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Kamal Jumblatt (Arabic: كمال جنبلاط‎) ; (December 6, 1917 – March 16, 1977) was an important Lebanese politician. He was the main leader of the anti-government forces in the Lebanese Civil War until his assassination in 1977. He is the father of the present Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.

Kamal Jumblatt

Family background and education[link]

Kamal Jumblatt was born in 1917 in Moukhtara, in the Chouf area of Lebanon. He was born into the prestigious Jumblatt family, who were traditional leaders of the Lebanese Druze community. The origin of the Jumblatt family is the Kurdish Janpoulad family coming from Shamel Janpoulade and dating back to Janboulad Ibn Kassem al Kirdi al Kaisari, known as Ibn Arabou (1530–1580), and governor of Aleppo. His father, the powerful Druze chieftain Fouad Joumblatt, director of the Chouf District, was assassinated on August 6, 1921. After his father’s death, Kamal Jumblatt’s mother Nazira played a significant political role in the Druze community for over a quarter of a century.

In 1926, the young Kamal Jumblatt joined the Lazarus Fathers Institute in Aintoura, where he completed his elementary studies in 1928. He achieved his high school diploma, having studied French, Arabic, science and literature, in 1936, and a philosophy diploma in 1937.

Jumblatt then pursued higher studies in France, where he joined the Faculty of Arts at the Sorbonne University and achieved a degree in Psychology & Civil Education, and another one in Sociology. He returned to Lebanon in 1939, after the outbreak of World War II and continued his studies at Saint Joseph University where he obtained a law degree in 1945.

On May 1, 1948, he married May Arslan, daughter of Prince Shakib Arslan (the Arslans being the other prominent Lebanese Druze family). Their only son, Walid Jumblatt, was born on August 7, 1949.

Early political career[link]

Kamal Jumblatt practiced law in Lebanon from 1941 to 1942 and was designated the Official State Lawyer for the Lebanese Government. In 1943, he became the leader of the Joumblatt clan after the death of Hikmat Joumblatt, this also brought him into the Lebanese political scene. In September, 1943, Kamal Jumblatt was elected to the National Assembly for the first time, as a deputy of Mount Lebanon. He joined the opposition to the ruling Constitutional Bloc Party, headed by the then-President, Bechara El Khoury. In 1946, he was appointed Minister for the first time, for the portfolio of Economy, Agriculture & Social Affairs.

In 1947, in spite of his own election for the second time as deputy, he thought of resigning from the government. He began to believe that change through the Lebanese political system was impossible. After opposition groups attempted to pressure him into leaving he decided to remain in office.

On March 17, 1949, Kamal Jumblatt officially founded the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and declared its constitution on May 1, 1949. The PSP was a socialist party espousing secularism and officially opposed to the sectarian character of Lebanese politics. In practice, it has been led and largely supported since its foundation by members of the Druze community in general, and the Jumblatt clan in particular. In the name of the PSP, Jumblatt called the first convention of the Arab Socialist Parties, was held in Beirut in May 1951. The same year, he was reelected for the third time as Deputy of Mount Lebanon.

In 1952, he represented Lebanon at the Cultural Freedom Conference that was held in Switzerland. In August 1952, he organized a National Conference at Deir El Kamar, in the name of the National Socialist Front, calling for the resignation of President Bechara El Khoury. Due mainly to these pressures, the President resigned the same year.

The 1958 revolt[link]

In 1953, Jumblatt was re-elected Deputy for the fourth time. He founded the Popular Socialist Front the same year and led the opposition against the new President, Camille Chamoun. During his presidency, the pro-Western President Chamoun tied Lebanon to the policies of the United States of America and the United Kingdom, who were at that time involved in the creation of the Baghdad Pact, comprising Hashemite Iraq, Turkey and Pakistan. This was seen by pan-Arabists as an imperialist coalition, and it was strongly opposed by the influential Nasserist movement. Jumblatt supported Egypt against an attack by Israel, France, and the United Kingdom in the Suez War of 1956, while Chamoun and parts of the Maronite Christian elite in Lebanon tacitly supported the invasion. The sectarian tensions of Lebanon greatly increased in this period, and both sides began to brace for violent conflict.

In 1956, Jumblatt failed for the first time in the parliamentary elections, complaining of electoral gerrymandering and election fraud by the authorities. Two years later, he was one of the main leaders of a major political uprising against Camille Chamouns Maronite-dominated government, which soon escalated into street fights and guerilla attacks. While the revolt reflected a number of political and sectarian conflicts, it had a pan-Arabist ideology, and was heavily supported through Syria by the newly formed United Arab Republic. The uprising ended after the United States intervened on the side of the Chamoun government and sent the U.S. Marine Corps to occupy Beirut. A political settlement followed by which Fuad Chehab was appointed new President of the Republic.

