introduction about lebanon essay

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Lebanon , country located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea . It consists of a narrow strip of territory and is one of the world’s smaller sovereign states. The capital is Beirut .

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 centres 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.

Lebanon shares many of the cultural characteristics of the Arab world, yet it has attributes that differentiate it from many of its Arab neighbours. Its rugged, mountainous terrain has served throughout history as an asylum for diverse religious and ethnic groups and for political dissidents. Lebanon is one of the most densely populated countries in the Mediterranean area and has a high rate of literacy. Notwithstanding its meagre natural resources, Lebanon long managed to serve as a busy commercial and cultural centre for the Middle East .

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 neighbours, 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.

Lebanon is bounded to the north and east by Syria , to the south by Israel , and to the west by the Mediterranean Sea.

As in any mountainous region, the physical geography of Lebanon is extremely complex and varied. Landforms, climate, soils, and vegetation undergo some sharp and striking changes within short distances. Four distinct physiographic regions may be distinguished: a narrow coastal plain along the Mediterranean Sea, the Lebanon Mountains (Jabal Lubnān), Al-Biqāʿ (Bekaa) valley, and the Anti-Lebanon and Hermon ranges running parallel to the Lebanese Mountains.

The coastal plain is narrow and discontinuous, almost disappearing in places. It is formed of river-deposited alluvium and marine sediments, which alternate suddenly with rocky beaches and sandy bays, and is generally fertile. In the far north it expands to form the ʿAkkār Plain.

The snowcapped Lebanon Mountains are one of the most prominent features of the country’s landscape. The range, rising steeply from the coast, forms a ridge of limestone and sandstone , cut by narrow and deep gorges. It is approximately 100 miles (160 km) long and varies in width from 6 to 35 miles (10 to 56 km). Its maximum elevation is at Qurnat al- Sawdāʾ (10,131 feet [3,088 metres]) in the north, where the renowned cedars of Lebanon grow in the shadow of the peak. The range then gradually slopes to the south, rising again to a second peak, Jabal Ṣannīn (8,842 feet [2,695 metres]), northeast of Beirut. To the south the range branches westward to form the Shūf Mountains and at its southern reaches gives way to the hills of Galilee, which are lower.

Al-Biqāʿ valley lies between the Lebanon Mountains in the west and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in the east; its fertile soils consist of alluvial deposits from the mountains on either side. The valley, approximately 110 miles (180 km) long and from 6 to 16 miles (10 to 26 km) wide, is part of the great East African Rift System . In the south Al-Biqāʿ becomes hilly and rugged, blending into the foothills of Mount Hermon ( Jabal al-Shaykh ) to form the upper Jordan Valley .

The Anti-Lebanon range (Al-Jabal al-Sharqī) starts with a high peak in the north and slopes southward until it is interrupted by Mount Hermon (9,232 feet [2,814 metres]).

Lebanese rivers, though numerous, are mostly winter torrents, draining the western slopes of the Lebanon Mountains. The only exception is the Līṭānī River (90 miles [145 km] long), which rises near the famed ruins of Baalbek (Baʿlabakk) and flows southward in Al-Biqāʿ to empty into the Mediterranean near historic Tyre. The two other important rivers are the Orontes (Nahr al-ʿĀṣī), which rises in the north of Al-Biqāʿ and flows northward, and the Kabīr.

Soil quality and makeup in Lebanon vary by region. The shallow limestone soil of the mountains provides a relatively poor topsoil. The lower and middle slopes, however, are intensively cultivated , the terraced hills standing as a scenic relic of the ingenious tillers of the past. On the coast and in the northern mountains, reddish topsoils with a high clay content retain moisture and provide fertile land for agriculture, although they are subject to considerable erosion.

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Lebanon: Introduction

Lebanon is a country located in the Middle East on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered by Syria and Israel. Lebanon's rugged terrain and location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian hinterland has helped isolate, protect, and develop numerous factional groups within the country. The government system is a republic; the chief of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. Lebanon is a member of the League of Arab States (Arab League).

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--> Lebanon Essay

Introduction.

Despite its small territory, Lebanon is considered to be an extremely important country in the Middle East both geopolitically and culturally. Beirut is the information center of the entire Arab world. If Cairo is the heart of the Arab East and Damascus its head, Beirut is its eyes and ears. The originality and uniqueness of Lebanon consist in its multi-confessionality and cultural pluralism. There are representatives of three religions: Muslims, Christians, and those on the Middle Eastern Mediterranean coast. In their turn, the representatives of the Islamic and Christian faiths are also divided into a number of communities. They include Maronite Christians connected by union with the Catholic Church, Orthodox Christians, Shiite, and Sunni Muslims. The necessity to agree and achieve compromise irrespective of the dissimilarity and sometimes extremely opposite religious beliefs generated the constitution of 1943 which assigned certain state posts to the representatives of definite religious communities. Under this constitution, only a Maronite can become the president of the country, a Sunni Muslim can be a prime minister, and a Shiite Muslim can be a speaker of the parliament. Some portfolios were assigned to the Orthodox Christians and Druses. The additional variety of the country is represented by a summer flow of the representatives of the Lebanese diaspora. There are 23 million Lebanese in the world. Unemployment, shortage of land, and the tragic events of the civil war compelled many residents of this country to seek asylum abroad. In Brazil alone, there are 8 million natives of Lebanon. There are also significant diasporas in Argentina, France, the USA, and the states of the Persian Gulf. Thus, the given essay will discuss the brief historical background of Lebanon, its unique features, the specificity of the relationships with the USA, and the future perspective of these relationships.

