Outright Assassination Read online

  Far from showmanship, the elections turned into one of the most fraudulent elections in Lebanon’s history.9 The SNP under Sa’adeh failed to win any seats but was consoled by the wide public denunciation of the results. In the light of the rigging, Sa’adeh declared the next day that the elections were “a mere exercise to maintain a group of irresponsible and totally individualistic politicians in power.”10 The comment was not taken lightly by the government, which renewed the search for him with a large reward for his delivery “dead or alive.” Not many Lebanese were enthused by the offer and took it as a mere public relations exercise to deflect attention away from the rigging controversy.

  Undeterred, Sa’adeh hit back in characteristic fashion with a public proclamation that amounted almost to a declaration of war:

  In this difficult hour and amidst this great chaos, salvation is still possible. But it depends on your willingness to partake in it. Don’t be deceived by falsehood! Salvation will not come about by voting out a group of selfish politicians and voting in another group of selfish and reactionary politicians. Salvation comes when the self-seekers and reactionaries in power step down and, equally, when the self-seekers and reactionaries who covet power for themselves are defeated.11

  Tough and frank, the rhetoric stirred the curiosity of many sophisticated listeners and erudite cynics, but it didn’t give Sa’adeh any more than valuable coverage in the local press. The government responded with a barrage of propaganda reminiscent of French days. Its newspapers in Beirut began to smear Sa’adeh as a British agent and to publish false reports about his location, claiming at one point that he had secretly slipped away to Jordan.12 Rumors also circulated that his grip over the SNP was waning. Others claimed that Sa’adeh was planning an armed attack on the government. Still calm and politic, Sa’adeh coped with the renewed attack on his person not too differently from the way he had dealt with earlier clashes with the French.13

  The psychological war between the two sides persisted for several more months. Neither scored any stunning victories but within the wider spectrum of opinions, including those of loyalists, Sa’adeh clearly edged ahead for standing firm on what he believed in. There is no record that he ever lost his temper and he seldom refused invitations to speak. The government, too, refused to buckle and kept the pressure up. It was left to independent mediators to work out a solution acceptable to both sides. A breakthrough was finally achieved in October whereby the government agreed to withdraw the warrant of arrest against Sa’adeh in exchange for a formal pledge from the SNP leader to uphold the sanctity of the Lebanese entity within its existing borders. Although the pledge failed to meet the President’s demand for “unconditional loyalty,” it served its purpose, and the bickering subsided.14

  A New Dimension: Zaim’s Rise to Power

  Early in November 1947 a confrontation with the government was averted at the last minute after Sa’adeh agreed to cancel a planned demonstration against the partition of Palestine. Unable to resist the temptation, the following day he issued a carefully conceived statement against the government:

  We never thought that the Lebanese government would stand as a stumbling bloc between the nation and its cause on this day. However, it appears that private considerations were more important and more precious than the nation’s cause. The government, it seems, has preferred to gamble with the nation’s cause than give up its exclusive stance and witness in the flesh the masses rallying behind the social national renaissance. We declare right here that this stance [of the government] will not in any way influence the ongoing struggle between us and reaction, which wants to keep the nation steeped in its feudal decadence.15

  Following the UN partition resolution of 29 November 1947, Sa’adeh stepped up his oratory against the “selfish reactionary regimes” of the Arabs. He shaped his rhetoric according to the exacting requirements of the situation and, matching words with deeds, placed his followers in a “state of war” for Palestine. Conscription started promptly and weapons were sought from various quarters to arm the fledging militia. This caused grave apprehension in Beirut and raised the prospect of having to deal with a combative SNP in the event of defeat. Under the banner “No Arms to the Social Nationalists,” the government blocked the flow of military weapons to his followers and tried to silence him by banning his newspaper al-Jil al-Jadid. However, Sa’adeh continued to repeat, rephrase, adapt, and supplement his political articles using sympathetic newspapers like Kul Shay to get his message across. He met repeated thrusts from the government, but he refused to budge from his ideological position vis-à-vis the Lebanese state. In October 1948 he harked back to his homecoming speech likening the independence of the country to life “behind the great wall that surrounds the complex of the prison erected by foreigners.”16 He added sarcastically, “The foreigner has never left us. He has merely backed away just like when a cat backs away from a mouse to entertain itself: as long as the mouse is within sight of the cat it remains under its control.”17 Soon afterwards, intelligence reports of an SNP plan to overthrow the regime by force began to reach the Premier’s desk. The so-called plan clearly did not imply operative or concrete ideas, but Sa’adeh’s warlike oratory created grave concerns.