Uniting the opposition[link]

Jumblatt chaired the Afro-Asian People’s Conference in 1960 and founded the same year, the National Struggle Front (NSF) (جبهة النضال الوطني), a movement which gathered a large number of nationalist deputies. That same year, he was reelected Deputy for the fifth time and the NSF won 11 seats within the Lebanese Parliament. From 1960 to 1961 he was Minister for the second time, for the National Education portfolio and then in 1961 he was appointed Minister of Public Work & Planning. From 1961 to 1964 he was Interior Minister.

On May 8, 1964, he won at the parliamentary elections for the sixth time. In 1965, he began joining together Arab nationalist and progressivist politicians into a Nationalist Personalities Front. In 1966 he was appointed Minister of Public Work and Minister of PTT. He also represented Lebanon at the Congress of Afro-Asian Solidarity, and presided over the parliamentary and popular delegation to the People’s Republic of China in 1966.

He supported the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel for ideological reasons, but also to garner support from the Palestinian fedayeen based in Lebanon's refugee camps. The presence in Lebanon of large numbers of Palestinian refugees was resented by most Christians, but Jumblatt strived to build a hard core of opposition around the Arab nationalist slogans of the Palestinian movement. Demanding a new Lebanese order based on secularism, socialism, Arabism and an abolition of the sectarian system, Jumblat began gathering disenchanted Sunnis, Shi'a and leftist Christians into an embryonic national opposition movement.

Build-up to Civil War[link]

On May 9, 1968 he was reelected Deputy for the seventh time. In 1970, he was once again appointed Minister of the Interior, a reward for his last-minute switch of allegiance in the presidential election that year, which resulted in Suleiman Franjieh's victory by one vote over Elias Sarkis, who was considered the odds-on favourite. As Interior Minister, he legalized the Communist Party (LCP) and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP). In 1972, Kamal Jumblatt was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union. The same year, he was reelected Deputy for the eighth time. The following year, he was unanimously elected Secretary General of the Arab Front, a movement supportive of the Palestinian revolution.

The 1970s in Lebanon were characterized by rapidly building tension between the Christian-dominated government and Muslim and leftist opposition forces, demanding better representation in the government apparatus and a stronger Lebanese commitment to the Arab world. The conflict took place more or less along the same sectarian and political lines as the 1958 rebellion.

Both the opposition and their mainly Christian opponents organized armed militias, and the risk of armed conflict increased steadily. Jumblatt had organized his own PSP into an armed force, and made it the backbone of the Lebanese National Movement (LNM), a coalition of left-wing Lebanese demanding the abolition of the sectarian quota system that permeated Lebanese politics, which discriminated against Muslims. The LNM was further joined by Palestinian radicals of the Rejectionist Front, and maintained good relations with the officially non-committal Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The Palestinian presence in the ranks of the opposition was a new development compared to the 1958 conflict.

The Lebanese Civil War[link]

In April 1975, a series of tit-for-tat killings culminating in a Phalangist massacre of Palestinian guerillas, prompted full-blown fighting in Beirut. In August 1975, Jumblatt declared a program for reform of the Lebanese political system, and the LNM openly challenged the government's legitimacy. In October a new round of fighting broke out, and quickly spread throughout the country: the Lebanese Civil War had begun.

During the period of 1975-1976 Jumblatt acted as the main leader of the Lebanese opposition in the war, and with the aid of the PLO the LNM rapidly gained control over nearly 70% of Lebanon. This prompted Syrian intervention, since the Assad regime feared a collapse of the Christian-dominated order. Some 40,000 Syrian soldiers invaded Lebanon in 1976 and quickly smashed the LNM's favorable position; a truce was declared and the fighting subsided. The conflict remained unsolved, however, and during 1977, violence again began to increase.

Death and legacy[link]

On March 16, 1977, Kamal Jumblat was assassinated. Prime suspects include the pro-Syrian faction of the Lebanese Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), in collaboration with the Ba'ath Party. His son Walid Jumblatt, immediately succeeded him as the main Druze leader of Lebanon and as head of the PSP. In June 2005, former secretary general of the Lebanese Communist Party George Hawi claimed in an interview with al Jazeera, that Rifaat al-Assad, brother of Hafez al Assad and uncle of Syria's current President Bashar al-Assad, had been behind the killing of Jumblatt. It is widely believed in Lebanon that Syria was also behind Hawi's death in a car bomb, some days later.[1]

Literary and philosophical production[link]

Extremely literate, Kamal Jumblatt lectured extensively and wrote more than 1200 editorials in both Arabic and French.

