Kim Ghattas

So sometimes I think that the Lebanon that we imagine from the 60s and the 70s is a myth.

Sometimes I think it is real, but it was definitely before the civil war erupted.

And it's known as the civil war.

I don't call it that.

And I'll explain in a moment.

I call it the Lebanese war in my next book, which is coming out later this year.

In the 60s and 70s and late 50s, you know, Lebanon was this cosmopolitan place.

The culture of the Levant exemplified at its best in Lebanon.

You know, there was trade and a casino and the International Festival of Baalbek with international singers and performers and musicians and dancers, you know, ballet and, you know, others all coming to there.

Yes, absolutely.

But it was always a place of trouble in a way, the way it was created.

And the first signs of trouble were...

came in 1969 when Lebanon was press-ganged into signing something called the Cairo Accords, which would give Palestinian refugees and Palestinian militants, rather, armed guerrillas who were in Lebanon, refugees since 1948 and the creation of Israel, and then subsequently

you know, after 1970, a more influx of Palestinian militants into Lebanon.

1969 was the first sign that something might really go wrong in Lebanon because you had the rise of armed militancy by Palestinians attacking Israel from Lebanon.

Correct.

So they were kicked out of Jordan, which crushed them because the king didn't want a Palestinian state within a state, didn't want his territory used as a launching pad for a war against Israel.

He'd already lost one before.

And they were pushed into Lebanon and Syria put an embargo.

Syria, which borders Lebanon, put an embargo on Lebanon.