Arab Disunity

Archive Report

Contention Among Arab Countries

Lebanon as Symbol of Inter-Arab Combativeness

The crisis in lebanon has brought Arab disunity to world attention. But for the more than 100 million Arabs living in the Middle East and North Africa, unity among a people who share the same language and traditions has been the rare exception. Rhetoric about solidarity and the brief congruence of interests after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war notwithstanding, relations among the Arab states1 have long been characterized by rivalries between leaders, ideological feuds and, not infrequently, armed conflict. The civil war in Lebanon is merely the most recent, most publicized and perhaps most brutal example of how individual Arab governments will forsake their slogans about pan-Arabism and act solely in what they consider their self-interest.

Self-interest was ...

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