24 November 2006 article

Gemayel, Syria, Israel and the War in Iraq

By Patrick Seale

There are two main theories about who killed Pierre Gemayel in Beirut on 21 November – one points the finger of blame at Syria, the other at Syria’s enemies. Both theories are plausible. But, such is the murky nature of Lebanon’s politics and the murderous intrigues of foreign powers that it would be exceedingly rash, in the absence of firm evidence, to plumb for one or the other.

Gemayel, 34, was a member of a prominent Maronite family which, for the past seventy years, has championed the cause of Lebanese independence under Christian leadership, in opposition to Arab nationalists who advocated pan-Arab unity under Muslim leadership -- or simply close ties between Lebanon and its Syrian hinterland.

Impressed by what he had seen of Nazi youth movements at the Berlin Olympics of 1936, Gemayel’s grandfather, Shaikh Pierre Gemayel, founded the Phalanges libanaises (in Arabic, the Kata’ib). As both a political party and a Christian para-military force, it has played a major, if controversial, role in Lebanese politics from the 1930s to the present day.

In 1982, Shaikh Pierre’s son, Bashir, collaborated with Israel in its invasion of Lebanon and was elected president, only to be assassinated shortly afterwards by a member of a pan-Syrian party. Bashir’s brother Amin succeeded him as president and, with American backing, concluded a separate peace with Israel in May 1983, which would have put his country into Israel’s orbit.

Syria mobilised its local allies against the accord and managed to abort it. Israeli forces, however, remained in occupation of south Lebanon until 2000, when they were finally driven out by Hizballah, a resistance movement of the Shia community, allied to Syria and Iran.

True to his family’s heritage, Amin’s son, the young Pierre Gemayel who was killed this week, was a minister in Fuad Saniora’s anti-Syrian government, itself a product of the parliamentary majority which emerged as a result of popular revulsion at the murder in February 2005 of the former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri – a murder for which Syria and its local allies were widely blamed.

Headed by a Belgian judge, Serge Brammerz, a commission of enquiry into Hariri’s murder is expected to publish its findings within the next month or two. Syria’s enemies are confident Syria will be held responsible. Syria clamours its innocence and points the finger at Israel and its local agents.

As may be seen, Lebanon’s unfortunate fate is to be a battleground between Syria and Israel for dominance in the Levant. The issue is far from resolved. This past summer Israel, encouraged by the United States (and with the tolerance of Britain), mounted an all-out assault against Lebanon in an attempt to destroy Hizballah and bring Lebanon into the Israeli-Western camp. The attempt failed.

Hizballah has emerged stronger than ever. It is, very probably, the single most powerful political and military force in Lebanon today. It remains the close ally of Syria and Iran – part of the so-called Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah axis which is determined to challenge American and Israeli regional hegemony, and indeed that of France in Lebanon as well.

Hizballah and its allies – who include General Michel Aoun, a Christian leader who broke ranks with his community -- have been pressing for the replacement of the Saniora government by a government of national unity, in which they would have what they consider their rightful place. Their case is that only such a government can unify the country, heal the sectarian divide, prevent a lurch back into civil war – such as destroyed Lebanon between 1975 and 1990 -- and rebuild Lebanon after Israel’s devastating assault.

Syria’s enemies argue vociferously that the killing of Pierre Gemayel, ahead of the publication of the Brammerz report, was a pre-emptive move by Damascus to derail the formation of a special international tribunal to bring Hariri’s killers to justice. Plans for the tribunal were finalised by the UN earlier this week but still need to be approved by the Lebanese government and indeed by the pro-Syrian President, Emile Lahoud. Bringing down the Saniora government would clearly doom the tribunal to futility.

This is the prime argument of the anti-Syrian camp which includes Sunni Muslims led by Saad Hariri, bent on avenging his father; Walid Jumblat, leader of the Druze community, who has come out stridently against Syria’s President Bashar al-Asad; and Gemayel’s own Phalanges libanaises-- all partners in the ‘14 March movement’ formed after Hariri’s murder.

Denouncing Syrian and Iranian interference in Lebanon’s affairs, they have no doubt that Pierre Gemayel’s killers were acting on orders from Damascus.

There is an alternative theory, which is equally plausible, in which the more likely culprits are Israel and its local agents. Those who advance it ask who benefits from the crime. Certainly not Syria and its Hizballah allies who, to their great embarrassment, now find themselves denounced once again as criminals before world public opinion.

This accusation of a new heinous murder comes just at a time when Syria was on the point of re-engaging with Europe and the United States and when Hizballah was hoping to reap political rewards from its stalwart resistance to Israel during last summer’s war.

The murder of Pierre Gemayel has had the immediate effect of paralysing Hizballah and throwing it on the defensive: it can no longer consider bringing its supporters out on the street in peaceful demonstrations, as it had planned and announced, to press its demand for a national unity government.

Similarly, the murder is a grave setback for Syrian diplomacy. It occurred when Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Muallem, was in Baghdad where he announced the resumption of diplomatic relations between Syria and Iraq, after a breach of a quarter of a century. At the same time, Iran called for a tripartite summit of Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian presidents to help end the appalling violence in Iraq.

By these moves Syria and Iran were signalling that Iraq’s neighbours could not be excluded from an eventual settlement in Iraq; that they were able and ready to play a constructive role; and that they were, in fact, key players with whom the United States needed to engage if it was to find an honourable exit from the Iraqi quagmire.

Damascus and Tehran are also seeking to convey the message that peace in Iraq will necessarily require a withdrawal of U.S. troops; that the Iraqi problem cannot be separated from other conflicts in the region; and that a global settlement will involve resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict on the basis of the creation of a Palestinian state and the return of the Golan to Syria.

To the alarm of hard-liners in Israel and in the United States, these ideas were beginning to make their way in American and European opinion. Calls for a global settlement were coming from many quarters, including last week from the leaders of Spain, France and Italy. Even Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair has seemed to distance himself from Washington in stressing the need for a ‘whole Middle East strategy’, with priority given to the Palestinian-Israel conflict.

In these circumstances, it seems hardly likely that Syria -- eagerly seeking dialogue with the West, emerging from isolation, and pressing hard for the U.S. to re-launch the Middle East process – would put all this in jeopardy by ordering a squalid murder of a relatively unimportant Lebanese politician.

On the other hand, Syria’s enemies – Israel and its Lebanese agents first among them – would have every motive to seek to check Syria’s return to international respectability and to prevent the restoration of Syrian influence in Lebanon, even in a milder form than before.

These then are the rival theories. Both Israel and Syria have in the past resorted to murdering their political opponents. Israel continues to do so routinely in the Palestinian territories. Which of the two is guilty this time? Hard evidence either way will not be easy to find. But until it is found, it would be wise to suspend judgement.