  Believing in the reality of the plot, the government tried to shut out the SNP.18 Its effort was frustrated by Husni az-Zaim’s rise to power in Syria on 30 March, 194919 which caused an immediate schism between Sa’adeh and the Khoury regime. False news reports that the Syrian coup was masterminded by SNP officers in the Syrian Army sent cold shivers throughout the Lebanese Establishment. The suspicion deepened after Zaim announced a reform program for Syria based upon but by no means identical to Sa’adeh’s reform doctrines.20 No doubt the ex-SNP Akram Hourani had a strong hand in the way it was devised but few knew that. The timing of the coup was also crucial. It came hot on the heels of rumors that Fawzi al-Qawakji, the field commander of the Arab Liberation Army during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, had plotted to link up with SNP army officers in Lebanon and Syria as part of a wider assault on Arab regimes.21 “In this way,” explained Taha Hashimi, “Qawuqji believed that the movement will result in the unification of the Arab countries and the establishment of a republic. Then he will attack the Jews and push them out of Palestine.”22 Suddenly, the prospect of an SNP takeover in Lebanon seemed very real.

  The temperature of the Lebanese regime would have shot higher if it had known what Sa’adeh was planning. On April 10, following the announcement of Zaim’s reform program, Sa’adeh secretly instructed the party’s Damascus Chapter (mounafadhiyyah) to contact Zaim and offer him “all the material and moral potentials at [the party’s] disposal.”23 Despite concentrated intelligence monitoring of Sa’adeh, the overture was not picked up by the Lebanese government or by the press in either Lebanon or Syria. A week or so later, a two-man SNP delegation turned up at the Presidential palace with a memorandum but it was not allowed to meet Zaim in person.24 The memorandum was carelessly, or perhaps deviously, bundled away by the staff and the matter ended there. Three weeks later another opportunity arose. On 9 May, a Syrian army intelligence officer entered southern Lebanon in broad daylight and killed a Lebanese civilian suspected of spying for Israel. His subsequent capture and imprisonment by the Lebanese sparked a crisis and led to the closure of borders between the two countries.25 While the local Syrian and Lebanese press traded accusations, Sa’adeh set up a legal taskforce inside the party to review the incident. Its key findings and recommendations, published in al-Jil al-Jadid on 22 May, came out strongly in favour of the Syrians because, at the time of the incident:

  There was no formal treaty between Syria and Lebanon on cross-border disputes;

  The “artificial foreign-designed” borders between the two countries were imprecise and had no clear demarcation lines or points. Therefore, there was no way for the assailants to distinguish between Syrian and Lebanese territories;

  Lebanon and Syria were still, technically, in a state of war with Israel;r />
  Kamal Hussein’s treachery was detrimental to both countries;

  Treason falls under military and not civilian jurisdiction;

  Neighbourly wellbeing and security should prevail over local considerations in such circumstances.

  At other times, that might have gone unnoticed, but now the situation had become too critical. On reading the report, Zaim’s senior adviser Sabri Qubbani sent him a copy of al-Jil al-Jadid in hopes of catching his attention. A self-confessed Arab nationalist, Qubbani was a moderate, pragmatic bureaucrat who admired the discipline and dedication of the SNP and its leader. Although he monitored his duties and assumed, as much as was possible, an impersonal role, the pressures of increasing responsibilities, burdensome decisions, and Zaim’s disrupting behaviour motivated his sensitive reserve. When he realized that the SNP legal document had failed to strike a responsive chord with Zaim, he proceeded physically to set up a meeting between Sa’adeh and his leader:

