| Publication |
2008.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This article uses a case study of the American University of Beirut (AUB) to investigate which regional events proved the most influential in delineating students' political positions in the years immediately after the 1967 War. In particular, the Israeli attack on the Beirut Airport in December 1968 and the Jordanian assault on the Palestinian fedayeen in Black September of 1970 catalyzed activism around a leftist, progressive, and pro-Palestinian political platform. The most frequent and most passionate protests waged by the students between 1967 and the start of the Lebanese Civil War were against the university administration and the Jordanian government. In the students' view, these actors impeded their freedom of action, speech, and political influence, while guaranteeing that the forces standing behind them, the United States, and Israel, increased their power in the region. The administration and the Jordanian leadership thus provided the prototypes for all the characteristics the students opposed. Conversely, the students saw the actions of the Palestinian fedayeen organizations as not only a means for regaining Palestine but as a program for fighting imperialism in all its guises.
|