Outright Assassination

by Adel Beshara

  The Khoury regime also implemented specific measures to bring the state bureaucracy to heel. Public servants, especially in the military and security departments, were directly affected, even career men who had nothing to do with recent events. Conducted under an established law that made it unlawful for a government employee to have membership in any political organization, it aimed to eliminate public servants with markedly SNP records without permitting the entry of those with the slightest SNP or Communist leanings. All sorts of standards were applied. The procedure often deteriorated into political witch-hunting and flagrant denials of justice. There were no appeal boards to review cases and no avenues of relief for sufferers, which created enormous hardship for the dismissed persons and their families. In some cases, suspects were indicted and tried and sent to prison or degraded to lower-paid jobs on flimsy evidence. Naturally, members of the armed forces were the worst hit.

  The Government then swung the cleaver in the direction of political parties. In a move designed to undercut a growing threat from militant groups, it declared that all political parties in the country would be disbanded until further notice. Brought to a crisis “by the armed rebellion of the Syrian Popular Party,”9 the matter quickly developed into a public debate over the authority of the state and the continued existence of paramilitary groups. Naturally, political parties were all up in arms about the proposition, especially the militant Lebanese Phalange which expressed its opposition to it in a philosophical way:

  Rumors have increased that the Government is going to dissolve all parties, including the Phalange. That is easier said than done. It is as if dissolving the parties which are working against Lebanon were the same thing as dissolving parties which are working for Lebanon. In this age of independence in which we are living, this report about dissolving all parties has a bad effect on the nation.10

  In reply, the press friendly to the Government argued no republic can hope to live in which political organizations, no matter how loyal, maintain private armed forces.11 The issue exploded again when authorities clashed with the militant Phalange organization in response to the wounding of two port workers for making “undue noise” in front of the Phalange headquarters.12 The pro-government press seized the moment to renew its call for the dissolution of political parties and the concentration of authority in the Lebanese Government as the only legitimate policing entity in the country. However, the government stifled the debate by watering-down the proposition. It now said that what it was really proposing was that paramilitary organizations should in the immediate future change their operations to become normal political parties. The move was justified on the ground that “such a change would present as a competitor to the Communist menace an active example of democratic procedure.”13 Both the Lebanese Phalange and the Najjade, the country’s largest paramilitary organizations at the time, acquiesced in the new law and promised to became regular political parties. Other parties were not so lucky, particularly the Communist Party. It was brutally suppressed after authorities learned that Communists, organized on a secret cell basis, were operating a regular program among Palestinians both inside and outside the refugee camps. Though it did not reach the intensity of the anti-SNP campaign, the drive against the Communists deprived the Lebanese body politic of the only two clearly identifiable secular organizations in the country (the SNP and the Communist Party), and left the political field wide open to sectarian forces.

  2. The Military Establishment

  Another important and largely unstudied aspect is the extra new attention that the Khoury regime began to give to the armed forces and other agencies of the military establishment. Up until the Sa’adeh saga, the Lebanese state appeared content with comparatively small armed forces and was one of the least active buyers in the arms market. The Lebanese army, numbering less than 5000 officers and men, was widely seen as a relic of the French Mandate, a toy army that scarcely sufficed for the maintenance of domestic law and order, let alone defense against external aggression.14 In the face of inter-communal quarrels, its function was almost wholly domestic either to umpire elections or help the gendarmerie. After the July uprising and Sa’adeh’s execution, the Khoury regime instituted policies which emphasized the modernization and expansion of the armed forces and the acquisition of new military hardware. In a radical departure from traditional Lebanese policies on military matters, based as it was on little government and minimal spending on public services, including the armed forces and security apparatus, the government decided to increase the annual military budget and to mechanize the army with new weaponry:

