MIDDLE EAST: Violent Week: The Politics of Death

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casualty figures and the intricacies of these conflicts. Why care especially about Lebanon? Partly because its fate touches on the larger, potentially cataclysmic Middle Eastern conflict. Partly because a change in who rules Lebanon could affect the precarious balance of the entire region. Partly because the savage Lebanese struggle represents a kind of microcosm of the feuds between sects and races in the Middle East, where minorities have long fared poorly—witness the Arabs of Israel, the Jews at various times in almost every Arab state, the Kurds of Iraq.

Lebanon, a compact nation with 17 diverse Christian and Moslem sects, seemed to have found the ideal solution. Everything appeared so neatly and carefully defined. The President was always to be a Maronite Christian, reflecting the fact that the Maronites before independence were the largest sect in Lebanon; the Premier was a Sunni Moslem, the speaker of Parliament a Shia Moslem. But two things were wrong with the system. Once ordained, it could not be changed without bitter quarrels. Moreover, the Christians, thanks to their French connection, held on to a disproportionate share of power.

Christian refusal to accept basic reforms in the system was the underlying cause of the latest violence. But the most recent focus of Moslem anger was Suleiman Franjieh, the white-haired, crusty mountain man from Zgharta who has been Lebanon's President for 5½ years and is due to leave office on Sept. 23. Moslems with good reason consider the narrow-minded Franjieh the pre-eminent example of Christian misrule in Lebanon; Jumblatt threatened to wage war to the end unless Franjieh left office before his time. To back up their demands, the Lebanese Left two weeks ago leveled their artillery on the presidential palace at Baabda (TIME, April 5) and blasted Franjieh out of it in an attempt to bombard him from office. Last week Lebanon's President was operating out of a village hall near Jounieh, a Christian town located north of Beirut.

Lebanese Christian leaders soon joined Jumblatt in accepting the ten-day ceasefire. During this hiatus, Lebanon's Parliament is expected to meet in Beirut (for the first time in a month) to elect a new President and to accept Franjieh's resignation (if and when it is tendered). At week's end two prominent candidates were Maronite Christians with reputations as moderates: Raymond Edde, 62, head of the centrist National Bloc Party, and Elias Sarkis, 51, president of Lebanon's Central Bank, who narrowly lost out to Franjieh in 1970.

Despite the almost universal feeling that it was high time for Franjieh to step down, there was no guarantee that he would do so. Edde warned that Lebanon might face the prospect of having two claimants to the presidency, a situation that would surely lead to a renewal of fighting. As it was, the first two days of the freeze were fitfully observed; police said that 92 people were killed and 85 wounded in sniping incidents during the first 24 hours. There were also reports of tank battles in the mountain country, and some Christians were again calling for Syrian intervention.

If the fighting resumes in earnest, Jumblatt's National Movement troops, who are backed by many Palestinian groups, will undoubtedly resume their assault on the remaining Christian strongholds in Lebanon. Last week Moslem and leftist forces managed to