Rashid Karame
1921 - 1987
Lebanese politician; prime minister at various times from the 1950s through the 1980s.
Rashid Karame, the son of Abd al-Hamid Karame, received a law degree from Cairo University in 1947. He was elected deputy for Tripoli in 1951 and remained a member of parliament until his death. A staunch Arab nationalist and an advocate of political and social reforms, he gained influence through patronage and his ability to function within a confessional political system.
Karame became prime minister in 1955 but resigned in 1956 to protest President Camille Chamoun's refusal to sever diplomatic relations with France and Britain in the wake of the Suez crisis. He became a major opponent of the Chamoun regime and was a leader of the uprising against Chamoun in 1958. After the Lebanese Civil War (1958), President Fuʾad Chehab appointed him prime minister. Karame held the premiership regularly under both Chehab (1958 - 1964) and his successor, Charles Hilu (1964 - 1970).
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Karame supported the presence of armed Palestinians in Lebanon and a radical restructuring of the country's political system. Such positions brought him into conflict with key Maronite politicians, including President Sulayman Franjiyya. In June 1975, when he appeared to be the only politician who might overcome the growing polarization in the country, President Franjiyya appointed him prime minister; he resigned in June 1976.
After Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Karame emerged as a leading opponent to President Amin Jumayyil's government. With Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and former President Franjiyya, he founded the National Salvation Front in July 1983. In April 1984, Jumayyil bowed to pressures and appointed him prime minister of a government of national unity. Although he formally remained premier until he resigned in May 1987, his authority was limited. He was assassinated on 1 June 1987, when a bomb exploded aboard his helicopter.
Bibliography
Hudson, Michael C. The Precarious Republic: Political Modernization in Lebanon. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985.
Petran, Tabitha. The Struggle over Lebanon. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987.
— GUILAIN P. DENOEUX