A Historical Overview of Lebanon

The Lebanese Republic, the official name of Lebanon, is the small state in the Middle East located in a hilly terrain on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. In the East and the North, the country borders on Syria, in the south – on Israel. The population of Lebanon composes 4 million people. The republic is distinguished in the Arab world by the extreme religious variety. Before the civil war of 1975 – 1990, Lebanon was a prospering, financial and banking capital of the Arab world with the prevailing share of the Christian population, for what it received the informal name “Middle Eastern Switzerland”. Lebanon is highly popular among tourists.

The emergence of pioneer settlements on the territory of modern-day Lebanon dates back to the 6th millennium B.C. Lebanon became the homeland of Phoenicia, the developed sea trade state which stretched its lengthways coast on the Mediterranean Sea. The Phoenicians gave the first alphabet to the world. Phoenicia was in blossom in 1200 – 800 BC. In 332 BC, Alexander of Macedon launched a campaign into Phoenicia, ultimately destroying its largest city – Tyre. In the period of the Arab raids and formation of the Caliphate, Islam penetrated into Lebanon. In the 12th century, Lebanon became a part of the Jerusalem kingdom of crusaders. In 1261, crusaders were expelled from Lebanon by the Egyptians, and Lebanon belonged to Egypt until 1516. In 1517, Sultan Selim I annexed this territory to the Ottoman Empire.

Lebanon’s territory, as part of Greater Syria, entered the Ottoman Empire over 400 years ago. After the defeat of Turkey in World War I and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the territory of Big Syria was occupied in 1918 by the British troops under the command of the general Allenby. In 1916, the country came under French control and was administered as a French mandate. In 1926, the territory of Lebanon was separated from Syria, and Lebanon became the separate territorial unit operated, however, by the administration of the French mandate of Syria. In 1940, France was occupied by Germany. In 1943, Lebanon officially gained independence. In 1948, Lebanon took part in the first Arab-Israeli war. Later, Lebanon signed a ceasefire agreement with Israel. More than 100,000 Arab refugees came to Lebanon.

Since 1956, there were the increasing contradictions between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon, resulting in the civil war in 1958. To hold the power in the country, the president Kamil Shamun asked for the U.S. military assistance. The American troops were present in the country from July to October up to a full normalization of the situation. In 1975, the second civil war between Muslim and Christian communities erupted in Lebanon. The war lasted 15 years, destroying the once-prosperous national economy and claiming the lives of over 150,000 inhabitants. It stopped in 1990 with the signing of the Taif Agreements. In 1976, the Syrian troops entered Lebanon and occupied it up to 2006, despite the official requirements of the presidents of Lebanon about the withdrawal of Syrian troops.

After the end of civil war in Lebanon, there was a short period of relative peace, interrupted by the cabinet crisis provoked by the murder of the ex-prime minister of the country Rafik Hariri, followed by the withdrawal of the Syrian troops and the Israeli-Lebanese conflict in 2006. In 2011, in Lebanon there was a conflict between the government and Islamists. In 2015, there was the wave of protests because of the inaction of the government and political crisis during which the parliament cannot elect the president of the country.

U.S. Foreign Policy with Lebanon

The Middle East region remains one of the most intensive in the international relations at present. There, the interests of both big world powers and regional leaders meet. It is a special region different from the Arab world where historically there was a communal, religious and political originality. This region, along with the Persian Gulf, became the key arena of the conflict in the Middle East. The irreconcilability of the USA concerning extremism and radicalism will cause the continuation of the struggle against the relevant organizations and infrastructure in other states of the Middle East. Lebanon and Syria are the first in the turn of this struggle. Lebanon is an important link of the whole Middle Eastern processes of the last quarter of the 20th – beginning of the 21st century and enters a number of the countries which draw a close attention to the foreign policy.

Lebanon is a crucial factor in U.S. calculations regarding regional security, particularly concerning Israel and Iran. Congressional concerns have focused on the prominent role that Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shiite militia, political party, and U.S.-designated terrorist organization, continues to play in Lebanon and beyond, including its recent armed intervention in Syria.

