LEBANON
Lebanon,
officially the Lebanese Republic,
is a small, largely mountainous country
in the Middle East,
located at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean
Sea. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east, and Israel to the
south (and the Lebanese don’t get on with either of their neighbours).
Lebanon was first the
homeland of the Phoenicians. After two centuries of this Persian
rule, Alexander the Great attacked and burned Tyre, the leading Phoenician city. Throughout the
subsequent centuries leading up to recent times, the country became part of
numerous succeeding empires, among them Persian,
Greco-Macedonian, Roman,
Byzantine,
Arab,
Crusader,
and Ottoman.
Lebanon was part of the Ottoman
Empire for over 400 years, but following World War I,
the area became a part of the French Mandate of Syria. Lebanon's
history, since its independence in 1943, has been marked by alternating periods
of political stability and turmoil.
Due to its sectarian diversity, Lebanon
follows a special political system, known as confessionalism,
meant to distribute power as evenly as possible among different sects. As such,
high-ranking offices in the government are reserved for members of specific
religious groups. The President, for example, has to be a Maronite
Catholic Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, the Deputy Prime Minister an Orthodox Christian, and the Speaker of the Parliament a Shi’a Muslim.
Until the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), the country enjoyed
relative calm and prosperity, driven by the tourism, agriculture, and banking
sectors of the economy. It was considered the banking capital of the Arab world
and was widely known as the "Switzerland
of the Middle East" due to its financial
power. Lebanon also
attracted large numbers of tourists, to the point that the capital Beirut became
widely referred to as the "Paris of the Middle East."
Immediately following the end of
the war, there were extensive efforts to revive the economy and rebuild
national infrastructure. By early 2006, a considerable
degree of stability had been achieved throughout much of the country, Beirut's
reconstruction was almost complete, and an increasing number of foreign
tourists were pouring into Lebanon's
resorts.
However, the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict brought
mounting civilian and military casualties,
extensive damage to civilian infrastructure, and massive
population displacement from July 12,
2006 until a ceasefire
went into effect on August 14, 2006. As of September
2006, the Lebanese
government has been implementing an early recovery plan aimed at reconstructing
property destroyed by Israeli attacks in Beirut, Tyre, and other villages
in southern Lebanon.
Relationship with Syria:
The Syrian armed forces first
entered Lebanon
in 1976 on Lebanese request, to help end the Civil war. However, Syrian forces remained
in Lebanon
after the civil conflict ended in 1990, and they continued to exercise
considerable influence over Lebanese government from 1990 to 2005.
On February 14,
2005, former Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri
was assassinated in a car bomb explosion. Some Lebanese groups blamed the Syrians;
others claimed that the assassination may have been executed by the American CIA or the Israeli Mossad
in an attempt to destabilize the country. The investigation into the Hariri
assassination by the United Nation’s Security Council is still ongoing and has
yet to be concluded.
On March 14,
2005, one month after Hariri's assassination, throngs of people rallied in
Martyrs' Square in Lebanon
with around 1 million people. Protesters marched demanding the truth about
Hariri's murder as well as demanding independence from Syrian presence in Lebanon. The
march reiterated their desire for a sovereign, democratic, and unified country,
free of Syria's
hegemony. This demonstration as well as some others that followed is commonly
known as the Cedar Revolution. The word Cedar refers to a national
emblem, the Cedar of Lebanon, a tree featured on the flag of
Lebanon.
Eventually, and under pressure
from the international community, Syria
began withdrawing its 15,000-strong army troops from Lebanon. By April 26,
2005, all uniformed Syrian soldiers had crossed the border back to Syria. On
the next day, April 27,
2005, the Lebanese celebrated their first free-from-Syria day.
On July 18,
2005, Lebanon elected a new parliament dominated
by an anti-Syrian coalition.
2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
A year later, on July 12,
2006, Hezbollah launched a
cross-border operation into Israel,
capturing two Israeli soldiers and killing three others, simultaneous to a
diversionary rocket attack along the border. The operation was considered an act of war
by Israel.
That night, after a failed rescue attempt by the Israeli that resulted in the
deaths of five more Israeli soldiers, Israel
launched a massive military operation on Lebanon. The stated goals of the
operation were to retrieve the captured soldiers, eliminate Hezbollah, and
remove its ability to fire rockets at Northern
Israel.
Fighting quickly escalated into
"open war" between Hezbollah and Israel, as the Israeli Air
Force (IAF) bombed areas throughout Lebanon, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) fired artillery
across Southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah in return
rained hundreds of rockets a day onto Northern Israel. The Israeli strikes
resulted in the near-total destruction of Lebanon's civilian infrastructure, including roads
and bridges, the Rafic Hariri
International Airport, and the Jieh
power station, with estimates of the overall damage at $15 billion. They also
resulted in the displacement of over a million Lebanese civilians. The strikes
on the fuel tanks at the power station resulted in the largest ever oil spill in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Following several weeks of
negotiations, the United Nations Security Council issued Resolution 1701 which
called for an immediate cessation of hostilities, and an international embargo
on supplying arms to Hezbollah. Three days later, on August 14,
2006, the partial
ceasefire came into effect.
However, Israel continued to impose a naval and aerial
blockade on Lebanon
until September 8,
2006, in an attempt to
prevent arms from reaching Hezbollah.
During and after that period, several breaches of the cease-fire have been
recorded.
More than $7.6 billion in grants
and loans were pledged at the Paris 3 conference to help Lebanon recover from
the summer war and its $40 billion debt, among
others $1.1 billion was pledged by Saudi Arabia,
$770 million was pledged by the United States,
and $700 million were pledged by each the Arab Monetary Fund and World Bank.