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Traditionally clannish, the Maronites had no real political organization until Pierre Gemayel, the father of Bashir and Amin, founded the paramilitary Phalangist Party in 1936. His purpose: to establish a political vehicle for the Maronites, something they had not really had before. Visiting the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Gemayel was reportedly impressed by the discipline of Hitler's Nazi Germany. He named his party after, and took many of his ideas from, the fascist Falange of Spain's Francisco Franco. Nowadays Phalangist leaders disavow any fascist doctrine and prefer to call their organization the Kataeb Party.
"We haven't left Lebanon," says the still defiant elder Gemayel, who is 76. "The Jews left Israel and were gone for nearly 2,000 years. The Palestinians left Palestine. We did not leave." It was not until 1948, when Palestinians fleeing the newly created state of Israel threatened to alter the Christian-Muslim balance in Lebanon, that Gemayel transformed the Phalangists into a fighting force. Maronites insist that the presence of armed Palestinians in Lebanon provoked the incident that sparked the bloody 1975 civil war: an attack on Pierre Gemayel by Muslim gunmen that left one of the Phalangist leader's bodyguards dead. Phalangist forces retaliated by shooting up a busload of Palestinians passing through a Christian area, starting the strife that set both Christian and Muslim factions against one another, destroyed much of downtown Beirut and left an estimated 40,000 dead.
By then, Bashir Gemayel had taken control of the Phalangist militia and ruthlessly set about consolidating his party's power over other Maronite Christian groups. Bashir's major challenger was Tony Franjieh, whose father Suleiman had been elected Lebanon's President in 1970, and whose forces fought alongside the Phalangists during the civil war. Franjieh controlled parts of northern Lebanon with his own militia. In June 1978, 200 Phalangists opened fire with rockets and guns on Franjieh's house in the resort village of Ehden, killing him, his wife, daughter and 35 others. Two years later, Bashir crushed the rival Christian forces of former President Camille Chamoun. The Gemayel forces created their own state within a state in East Beirut, making their own laws and efficiently handling such chores as running the telephones and collecting the garbage. Bashir Gemayel also was able to take control of the joint Lebanese Forces, a supermilitia numbering 25,000 that included most of the Christian factions.
Since the civil war, the Phalangists have been supported and encouraged by the Israelis. Although they share a common hatred of the Palestinian guerrillas, the Israelis viewed the Phalangists both as a counterweight to Syrian forces in Lebanon and as the group best able to stabilize the country. But for all the help the Israelis have given them over the years, the Phalangists did little to help when Israel invaded Lebanon in June. In a turbulent period, Bashir Gemayel did not want to risk offending the Muslims he had fought so often in the past, and was afraid he might have to fight again.