The tension pertaining to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon that is deteriorating thanks to the tripartite Arab summit, implies that the Lebanese have once again transcended the threat of a Sunni-Shiite strife that was about to start had the good-intentioned parties not interfered. But the pre-calm period is very similar to the post-calm period, and this indicates the outbreak of an additional crisis in the relations among the Lebanese sects. If we were to look beyond the verbal and media exchanged attacks, we would not be surprised by an old problem that regulates the increase of warmth of the relations among various groups, and it seems that reconciliation was achieved thanks to foreign efforts, as always, a few seconds before the Lebanese reached the edge of the abyss. This problem is nothing but the system of power-sharing among the sects, which makes various kinds of variables threaten its work and continuity. The Arab-Israeli conflict is no less influential on our miserable system than the demographic change and the increase or decrease in the population. The direct translation for any external or internal change is the tension of the party which considers itself threatened and thus starts looking for sources of power. Anyone following up on the Lebanese situation will not face any difficulty in finding proofs on the “Pavlovian” behavior: Every change is a sign of trouble in Lebanon, from politics to culture. The change of the royal regimes in Egypt and Iraq in the 1950s of last century, the growing Iranian role following the American invasion of Iraq, the loss of the Christian demographic majority, and the emergence of the Shiites as a most dynamic sect and most demanding when it comes to expanding their representation in the state's institution – all these are factors that made up the image of the Lebanese life and added to it a great deal of symbolic expressions and metaphoric language that usually implies the opposite of what it announces. At some point, it is naïve to believe that a Sunni-Shiite settlement - under Arab and international sponsorship of course, and which rests on preventing the leveling of any accusations at any Hezbollah members in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri – is enough to prevent strife. During the previous round of tension in Lebanon, i.e. the one that ended with the 7th of May 2008 events, Hezbollah was not accused with the abovementioned charge. The protests that preceded these events and paved the way for them - including the famous sit-in down town - aimed at forcing the Lebanese Government to step down for reasons that indirectly pertain to the International Tribunal. The graph of the Lebanese conflicts reveals that the feuding parties change with the variation of the internal or external facts. The Sunni-Shiite division was preceded by a Muslim-Christian one. Between this and that, a wave of secondary inter-Shiite, inter-Maronite, and Shiite-Druze conflicts were witnessed, not to mention the sharp divisions between the Palestinians and the Lebanese, and between the latter and Syria, and Syria and the Palestinians. It is worth to mention that all of these conflicts and divisions ended with one of the following solutions: Either the security and military tyranny or an agreement on dividing up the cake which includes the public money, shares in the state, and roles in the relations with the international sides who are involved in the Lebanese politics. Therefore, it is right to assert that the current stage of tension, which was downplayed by the Arab summit, will end soon, either peacefully or violently. This makes no difference as long as it will represent the foundation for the next division. In the early 1970s, it was said – in view of conflicts and divisions that are similar in content - that secularizing the Lebanese system is the solution to this closed circle. However, after a few years, the seculars discovered that they are weaker than the system which they want to change, so they returned to their divisions, without them being able to make any difference.
