Status Updates From From Beirut to Jerusalem

- Nov 16 1970 Hafez Assad seizes power in Syria after a coup and his main allies are the Alawites (offshoot of Shia)
- Alawites were about 11% of population but in 1960 they dominated the army and the Baath party. Sunni’s were 70% looked down on the Alawites
- Hama, Syria was historically a center of Sunni Muslims
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“Việt Nam” thực sự là một tính từ - Một nỗi ám ảnh đối với người Mỹ.

- the PLO, Phalangists, and other private militias had their own spokespeople for reporters to contact for information and requests for interviews
- the commodore hotel is where a lot of the journalists would stay due to its access to a telex
- journalists relied heavily on their ‘fixers’ usually locals who could get any task done

- June 1982 Israel invades Lebanon
- Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes describes “the state of nature” of govt and society broke down.
- author claims he was half wrong bc men will do anything to avoid being poor and solitary
- people would try and go back to normal life in between the sporadic explosion which would rarely last more than a week

- post WWI republic of Lebanon formed with a merger between the Maronites (lived in mountains) and Sunnis the 2 largest religions at the time
- after WWI Turkish Ottoman Empire who ruled for 400 fell and Syria and Lebanon fell to France
- 1920 Maronites convinced French to set up Lebanese state where Christians would dominate but it would not just include Mt Lebanon enclave that they shared with the Druse