Word: karami
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Lebanese Premier Rashid Karami said the attacks "demonstrated Israel's perplexity after the victories scored by Syria and the P.L.O. at the U.N." P.L.O. Spokesman Abu Sharar also attributed the strikes to Israeli "desperation" over the Palestinians' diplomatic success. Criticism came from less predictable sources as well. Pope Paul VI, in a message of condolence cabled to the Lebanese government, called the raids "an inadmissible gesture of violence...
...bringing the eight-month death toll to more than 4,000. (Lebanon's population is only 3 million. It is as though the U.S. had suffered 250,000 deaths in a civil war.) "We cannot stand any more fighting," said Lebanon's almost despairing Moslem Premier, Rashid Karami. "The country is on the brink of collapse...
Private Militias. As the shooting flared up, so did the simmering political battle between leftists and rightists, Moslems and Christians within Karami's six-month-old "rescue government." An emergency meeting of the National Dialogue Committee broke up after 30 minutes because neither Maronite-Christian Interior Minister Camille Chamoun nor Druze Leftist Leader Kamal Jumblatt showed up. Both men control private militias, which were locked in street battle at the time of the meeting. Karami, infuriated by his Interior Minister's boycott of the meeting, complained that he was "incapable of returning the situation to normal because...
Political squabbling also subsided, and on Saturday Karami announced that Moslem and Christian government leaders had agreed to seek changes in the distribution of power within Lebanon. Under the existing political system, Lebanon's 40% Christian minority dominates both the military and the government. Karami said that his six-man Cabinet would be expanded to make it more representative of the country's varied ethnic makeup. No other specific reforms were promised, but the Premier did say that the constitution would be modified to redistribute the "national wealth among citizens" and that political changes would be introduced...
Clean-up efforts began, but schools and most banks did not reopen, and most civil servants ignored Premier Karami's order to return to work. One suspicion was that the lull was only a "paycheck truce" during which the soldiers of the private militias involved would collect back salaries from local political bosses or other employers, get food for their families and rebuild their own supply of arms and ammunition...