Lebanon at 100: The French mandate’s mixed blessing

Lebanon, 9-1-1920, Solemn proclamation of Greater Lebanon in Beirut , General Gouraud, surrounded by the Maronite patriarch, Msgr Hoyek, and the Mufti, listening to the city's governor, Negib bey Abussuan. (Getty Images/File Photo)
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Updated 03 September 2020
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Lebanon at 100: The French mandate’s mixed blessing

  • Sectarian politics thrived long before Greater Lebanon was created during the Mutasarifiya system
  • Lebanon was meant to be a ‘friendly’ entity to anchor French presence in the Middle East

NEW YORK CITY: It was amidst the ruins of the Aug. 4 Beirut port explosion, surrounded by traumatized citizens who seemed comforted by his presence, that French President Emmanuel Macron found himself in the surreal position of having to announce that he would return on Sept. 1 to commemorate the creation of Greater Lebanon. 

Macron’s interaction with regular Lebanese on that day has invited re-examination of the past hundred years, during which France, despite all misgivings, was always called “the tender mother”. What separates the events that led to the creation of the modern Lebanese state and those that had brought the French leader to Beirut, is much more than just the passage of 100 years. 

As his ship crossed the Atlantic on its way to Paris in 1919, US President Woodrow Wilson was armed by an unwavering vision for a new world order in the aftermath of the First World War: Affairs between nations would be conducted in the open, on the basis of sovereignty, self-determination and the repudiation of military force to settle dispute. 

The victorious Allies gathered at the Paris Peace Conference to set the terms for the defeated Central Powers. A question was on everyone’s mind: What to do with the pieces left of the Ottoman Empire, the “sick man,” and every other empire that collapsed? 

Back then, in the US, there was heavy opposition to colonialism. The US would never join the fight to help maintain and expand European empires. Instead, there would be mandates given to small, well-run countries, perhaps Scandinavian countries, Wilson thought, that would not have the ambition or resources to turn the protectorates into colonies. It would just give the newborn states good advice. 

“But of course, as soon as Wilson got to Paris, there was no way the prime ministers of France or Britain were going to let him do that,” said historian Elizabeth Thompson, author of “How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs.” 

Paris and London were negotiating their own new order for the Middle East, and it could not have been more anathema to Wilson’s vision. France had invested so much in Syria and Lebanon during the previous century that it insisted on creating a “friendly” entity that would anchor the French presence in the Middle East. 

The new entity had to be a safe haven for the Maronite Christian minority for whom High Commissioner Gen. Henri Gouraud, a passionate Catholic himself, felt very warmly. Christian fears were exacerbated by the sight of their Armenian counterparts dying by the roadside during the genocide perpetrated by the Turks. 




In Beirut, General Gouraud, accompanied by General Goybet, passes before a double row of infantrymen in 1920. (Alamy) 

A locust wave decimated the mountain crops and resulted in famine which, compounded by the Allies’ blockade of Beirut’s coast, killed tens of thousands. Emotions, then, were running high on the first day of September 1920. 

Behind the trappings of the proclamation ceremony, an important fact was kept under wraps: When the French pleaded with the British to lift the blockade off the Beirut coast, the latter refused. The blockade was to remain. Starvation was exactly the point. Deaths continued to rise. 

“Macron reappeared on the explosion site to extend sympathy and promises of help, almost exactly 100 years later,” Thompson said. “Macron is to be lauded: In February 2017 he visited Algeria as he was campaigning for office, called colonialism a crime against humanity, and urged the French to apologize. 

“But I have heard no mention of an apology for actions the French took in Lebanon 100 years ago, even as the League of Nations awarded them the mandate. 

“When World War I ended, the French came with sacks of grain and declared themselves the saviors of the poor Lebanese. Then, they installed a sectarian regime: Access to political office and representation was defined along the lines of what religion you belong to. 

“Sectarianism segments the citizenry. The direct opposite would the project of French Revolution: to create no mediating. It is kind of ironic, isn’t it, that the French came up with this system of power? 

“That sectarian system laid the seeds for the deep divisions within Lebanese politics that we all now know too well have weakened the development of a stable government, which could ideally care for all Lebanese people.” 

