The Levant 1500—2002

Unlike Egypt, which the Ottomans and their clients ruled as a single substate or province, the Levant, comprising Syria, Mount Lebanon, and Palestine, remained a patchwork of communities bound by a variety of tribal, ethnic, and religious affiliations under local leaders. The latter were formally subjects of the Ottoman sultans until the twentieth century, when France and Britain divided the region into client states with precarious national identities. The Levant remained subject to occidental cultural influences long after the Crusades, with the Maronite Church based in the

Northern Lebanese highlands adopting Latin rites and acknowledging Papal supremacy. The southern highlands overlooking the plains of Galilee were the homeland of the Druze people, a schismatic Shiite sect regarded as heretical by other Muslims. Under the Maan family (1544-1697) and the Shihabs (1697-1840), who replaced them, the division of power between the Maronites and

Druzes was relatively even, with Ottoman governors balancing the interests of both groups. However, the decline in Ottoman power from the eighteenth century saw increasing tension and sectarian rivalry between Maronites and Druzes, abetted by competition between France and Britain. This led to a succession of massacres and bitter sectarian wars between 1838 and 1860.

The Ottoman defeat in 1918 saw the division of the Levant between French and British spheres of influence, with the victorious allies creating four colonial dependencies—Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine—out of the former Ottoman provinces. After ousting Faisal, son of the ruler of Mecca and leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks who had set up a provisional government in Damascus, the French imposed direct rule on Syria and Lebanon while Britain opened up Palestine for European Jewish settlement and established client monarchies in Transjordan and Iraq. While creating a modern bureaucracy in Syria along with an infrastructure of roads and communications networks, the French undermined national integration by organizing administrative districts that reinforced ethnic and religious divisions. In particular they

THE LEVANT 1500-2002

Favored the military recruitment of the Alawi (Shiite) sectarians from the highlands above Latakia. After independence the Alawis were able to take control of the nationalist Baath (Renaissance) Party, establishing a sectarian dictatorship that combined socialist ideologies imported from Eastern Europe with the time-honored Arab system of asabiyya (group solidarity).

The French enlarged Lebanon by adding the districts of Tripoli, Sidon, the Biqaa Valley, and South Lebanon to the smaller Ottoman province, substantially increasing the proportion of Muslims from the Sunni and Shiite communities. Building on Ottoman precedents they instituted a constitution by which power was divided between the main religious groups, with Maronites retaining supreme power through the offices of president and commander-in-chief of the army, regardless of demographic changes. The division of power along sectarian lines was reaffirmed in the 1943 National Pact, which established the

Basis for rule after independence. The system ensured a modicum of social peace but militated against national development. When Palestinians used Lebanese territory to launch attacks against Israel in the 1970s the Israeli reprisals reopened sectarian divisions leading to widespread civil war (1975-82) and the fragmentation of Lebanon into zones controlled by rival Christian, Shiite, Sunni, and Druze militias. The chaos was compounded by the 1982 Israeli invasion aimed at expelling the Palestinians and installing a Maronite regime allied to Israel. While the former objective was achieved with the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from its Lebanese bases, the principal outcome of the invasion was the establishment of a de-facto Syrian hegemony and the emergence of the Shiite Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran—a more effective enemy to Israel than the Palestinians. The Israeli occupation of South Lebanon proved costly and ineffectual, provoking the government into making a unilateral withdrawal in 2002.