Word: phalangists
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Whatever fragile equilibrium the Lebanese managed to recover during the ensuing years was upset by the Israeli invasion of June 1982. The Israelis openly took sides with the Phalange and welcomed the election of Bashir Gemayel, the leader of the Phalangist-dominated Lebanese Forces, as President. When Gemayel was assassinated nine days before his inauguration, his older brother Amin instead took the job following his unanimous election by parliament. With some 38,000 occupation troops in Lebanon, Israel tried to impose a peace treaty on the country. The Lebanese refused, but after U.S. pressure the two countries signed an agreement...
...year after the ghastly massacre of hundreds of Palestinians, heavily armed men still prowl the shanty town of Shatila on the southern fringes of Beirut. But instead of the feared fatigue uniforms of Phalangist militiamen, they wear spiffy red-and-gold scarves emblazoned with the Venetian Lion of St. Mark, and their presence inspires comfort rather than terror. They are Italian marines who keep strict watch from a ring of sentry posts and constantly patrol streets that are now as safe as any in Lebanon...
...Islamic sect, would fall under control of the Druze militia, although the mountains are specked with Christian as well as Druze villages (see following story). The Druze militia has 30,000 fighters and, if pressed, could field thousands of irregulars. The Lebanese Forces, a Christian militia dominated by the Phalangists, have an estimated 5,000 to 8,000 fighters in the Chouf. This number could also be considerably increased, though at the moment many Christian families are sending their teen-age sons to Cyprus to hide them from Phalangist recruiting gangs...
...reach his home, from which he takes potshots at Suq al Gharb out of a carefully sandbagged upper-story window. Walid says of his six-year-old daughter, who has neatly twined pigtails and the only clean clothes in the house: "I will teach her to hate the Phalangists and how to kill them." Oscar, a Phalangist commander in Suq al Gharb, has kept members of his family and some of his pets at his headquarters. He scoops up his eight-year-old son, who has just finished playing with a plastic six-shooter. Says the father...
...days earlier, when things were going their way, the Muslim militiamen had broadcast over loudspeakers a message to army troops outside the Cadmos Hotel: "To our beloved Lebanese army. We do not want to hurt you. The regime has used you as tools of the Phalangist conspiracy. Do not obey orders! Do not shoot!" It was one of many efforts by the militias to persuade army troops to break ranks by dividing along sectarian lines. Such a development was not unexpected. Earlier hi the summer, a prominent Arab journalist in Beirut had predicted: "If the army has to fight...