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In the fertile region of the Middle East, stuck between the Mediterranean sea and the high Anti-Lebanon mountains, stand the magnificent Lebanon, country with very rich history, country that witnessed the war, the peace, the earliest civilization, the first alphabet, and much much more Lebanon derived from the Semitic root lbn or white due to the color of its mountains covered with snow while all around lye an endless desert. Although often conquered, Lebanon was never subdued: Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, French, Syria (? ? ), all of them cast their net over this tiny but very rich country, but none of them prevailed, the hand of God liberating it and giving it a blow to go ahead. Modern Lebanon was created in 1920 in the name of Greater Lebanon while under mandate by the French. 1926 gave birth to the first Lebanese constitution deeply inspired by the French 3 rd constitution, this constitution was promulgated in 1926, but was amended several times to cope up with the modern times, but unfortunately, to serve some other malicious purposes too (extension of the mandate of the president, allow the head of the army to be president, ). Lebanese politics is heavily imprinted with religion, its in some sort the opposite of the laicicity.
Composed of about half Muslim half Christian, and burdened with a black history of religion conflicts, Lebanon had to establish such a system, especially in a time where laicicity made no sense. So after a census that took place in 1932, seats in the parliaments were divided according to a proportion of 6 Christian deputies to 5 Muslim ones, the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies being Shia Muslim, the prime minister being Sunni Muslim, and the president being Maronite Christian (of catholic belonging, the maronite's constitute the big majority of Lebanese Christians). But Muslims grew demographically faster than Christians, so after the war broke out and ended rather with Christians in the weak spot, the The agreement which ended the war, changed the proportion of deputies to half for each religion, but also, it reduced the power of the president significantly, so as nowadays president has few privileges. To describe the situation in Lebanon nowadays, one must speak a little bit of history and illustrate the origin of this struggle, but of course being as brief as possible.
Lebanon independence was kind of based on a National Pact consisting of Muslims letting go their dream of uniting with the other Arab countries, and the Christians abandoning their claim to join the western nations (France namely), this National Pact included three other things relative to the Arabs and to the distribution of public offices among recognized religion. A first clash happened in 1958, the National Pact being threatened; The advent of Nasser in Egypt, the merger between Syria and Egypt, the Baghdad pact, and Chamoun, president at that time, wanting to be re-elected, ignited a turmoil in Lebanon that ended when Chamoun, invoking the Eisenhower doctrine, called for American troops to intervene against the Muslims, backed by Syria which was in the soviet camp. The American troops had rather symbolic role, but the turmoil ended with the election of Cheap, the commander in chief of the Lebanese army. During the tenure of president Help, the Arab-Israeli 1967 war broke out, but despite the fact that Lebanon did not participate in it, it had serious repercussions on all aspects of Lebanese life, the most significant being of course, the increased role of the Palestinians guerrilla groups in their struggle against Israel, using Lebanon as a base of operations. This presence impinged on the effort to maintain the religious balance, for it tended to pit Muslims against Christians.
The former considering the Palestinians fighting a noble cause while the latter, considered the effect of this guerrilla on Lebanese security. Israel raided the Beirut international airport in 1968, in retaliation to these attacks by the Palestinians. After the attacks held by the Lebanese army against Palestinians guerrillas, the secret Cairo agreement imposed a cease-fire. Guerrillas did not respect this agreement so further clashes went on. Clashes between the PLO and Jordanian army led the Palestinians to settle even more in Lebanon.
Palestinians and the Lebanese left-wing joined hands, causing some clashes between them and the right-wing. Israel retaliated often, making some incursion in southern Lebanon. So despite Lebanon's policy of non-involvement in the Arab Israeli conflict, this war affected deeply its subsequent history, Lebanon did not have the right to attack the Palestinians as Jordanian did, the Arab pressure being too great on him, especially that a fraction of Lebanese people backed these Palestinians. Lebanese war broke out after some shootings between Palestinians and the phalangists, a Christian extremist group, which was very powerful at that time. Foreign countries intervened, France and the US had bases in Lebanon, but a suicide attack conducted by Hizbollah against them causing 400 dead, resulted in the withdrawal of their troops. Israel invaded the first time Lebanon in 1978 withdrawing afterwards into a small security zone, and then back again in 1982, when they reached Beirut, the first time Israel occupied an Arab capital, with the help and support of the Christian militias.
