In May, 1991, President Elias Hrawi signed a treaty with Syria with superpower backing, under which Syria committed itself to recognizing Lebanon as a separate and independent state for the first time since the two countries gained independence from France in 1943. The ten-kilometer-wide (six-mile) security zone along southern Lebanon's border remained a site of periodic hostilities between Shiite Hezbollah forces and Israeli-backed Lebanese troops.
After thirteen separate Israeli air strikes into southern Lebanon between January 1 and June 3, 1991, Lebanon joined other Middle Eastern countries in a U. S.-brokered Arab-Israeli Peace Conference in 1992 and called for the immediate implementation of U. N. Resolution 242, requiring Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon. Israel, however, refused to withdraw from the buffer zone along the Israel-Lebanon border, which Israel had established in 1985 to protect its northern settlements.
By 1992 Syria had emerged as the dominant influence in Lebanese affairs. In 1994 Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon shelled northern Israel to protest the signing of the Israel-Jordanian peace treaty, which the guerrillas viewed as a break in Arab unity. Israel and the South Lebanon Army returned fire, and political programs that were not government owned were banned from television and radio in an effort to curb the violence.
Many felt that one goal of the Syrians and Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas was to fight a war against Israel within Lebanon, the weakest country in the Middle East, whereas Israel's objective was to flood Beirut with refugees to put pressure on Syria to curtail Hezbollah activities.
Hostilities began expanding north beyond the security zone, and Israel attacked Beirut in April, 1996, for the first time since its 1982 invasion. The expanding conflict based on the calculated use of suffering refugees was condemned internationally, compelling Israel and the Hezbollah to sign a cease-fire mediated by the United States with Syria playing a consulting role.
After accepting the cease-fire, Hezbollah took part in national elections in 1996, sending a representative to Lebanon's National Assembly. This marked Hezbollah's transition from a guerrilla army to a broader political organization.
Elections in October, 1998, replaced Elias Hrawi as president of Lebanon. General Emile Lahoud won the office with heavy military support. General Lahoud also had the backing of the Syrians, who had become essential to any political arrangement in Lebanon. In those elections, also, veteran politician Salim al-Hoss replaced Rafiq al-Hariri. The fact that Lebanon was able to hold regional elections in 1998, for the first time in thirty-five years, signaled peace and an opportunity for rebuilding the political structures of the nation. However, tensions between Christians and Muslims continued and the Christian president, Lahoud, was accused of breaking the Taif Agreement of 1989 by assuming powers thought by some to belong to the Muslim prime minister.
Rafiq al-Hariri returned to office in October, 2000. His relations with President Lahoud were difficult. In August, 2001, Lebanese security forces, apparently acting with the consent of the president, arrested a number of individuals known to be opposed to the Syrians. The arrests caused a serious break between the president and the prime minister, who had not been consulted about these actions.
World History
