Lebanon’s 15-Year War, 1975-1990

and continued political instability in the country have only added to the sense among many Lebanese that political violence is endemic to their body politic. In daily discourse in Lebanon, and even in academic writings about the war, the widespread experience of being caught in recurrent cycles of mass violence can translate into descriptions of violence as “irrational”, or simply beyond belief (see Khalaf 2002: 1-22 for a discussion of the “rationality” of civil war).