  In view [of] local disturbances caused by attacks on isolated gendarmerie posts by well armed bands of Socialist Popular Party [sic], Lebanese Government considers its army must be strengthened to prevent possible widespread rebellion. Government has approached Legation requesting it ascertain whether Lebanese application for purchase communications equipment for army might be favorably received. It also desires purchase [of] turret assemble complete with primary and secondary armament and ammunition and certain turning gear components to condition and complete 20 Sherman medium tanks now being reconditioned in Lebanon.15

  At the same time, the regime realized that without a devoted, modern army it could not impose its will on a disunited population. To insure the loyalty of the army, on 10 July it announced an additional US$4,000,000 for national defense and, for the first time, the introduction of universal compulsory military service.16 A government communiqué reported that “the army will be reinforced with new units, as will the gendarmerie. Both also will be provided with new weapons.” It also said that military training would be introduced in all Lebanese schools for all able-bodied men. According to a New York Times report, the “Government decided after the brief armed rebellion of the Syrian Popular Party and the execution of its leader, Antone Saadeh, that the time had come to do away with paramilitary political groups as a potential menace to the state.”17

  The Sa’adeh saga, thus, brought the national army and other security agencies to the forefront of Lebanese politics. It helped to establish them as an important pillar of the state and led to the veneration of the army as the symbolic incarnation of the country. It was the first open and decisive incident in which the army took on a role outside its nominal domestic duties. Moreover, the Lebanese army’s success against the uprising, in spite of its size and the relative paucity of its means, bolstered its image as a truly national institution deeply committed to the existing order. It demonstrated that the military was as critical to conflict termination and nation building in Lebanon as any other institution.

  3. Retribution

  There is doubt whether the Khoury regime grasped the full implications of using police-state tactics in a liberal environment such as that of Lebanon. Any persecution is a heavy drain on the social energy of a people, the resources of the national economy, and upon the ability of a government to perform what may be called more ordinary functions.18 Moreover, a government is seldom completely effective in trying to suppress certain types of behavior over a short period of time. It “frequently results in consequences that were little dreamed of when a given policy was adopted.”19 It may even elicit a hazardous reaction:

  The very psychic will to suppress, even if it does not reach the stage of using political power to attain the end, tends to give the ideas under fire and the emotional reaction surrounding them an importance that they otherwise would not have. Emotional reaction produces an alternating fungus-like growth of further depth of feeling.20

  The hard-line policy of the Khoury regime quickly ran its course and, by the end of 1949, it was largely over. Changing public sentiments undoubtedly had a lot to do with this: there were many critics of the strategy, including many figures not generally noted for their liberalism. Many ordinary Lebanese became fed up with the restrictions imposed on them and simply wanted to attend to daily cares. At the first sign of resistance, the regime became less decisive in pursuing its goals and
its policy of austerity slowly gave way to compromise and concessions. This was a critical mistake. It tarnished the image of the Khoury regime as a serious government. Concessions and indecisiveness in such circumstances can be easily construed merely as a sign of weakness: “It should be clear that indecisiveness is one of the greatest faults of those who embark on strong political policies.”21 Indeed, as soon as the Khoury regime began to waver from its hard-line policy a new situation set in, providing Sa’adeh’s supporters with the long-needed excuse to retaliate.

  Even before the start of this second phase, Sa’adeh’s execution had already fostered an atmosphere of fear in the Lebanese state. Following Zaim’s cold-blooded execution in Syria (see below) reports quickly spread that the SNP had regrouped under the leadership of the elusive George Abd al-Massih,22 Lebanon’s most wanted person at the time, and that it had made Solh and Khoury their next targets of revenge for Sa’adeh’s death. To add to government woes, Lebanese newspapers started to cover Syrian Nationalist activities in Syria and elsewhere even at the risk of prosecution under the new censorship restrictions.23 Worried by the “subversive” reports, the Khoury regime intervened to halt the publishing of information related to Sa’adeh and the SNP by expanding the screening process, but to no avail. The press in Lebanon reported on.