The American-Lebanese relations are the bilateral relations between Lebanon and the USA. Lebanon has its embassy in Washington (the USA), and the USA has its embassy in Beirut (Lebanon). In 1944, the countries started their diplomatic relations. The USA, along with the international community, supports a full implementation of the resolution of the UN Security Council including the disarmament of all rebels and expansion of the Lebanese armed forces in the whole territory of Lebanon. The USA considers that the peaceful, prospering and stable Lebanon can make an important contribution into the achievement of the comprehensive world in the Middle East.

The key directions of the U.S. foreign policy with Lebanon should be considered in the context of the Middle Eastern policy pursued by the USA after World War II. In the late 1950s, the U.S. President D. Eisenhower proclaimed the Middle East to be a zone of the American interests. Currently, the main priority of U.S. foreign policy regarding Lebanon is full support for democratic processes in the country. Lebanon for the USA is one of the most suitable objects for the realization of the American democracy. The weakening of the influence of “Hezbollah” on the political processes and formation of the anti-Syrian moods in the country is an important element of the policy pursued by the USA in Lebanon. For this purpose, the American administration renders all possible assistance to the strengthening of the positions of the westernized “The March 14 Coalition” in the political life of Lebanon.

Also, the Lebanon-American economic relations are strengthened. In recent years, the volume of the American export to Lebanon increased greatly. In turn, the export of the Lebanese production to the USA also grows annually. For the American corporations, Lebanon is an attractive market for export of cars, electric equipment, medicines, etc. In the 2000s, such organizations as the American-Lebanese Chamber of Commerce, Association of the Lebanese Companies, the American-Lebanese Business Association, the purpose of which was to strengthen the commercial relations between two countries and attraction of foreign investments to Lebanon were formed in Lebanon with the support of the U.S. government. In Lebanon, there are about 160 American companies, including Microsoft, Coca-Cola, General Electric and others. The American presence in Lebanon is also fixed by the active influence on the training of specialists and solutions of personnel questions for the Lebanese economy. In particular, around 2100 Lebanese students were trained in the USA in 2013, and the American university in Beirut calls the American doctors and engineers of the Lebanese origin for the training of the Lebanese students on a constant basis.

Recently, the USA exerted massive pressure on Lebanon and Syria, demanding the dissolution of certain organizations and the cessation of support for Islamic radical groups in Palestinian territories. For Lebanon, it was an almost impossible or very difficult task. The pressure of the Lebanese government on “Hezbollah” can lead to the renewal of the armed and political opposition in Lebanon where the fragile world is established and there is no economic growth. The USA demands from the president of Lebanon to destroy practically all armed structures of “Hezbollah” that, most likely, means the presence of the American military contingent in the country as the Lebanese government is not able to solve this problem independently.

At the same time, the USA considers that Lebanon is the weakest link in a chain of the Arab states where legally or illegally the Islamic Sunni and Shiite radical organizations are located. Lebanon and Syria are a place of the greatest concentration of one of the most active Islamic radical organizations, and these countries became the actual arena of activity of data of groups against the USA and Israel. A strong pressure of the USA on Lebanon, and also other Arab states, a military influence in the relation of these countries absolutely reduces the importance of the Palestinian problem as these actions have much more important political and economic value for the Arab world.

It should also be noted that without a complete dominance and control over Syria and Lebanon, the USA will not be able to extend its influence in the Middle East. Lebanon became the arena of the political struggle of many forces in the region, including Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. However, a problematical character of the control over Syria and Lebanon from the USA speaks not only of the influence of the countries of the region, but also of the leading European countries as well as Russia, whose influence is steadily weakening.

Predictions for Future U.S. Relations with Lebanon

Lebanon holds a key position in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and its relation towards the leading Arab states in many respects depends on its position. Regarding the decrease of the importance of the Lebanese problem for the USA, it is necessary to take into account that the USA understands that cannot solve all world and regional problems, proceeding from the economic and military-political resources. Anyway, the USA has to choose priorities, including in regional policy and to ignore the part of problems for the sake of the solvation of, first of all, those problems its national security depends on.

The USA obviously does not want to solve the regional problems on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea where it spent huge resources. At the same time, at a suspense of the Syrian and Lebanese problem, the USA actively started to solve the problems of Iran, in particular, tried to create the opportunities for the reflection of the Iranian actions in the Islamic world. Iran continues to rely on its partners in Lebanon and Syria for the strengthening of the influence in the Middle East region, but its opportunities and hopes for the expansion of influence in the other Arab countries become more modest. Therefore, the struggle of Iran for the influence in Syria and Lebanon will proceed, at the support of the Shiites in these countries.

In this regard, it is possible to assume that the USA will change its relations with Lebanon, which should become a certain ‘neutral zone,’ where neither Iran, nor Turkey, nor Saudi Arabia could exert dominant influence. It is connected with the fact that in new historical conditions of the collision of civilizations the problem of Syria and Lebanon gets a new local character, and only an active participation of the USA is the most important factor of the increase of international “status” of this problem. Actually, many political forces of Lebanon can become the U.S. partners. The Islamic radical and extremist political organizations, especially those which have an international, cosmopolitan character, do not consider the Palestinian problem as a certain super purpose.