Then again, sectarian politics was thriving long before Greater Lebanon. In the preceding system, known as Mutasarifiya, sectarian institutions had already emerged in an attempt to create a balance among communities. 

“What the French mandate did, however, was anchor that sectarianism, continuing a pattern that was prevalent under the Ottomans,” said Michael Young, author of “The Ghosts of Martyrs Square” and a senior editor at Carnegie Middle East Center. 

“When, in 1943, the Lebanese came to an agreement on their National Pact, a lot of what the French had introduced during the mandate became custom. For example, the president is Christian, the prime minister is Sunni and the speaker of the parliament Shia.” 

Lebanese poet Henri Zoghaib, who has been advocating for a secular state for years, believes “sectarianism in religion is good, for every religion has its sects. But sectarianism in the state is a disaster. 

“The French Revolution began way before 1789 when the nobility and the clergy were tyrannizing society. When the revolution matured and the Bastille was stormed, the clergy were put in their place, and politicians in theirs. The people became the source of power. The people were the ‘word of God.’ Only when the same happens in Lebanon, will we be delivered from this monster called sectarianism.” 

For all its faults, however, Young believes that sectarianism is naturally a pluralistic system.

“If Lebanon was Lebanon between 45 and 75, the sectarian system made that possible,” he said.

“Sectarianism made it difficult to have an absolute state suffocating society like you had in Syria.

“In Lebanon, because you had a weak state, you had a much stronger, more varied and independent society. Sectarianism was good in that it generated pluralism.”

Young makes a key distinction between sectarianism as it had been prior to the 1975 Lebanese civil war, and the version that emerged after it ended. 

“When the war ended in 1990, you had a new order established by the Syrians and the Saudis, who came to a kind of consensus over Lebanon, that became known as the Taif Accord, and that eventually brought the nomination of Rafik Hariri as a prime minister,” he said. 




Picture dated August 2, 1982, shows Israeli shelling of west Beirut. (AFP/File Photo)

“You also had the Syrian hegemony in the country, and what did the Syrians do? They basically gave their wartime Lebanese political allies positions in the state. 

“Before 75 you still had a Lebanese state. It had problems, but you had the state. Through the 1950s and 1960s, Presidents Camille Chamoun, Fouad Chehab and Charles Helou (all) had a statist approach: they strove to expand the power of the state and its institutions.

“At the end of the war, the state had been severely damaged. What the (Syrians) established instead was a system of sectarian pie-sharing. The state was given to sectarian wartime leaders, and they pillaged it throughout 40 years.”

Young added: “Another problem of the sectarian system today is it has become an excuse to block everything. Today, because there is no consensus, everything is blocked. We have a completely dysfunctional system.” 

Behind the glitz of the proclamation ceremony of 1920, what the Christians really did was link their fate to another country: France. Reliance on outside forces turned out to be a pattern in Lebanese history that for decades continued to blight the country’s progress and fan the flames of rivalries within Lebanese factions. 

And so, in the aftermath of the 1967 defeat, when Lebanon received the Palestinians, part of the Lebanese population sided with Palestinian militancy. Similarly, in 1982, when Ariel Sharon entered Lebanon, the Maronites built an alliance with Israel, without any consensus reached with the other communities.

“All the Lebanese communities have ignored the rules of the sectarian game which demands and imposes modesty. No one here is modest,” said Young. 

In his book, Young compares then-President Bachir Gemayel to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah: “Both of them reflect one of the fundamental problems of Lebanon: they had their own sectarian, communal agenda, and they expected they could impose it on the majority of the Lebanese.

“Since the end of the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2005, Hezbollah has been pushing the Iranian agenda in Lebanon and the region.

“Once again, we are at this inflection point where we can stabilize the situation, but one minority somehow wants to impose its vision on the others.

“When Hezbollah wants to intimate people, it will ultimately end in civil war because that is the nature of the system. Communities begin to respond when they feel threatened. And they ally with other communities that feel threatened as well.

“Today, we have a dominant military force called Hezbollah that is not allowing for the consolidation of a sovereign state. We’re coming back to the problem we had after 1967 of a state existing in parallel with an anti-state. This cannot last forever. Sooner or later one has to take over the other.

