The Lebanese Forces

The Lebanese Forces
Author: Nader Moumneh
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 619
Release: 2018-12-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 0761870768

In this book, author Nader Moumneh–a Canadian senior policy adviser of Lebanese descent– examines the research of the formation and evolution of the Christian resistance in Lebanon he performed as a graduate student at the American University of Beirut in the early 1990s. He has conducted hundreds of lengthy interviews with senior Lebanese Forces leaders who were thoroughly impressed by his communicative yet assertive personality, his scrupulous presentation of facts, his obsessive attention to detail, and most importantly, his unwavering determination to unveil behind-the-scenes events. Mr. Moumneh drew upon his self-acquired persuasion tactics and negotiation strategies to earn the Lebanese Forces’ trust and gain access to top secret, never-before published information. Since then, he has continually revised and expanded the manuscript to address the rapidly changing situation in Lebanon and the Middle East. The Lebanese Forces: Emergence and Transformation of the Christian Resistance has taken twenty-five years to produce and is unique in its own right. Mr. Moumneh’s work is not a typical re-telling of the Lebanese crisis, rather it is a magnificent blend of skillful craftsmanship, an unprecedented wealth of painstakingly referenced chronological research and now declassified intelligence information.

Civil-Military Relations in Lebanon

Civil-Military Relations in Lebanon
Author: Are John Knudsen
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2017-08-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3319551671

This volume examines Lebanon’s post-2011 security dilemmas and the tenuous civil-military relations. The Syrian civil war has strained the Lebanese Armed Forces’ (LAF) cohesion and threatens its neutrality – its most valued assets in a divided society. The spill-over from the Syrian civil war and Hezbollah’s military engagement has magnified the security challenges facing the Army, making it a target. Massive foreign grants have sought to strengthen its military capability, stabilize the country and contain the Syria crisis. However, as this volume demonstrates, the real weakness of the LAF is not its lack of sophisticated armoury, but the fragile civil–military relations that compromise its fighting power, cripple its neutrality and expose it to accusations of partisanship and political bias. This testifies to both the importance of and the challenges facing multi-confessional armies in deeply divided countries.

Words from Bashir

Words from Bashir
Author: Bashīr Jumayyil
Publisher:
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2009-05-10
Genre: Lebanon
ISBN: 9781442160743

Bashir Gemayel personified a cause the Lebanese Christians fought for throughout their history: To live in Lebanon with complete freedom and security. After being elected President in 1982, Bashir was assassinated before he could take office. But his powerful words which inspired a nation remain. Bashir had a deep historical understanding of the cause he was fighting for as well as the geopolitics affecting it, and he combined that with exceptional communication skills.Bashir's most important speeches took place from 1979 to 1982. His speeches consisted of simple ideas in a simple language. He spoke with passion, charisma, logic, clarity, specificity, simplicity, and frankness, and used references and examples from everyday life. Unlike other leaders or presidents who used formal Arabic for their speeches, Bashir mostly used colloquial Lebanese which made him closer to the audience. This book presents his most important speeches, in English, with analysis.

From Israel to Damascus

From Israel to Damascus
Author: Robert M. Hatem
Publisher: Pride International Publishing
Total Pages: 172
Release: 1999
Genre: Christians
ISBN: 9780964430433

Frontiers and Ghettos

Frontiers and Ghettos
Author: James Ron
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2003-05-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520936906

James Ron uses controversial comparisons between Serbia and Israel to present a novel theory of state violence. Formerly a research consultant to Human Rights Watch and the International Red Cross, Ron witnessed remarkably different patterns of state coercion. Frontiers and Ghettos presents an institutional approach to state violence, drawing on Ron's field research in the Middle East, Balkans, Chechnya, Turkey, and Africa, as well as dozens of rare interviews with military veterans, officials, and political activists on all sides. Studying violence from the ground up, the book develops an exciting new framework for analyzing today's nationalist wars.

The Lebanese Connection

The Lebanese Connection
Author: Jonathan Marshall
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2012-05-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 0804782563

Long before Mexico, Colombia, and Afghanistan became notorious for their contributions to the global drug traffic, Lebanon was a special target of U.S. drug agents for harboring the world's greatest single transit port in the international traffic in narcotics. In the words of one American official, "certain of the largest traffickers are so influential politically, and certain highly placed officials so deeply involved in the narcotic traffic, that one might well state that the Lebanese Government is in the narcotics business." Using previously secret government records, The Lebanese Connection uncovers for the first time the story of how Lebanon's economy and political system were corrupted by drug profits—and how, by financing its many ruthless militia, Lebanon's drug trade contributed to the country's greatest catastrophe, its fifteen-year civil war from 1975 to 1990. In so doing, this book sheds new light on the dangerous role of vast criminal enterprises in the collapse of states and the creation of war economies that thrive in the midst of civil conflicts. Taking a regional approach to the drug issue, Jonathan Marshall assesses the culpability of Syria, Israel, and of Palestinian factions and other groups that used Lebanon as their battleground. On the international level, he documents Lebanon's contribution to the hard drug problem of major consuming countries, from the days of the "French Connection" through the "Pizza Connection," as well as Lebanon's unrivaled place in the global hashish market.

Conflict on Mount Lebanon

Conflict on Mount Lebanon
Author: Makram Rabah
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2020-08-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1474474195

The Druze and the Maronites, arguably the two founding communities of modern Lebanon, have the reputation of being primordial enemies. Makram Rabah attempts to gauge the impact of collective memory on determining the course and the nature of the conflict between these communities in Mount Lebanon. He takes as his focus 'the War of the Mountain' in 1982, reconstructing the events of this war through the framework of collective remembrance and oral history.He challenges the idea that these group identities were constructed by their respective centres of power within the Maronite and Druze community, providing an alternative to the prevailing meta-narrative. Telling the stories of the many people who took part in these events, or who simply suffered as a consequence, helps to expose the intrinsic motives which led to this conflict and makes a valuable contribution to the field of Lebanese historical scholarship.

Syria’s Terrorist War on Lebanon and the Peace Process

Syria’s Terrorist War on Lebanon and the Peace Process
Author: M. Deeb
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2003-07-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1403980969

This study demonstrates that Syria's role in the Middle East has been, since 1974, an unabated terrorist war against all attempts to resolve peacefully the Arab-Israeli conflict. Marius Deeb provides evidence that Syria's role in Lebanon, since 1975, has been to perpetuate the conflict among the various Lebanese communities in order to keep its domination of Lebanon.