  I walked in on Zaim in his office in the General Staff. He was agitated, fuming with rage. He said, “Riad, that son of a . . ., is stalling the release of Tabarah. I swear I will turn his life into hell. I will seize every Lebanese vehicle and turn Lebanon upside down. Pack your things right away. I am sending you over to Beirut with a letter to so-and-so.” I said, “Excuse me, but I don’t see how these measures can be practical. No one will benefit from this rupture and conflict with Lebanon except the Jews. What’s more, negotiations with the Lebanese are still in progress.26

  In his recollections, Qubbani mentioned the event with a tremendous sense of pride and gratification. Speaking for the most part from the third-person point of view and casting his questions in a nonpersonal vein, he proceeded to ask Zaim: “Did you read the party’s legal memorandum that I sent to you? Were you to ask our leading legal experts to explain our point of view, we would not be able to come up with a memorandum nearly as good as theirs.”27 Then he dropped a sweetener: “Had you taken any interest in the SNP,” he told Zaim, “we wouldn’t have this Tabarah crisis today.”28 Appearing surprised by this demonstration, Zaim responded with a counter-offer, “Is it possible for meet to see Sa’adeh in person tomorrow?” Qubbani retorted “Let it be the day after tomorrow, Friday, for it will be a holiday and you will have ample time to discuss matters with him at length. You can meet him in your private home away from prying eyes.”29 And so it was. Sa’adah arrived in the Syrian capital on Friday morning after secretly crossing the Syrian-Lebanese borders. He was flanked by party officials. But Zaim’s impulsiveness got the better of him and the meeting had to be rescheduled:

  At exactly seven and a half in the morning, on Friday 27 May, I was climbing the stairs of Zaim’s house. I was alone . . . When he opened the door for me I found him standing upright and dressed in full military uniform, holding his gloves and cane, as if he was ready to leave. I greeted him with astonishment on my face, “Where to? We have a meeting with Mr . . . He looked at his watch and said, “Right, true. I have half an hour left; hurry and come back along with him. I am leaving to the front with the ministers at exactly eight.” I said, “Allow me to remind you, sir, that Sa’adeh is not like other men, and that this historical meeting may have an impact on the policies of Syria, if not the entire Middle East. It would be inappropriate to meet with him in a rush. Let’s hold the meeting tonight at eight in the evening after you have completed the tour at the front.30

  Qubbani was decidedly embarrassed, but his crusading momentum was too great for him to stop without first accomplishing at least one meeting between Sa’adeh and Zaim. With Syria on the brink, he opined that a meeting between the two men was essential not only to their own survival but also to the vital interest of Syria. At Sa’adeh’s temporary residence, Qubbani launched into a tirade against Zaim and spoke at length about his obnoxious and dubious character. Describing Zaim as “a man not like other men”31 he cautioned Sa’adeh about Zaim’s polemical excesses and his inclination to leap hastily to foolish conclusions: “I do not think you have met anyone like the coup leader; he is one of a kind, peculiar and impulsive. Words such as nationalism, patriotism, doctrines and principles have never found their way to his heart or carved out a space in his mind.”32 Then he dropped an important piece of advice: “To succeed in your mission, I hope you will listen to his nonsense and bragging no matter how long it takes . . . From the start parade your strength and the strength of your party, for he believes in power only, and respects only those with forceful appearances.”33 The oration was quite dramatic but Sa’adeh remained “calm and cheery”.34 Like others now and then, he found it difficult to imagine that such a man could be so obnoxious. Zaim, with his dash and reform mind, fit his image of a statesman much more readily, despite his long-time ill-concealed pattern of misconduct. Sa’adeh, therefore, chose to remain more broadly focused on the positive side of the regime.

  That evening the meeting between Sa’adeh and Zaim went ahead, oddly enough, without a hitch. After a brief stint, Sa’adah launched himself with an oration on the coup but the immediate focal point of his address was the apparent corruption and ineffectuality of the traditional regimes. For the moment, the pressing objective for Sa’adeh was to try to win Zaim’s favour and to build a rapport of some sort with him. According to Qubbani, who met both men separately after the meeting, the discussion was concise, constructive and free of ceremonial niceties.35 Zaim did not attempt to emotionalize the issues or claim too much for himself (probably because the Front tour that day had tired him out) and Sa’adeh walked away satisfied by the positive and unusually conciliatory tone of the Syrian leader. Contrary to press reports, which appeared several days later, the question of armed revolution was not raised during the meeting. Nor was there mention of a coup d’état in Lebanon, as was widely rumoured. The two men agreed to combine their resources against the Lebanese government, but no definite program for accomplishing this objective was laid:

