ABSTRACT
Lebanon had experienced the same waves of political tension that swept over the rest of the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s, but because of its relative stability, Beirut had been called the “Paris of the Middle East.” The arrival of Palestinian leadership in the early 1970s was a brutal shock to the Lebanese political system. Lebanon had been forced to sign the Cairo Agreement in 1969, which permitted the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to launch attacks on Israel from Lebanese soil. A gradual increase in PLO attacks on Israel originating in Lebanon, coupled with growing PLO involvement in domestic Lebanese politics, brought the situation to a turning point in February 1975. The October 1976 ceasefire did nothing to address continuing hostility between the PLO and Israel. The Saudi monarchy derived its strength from the interwoven networks of loyalty between different branches of the royal family and prominent provincial notable and religious families.