Lebanon plays a rather important role in the economic development of the other states of the Middle East region, in particular, Syria which in this regard directly depends on the neighbor. As for the political value of Lebanon, it is still a zone of influence of a number of the states as a strategically important region. In the 1970-1980s, this country became the arena of rivalry of the USSR, and also the neighboring Syria and Iran, on the one hand, and the USA and Israel, on the other hand. Lebanon seeks to cooperate with all countries, while simultaneously striving to maintain its independence. The country has fairly good relations with the USA and the Gulf states. The USA hopes that the creation of the Palestinian state will make Lebanon to be more accessible for the U.S. strategy. It will strengthen the USA and diminish the importance of other states for U.S. strategy.

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Lebanon - Culture, Etiquette and Business Practices

What will you learn about lebanon.

You will gain an understanding of a number of key areas including:

• Religion and beliefs
• Culture and society
• Social etiquette and customs
• Business culture and etiquette

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Facts and Statistics

Location: The Middle East, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Israel and Syria

Capital: Beirut

Borders: Israel 79 km, Syria 375 km

Population: 6+ million (2019 est.)

Ethnic Makeup: Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1% note: many Christian Lebanese do not identify themselves as Arab but rather as descendents of the ancient Canaanites and prefer to be called Phoenicians

Religions: Muslim 59.7% (Shia, Sunni, Druze, Isma'ilite, Alawite or Nusayri), Christian 39% (Maronite Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Melkite Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Chaldean, Assyrian, Copt, Protestant), other 1.3% note: 17 religious sects recognised

Lebanon is a mix. Different religions, histories and identities but also the between the peoples of the mountain and the sea. Photo by Nabih El Boustani on Unsplash

Language in Lebanon

Article 11 of Lebanon's Constitution states that Arabic is the official national language.

A law determines the cases in which the French language may be used". The majority of Lebanese people speak Arabic and either French or English fluently. Moreover, Lebanese people of Armenian or Greek descent also speak Armenian or Greek fluently.

Also in use is Kurdish spoken by some of the Kurdish minorities in Lebanon, and Syriac by the Syriac minorities. Other languages include Circassian, spoken by 50,000, Tigrinya (30,000), Sinhala (25,000), Turkish (10,000), Azerbaijani (13,000), Polish (5,000), Russian and Romanian (together 10,000 speakers), and Turkmen (8,000 speakers).

The Martyrs' Monument in Beirut by Marten Bjork on Unsplash near the Mohammad al-Amin mosque.

Lebanese Society and Culture

• There has deliberately not been a census in Lebanon since 1932, before its formation as an independent nation.
• This is due to the political consequences a major shift in the population dynamics an accurate census could have.
• The population is generally viewed in terms of religion.
• The predominant differences between people are those between Muslim and Christian sects.
• The proportion of each is politically sensitive so estimates from different sources vary widely.
• What is known is that approximately 90% of the population is urban rather than rural.

Religion(s)

• Lebanon is a religious mish-mash and this has ultimately been the cause behind social tensions and the long, drawn out civil .
• The government officially recognizes 18 religious sects of Christianity , Islam , and Judaism.
• Religious differences are built into government and politics.
• Christians are guaranteed 50% of the seats in parliament.
• The President is always a Christian and the Prime Minister and Speaker of the House are Muslims.
• The Druze are awarded 8 seats in parliament.
• The government maintains that this system prevents one community from gaining an advantage over the others.
• Religion affects almost all areas of culture.
• Family laws such as divorce, separation, child custody, and inheritance are handled in religious courts and there is not a uniform system for all citizens.

Loyalty to a Group

• A person’s name and honour are their most cherished possessions.
• This extends also to the family and wider group.
• Therefore the behaviour of individual family members is viewed as the direct responsibility of the family.
• It is crucial for the Lebanese to maintain their dignity, honour, and reputation.
• The Lebanese strive to avoid causing another person public embarrassment.
• This can be seen when they agree to perform a favour for a friend to maintain that friend’s honour even if they know that they will not do what is asked.

Hospitable People

• The Lebanese are proud of their tradition of hospitality.
• This is a culture where it is considered an honour to have a guest in your home.
• One should therefore not seen being invited quite quickly to someone’s home for something to eat as strange.
• Guests are generally served tea or coffee immediately.
• Good manners dictate that such offers are accepted; never reject such an offer as this may be viewed as an insult.

Lebanese Manners and Etiquette

Greeting people.

• Greetings in Lebanon are an interesting mix of both the French and Muslim/Arab cultures.
• A warm and welcoming smile accompanied by a handshake while saying “Marhaba” is a greeting that can be given without causing offense.
• You will see the greeting close friends with three kisses on the cheek, alternating cheeks in the French style.
• Take time when greeting a person and be sure to ask about their family, health, etc.
• If man is greeting Muslim women you may find that some wish not to shake hands; it is best to see if a hand is extended or not first.

