III. CONFESSIONALISM IN LEBANON
The reputedly pro-Western March 8 Alliance won the June 7 elections. The pro-Syrian March 14 Alliance made up of Hezbollah and General Aoun fell short of the number of votes they had expected and that many international observers had predicted.
The vote split along community lines, which are as strong as ever.
Lebanon's population is divided into three communities, roughly equal in size from a demographic point of view, that include 17 different religious currents: Sunni Muslims led by 38-year-old Saad Hariri, the son of the assassinated former prime minister Rafik Hariri; Shiite Muslims in the Amal militia, which barely matters anymore, and Hezbollah, led by Hassan Nazrallah; and Christians, who have split into two factions: the Lebanese Forces led by Samir Geaga, Amine Gemayel and Michel El Murr, who have formed an alliance with the Sunnis, and those led by General Aoun, who has sided with Hezbollah and Syria. The Druze community accounts for approximately 5% of the population. Their leader is Walid Jumblatt, who does his best to protect his community's interests.
When General Aoun joined forces with Hezbollah, he brushed aside the Christians' traditional alliance with the Sunnis in order to take Lebanon's national into account. Some Christians considered that a transgression and view him as a traitor.
The fact that Hezbollah remained inactive during the Gaza events and accepted the election results shows that it is not merely a puppet of Iran and Syria, as some people often claim, but a full-fledged Lebanese political party.
Lebanon's free and fair elections show that the parties have agreed to settle their disagreements with ballots instead of bullets.
Nevertheless, confessional and community rifts continue to dominate Lebanese politics. The construction of a Lebanese State capable of transcending those splits will still take a long time. It cannot be achieved until the issue of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees on Lebanese soil, which has poisoned relations between Lebanese and fueled instability for years, is settled. The problem will not be resolved until the refugees in Lebanon can settle and live in a Palestinian State. That is why a just and lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict matters for Lebanon, as it does for the rest of the Middle East.