  On 10 August, a report about Zaim’s betrayal of Sa’adeh appeared in The New York Times claiming that the SNP “had made the assassination of Marshal Zayim their priority No. 1.”24 It added: “Marshal Zayim now never moves without a whole phalanx of guards and the President and Premier in Lebanon are guarded very heavily day and night.”25 Ten days later an-Nahar disobeyed the censorship rules and republished the report in its entirety in Arabic. It did not say in as many words what it hoped to achieve from that, but the message was loud and clear: the SNP was far from being a spent force and was making a comeback. A subtle reference in the report about how the “present Lebanese regime was heartily abhorred by a large part of the Lebanese population because of its corruption and incompetence”26 was yet another impetus. The report demonstrated the limitations of the Khoury regime and aroused the instincts of the SNP for reprisal.

  Early in March, 1950, the party struck back with an assassination attempt on Solh. The attack happened while the Premier was attending a banquet in his honor given by a prominent Lebanese citizen, but missed its mark. Two bystanders were killed and three others were wounded, not including the assailant, who was injured in the shootout and arrested. He was later tried and sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life imprisonment after the Premier withdrew all personal charges against him in an attempt to placate the SNP.27 The party did not reciprocate. After the incident Solh would rarely venture outside even as the force of guards around him was increased for extra protection. He remained a man marked for murder.28

  Unbeknownst to Solh was that another SNP member was staking him with the same deadly intent. Michel el-Dik had vowed to Sa’adeh’s wife to assassinate the Lebanese Premier at the first opportunity, but the security cordon set up around Solh had proved too strong to make any attempt feasible. In early July 1951, he followed Solh to Amman, the Jordanian capital, accompanied by one Mohammed Adib as-Salah, a Palestinian ex-sergeant in the Arab Legion. The pair was soon joined by Aspiro Wadiah, a sympathetic Jordanian citizen who acted as their chauffeur. As Solh drove out to Amman airport in Abdullah’s limousine under heavy security, at a lonely stretch of the road, a car with the three men in it drew ahead of the limousine and opened fire immediately, with one assailant calling out “take this from Sa’adeh.” Solh was shot through the jaw and heart and died instantly. The assassins Mohammed as-Salah and Michel el-Dik then turned the guns on themselves while Aspiro escaped on foot with the Jordanian police in hot pursuit. Mohammed as-Salah died instantly and Michel el-Dik, who was taken to a military hospital unconscious, committed suicide soon after at the same hospital by ripping open his wounds and falling off his bed. When news of the assassination reached Beirut, heavy rioting broke out in the city:

  The toll of rioting here was believed to be two dead and fifteen injured. Hundreds of shop windows were broken; cars, streetcars and buses were partially wrecked. Eyewitnesses said the rioters had broken windows in 300 stores on the principal business street of the city and a great deal of damage was done in other sections. Damaged automobiles stood empty throughout the central portion of the city. Heavy police forces then took over the center, but the situation remained tense. The rioting was brought under control when the military intervened with armored cars and armed patrols. A heavy guard was placed around certain sensitive points, including the Jordanian Legation. Six heavy tanks took up position in the central Square of the Martyrs, together with two armored cars. Other armored cars patrolled the streets.29

  As the coffin bearing Solh’s body made its way through the crowded silent streets of Beirut, demonstrators shouted “Abdullah, where is Riad?” A week later, on a visit to the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, King Abdullah was reported saying: “If Riad had come to Jerusalem, as I asked him, he would not be dead.” Ironically, they were Abdullah’s last words before his own murderer’s bullets found him.30

  The third casualty of the Sa’adeh saga was Youssef Charbel, the Public Prosecutor at Sa’adeh’s trial. He was shot on 16 February, 1954 by two SNP partisans under strict instructions to inflict maximum bodily harm rather than kill him. Charbel was paralyzed by the shooting and resigned his post as Chief of State Council. The man charged with the investigation, Colonel Nour ad-Din al-Rufaee’, became delusional after the incident. Fearing for his life over his part in Sa’adeh’s killing, he gave the SNP a written undertaking to drop all charges against the perpetrators of the Charbel shooting in return for a vow to spare his life.31