Gift Giving Etiquette

• Gifts are part and parcel of the culture and are not only for birthdays and special occasions.
• Gifts may be given to someone who has provided a favour, to someone returning from a trip overseas, or simply out of want.
• The cost of the gift is not nearly as important as what it represents – friendship.
• If you are invited to a Lebanese home, it is customary to bring flowers. If invited for a meal, you may bring sweets or pastries.
• If visiting a Muslim family, it is a good idea to say that the gift is for the host rather than the hostess.
• Gifts of alcohol are welcome in many circles. Muslims though generally do not drink alcohol.
• A small gift such a sweet for the children is always a nice touch.
• Gifts may be given with the right hand or both hands. It is best not to offer a gift with the left hand.

Dining Etiquette

If you are invited to a Lebanese house for dinner:

• Dress well.
• Avoid sensitive topics of conversation such as politics, religion or the civil war unless you know the hosts are comfortable talking about it.
• Greet elders first.
• Lebanese table manners are relatively formal.
• Wait to be told where to sit.
• Table manners are Continental, i.e. the fork is held in the left hand and the knife in the right while eating.
• You will be expected to try all foods at the table.
• Expect to be urged to take second or even third helpings. It is best to eat less on your first helping so that a second helping is possible. This shows your host you are enjoying the food and are being taken care of.

Cooperative members in southern Lebanon make a rare traditional bread called 'Mallet El Smid' to be sold in Beirut. 

Photo by UN Women (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Business Culture and Etiquette

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Meeting and Greeting

• Lebanese can be somewhat formal in their business dealings.
• At the same time, they will strive to be hospitable and will go out of their way to be generous and gracious hosts.
• Greetings should not be rushed. It is important to take time to exchange social pleasantries during the greeting process.
• The most common greeting in business is the handshake with direct eye contact.
• The handshake may be more prolonged that in Western countries.
• Very religious Muslims may not shake hands across genders. In such cases, the foreign business people should simply nod their heads as a way of acknowledging them.
• If someone is introduced with a title, use that title when greeting them.
• If the title is given in Arabic, it is appended to the first name. If the title is in English or French, it will be added to the surname.
• Business cards are given without formal ritual.
• Having one side of your card translated into French or Arabic is a nice touch but not essential.
• Present and receive business cards with two hands or the right hand.

Communication Styles

• The Lebanese are very “touchy-feely”.
• Direct eye contact with a lot of physical contact is the cornerstones of Lebanese communication.
• If you are from a culture where eye contact is less direct and contact not so prevalent, this may feel uncomfortable.
• Try not to break the eye contact as this conveys trust, sincerity and honesty.
• However, interestingly the situation is reversed when dealing with elders where prolonged direct eye contact is considered rude and challenging.
• Lebanese have an indirect and non-confrontational communication style, which relates to the need to maintain personal honour.
• They rely heavily on the context to explain the underlying meaning of their words.
• The listener is expected to know what they are trying to say or imply.
• Non-verbal cues and body language are crucial to learn so you can more fully understand the responses you are given.
• For the most part, Lebanese try not to lose their tempers publicly since such behaviour demonstrates a weakness of character.
• They strive to be courteous and expect similar behaviour from others.
• However, if they think that their honour has been impugned or that their personal honour has been challenged, they will raise their voice and employ sweeping hand gestures in their vociferous attempt to restore their honour.
• Relationship building is essential if you want more open and honest conversations.

Business Meetings

• The business culture in Lebanon is multi-faceted and also rapidly changing.
• The country is eager for foreign investment and many companies have adopted a Western approach to business.
• At the same time, smaller companies may retain many Middle Eastern aspects to their business culture.
• Punctuality is generally expected for business meetings.
• Meetings generally begin with the offer of tea or coffee.
• While this is being sipped, it is important to engage in some chitchat. This is important in order to establish rapport and trust.
• Meetings are not necessarily private. The Lebanese tend to have an open-door policy, which means that people may walk in and out, telephone calls may be answered or the tea boy may come in to take drink orders. It is best to be prepared for frequent interruptions.
• Meetings are generally conducted in French, Arabic or English.
• It is generally a good idea to ask which language the meeting will be conducted in prior to arriving.
• You may wish to hire your own interpreter.
• Read our guide to Lebanese Management Culture for more information on this topic.

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Introduction

    Lebanon profile

Lebanon borders Israel and Syria . Along the Mediterranean coast is a narrow plain. The Lebanon Mountains, which rise to 9,800 feet (3,000 meters), run down the middle of the country. The Anti-Lebanon Mountains form Lebanon’s border with Syria. Between the two mountain ranges lies the high, fertile Bekaa Valley. The valley receives water from the Litani, the only river in Lebanon that flows throughout the year.