“Tensions will continue until this issue is resolved. And on top of it, Hezbollah is an armed group that is not loyal to Lebanon. It is loyal to a foreign power. And that is the problem.

“It is not because Hezbollah today has weapons and can intimidate people that it can impose its will on the majority. It cannot. That’s a simple fact.

“Even if there is a civil war in Lebanon now, Hezbollah may be the best armed, but I don’t think it would win the war. The game of intimidation does not work in a sectarian context. You have to respect the rules of the sectarian game.




Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Shiite movement Hezbollah, giving a televised address from an undisclosed location in Lebanon. (AFP/Al-Manar/File Photo) 

“Hezbollah is a Frankenstein created by many people. It was not only Iran, not only the contradictions in the Lebanese society, but believe it or not, after 1990 it was also created by all those who supported the Syrian order in Lebanon.

“Don’t tell this to the Americans. They don’t like to hear it, but they supported the Syrian order that reinforced Hezbollah and used it as an instrument in the Syrian-Israeli negotiations, at a time when the US had completely accepted and recognized Syria’s dominant role in the country.

“Hezbollah has many fathers.”

In conclusion, Young said: “We have no domestic agenda. Our agenda is always tied to someone outside of Lebanon. every community has been weakened by it. The Maronites lost power. The Sunnis lost power. Now Hezbollah and the Shia. We will see where they’re going.”

For his part, Zoghaib, the poet cried out “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa” for the all the mistakes he said he and his people had committed against their beloved country.

In his poet’s optimism, he quickly moved on to embrace hope. “This nation is filled with temples, Muslim and Christian. When in the heart of the capital, the Mohamed Al-Amine mosque embraces Saint George’s cathedral. That is the image of true Lebanon,” he told Arab News.

“What value do the cross and crescent have if we didn’t respect them, and honored the teachings of the Quran and the Bible? ‘In the Name of God, the most Gracious and Merficul’ and ‘In the Name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit’ are two paths going upward to the same destination: God. Lebanon is really ‘Leb-Anon’ — ‘The heart of God.’”

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Twitter: @EphremKossaify


Israel blocks Ramallah meeting with Arab ministers, Israeli official says

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Israel blocks Ramallah meeting with Arab ministers, Israeli official says

  • Palestinian Authority official says that the issue of whether the meeting in Ramallah would be able to go ahead is under discussion
  • The move comes ahead of an international conference due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood
JERUSALEM: Israel will not allow a planned meeting in the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, to go ahead, an Israeli official said on Saturday, after media reported that Arab ministers planning to attend had been stopped from coming.
The delegation included ministers from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Palestinian Authority officials said. The ministers would require Israeli consent to travel to the West Bank from Jordan.
An Israeli official said the ministers intended to take part in “a provocative meeting” to discuss promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“Such a state would undoubtedly become a terrorist state in the heart of the land of Israel,” the official said. “Israel will not cooperate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security.”
A Palestinian Authority official said that the issue of whether the meeting in Ramallah would be able to go ahead was under discussion.
The move comes ahead of an international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood.
Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries which favor a two-state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that recognizing a Palestinian state was not only a “moral duty but a political necessity.”

Israel threatens Hamas with ‘annihilation’ as Trump says Gaza ceasefire close

Updated 19 min 1 sec ago
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Israel threatens Hamas with ‘annihilation’ as Trump says Gaza ceasefire close

  • Israel has repeatedly said that the destruction of Hamas was a key aim of the war
  • At least 4,058 people had been killed since Israel resumed military operations on March 18

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Israel on Friday said Hamas must accept a hostage deal in Gaza or “be annihilated,” as US President Donald Trump announced that a ceasefire agreement was “very close.”

It came amid dire conditions on the ground, with the United Nations warning that Gaza’s entire population was at risk of famine.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said Hamas must agree to a ceasefire proposal presented by US envoy Steve Witkoff or be destroyed, after the Palestinian militant group said the deal failed to satisfy its demands.

“The Hamas murderers will now be forced to choose: accept the terms of the ‘Witkoff Deal’ for the release of the hostages – or be annihilated.”

