Word: ite
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...issue: reasonable security for our (northern) settlement population, and to (achieve this) without remaining in Lebanon. I believe that among the many surprises, and most of them not for the good, that came out of the war in Lebanon, the most dangerous is that the war let the Shi'ites out of the bottle. No one predicted that; I couldn't find it in any Israeli intelligence report. The Shi'ites, the largest community in Lebanon, were oppressed by the P.L.O. (Palestine Liberation Organization). They didn't like the struggle against the P.L.O., and they received us in the beginning...
...opposing, and dominant, view is that the continued presence in Lebanon of Israeli troops, bogged down with occupation duties and mired in static defense, is helping to inspire another, perhaps more serious, threat. That is the one posed by the Shi'ite Muslims in the south, who constitute at least 60% of the 1 million people in the occupied territory. Many of the Shi'ites originally welcomed the Israelis as their liberators from the P.L.O., which had created a state-within-a-state in the region. Since then, however, a minority of Shi'ite fundamentalists, followers of Iran's Ayatullah...
...Israeli occupation has worn on, the extremists have gained increasing sympathy from residents of the region. Even so, the officers believe that the Shi'ite majority are largely passive in their attitudes toward Israel, and will not be a threat after withdrawal. Said Army Chief of Staff Lieut. General Moshe Levy last week: "Most of the Shi'ite community, except for its extremist circles, has no reason to regard Israel as a target...
Whether or not that is so, the Shi'ite attitude toward their fellow Lebanese has hardened. One of the dangers of the Israeli withdrawal is that it could lead to a bitter struggle between the Shi'ite majority and the Sunni Muslim and Christian minorities, not to mention the remaining Palestinian civilian population. In recent weeks, Shi'ite radicals have killed more than a dozen southern Lebanese as alleged collaborators with the Israelis. The Israeli pullback could spark a bloodier and more widespread settling of Lebanese scores. Precisely such an explosion took place between Lebanon's Christian and Druze militias...
...Kuwait Airways Flight 221, when gun-toting youths, their eyes staring coldly out of paper masks, riveted the world's attention on a Tehran tarmac for six days. Affiliations were never declared, but the hoodlums were believed to belong to the Hizballah (Party of God), the shadowy Shi'ite group blamed by some U.S. officials for the Beirut annex assault and the 1983 attacks against the U.S. Marine barracks and the main U.S. embassy in Lebanon...