Word: lebanon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...doors would always be open to him. With France's President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the new Pope spoke of world issues and of the universality of faith. With an envoy of Lebanese Maronite Rite bishops, he presided over a lengthy audience and told reporters later: "A visit to Lebanon could be very useful. But above all we must find a solution. My heart is very troubled by Lebanon...
While the search for a settlement foundered, Lebanon's beleaguered Christians held tight to the remnants of a shattered past. Indeed, Christianity has long been fractured within this complex country: in addition to the dominant Maronites - a branch of the Roman Catholic Church that preserves its own unique liturgy - there are Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics, Armenians and Chaldeans, among others. Since Lebanon became independent from France in 1943, the Maronites, who then made up 30% of the population, have been the major force in politics and the economy. Under the "national covenant," an unwritten agreement with the force...
...Maronites feared that the well-armed Palestinians would not only create a P.L.O.-run state within a state inside Lebanon but also turn the country into another confrontation power. In 1975, as clashes between Christians and Palestinians escalated into full-scale civil war, the Maronite militia turned to Israel for arms and training. A certain elitism - and a mutual hatred of Syrians - has nurtured the longstanding bond between the Israelis and the Europe-oriented Maronites, who regard themselves as a bastion of Western civilization in the Arab world. As a Christian militia officer explained last week, "We feel, like...
Affection very quickly turned to estrangement after the Syrian peace keepers ordered the Maronites to lay down their arms, while making no similar demands on the Palestinians. Chamoun and Gemayel began laying the groundwork for partitioning Lebanon and creating a pro-Israeli Maronite state along Syria's border. When Gemayel's Phalangists murdered the son of Assad's friend Franjieh and more than 35 other pro-Syrian Christians in June, Syria became convinced that the plot was already in motion. Assad was further alarmed when the Camp David talks foreshadowed a separate Israeli-Egyptian peace, thereby tipping...
...came under Syrian machine-gun fire, their leader shouted, 'Let's keep going! It's better to be shot standing up than getting it in the back on the ground!' That kind of pluck would, of course, be put to better use in a peaceful Lebanon. But as a Christian militiaman grimly forecast last week, 'We are prepared to fight for the next 40 years...