| >largely as a result of radical Islamist Palestinians who had left Palestine and wanted an Islamic state in Lebanon Not accurate. Until the early 90s and the rise of Hamas the most active Palestinian militant groups were secular, some were even Marxist/Leninist (as in, officially areligious). Fatah, in control of the PLO, has always been secular and the second most active Palestinian militant group during the 1970s was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist organisation led by a Palestinian Christian. Political Islam as a force in Palestinian politics started in the 90s and only really became a big thing during the second intifada in the early 2000s. The Wikipedia page [1] makes for an interesting read if you want to understand more about the Lebanese Civil War and the many groups and foreign interests involved in this tragic conflict. As for the Palestinians, they had a large refugee population established in Lebanon and the PLO leadership wanted a base for their militias; the Lebanese state understandably didn't want a parallel state operating with militias within their borders; this lit the fuse on a country with an already fragile sectarian balance and dozens of sizeable minorities that had grief with the state and each other. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War |
I was too young to remember the civil war, but at least in the collective retelling of the story, it's commonly accepted that PLO tried to topple the Beirut government to install their own. There are many claims that Arafat wanted Lebanon to be an alternative for their "stolen" Palestine. If it's the first time you hear that, then I think it's likely you never talked to Lebanese people about the war and the PLO.
Arafat, the leader of the PLO, wasn't christian. That's ... weird you claim this. His name is Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini. That's as Muslim as it gets. He was even a member (or a close ally I don't know) of the Muslim Brotherhood.
It's tough to convey to non arabic speakers, but several politicians, PLO front and center, use the terms "Arabs" and "muslims" almost interchangeably.
The Lebanon "civil war" is a misnomer. For the majority of the time, it was a war between lebanese christian militias and palestinian invaders that were tolerated by the lebanese muslim groups.
Lebanon's history and the civil war are complex and I'm not doing a good job of explaining then in a HN comment. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that islam has become more strict in the palestinian ranks after the 90s. This may be true. But I assure you that from the late 50s to the late 80s, they were trying to kick the non-muslims out of Lebanon by force.