Breakdown of the State in Lebanon, 1967–1976

Why did the Lebanese state, the most open and democratic political system in the Middle East, break down between 1967 and 1976? In this major contribution to the debate, Fazel el-Khazen rejects the standard explanations of the Lebanese Civil War and argues instead that the causes were due to the official state ideology, which recognized diversity, dissent and a highly pluralistic population, and then specific external factors: pressures from the Arab-Israeli Conflict, inter-Arab rivalries, and the Palestine Liberation Organization’s close connection to Lebanese politics. Using an historical analysis, el-Khazen sheds light on the political situation of the country in the lead up to the conflict and the major role Lebanon's neighbours had in the events. The detailed and comprehensive account uses interviews with the key protagonists in the civil war and analysis of unpublished sources to reveal how and why the breakdown took place.

In a massively researched, factually reliable, and politically centrist interpretation…[el Khazen] provides what will surely become the authoritative account of Lebanon’s slide to war. As the title implies, el Khazen sees the weakening of the Lebanese government as the central development in the period following the 1967 Six-Day War… He is scathing on the press coverage of the PLO’s role in the conflict—and also that of Western scholars—for their willingness ‘to accept the Palestinian version of the story., Some works are works of a lifetime. And this book is in that tradition. Everything about this scholar’s life has led him to this book. Lebanon has been his home and vocation and calling. No one else in our field of Middle Eastern Studies could or would produce a book of this weight and seriousness and knowledge. Its mine of information, its interviews with the protagonist in that drawn-out struggle over Lebanon, the rich, textured data are all testimonies to a voracious commitment to tell Lebanon’s tale. Straddling the boundaries of politics and history, this able, knowing, discerning book has mini-histories of all of Lebanon’s communities. It situates Lebanon in its region, and in the world, and tells of what became of a land without a strong state of its own in a world of other, more powerful states. Others have written of Lebanon’s politics. The Breakdown of the State in Lebanon exceeds them all in power and integrity and knowledge and research and detail. A study that should make its way in Middle Eastern affairs as the definitive account of modern Lebanese politics, El-Khazen's book is the most comprehensive and scholarly assessment of the years leading up to the civil war in Lebanon and the "breakdown" of the Lebanese republic ... [a] groundbreaking book, In this ambitious book, Farid El-Khazen gives a detailed, chronological and thematic account of the years immediately preceding the breakout of the Lebanese civil war in 1975 through to the (temporary) cessation of armed confrontation in mid-1976.

Farid el Khazen was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration at the American University of Beirut and Member of Lebanese Parliament (2005-2018). Author of numerous publications in English and Arabic, El Khazen holds a PhD in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).