External links[link]

• www.kamal-joumblat.net

Walid Jumblatt
Picture of Walid Jumblatt
Born	(1949-08-07) August 7, 1949 (age 62)
Occupation	Politician
Home town	Moukhtara
Title	Chairman of the Progressive Socialist Party
Predecessor	Kamal Jumblatt
Political party	Progressive Socialist Party
Religion	Druze
Spouse	Nora Jumblatt
Children	Taymour (b. 1982) Aslan (b. 1983) Dallia (b. 1989)
Parents	Kamal Jumblatt Princess May Arslan
Relatives	Prince Shakib Arslan (grandfather)

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Walid Jumblatt (Arabic: وليد جنبلاط‎) (born August 7, 1949) is a Lebanese politician and the current leader of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP). He is the most prominent leader of Lebanon's Druze community.^[1]

Family[link]

The origin of the Jumblatt family is the Kurdish Janpoulad family coming from Shamel Janpoulad and dating back to Janboulad Ibn Kassem al Kirdi al Kaisari, known as Ibn Arabou (1530–1580), and governor of Aleppo. Walid Jumblatt is the son of Kamal Jumblatt, the founder of the PSP, the party which Walid Jumblatt currently leads. He is the maternal grandson of Prince Shakib Arslan.^[2] His first wife was Gervette "Gigi," a Jordanian woman of Circassian origin who is the mother of his child Timour. His current wife is the Syrian Nora Sharabati, the daughter of the former Syrian Minister of Defense Ahmed Al-Sharabati. Walid Jumblatt graduated from the American University of Beirut in Political Science.^[3][4]

Political life[link]

The BBC describes Jumblatt as "the smartest leader of Lebanon's most powerful Druze clan and heir to a leftist political dynasty based around the Progressive Socialist Party".^[5] Assem Qanso of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party of Lebanon accused Jumblatt of abandoning his father's beliefs.^[6]

He was a supporter of Syria after the war but, since the death of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in 2000, he has campaigned for Damascus to relinquish control. This pitted him against President Émile Lahoud and the Lebanese Shiite party Hezbollah of which he said: "Their fighters have done a good job defying and defeating the Israeli army, OK, but the question we ask is where their allegiance goes: to a Lebanese strong central authority or somewhere else?"^[7]

Although, on 21 January 2011, Jumblatt said he supported Hizbollah and Syria stance.^[8]"

In Popular Culture and Arts[link]

As many political leaders, Walid Jumblatt originated important imagery since the late 1970s^[9]. The photographer Ziad Antar made a portrait of him using a film expired since 1976, provoking ghosty effect. The image supposedly evokes the danger the Lebanese Druze leader faces after having criticized Hezbollah and the Syrian regime^[10].

See also[link]

• Cedar Revolution
• Kamal Jumblatt
• Progressive Socialist Party

References[link]

External references[link]

• Rebel with a cause by Massoud A. Derhally, Arabian Business, March 27, 2005
• Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt Accuses Hizbullah, Iran and Syria For Lebanon Crisis, Transcript of interview of Walid Jumblatt, broadcast on Al-Arabiya, July 20, 2006
• We Should Treat the Syrian Regime the Same Way It Treats Us: With Car Bombs, Assassinations and Destruction. Transcript of interview of Walid Jumblatt, broadcast on Al-Arabiya, December 28, 2006
• I Support a Two-State Solution, Not the Liberation of Jerusalem Transcript of interview of Walid Jumblatt, broadcast on Al-Jazeera TV, January 31, 2007
• On Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad: "An Ape Unknown to Nature, a Creature That Is Only Half-Man." Excerpts from an address delivered by Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, aired on Al-Jazeera TV on February 14, 2007.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Walid Jumblatt

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Walid Jumblatt on Charlie Rose
• Walid Jumblatt at the Internet Movie Database
• Walid Jumblatt collected news and commentary at Al Jazeera English
• Walid Jumblatt collected news and commentary at The Jerusalem Post
• Walid Jumblatt at the Notable Names Database
• Walid Jumblatt, by Gary C. Gambill and Daniel Nassif, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, Vol 3, No 5, May 2001
• "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq" quoted in Beirut's Berlin Wall, by David Ignatius, Washington Post, February 23, 2005