Lebanon’s coast has warm, dry summers and mild, rainy winters. Summers in the Bekaa Valley are hot and dry, and winters are cool. Lebanon receives more rain than most Middle Eastern countries.

Plants and Animals

Among Lebanon’s plants are brush and low trees, including oaks, pines, cypresses, firs, junipers, and carobs. Lebanon is famous for its cedar trees, but today they grow only in protected mountain groves.

Lebanon’s animals include deer, wildcats, hedgehogs, squirrels, martens (small weasel-like mammals), and hares. Flamingos, pelicans, cuckoos, and various birds of prey also live there.

Services, including banking and tourism, are Lebanon’s most important economic activities. Manufacturing is also important. Lebanon produces cement, food products, jewelry, clothing, machinery, chemicals, and wood products.

Agriculture is concentrated along the Mediterranean coast and in the Bekaa Valley. Major crops include potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, citrus fruits, onions, grapes, apples, and olives. Goats and sheep are the main livestock.

After independence, tensions grew between Christians and Muslims. In 1970 the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) moved its headquarters to Lebanon. The PLO launched attacks on Israel from Lebanon. Lebanese Muslims sided with the Palestinians against Israel and the Lebanese Christians. The Lebanese Muslims also wanted more power in Lebanon’s Christian-dominated government.

In 1975 the conflict escalated into civil war between Muslims and Christians. The following year Syrian forces entered Lebanon to support the Christians. In 1982 Israeli forces also invaded. The Israelis and an international peacekeeping force helped to force the PLO out of Lebanon.

The civil war ended in 1990, but violence continued in southern Lebanon, especially between Israeli forces and the radical Muslim group known as Hezbollah . About 300,000 Palestinian refugees also remained in Lebanon.

In 2000 Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon. Syrian troops withdrew in 2005.

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The World Bank In Lebanon

The World Bank’s engagement in Lebanon aims to continue to protect the people and businesses from the impact of the compounded crises, help prepare for the recovery of the Lebanese economy and advance the reform agenda in key social and economic sectors through knowledge and analytical work.

For nearly three years, Lebanon has been assailed by the most devastating, multi-pronged crisis in its modern history. The unfolding economic and financial crisis that started in October 2019 has been further exacerbated by the dual economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, and the massive Port of Beirut explosion in August 2020.

Of the three crises, the economic crisis has had by far the largest (and most persistent) negative impact. The  Spring 2021 Lebanon Economic Monitor  found that Lebanon’s economic and financial crisis ranks among the worst economic crises globally since the mid-nineteenth century. Nominal GDP plummeted from close to US$52 billion in 2019 to an estimated US$23.1 billion in 2021. The protracted economic contraction has led to a marked decline in disposable income. GDP per capita dropped by 36.5% between 2019 and 2021, and Lebanon was reclassified by the World Bank as a lower-middle income country, down from upper middle-income status in July 2022.  Such a brutal contraction is usually associated with conflicts or wars.

The banking sector, which informally adopted strict capital controls, has ceased lending and does not attract deposits. Instead, it endures in a segmented payment system that distinguishes between older (pre‐October 2019) US Dollar deposits and minimum new inflows of “fresh dollars.” The former is subject to sharp deleveraging through de facto “lirafication” and “haircuts” (up to 85% on dollar deposits). The burden of the ongoing adjustment and deleveraging is highly regressive, falling hardest on smaller depositors and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The decline in average income coupled with triple-digit inflation and a severe currency depreciation are immensely curtailing purchasing power. Inflationary effects are highly regressive factors, disproportionately affecting the poor and middle class. The social impact, already dire, could become catastrophic; more than half the country’s population is likely already below the poverty line. Unemployment increased from 11.4% in 2018-19 to 29.6% in 2022.  Lebanon has witnessed a dramatic collapse in basic services, driven by depleting foreign exchange (FX) reserves since the onset of the compounded crisis. Severe shortages of fuel items resulted in the national electric grid experiencing more than eight rolling blackouts as public electricity supply averages one to two hours per day. Fuel shortages have also hindered access to healthcare and clean water, while food supply shops, transport service providers, and telecom network operators face severe disruptions to their supply chains. Lebanon has also had to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic through intermittent lockdowns and other measures to mitigate the impact of the virus both on people and on the already weak health system. Vaccination, launched in February 2021 with initial financing from the World Bank, progressed according to the National COVID-19 Deployment and Vaccination Plan, with the aim to vaccinate 70% of the total population, citizens and non-citizens, in a multi-phase rollout by the end of 2022.

Beyond the human tragedy, the impact of the Port of Beirut explosion has had implications at the national level, despite its geographical concentration. These add to Lebanon’s long-term structural vulnerabilities, which include low-grade infrastructure—a dysfunctional electricity sector, water supply shortages, and inadequate solid waste and wastewater management—as well as weak public financial management, large macroeconomic imbalances, and deteriorating social indicators. 

