Population of Lebanon in the 1940′s
40 % Maronite Christian
27 % Sunni Muslim
3.2 % Shi’a Muslim
Remainder (>30%) Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Greek Catholic, Druze Muslim, others
In the last 50 years, the Shi’a population has exploded, and now is between a third and half of the remaining mix, after years of killing and fleeing refugees, especially Christians.
Throughout all this, no official census tallies have been done, because of the antagonism among all the parties.
In 1970 the PLO were emphatically kicked out of Jordan by King Hussein’s armes, after they had tried to take over the country. (In September of 1970, PLO hijackers landed three hijacked passenger jets on a field in PLO-controlled territory in Jordan. It was the last straw. The ejection of the PLO killed a lot of Palestinian civilians as well as militant fighters (thus “Black September”) and almost precipitated a wider war with Syria, which regarded King Hussein as a mere puppet of the U.S.
Of Course! The dog does not want to give a free hand to Good Muslim Terrorists in his own country! He *HAS* to be a Jew-Loving Puppet of the Great Satan!
The PLO set up in Lebanon – the government of which has never been strong enough to control its borders or interior – and were in daily battle with Israeli forces, both by cross-border raids and by rocket attacks from Lebanese territory. The Lebanese Shi’a population were caught in the crossfire, and abandoned their traditional territories to the belligerents. They moved in many tens of thousands to the slums and shantytowns around Beirut.
That open running sore was aggravated by the influx of Palestinian refugees after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. By the mid-1970′s there were too many factions ambushing and murdering each other to track without a printed program.
The upshot to all that, Shi’a population explosion in the midst of an endless war zone, convinced the Shi’a it was time to develop their own home-grown terrorist organization.
Sorry, Community Organizer Group, with lethal capabilities.
It’s not clear from what I’ve read whether the Shi’a expansion was from prolific breeding or relocation from other climes, or a combination.
