Word: moslem
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...growing. Last week, reports TIME Correspondent William Marmon, "real panic gripped the city for the first time as the pattern of fighting changed abruptly and the remaining hopes were shattered. Previously, rival factions shot and shelled each other from fixed positions. The result was stalemate. Now leftist Moslem forces, spearheaded by a group called the Independent Nasserites, have launched an offensive to win a clear victory. Moving out of their base area in southwest Beirut, the Nasserites intend to cut through the city up to the sea, thereby flanking some Phalangist positions and driving other rightist forces into the eastern...
...battle was fought house by house and street by street. One car filled with Moslems managed to reach the Parliament building in Christian-controlled territory. "You do not represent the people. You do not represent anyone," they shouted over a loudspeaker, then opened fire, killing one of the bodyguards of Phalangist Leader Pierre Gemayel. When retreating Phalangists took up positions in the hotel district, the conflict took on an added symbolic intensity. "I'm going to sleep in the Holiday Inn tonight," pledged one strutting Moslem fighter as he prepared for an assault on the Christian outpost. By week...
...Census. The Moslem strike into the bastion of moneyed power has roots that go back at least to the creation of independent Lebanon. As France was quitting the area in 1943, an unwritten but carefully wrought National Covenant was adopted by Lebanese leaders in an effort to accommodate the new country's volatile religious mix of Christians and Moslems. With Christians in a slight majority according to a 1932 census, the Covenant provided that the country...
President and the armed forces commander would always be from the dominant Maronite Christian sect, the Prime Minister always a Sunni Moslem and the legislative assembly always in a 6-5 balance favoring Christians. This slight but significant power edge reflected not only the population figures but also the fact that Christians controlled the professions and business. Despite simmering eruptions, notably in 1958 when the U.S. sent in troops to prevent a leftist take over, Lebanon thrived for decades as a result of its compromise-and of a Swiss-style neutrality that helped to make it the trading, banking...
...recent years a higher birth rate has pushed the Moslem portion of Lebanon's population to an estimated 60% of the 3.2 million total. Christians responded by making it all but an article of faith to block any census that might change the original 1932 figures. Such friction might well have been enough to spark violence, but the present explosion has defied control because of still other complicating factors. Christians and Moslems alike are subdivided into sects, each headed by bosses (zu'ama) who have used patronage to build iron loyalty, as well as personal militias...