Immediately after the explosion, the World Bank Group, in cooperation with the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU), launched a  Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA)  to estimate the impact of the blast on residents, physical assets, infrastructure and service delivery. The RDNA followed a “whole of Lebanon approach,” engaging public authorities, institutions, and civil society organizations. The assessment found the value of damage was in the range of US$3.8 to US$4.6 billion, with losses to financial flows of US$2.9 to US$3.5 billion. The impact has been particularly severe in key sectors vital for growth, including finance, housing, tourism, and commerce. Through to the end of 2021, the costs of recovery and reconstruction are expected to total US$1.8 to US$2.2 billion. 

Building on the recommendations of the RDNA, in December 2020 the World Bank Group, EU and UN launched the  Reform, Recovery and Reconstruction Framework (3RF)  to address Lebanon's immediate- and short-term needs. The 3RF outlines a costed, prioritized framework of actions needed to support recovery and reconstruction in Lebanon. Its aim is to “build back better” by adopting an integrated approach focused on people-centered recovery and preparing the ground for medium-term reconstruction, and on initiating key structural reforms based on the principles of transparency, inclusion, and accountability. 

The  Lebanon Financing Facility  (LFF) was formally established on December 18, 2020 to kickstart the immediate socio-economic recovery of vulnerable populations and businesses affected by the explosion, and to support the Government of Lebanon in catalyzing reforms and preparing for medium-term recovery and reconstruction. The LFF provides an important means to pool grant resources and strengthen the coherence and coordination of financing, in alignment with 3RF priorities. It adopts flexible implementation modalities and strong fiduciary monitoring and oversight. 

Building a better Lebanon requires swift and decisive action, particularly on reform. In the immediate term, Lebanon needs to adopt and implement a credible, comprehensive and coordinated macro-financial stability strategy within a medium-term, macro-fiscal framework. This strategy would be based on: (i) a debt restructuring program aimed at achieving debt sustainability over the medium-term; (ii) comprehensive restructuring of the financial sector toward regaining the solvency of the banking sector; (iii) new monetary policy framework aimed at regaining confidence in the exchange rate and its stability; (iv) phased fiscal adjustment aimed at regaining confidence in fiscal policy; (v) growth enhancing reforms; and (vi) enhanced social protection. 

Over the medium-term, Lebanon has to prioritize building better institutions, as well as good governance and a better business environment, alongside physical reconstruction. However, given Lebanon’s state of insolvency (sovereign, banking system) and its lack of sufficient foreign exchange reserves, international aid and private investment will be essential to its recovery. The extent and speed to which aid and investments are mobilized will depend on whether the authorities and the Lebanese Parliament can act swiftly on the much-needed fiscal, financial, social and governance reforms. Without these, recovery and reconstruction cannot be sustainable, and the social and economic situation will continue to worsen.

Last Updated: Nov 02, 2022

The World Bank Group’s  Country Partnership Framework (CPF) (FY17–FY22) for the Lebanese Republic  was launched on July 14, 2016. Informed by a broad range of consultations with members of the government, parliament, private sector, and civil society, the CPF focuses on: (i) scaling up access to and the quality-of-service delivery; and (ii) expanding economic opportunities and increasing human capital. Within these areas, the Bank Group aims to help Lebanon mitigate the economic and social impact of the Syria crisis, safeguard its development gains, and improve its chances of stability and development. Cross-cutting themes of governance and renewing the social contract, were included to help regain the trust of citizens, and improve the quality of public services. The CPF mainstreamed gender, particularly through expanding economic opportunities and increasing human capital. 

In May 2022, the World Bank completed a Lebanon Performance and Learning Review (PLR) which summarizes progress under the FY17–FY22 Country Partnership Framework (CPF) and proposes revisions to the CPF and its priority areas to address the impact of the crises on the poor and vulnerable and to steer the country’s economy towards recovery. The PLR also introduced women’s economic empowerment as a cross-cutting theme to contribute to a more enabling environment for women’s economic participation and facilitate women’s entrepreneurship. The PLR extended the term of the current CPF by one year and will serve as a bridge to the preparation of Lebanon’s next CPF (FY24-FY29).

As of October 2022, the World Bank’s total commitment in Lebanon amounts to US$1.5 billion, consisting of 20 active projects (loans and grants) covering a range of sectors, including water, transport, education, health, poverty targeting, social safety nets, food security, environment, and Small and Medium Enterprises.  These projects are financed from a variety of sources, including special mechanisms, such as the Global Concessional Financing Facility (GCFF) and the Lebanon Financing Facility (LFF). In 2016, Lebanon also obtained US$100 million in financing from the International Development Association (IDA), whose funding is normally reserved for Low-Income Countries, to support the Reaching all Children in Education (RACE) II Program (US$196 million).

The Lebanon program is complemented by a number of Advisory Services and Analytics that aim to provide important economic and social, evidence-based diagnostics, which serve as data platforms to inform project design and stakeholders. 

