Middle East 101, Week XI

The Lebanon War

By Maher Attar

Quick questionnaire

These questions are for everyone, not just the discussion group that meets every Sunday. I’ve been assuming that the number of readers who have been following along with the class is significantly greater than the number of people I see in class every Sunday. Am I right about that?

Finally, if you’re following along with the reading but not coming to class, do you find that it’s possible to do this just by reading the ME101 posts?

I’d be very grateful if everyone who reads this were to answer, because I’m trying to figure out—both now, and in case I ever teach a class like this again—how to make it useful to the maximum number of readers. If you don’t come to class but you read the posts, is there a way I could make them more helpful to you?

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Lebanon

By acclamation, the class decided it wanted to devote the full week to the events in Lebanon from the beginning of the civil war, in 1975, to the last battle in 1991. It was a wise choice. This is a convoluted bit of history, and if you’re encountering it for the first time, you’re apt to get a bit tangled up.