Word: sectarian
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...Syrians, who sponsored the conference, were deeply disappointed by its failure. Declaring that "Lebanon's salvation starts with bringing the country out of the sectarian quagmire," the Syrian government newspaper, Tishrin, asked whether the country's leaders "will learn this lesson, or have they become so insensitive that only cauterization will work for them?" Having supported President Gemayel during the conference, the Syrians privately blamed the Christian "godfathers," Chamoun, Franjieh and Pierre Gemayel, for the breakdown...
...Sectarian murder, that tit-for-tat madness so familiar to residents of war-torn Lebanon, found a new venue last week in the streets of Israel and the occupied West Bank. In the Israeli port of Ashdod, 22 miles from Tel Aviv, an Arab grenade exploded on a crowded bus, killing three Israelis and wounding ten others. Responsibility for the action was claimed by the Black June terrorist group, a breakaway faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization based in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Only three days earlier, a bus carrying some 60 Palestinian laborers from their West Bank homes...
...crisis besetting their country, the distant thud of heavy artillery sounded in the hills beyond, and reports circulated of mistreatment of Muslims by Christians and of Christians by Muslims. Before parting, the clerics called for a combined effort by Lebanon's religious leaders to seek an end to sectarian bloodletting. Within hours, preparations were under way for an extraordinary "spiritual summit" between Christians and Muslims...
Modern Lebanon is a strictly sectarian society: citizens must carry an identity card giving their religious affiliation. Although the two main currents of religion are Christian and Muslim, each is a mosaic of supporting and frequently feuding parts. As a result, there are 17 recognized religious groups: five are Muslim, one is Jewish and eleven are Christian (among them Maronite, Greek, Armenian and Syrian Catholics and their Orthodox counterparts...
...well beyond what the U.S. was able or willing to commit. In the judgment of one Pentagon official, bringing enough order to Lebanon to enable formation of a true central government would have required not 1,600 Marines but 100,000 U.S. troops-and even then, the depth of sectarian hatreds, which Washington appears to have totally misjudged, might have made the task impossible...