Social Factors Influencing Attitudes of University Students in Lebanon Towards the Palestinian Resistance Movement
Keywords: 
Lebanon
PLO
Palestinian resistance
Abstract: 

The present paper is part of a more general sociological study of university students in Lebanon as agents of social and political change. The aim is to identify and describe some basic social variables determining the attitudes of university students towards a revolutionary movement that, after the June War of 1967, provided an alternative to the policies of existing governments for solving the Palestine problem and for effecting political changes in Arab society. Because the Palestinian Resistance Movement presented itself as a spearhead of revolutionary political and social change in the whole of Arab society,' a sociological investigation on these lines should throw light on the social determinants of attitudes towards radical change in Lebanese and other Arab political systems. The same social forces shaping the attitudes of university students in Lebanon towards the commandos are likely to shape their attitudes towards other attempts to effect basic changes in the social fabric.

Author biography: 

Halim Barakat is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the American University of Beirut. He has published articles on alienation in Western and Arabic journals and is co-author of River Without Bridges (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1968).