  Sa’adah pledged to prepare the people and to stir up public opinion against the Lebanese government, enlisting for this purpose the power of his party and its potentials. In return, the coup leader vowed to support the party at the international and the Arab League levels and across natural Syria. Furthermore, the two parties agreed that Lebanon should remain a republic until such time the vital foundations of the two countries – single foreign representation, a unified military defense system, and the consideration of both countries as a single economic cycle – have developed sufficiently [for a union].36

  The meeting was secret and discreet, as intended. All three, Qubbani, Sa’adeh, and Zaim understood its essential value and, indeed, vowed to respect its secrecy. However, Zaim’s egocentricity shot up quickly and he began to boast about the meeting to his foreign minister, Adel Arslan.37 The following day, Arslan turned up in Beirut to give Solh the lowdown. The Lebanese Premier reacted aggressively to the point of hysteria and quickly sought to contain the situation. That took two forms: internally, he moved rapidly to reconcile his de facto party, an-Najjadah, with its antithesis, the Phalange, in a bid to create a common front against the SNP; and, externally, he appealed for help to Egypt and Saudi Arabia and started, for the first time, to send positive signals to Zaim to draw the Syrian leader away from Sa’adeh. By his own admission, Solh also convened an emergency session of the Security Council (majlis al-amen) in Lebanon to debate the future of the SNP and the kind of punitive action to take against its adherents.38

  The Jummaizeh Incident

  The mounting distrust between Sa’adeh and the Lebanese government exploded at Jummaizeh on 9 June, 1949. The details are not altogether clear. It started when Sa’adeh turned up at a building in the Jummaizeh district of Beirut, to which the editorial offices of the SNP newspaper Al-Jil Al-Jadid had recently moved, just as a Phalange meeting was getting underway in a café situated on the opposite side. Yussef Salameh, who was at Sa’adeh’s side, recalls:

  We climbed the short stairway to the first level, taking everyone by surprise. Sa’a
deh then walked into a vacant office after asking everyone there for a short intermission in order to write an article for the forthcoming issue of the newspaper. Hisham [Sharabi] and I waited with the others in the sitting area, which was spacious. About half an hour later we heard a loud roar from the café on the other side of the street. A party member, who was waiting in the room with us, was quick to point out that the café was owned by a Phalange sympathizer and that pictures of Pierre Jummayel adorned its front-windows on all sides. A few minutes later the clamor increased and with it the level of defiance and abuse.39

  No sooner had Sa’adeh finished his weekly article than an SNP military officer pulled up in front of the building accompanied by five armed men. They lined up in military fashion and gave him the party salute as he walked back to his car. Intimidated, the throng of armed Phalange sympathizers gathered in front of the café and on the main street opened fire and stormed the building. In the confusion that followed, several members of the SNP were injured, but Sa’adeh escaped unharmed. According to Hisham Sharabi, the Lebanese Gendarmerie arrived belatedly on the scene and arrested the SNP members instead of the attackers!40 The printing press owner, Michel Faddoul, recalls that his brother “called the fire brigade, the police, the local gendarmerie office for help, but in vain because the lines were down on orders from the Prime Minister, Riad Bey.”41

  As news of the incident spread, SNP adherents gathered at Sa’adeh’s house “I remember Sa’adeh walking down the stairway of his house calmly, deliberately, and with a wrinkle on his forehead. I remember him making his way through the large crowd in the front garden and around his house with the smile of a confident man.”42 The incident confirmed the existence of a government plot against Sa’adeh and the SNP, but the government denied the allegation despite massive press criticism. Soon afterwards, the Lebanese Premier inadvertently announced to the press that “the government had made all the preparations to dissolve this party [SNP] and had fixed the deadline for the previous Saturday. But the Jummaizeh incident which took place the previous Thursday, that is 48 hours before the deadline, forced us to bring the dissolution order forward and to promptly begin the process of purging.”43