Though Lebanon, particularly its coastal region, was the site of some of the oldest human settlements in the world—the Phoenician ports of Tyre (modern Ṣūr), Sidon (Ṣaydā), and Byblos (Jubayl) were dominant centers of trade and culture in the 3rd millennium bce—it was not until 1920 that the contemporary state came into being. In that year France, which administered Lebanon as a League of Nations mandate, established the state of Greater Lebanon. Lebanon then became a republic in 1926 and achieved independence in 1943.
This outward image of vitality and growth nevertheless disguised serious problems. Not only did Lebanon have to grapple with internal problems of social and economic organization, but it also had to struggle to define its position in relation to Israel, to its Arab neighbors, and to Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon. The delicate balance of Lebanese confessionalism (the proportional sharing of power between the country’s religious communities) was eroded under the pressures of this struggle; communal rivalries over political power, exacerbated by the complex issues that arose from the question of Palestinian presence and from a growing “state within a state,” led to the outbreak of an extremely damaging civil war in 1975 and a breakdown of the governmental system. After the end of the civil war in 1990, Lebanon gradually reclaimed a degree of relative socioeconomic and political stability; because of the continued problems of external intervention and troubled confessional relations, however, many of Lebanon’s challenges persisted into the early 21st century.
With its high literacy rate and traditional mercantile culture, Lebanon has traditionally been an important commercial hub for the Middle East. It has also often been at the center of Middle Eastern conflicts, despite its small size, because of its borders with Syria and Israel and its uniquely complex communal make-up. Shia Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Christians and Druze are the main population groups in a country that has been a refuge for the region’s minorities for centuries.
Over half of all of the young migrant men from Somalia, Lebanon, and Morocco living in Denmark have been convicted of at least one crime before the age of 30. The figures come from a report by think tank Unitos that delved into crime statistics kept by the Danish Ministry of Justice and looked at the crime rates for men born between 1985 and 1987. The report ...
Lebanese PM Saad al-Hariri is tendering his own resignation and that of his government, after over a week of protests that paralyzed the country, as the people accuse authorities of corruption and of causing an economic collapse. Hariri, who was in the office since December 2016, announced quits during a televised address to the nation. “I have reached a dead end today,” he said. The outgoing PM ...
(Breitbart) In the largest protests Lebanon has experienced since the 2005 Cedar Revolution, hundreds of thousands of citizens flooded central Beirut as well as locations throughout the country demanding immediate government economic reform. The massive protest movement seems to cross sectarian divides, targeting parties across the political spectrum. Instead of party banners, protesters reportedly largely donned the country’s national flag instead. In a rare act of ...
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has voted to fund efforts to "enhance the border security" of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia while moving to deny all funding to build walls, fencing or any other structures to enhance the border security of the United States. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants have their priorities. To them, borders on the other side of the world are more important ...
Earlier this morning, the Israeli Air Force launched several airstrikes on the key Syrian city of Masyaf in the Hama Governorate. According to a military source near the scene of the airstrikes, the Israeli warplanes hit a number of sites near the Masyaf National Hospital. The source said the Israeli airstrikes targeted some of the military storages in Masyaf; this resulted in several loud explosions that ...
Beirut (GPA) – During his visit with US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, Lebanese President Michael Aoun reportedly received a US-Israeli document detailing plans for creating a civil war in Lebanon with covert false flag operations and possible Israeli invasion. Although the source of the document is Israeli and created in partnership with Washington, no one knows who presented it to Aoun. The Lebanese TV station, ...
Polish lawmaker Dominik Tarczyński, who (as The New American magazine correctly describes) 'respond[ed] to an attempt at politically correct shaming' by 'unabashedly [telling] a British television host, “We will not receive even one Muslim, because this is what we promised.... This is why our government was elected, this is why Poland is so safe, this is why we have not had even one terror attack.” The ...
A tantalizing passage in Wesley Clark's 2007 memoir suggested that another war was part of a long-planned Department of Defense strategy that anticipated "regime change" by force in no fewer than seven Mideast states. Critics of the war often voiced suspicions of such imperial schemes, but this was the first time that a high-ranking former military officer has claimed to know that such plans existed. The ...
My fellow Americans: Like so many of your homes, the White House is brimming with greens, colorful decorations, and a tree trimmed and ready for Christmas day. And when Nancy and I look out from our upstairs windows, we can see the National Christmas Tree standing in majestic beauty. Its lights fill the air with a spirit of love, hope, and joy from the heart of ...
“I reported that Marine had been sent there to become the focus of a major incident. The Mossad is to arrange for a number of our Marines to be killed in an incident that will be blamed on Arabs! This will be used to inflame American public opinion to help us lead into war including ultimately nuclear war,” – Dr. Beter, a Pentagon analyst, November 3, ...
Though Lebanon, particularly its coastal region, was the site of some of the oldest human settlements in the world—the Phoenician ports of Tyre (modern Ṣūr), Sidon (Ṣaydā), and Byblos (Jubayl) were dominant centers of trade and culture in the 3rd millennium bce—it was not until 1920 that the contemporary state came into being. In that year France, which administered Lebanon as a League of Nations mandate, established the state of Greater Lebanon. Lebanon then became a republic in 1926 and achieved independence in 1943.