  The SNP policy of targeted killing had strategic effects on Lebanese politics. It increased the feeling among most Lebanese that the long arm of the SNP was capable of reaching their most intimate surroundings. It touched the highest ranks of the political leadership and provided retribution and revenge for a group under siege. Although the campaign was limited it played havoc with the authorities and forced open the possibility for political compromise. A senior SNP officer who lived through this period conveyed the atmosphere of fear and confusion it created:

  One day Solh was attending a major banquet on the banks of al-Qassimiyyah held by some of his acquaintances and among the invited was Archbishop Bulus Khoury, an uncle of my wife . . . No sooner had they sat down Solh called out to the Archbishop: “My Grace. Put in a good word for me with your brother-in-law, Abdullah”. The Archbishop gave him a disapproving look. Yet Solh returned: “The Party wants to kill me and Abdullah can save me.”

  Although the SNP publicly distanced itself from the reprisals and maintained throughout that they were entirely the work of embittered individuals, most Lebanese remained unconvinced. Yet, their reaction to the killings was rather subdued. Apart from the riots that broke out upon Solh’s assassination, which were directed largely against the Jordanian and Lebanese authorities,32 people did not turn out on the streets to protest the party’s reprisals. Neither the government nor the immediate victims of the reprisals attempted to retaliate, but some Lebanese expressed their discontent with the practice. This would seem to have been due as much to the dwindling support of the Khoury regime as to the empathy that Sa’adeh’s execution was beginning to generate. Perceptions of the killings as isolated incidents aimed at specific individuals rather than the State was also a contributing factor. On a different level, the reprisal campaign helped to refocus the attention of press and politics on Sa’adeh and encouraged wider interest in his case. The SNP achieved notoriety and became a feared organization. Its morale lifted and its Lebanese branch rejuvenated despite the legal ban imposed on it by the Khoury regime.

  4. The Downfall of the Khoury Regime

  A final issue that must be addressed is to what extent did the Sa’adeh controversy directly contribute to the Khoury regime’s do
wnfall? Although the Sa’adeh saga could not be directly linked to the ‘revolution’ that overthrew Khoury in September 1951, the atmosphere of discontent and instability it fostered in Lebanon help weaken his regime politically ahead of its demise. This happened in a number of ways. First, the fiasco of the trial and execution process resulted in a loss of faith in the administration and helped to revive and expand the disgruntlement with the regime. It provided an essential public forum and refuge for criticism of the government against a background of eroding legitimacy and growing popular frustration. The government’s response to the saga of trying to restrain the press by authoritarian means, such as suspending the publication of newspapers which had published articles offensive to the administration and arresting their editors, “were counterproductive as they were interpreted by the public as reflecting loss of control on the part of the administration, and ultimately served not to curb but only to increase the wave of public criticism against it.”33

  Second, the saga contributed to the administration’s downfall by driving to the opposition a substantial number of influential Lebanese. Under Sa’adeh the SNP stood outside the power-struggle between the opposition and the government. Although the party and the government never could get along and were separated by deep-seated ideological and political issues, the Lebanese opposition was hardly able to benefit from the SNP. The tenor of its opposition to the Khoury regime rose and fell during this period but never lapsed into open support for the opposition. After Sa’adeh’s execution, however, the SNP placed its full political weight behind the opposition. Although battered by the loss of its leader and government persecution, its defection at such a critical moment consolidated the public agenda for change and gave added momentum to the crisis facing the Khoury regime. Viewed in broader perspective, the SNP’s new discourse contributed to the president’s downfall both in the sense that it had discredited the President’s authority amongst a sizeable number of Lebanese in 1947,34 and also because it contributed themes that were later revived, not always with acknowledge-ment,35 by Jumblatt and others in 1952.36 The SNP was also probably the first political party in Lebanon to raise the idea of a united front against Khoury.37 It was tendered during the parliamentary elections of 1947, but received no more than a lukewarm response because politicians “were motivated by personal gains and not by nationalist or collective principles of any kind.”38