israel. Southern Lebanon, on the Israeli border, is dominated by the Shi'ites. Here, Shi'ite militias have often clashed with the Israelis and their Christian allies, and hundreds of Shi'ites, militia and civilians, have been taken prisoner to languish in Israeli jails. These prisoners are also hostages, held by Israel in part as a bargaining counter for their own captured servicemen.

The US and Israel have the power to secure the release of at least some western hostages by giving up these prisoners. But no one at the moment wants to be seen to "capitulate to terrorism".

The hostage-taking business is a sordid game. To get hold of hostages, militia factions have employed gangster freelancers. The case of the western hostages, relatively few in number, should be placed in the perspective of the much more tragic events surrounding them. Nonetheless, no socialist can endorse the kidnapping and even execution of innocent academics and journalists.

Westerners are the targets of hostage-taking because of the role of western imperialist powers in the region, and their backing for Israel. The danger is that the United States will use the hostage crisis as an excuse for savage military reprisals on the Libya model. Solidarity with the Palestinian people and opposition to US military adventures remain priority tasks for the left.

transcribed from the page image, 2 Nov 2026; spelling as printed (seige three times, whch, war lords, Hizbollahs). International Briefing page. Kicker "Making sense of Lebanon" in italic above the headline. By-line "By Phil Hearse" in a ruled panel under the headline. Complete on the page in two columns, no jump. The other items on the page ("Gorbachev unfurls new banner... in bits" by Oliver MacDonald, "Free Michel Warchawski: Israeli socialist arrested", the CND demonstration notice) are by others and left out.