On 2 March 1977, just nine days before his assassination, Lebanese politician and leader of the National Movement (NM) Kamal Jumblatt addressed a rare letter to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, with whom he had held a tempestuous seven-hour meeting on the Lebanese civil war a year earlier. Sourced from Syrian archives, it reads as follows:
His Excellency, Dear Brother, President Hafez al-Assad,
Warm fraternal greetings,
We consider it our national duty to write to you concerning the issue of the South, which is escalating politically and morally with every passing day, perhaps more than it is militarily, unless the isolationists receive additional Lebanese fighters travelling to Israel via Jounieh, Beirut, and Cyprus. This is already taking place, and the military threat is growing if the isolationists are relieved of political and military pressure in other regions.
We believe that Israel’s objective, as conveyed to us through isolationist and international sources, is as follows:
1. To intensify and escalate the military and political challenge to the Arabs, particularly Syria, on Lebanese soil, thereby weakening any military initiative, stripping it of wider morale, and hardening the isolationists’ stance. This would make them even more resistant to the objectives behind Syria’s intervention in Lebanon, foremost among them preventing partition, advancing a political resolution, and forging a stronger and more lasting national bond between Lebanon and Syria.
2: To obstruct the continued efforts of Arab forces, particularly Syrian forces, in disarming the isolationists of heavy weaponry. This would enable the isolationists, once these forces withdraw, to resume their aggression against the nationalists and the Palestinians. You are well aware, Mr President, that arrogance and delusion have clouded the isolationists’ judgment after wrongly assuming that Syrian forces entered Lebanon solely to protect them. In their view, this intervention serves only to preserve their vast privileges.
3: To revive the hopes of this faction within the Maronite community who, both as individuals and as a group, are hostile to Arabism and harbour a specific, traditional and covert animosity towards Syria, aiming ultimately to compel the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon.
4: To thwart the implementation of any unification initiatives. The National Movement is currently facing a difficult period, left vulnerable following the entry of Arab forces. A significant portion of the southern population has lost morale due to displacement from areas surrounding Beirut, and due to the prevailing climate that now characterises relations between Syria on one hand, and the National Movement and the Palestinians on the other. This climate has directly obstructed the launch and continuation of military operations aimed at liberating the South. How can people support one another when they are surrounded?
5: By means of a Maronite mini-state in the South and a semblance of relative stability, Israel is preparing to deploy its military forces. Israel operates on the assumption, correctly, that the Arabs are growing accustomed to this Maronite initiative, one tied to Israel, at Lebanon’s southern frontier.
6: The isolationist Maronites, among them Bashir Gemayel, Sheikh Pierre Gemayel, Father Charbel (head of the Maronite Order), and Camille Chamoun, are all involved in executing this plan, under the protection of Israel. They stand to gain:
- The expulsion of Palestinians from the South
- The cessation of any guerrilla border activity
- The gradual depopulation of the South of Muslims and nationalist Christians, encouraging their emigration abroad and thereby diminishing their politically significant presence in Lebanon. This would obstruct nationalist demands for basic rights and preclude any meaningful political resolution, or at least frame such a resolution according to the Keserwan theory (originating from the Maronite Order’s heartland), which promotes pluralism, civilisational divergence, and Maronite political autonomy.
- Leverage against Lebanese nationalists, President Elias Sarkis, and the Syrians, thereby tying President Sarkis to the southern crisis. Should this phenomenon escalate, it would represent the most humiliating scenario Israel could impose upon the Arabs.
- The establishment of a quasi-independent Maronite entity in the South would let the isolationists negotiate a return to national unity on the basis of a federalist model, cantons, thus realising their earlier proposal for partition.
7: Should Israel succeed in establishing a Maronite entity in southern Lebanon, it will exploit that position to demand the full withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon. Israel will not permit this entity to collapse until its demand is met and, if not, will intervene militarily to protect it by occupying part of the South.
