A Hezbollah fighter waving the flags of the party and Iran. (Credit: AFP archive photo)
In 1985, Ghassan Tueni published his most important book, which upon release became a reference work for understanding the dynamics of the Lebanese civil war. However, the main idea defended by the author was often misunderstood, to the point that its title, A War for Others, quickly became in collective memory ‘the war of others,’ suggesting that it downplayed the role played by the Lebanese. Perhaps this was an almost unconscious way for the population to wash their hands of a war that had so tarnished them that they had become unrecognizable. For despite the presence of Palestinian fedayin, the Syrian and Israeli invasions, and later the creation of Hezbollah by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, it was indeed the Lebanese, all communities combined, who were the main actors of the war that mourned the country for 15 years. One could...
In 1985, Ghassan Tueni published his most important book, which upon release became a reference work for understanding the dynamics of the Lebanese civil war. However, the main idea defended by the author was often misunderstood, to the point that its title, A War for Others, quickly became in collective memory ‘the war of others,’ suggesting that it downplayed the role played by the Lebanese. Perhaps this was an almost unconscious way for the population to wash their hands of a war that had so tarnished them that they had become unrecognizable. For despite the presence of Palestinian fedayin, the Syrian and Israeli invasions, and later the creation of Hezbollah by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, it was indeed the Lebanese, all communities combined, who were the main actors of the war that mourned the country for 15 years. One...