Israel has repeatedly said that the destruction of Hamas was a key aim of the war.

Negotiations to end nearly 20 months of war in Gaza have so far failed to achieve a breakthrough, with Israel resuming operations in March following a short-lived truce.

In the United States, Trump told reporters “they’re very close to an agreement on Gaza,” adding: “We’ll let you know about it during the day or maybe tomorrow.”

Food shortages in Gaza persist, with aid only trickling in after the partial lifting by Israel of a more than two-month blockade.

Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency, called Gaza “the hungriest place on Earth.”

“It’s the only defined area – a country or defined territory within a country – where you have the entire population at risk of famine,” he said.

Later, the UN condemned the “looting of large quantities of medical equipment” and other supplies “intended for malnourished children” from one of its Gaza warehouses by armed individuals.

Aid groups have warned that desperation for food and medicine among Gazans was causing security to deteriorate.

Israel has doubled down on its settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, while defying calls from French President Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders for a two-state solution.

This week Israel announced the creation of 22 new settlements in the Palestinian territory, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

London said the move was a “deliberate obstacle” to Palestinian statehood while Egypt called it “a provocative and blatant new violation of international law and Palestinian rights.”

The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which includes Egypt, also condemned Israel’s decision.

On Friday, Katz vowed to build a “Jewish Israeli state” in the West Bank.

Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory are considered illegal under international law and seen as a major obstacle to a lasting peace in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Katz framed the move as a direct rebuke to Macron and others pushing for recognition of a Palestinian state.

Macron on Friday said that recognition of a Palestinian state, with some conditions, was “not only a moral duty, but a political necessity.”

Israel’s foreign ministry accused the French president of undertaking a “crusade against the Jewish state.”

Separately, a diplomatic source said that Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan would make the first visit of its kind to the West Bank on Sunday.

The White House announced on Thursday that Israel had “signed off” on a new ceasefire proposal submitted to Hamas.

The Palestinian group said the deal failed to satisfy its demands, but stopped short of rejecting it outright, saying it was “holding consultations” on the proposal.

Gaza’s civil defense agency said that at least 45 people had been killed in Israeli attacks on Friday, including seven in a strike targeting a family home in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.

Palestinians sobbed over the bodies of their loved ones at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital following the strike, AFPTV footage showed.

“These were civilians and were sleeping at their homes,” said neighbor Mahmud Al-Ghaf, describing “children in pieces.”

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but said separately that the air force had hit “dozens of targets” across Gaza over the past day.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Friday that at least 4,058 people had been killed since Israel resumed operations on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 54,321, mostly civilians.

Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack, 57 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.


Tunisia row over ‘repressive’ transfers of political detainees

Tunisian Minister of Justice Noureddine Bhiri (C) visits the notorious prison of Ennadhour on April 29, 2012, in Bizerte. (AFP)
Updated 31 May 2025
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Tunisia row over ‘repressive’ transfers of political detainees

  • Weekly prison visits in Tunisia allow families to bring prisoners baskets of food to last them through the week

TUNIS: Several jailed Tunisian opposition figures have been transferred without prior notice to prisons far from their families in a move their lawyers and relatives on Friday denounced as “repressive.”
At least seven political figures were moved on Thursday from Mornaguia prison near Tunis to remote facilities, lawyer Dalila Msaddek told AFP.
Prominent figure Issam Chebbi was taken to a jail in Tunisia’s northernmost city of Bizerte, while Ridha BelHajj was moved to Siliana some two hours south of Tunis.
“They were moved without any warning to their families or lawyers,” said Msaddek.
She called the transfers “a form of harassment” aimed at making it harder for their Tunis-based families and lawyers to visit.
Weekly prison visits in Tunisia allow families to bring prisoners baskets of food to last them through the week.
Msaddek said some prison inmates resisted the move but were forcibly transferred.
In a letter from prison posted on social media, BelHajj denounced what he called a forced transfer “far from my family, my children, and my lawyers, in yet another attempt to break my will.”
He said he, Chebbi and Ghazi Chaouachi were “prisoners or conscience, not criminals.”
“What is happening today is a desperate attempt to silence free voices and intimidate anyone who dares to say ‘no’ to injustice and tyranny,” he wrote.
Since President Kais Saied’s power grab in July 2021, when he dissolved parliament and began ruling by decree, rights groups have warned of a sharp decline in civil liberties in the North African country.
In a video statement, Chebbi’s wife denounced the authorities’ move as “an injustice” and “abuse.”
She said she learned of the transfer during her scheduled weekly visit, and that her husband was informed just an hour before being moved.

