Pierre Gemayel

Pierre Amine Gemayel, also spelled Jmayyel, Jemayyel or al-Jumayyil (Arabic: بيار الجميّل; 6 November 1905 – 29 August 1984), was a Lebanese political leader.

He opposed the French Mandate over Lebanon in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and advocated an independent state, free from foreign control.

[5] As captain of the Lebanon national team, Gemayel attended the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin,[4] alongside Hussein Sejaan,[6] the former LFA president.

[8][9][10][11] At first, the goal of the party was to enhance people's patriotism and civic-mindedness, but later on turned into a political resistance to the French authorities in the region.

By the time of his presidency, however, Helou was no longer a party member, and Gemayel unsuccessfully opposed him in the presidential election of 1964.

[15] In the Civil War of 1958, Gemayel emerged as a leader of the right-wing nationalist (mainly Christian) movement that opposed a Nasserist and Arab-nationalist inspired attempt to overthrow the government of president Camille Chamoun[16] and supported the return of foreign troops to Lebanon.

Two years later, Gemayel was elected to the National Assembly, from a Beirut constituency, a seat he held for the rest of his life.

[15] By the end of the 1960s, the Kataeb Party held 9 seats in the National Assembly, making it one of the largest groupings in Lebanon's notoriously fractured and sectarian parliament.

Although his bids for the presidency in 1964 and 1970 were unsuccessful, Gemayel continued to hold cabinet posts intermittently throughout the remaining quarter-century of his life.

Gemayel reluctantly signed the Cairo Agreement of 1969 under enormous pressure from the international community, which allowed Palestinian guerrillas to set up bases on Lebanese soil, from which to carry out actions against Israel.

He initially welcomed Syrian intervention on the side of the Christians and against the Lebanese National Movement, but he soon became convinced that Syria was occupying Lebanon for reasons of its own.

Pierre Gemayel himself initially stayed out of Amine Gemayel's government, but in early 1984, after participating in two conferences in Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland, aimed at ending the civil war and the occupation of the country by Israeli troops in 1982, he agreed to serve in a cabinet of national unity that was formed by Rashid Karami in May 1984.

Pierre Gemayel (far right) prior to the friendly game in Beirut against Austrian club Admira Vienna in 1937
Pierre Gemayel ( right ) with William Hawi ( left ), Chief of the Kataeb Security Council
The Sheikh Pierre Gemayel Memorial, in Gemayel's hometown Bikfaya , Lebanon
Bachir Gemayel with his father Pierre Gemayel and William Hawi 's family at the Kataeb anniversary event in 1977