Amin al-Hafez

This article is about a Lebanese Prime Minister. For the Syrian President of the same name, see Amin al-Hafiz

Amin Ismail al-Hafez or Amine Hafez ( Arabic أمين الحافظ, DMG Amīn al-Ḥāfiẓ ; * January 28, 1926 in Tripoli ; † July 13, 2009 in Beirut ) was a Lebanese lawyer and politician. He was Prime Minister of Lebanon from April 25, 1973 to June 21, 1973 .

Amin was born at the time of the French mandate over Greater Lebanon as the son of a Sunni-Muslim city council of Tripoli. He first attended a Christian high school in Tripoli, then studied politics and economics at the University of Cairo , received a doctorate in economics from the American University of Beirut , before finally graduating in law in Lausanne. He also attended the Hague Academy of International Law . Back in Lebanon, he first worked as an economist from 1954, then taught as a professor of political economy at the Lebanese University . For the first time in 1960 and then again in 1964, 1968 and 1972, he was elected to the Lebanese National Assembly as a deputy for Tripoli . From 1965 he was first chairman of the parliamentary committee for foreign policy, then in 1971 deputy chairman of the foreign policy committee of the Interparliamentary Union .

When Lebanese Prime Minister Saeb Salam resigned after the Israeli attack on Palestinians in Beirut in April 1973 , President Suleiman Frangieh gave Hafez the task of forming a new government. Saeb had resigned after failing to replace the President-protected Maronite Christian army chief who had resisted. As head of government, Hafez also took on the functions of Minister of Health and Minister of Information.

Hafez's attempt to form a new government including left-wing politicians failed due to opposition from both his conservative Sunni rivals Saeb Salam and Raschid Karami and the left Druze leader Kamal Jumblat . At the same time, fighting broke out between Palestinians and Lebanese army units. Hafez tried to resign on May 8, which the president initially rejected. However, when the Mufti and the top Sunni clerics called for resistance to Hafez and the Sunni ministers of his government withdrew their support and confidence in him, Hafez finally resigned after only two months in office. As a result of the Lebanese civil war that finally broke out in 1975, the parliament (last elected in 1972) could not be re-elected until 1992, so Hafez remained represented in the Lebanese parliament until the parliamentary elections in 1996 .

Al-Hafez died at the age of 83 after a long battle with a chronic disease that had not been made public.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d e} Robin Bidwell : Dictionary of Modern Arab History , page 167f. London / New York 1998
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Sabih M. Shukri (Ed.): The International WHO'S WHO of the Arab World , page 209f. London 1984