ABSTRACT
The relations between the Syrian army and the Christian population began to undergo a change of a sort which is familiar in the history of Lebanon. The year following the Riyadh and Cairo conferences was marked by the collapse of the understanding which had been reached between Syria and the Christians at the time of the civil war. Syria's basic intention to weaken all the local factions in Lebanon militarily and politically, Syrian policy toward the Christian camp in the course of 1977 was characterized by a great deal of restraint and conciliatoriness. There were opponents of the anti-Syrian policy among the Phalange and in other groups in the Lebanese Front, and only gradually did Bashir Jemayel's faction succeed in gaining ascendancy and ousting its rivals. Like most of the Syrian actions in Lebanon, the armed confrontation between Syria and the Christian camp was not the result of a deliberate Syrian policy.
