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.[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.[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 (
right
) with
William Hawi
(
left
), Chief of the
Kataeb
Security Council
The Sheikh Pierre Gemayel Memorial, in Gemayel's hometown
Bikfaya
, Lebanon