Once a French military bunker built in 1932, Bizerte prison — Borj Erroumi — became infamous for its harsh conditions under Tunisia’s former longtime rulers Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
All of the transferred prisoners were defendants in a mass trial last month that saw around 40 public figures, some staunch Saied critics, sentenced to long terms on charges including plotting against the state.
The trial drew international criticism, from France, Germany and the United Nations, which Saied dismissed as “blatant interference in Tunisia’s internal affairs.”
During a protest in Tunis demanding the release of jailed lawyer Ahmed Souab, public figures also condemned the prison transfers.
Souab had been a member of the defense team during the mass trial. He was detained on terrorism-related charges after claiming that judges were under political pressure to hand the defendants hefty sentences.
“We’re seeing a return to the old practices of the Ben Ali dictatorship which aimed at breaking the morale of political prisoners by moving them from one prison to another,” opposition figure Chaima Issa told AFP during the protest.
Also attending the rally, Chebbi’s wife said he was now detained in “inhumane” conditions after visiting him.
She said he was being held in the same room as 60 other inmates, deprived of even “basic standards of detention.”
 

 


Libya protesters call on PM to quit in third weekly march

Updated 31 May 2025
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Libya protesters call on PM to quit in third weekly march

  • The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport

TRIPOLI: Hundreds of protesters gathered in central Tripoli on Friday for the third week in a row to demand the resignation of UN-recognized Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah following recent clashes in Libya’s capital.
Demonstrators chanted “Dbeibah out,” “the people want the fall of the government,” and “long live Libya.”
At least 200 people had assembled by late afternoon, with several hundred more following suit later. Some blasted slogans on loudspeakers from their cars.
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east controlled by the family of military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
The North African country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
National elections scheduled for December 2021 were postponed indefinitely due to disputes between the two rival powers.
The recent unrest came after deadly clashes between armed groups controlling different areas of Tripoli killed at least eight people, according to the UN.
The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport.
The fighting broke out also after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to dismantle Radaa and dissolve other Tripoli-based armed groups but excluding the 444 Brigade.
The government and UN support mission in Libya have been pressing efforts to reach a permanent ceasefire since.
Last Saturday, a separate protest in Tripoli drew hundreds in support of Dbeibah.
Demonstrators condemned the armed groups and called for the reinstatement of Libya’s 1951 constitution, which was abolished by Qaddafi after his 1969 coup.
 

 


Israel strikes western Syria, despite talks

Updated 30 May 2025
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Israel strikes western Syria, despite talks

  • Syrian state television said the strike targeted sites in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia
  • The Israeli military said it struck weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles

DAMASCUS: Israel on Friday struck western Syria, the Israeli military and Syrian state media said, in the first such attack on the country in nearly a month.
It came after Damascus announced earlier this month indirect talks with Israel to calm tensions, and the US called for a “non-aggression agreement” between the two countries, which are technically at war.
“A strike from Israeli occupation aircraft targeted sites close to the village of Zama in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia,” state television said.
The Israeli military shortly thereafter said it “struck weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles that posed a threat to international and Israeli maritime freedom of navigation, in the Latakia area of Syria.”
“In addition, components of surface-to-air missiles were struck in the area of Latakia,” it said, adding that it would “continue to operate to maintain freedom of action in the region, in order to carry out its missions and will act to remove any threat to the State of Israel and its citizens.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights meanwhile reported that jets likely to be Israeli struck military sides on the outskirts of Tartus and Latakia.
Syria and Israel have technically been at war since 1948. Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and has carried out hundreds of strikes and several incursions since the overthrow of Bashar Assad in December.
Israel says its strikes aim to stop advanced weapons reaching Syria’s new authorities, whom it considers jihadists.