Najjadeh Party

Although by the mid-1930s both Najjadah and Phalange Parties ostensibly vied for Lebanon's independence from France, their sectarian base and conflicting ideological/identitarian views over the Country's future ensured that they would become entangled in the bitter political Christian-Muslim disputes. The rivalry between these two right-wing movements almost reached serious proportions on November 21, 1936 at Beirut, when a demonstration organized by the Najjadah in support of the Muslim struggle in Palestine[9] was confronted by Phalangist youth militants. Its members had marched through the streets and alleyways of the Muslim quarters hoisting the Syrian flag and banners with slogans calling for Arab unity, which was apparently taken by the Christian militants as a provocation. Supporters of the Najjadah – by now a true political party – immediately took on the streets to protect the Muslim districts of West Beirut and to counter possible Christian paramilitary organizations' attacks on these areas.

The World War II and the Fall of France in June 1940, caused an upsurge of nationalistic agitation in Lebanon, mainly carried out by the Najjadah and often in collusion with their Phalangist arch-rivals. Believing that the time was ripe for action pressuring the weakened French to accept full Lebanese independence, Adnan Al-Hakim and Pierre Gemayel agreed to put aside temporarily their political differences to form an anti-French united front, which began organizing joint large-scale demonstrations. The first one occurred in 1941, when the Najjadah and the Phalangists organized a march at Beirut in protest against the food distribution system established by the French mandatory authorities, which degenerated into violence when French troops attempted to disperse the demonstration by force. This was later followed in November 1943 by a nationwide strike called by both Parties, which once again resulted in violent street demonstrations broken up by the military,[10] and led the French mandatory authorities to enforce a ban on the Najjadah's legal activities until the end of the War, a ban which was supported and encouraged by the Lebanese Phalangists.

The Najjadah survived underground though, and in the years following the French withdrawal their president even succeeded being elected deputy for Beirut in the Lebanese Parliament between 1956 and 1972. During the 1958 Lebanon crisis, the party fielded a trained militia force of 300 fighters dressed in khaki uniforms and equipped with Italian- and Czechoslovakian-made small-arms which fought at the side of the anti-government forces, but saw its political influence sharply decline throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. According to a Lebanese military intelligence report, by 1975 party membership had decreased to just 500 militants and fielded a poorly-armed militia of only 100 fighters backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Egypt;[11] other sources however, still place its numbers as high as 300.[12][13][14]

Faced with the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in April 1975, the party's small armed force initially cooperated with the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) – Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) alliance until the Syrian military intervention of June 1976. The party – still headed by the now-ageing Adnan Al-Hakim – adopted a neutralist, non-confrontational stance by withdrawing from the fighting and reducing its political activities.[15] Consequently, the Najjadah's leadership refusal to continue to participate in the ongoing civil conflict eroded its already fragile popular support base, causing many of its disenchanted younger militants to abandon the Party to join the LNM militias.

Marginalized during the war years, the Najjadah re-emerged afterwards as a small organization lacking any real political support base, currently led by Adnan's nephew Moustafa Al-Hakim.