A Campus at War: Student Politics at the American University of Beirut, 1967-1975 – Makram Rabah

This book tells the story of the student movement at the American University of Beirut (AUB) with special emphasis on the AUB Student Council. The story will highlight the events of the period 1967-1974, which had a major impact on Lebanon in general and on AUB in particular. During this period, two factors emerged to energize student activism on the AUB campus in special way: the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and its aftermath, and the Palestinian Revolution that followed. AUB student activism in these years was needed by two major strikes, the first in 1971 and the second in 1974, in the course of which university buildings were occupied and academic activity was brought to a standstill. In covering these events, an attempt will be made to examine not only the reasons that prompted the student action on both occasions, but also those that made the administration unwilling to agree to a negotiated settlement. By 1969, the AUB Student Council had come to be commonly viewed as no more than a front for the Palestinian Revolution on campus, receiving its orders from the outside, so that its behavior invariably reflected the policy of the PLO. In reality, however, the Student Council’s actions, as will be demonstrated in this book, were not always in accordance with the strategy of the PLO or that of its Lebanese allies.

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