This invasion weakened the PLO, eventually withdrawing from Lebanon and going to other Arab states, notably Tunisia. Then Israel retracted into a larger security zone in which she remained till 2000 when it withdrew almost entirely, leaving the controversial Shebaa farms. Syria intervened too in 1976 leading an army of Arabs to stop the war in Lebanon, it succeeded in some point but failing in others, she did stop the war, but ignited others At the end of the war, the battles between the leftist and the rightist (mainly Palestinians and Christians respectively) were rare, but clashes inside the camps were far more often, especially in the Christian camp where a lot of battles took place to take power, including the last war between Aoun and the Lebanese forces (militia derived from the phalanges, and even more extremist), Aoun refusing the the agreement and wanting to be president declared war on the Lebanese forces (headed by Jeajea) and then fought the Syrians. This last war ended with the weakening of Jeajea and the exile of Aoun into Paris where he stayed until 2005.
The the agreement gave official presence of the Syrian army in Lebanon, precising that in two years, the Syrian troops would withdraw to the Bekaa, and then into Syria, the second step not being bound to a time schedule, but Syria did not withdraw to the Bekaa until 2005 when she withdrew all the way to Syria (several relocation of its army took place during the years, but none significant, and she was spreading its intelligence service, infiltrating almost everything in Lebanon). In 1994, the Lebanese forces were dismantled and Jeajea went to prison after being a minister (refusing to go along the Syrians, he was threatened and told to exile himself, he refused and ended up in prison in non-human condition), in a neatly woven web to capture him (including the explosion in samizdat nasa church). In all of its history, Lebanon was heavily marked by international interference; the Lebanese post-war era was another witness of this interference. The Middle East does not govern itself, actually, western influence is tremendous in this area. The nature of this region, very rich in oil, cornerstone of the civilization, an important geographical location assuring the connection between the east and the west, and more recently the advent of the Israeli problem made of this region a great prey for the western developed nations. In the 1990 s, Lebanon was occupied in his south by Israel, and was deeply infiltrated with Syrian secret services, as well as its regular army.
Inside it, Palestinians dweller in their camps very heavily armed offering resistance to the official authority and refusing to abide by the law of the nation, creating a nation inside a nation. Armed militias still existed under the cover of resistance: Hizbollah (largely the most armed), Amal, communist party, Syrian nationalist (Im not sure of the translation). Of these, Hizbollah is a very close ally of Iran and Syria, actually hes an incarnation of the Iranian regime in Lebanon, striving to turn Lebanon into a choice nation in the model of the Iranian regime. The Syrian nationalist, as his name indicates, endeavour the idea of Great Syria, the fertile crescent enclosing Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, and eventually the star of the crescent Cyprus.
Other opposing parties, such as the Lebanese forces were dragged down and beaten by secret service regularly so as to remind them who is in charge now. Lebanon lived under the shell of democratic, but deeply inside, everybody knew, democratic was nothing but a ghost. The withdrawal of Israel in 2000 lead to a controversy, do we let Hizbollah and the other militias conserve their arms, since the alibi of resistance blew away. Other militias were quite disarmed (actually they never had real powerful arms), but Hizbollah grabbed into another alibi, not all of southern Lebanon was liberated, the farms of Shebaa are still occupied, farms, Lebanese in origin, were occupied by Syria in the 1960 s- 1970 s, I do not quite recall the date.
So up till now, Hizbollah still keeps its weapons. But the most ironic part, is the way Hizbollah granted himself the grade of a hero proclaiming himself as the liberator of the south and in an act of defiance went down for a defile in Achrafieh (A Christian quarter in Beirut, from where most of the Christian parties emanated) with the arms confiscated to Israel (which were actually arms left by Israel for they were too archaic)...
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