The official date for the beginning of the civil war in Lebanon is April, 15, 1975. For 35 years, this small country has alternated periods of violence and of calm with no signs of the end of this dilemma looming on the horizons. While comprehensive and widespread civil violence has characterized the past 35 years, it was only latent in the past, perhaps since the establishment of the State of Greater Lebanon. Despite the seasonal settlements that put an end to all the stages of this latent violence, the Lebanese failed to get out of the same dilemma. The peaks of this violence could be associated with sharp regional changes, such as the Egyptian-Syrian unity in 1958, or the June defeat in 1967, and later the rise of the armed Palestinian resistance which was defeated by the Jordanian Army in 1970. But it reflected on Lebanon and turned into “a state within a state,” and ignited the spark of the civil war in 1975. It is also true that the establishment of the State of Israel on the southern border of Lebanon - akin to the Arab-Israeli confrontations - affected this country and fomented internal divisions and violence. All these regional and external factors were nothing but a catalyst for the inherent internal violence in this country, even if the rival forces in the region attempted to manipulate it in their favor, by igniting it at times and cooling it down at others. With the exception of the “white revolution” in 1952, in which politicians from all sects participated to prevent the renewal of the term of the president at the time Bechara Khoury, the settlements of the subsequent stages of violence resulted in amendments in the balance of sectarian shares in the government. This means that violence has always sprung from objection to the distribution [of these shares] within the regime. The external factor was only a catalyst to internal collision which is only terminated by a new amendment to this distribution. The Taef Accord in 1989, which was considered to be an ultimate settlement that keeps the country safe from civil violence, did not even prevent subsequent violence represented by the May 7 events and [did not exempt] the need for a new agreement called the Doha Agreement signed in 2008. If we were to examine these agreements, which were imposed after domestic violence that carried regional motives which primarily pertain to the conflict with Israel – starting with protecting the resistance against Israel which was once represented by the PLO factions in the 1970's, as well as protecting it currently as it is represented by Hezbollah and its arms – reveals that the question of protecting the resistance retreats and becomes less important than the distribution of the political shares among the sects. This means that this is the latent concern of the opposition and those carrying arms. The Muslims first objected to the Christians' share in power before the Taef Accord. Then it turned to a Shiite objection to the Sunnis' share which was increased upon this accord. The Doha Agreement came to give the Shiites a larger share in power. But this dilemma will continue with every domestic social development that allows any party to object in an attempt to increase its share. In this sense, the continuation of the Lebanese wars, whether announced or latent, is associated with sectarian pluralism, or more specifically, with the failure to dismantle the coloration of the regime with this sectarian pluralism. All the settlements that have been reached are nothing but a catalyst to nurture this latent war, because one party [of this settlement] will feel discriminated by the period that forced it to make concessions, and will lie in wait for a coming round whose internal circumstances comply with a certain regional development. Today, with all the agreements, settlements, the consensual president, and the national unity government, the concerns of sectarian shares and the image of the sect that rallies behind the leader who holds onto the distribution of its shares is repeated in the controversy over the municipal elections and the preparations for them.