Full list of World Bank-funded Projects in Lebanon

Response to Lebanon’s compounded crises

Over the past years, the World Bank has mobilized efforts and resources to help save lives and livelihoods and address the dire needs of the Lebanese people reeling under the pressure of the multi-faceted crises affecting their country. To that effect, the Bank has approved new projects and redirected financing under the portfolio to address more pressing and urgent needs.

In the health sector, the Lebanon Health Resilience Project  (US$120 million) was restructured twice to incorporate a new component to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic by assisting in preparedness and response capabilities through the training of health workers and frontline responders, covering the cost of hospital care for COVID-19 patients, and supporting the urgent procurement of goods and equipment to strengthen the capacity of public hospitals, as well as purchasing and deploying COVID-19 vaccines. 

The Roads and Employment Project  (US$200 million) was restructured with US$10 million reallocated to support small farmers impacted by the crises, with inputs and materials to help them  continue with their planting and animal production, and thus support their ability to contribute to food security.

An  Emergency Crisis and COVID-19 Response Social Safety Net Project-ESSN (US$250 million) became effective in July 2021 to provide emergency cash transfers and access to social services for extremely poor and vulnerable households, in addition to top-up cash transfer to children between the ages of 13 and 18 years, who may be at risk of dropping out of school. The project AMAN also supports the development of a comprehensive, national social safety net system through DAEM, the social registry developed on the IMPACT platform for citizens to register for social assistance.

In May 2022, the World Bank approved a US$150 million Wheat Supply Emergency Response Project to finance immediate wheat imports to avoid disruption of supply over the short term and help secure affordable bread for poor and vulnerable households. The project, which is supported by concessional financing through the GCFF, aims to help Lebanon face the impact of the war in Ukraine as the country imports nearly 80% of the wheat it consumes. The project will also help strengthen the governance capacity in the wheat sector and help position the sector on a pathway toward recovery and greater resilience.

In support of the Education sector, the World Bank and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) repurposed US$37 million under the Lebanon Syrian Crisis Trust Fund (LSCTF) to provide financial incentives to public school teachers suffering from the severe economic and financial crisis in Lebanon to ensure they can purchase fuel to travel to work during academic year 2021-2022.

One year after the Port of Beirut explosion, the first LFF financed project was approved: The US$25 million  Building Beirut Businesses Back Better Fund (B5)  aims to support the recovery of targeted MSEs and sustain the operations of eligible Micro-Finance Institutions (MFI)s. Implemented by Kafalat, the B5 Fund provides grants to approximately 4,300 businesses and/or entrepreneurs, of which 30 percent will be Women Owned or Led businesses.

Under the LFF, three other operations were approved in 2022. The Beirut Housing Reconstruction and Cultural and Creative Industries Recovery project (US$12.75 million, implemented by UN-Habitat) will help facilitate the return of socio-economically vulnerable households to neighborhoods damaged by the Port of Beirut explosion through historical housing rehabilitation and will sustain the livelihoods of affected cultural entities and practitioners. The Support for Social Recovery Needs of Vulnerable Groups in Beirut project (US$7.8 million, implemented by the International Rescue Committee) will provide immediate social recovery support to vulnerable groups impacted by the aftermath of the explosion. The Beirut Critical Environment Recovery, Restoration and Waste Management Program (US$10 million, implemented by UNDP) will help Lebanon mitigate the environmental and health impacts of the Port of Beirut explosion on neighboring population and support the development of a strategic plan for greening Beirut’s reconstruction. 

In the environment sector, the World Bank is also supporting Lebanon in paving the way for Building Back Better and Greener by mainstreaming the Green, Resilient, Inclusive Development (GRID) approach in the recovery plan currently being developed in consultation and coordination with various stakeholders. Efforts also include a number of interventions to address environmental pollution resulting from the discharge of untreated wastewater, mismanagement of municipal solid waste, industrial pollution, water contamination from agro-chemicals, and hap-hazard discharge of hazardous wastes.

International Finance Corporation (IFC) 

Prior to the current crisis, IFC’s investment program in Lebanon included commitments of US$218 million in Long Term Finance (LTF) and US$2 billion in Short Term Finance (STF). As of July 31, 2022, IFC’s committed exposure in Lebanon stands at US$250 million, with a net exposure of around US$95.3 million (post-write-off of commercial bank equity investments). The financial crisis led to a significant country risk premium that resulted in a significant drop in exposure, particularly under IFC’s Global Trade Finance Program (GTFP). The largest part of IFC’s exposure remains in the financial sector representing 96%, followed by the construction and retail sectors representing 4%. The financial crisis and lack of financial sector reforms, including informal capital controls, have led to a rapid devaluation of the local currency against the US$ and the creation of a large informal sector. This has negatively affected the performance of IFC’s overall portfolio, with the ratio of non-performing loans (NPLs) standing at 98.9% as of July 31, 2022.

Notwithstanding the challenging environment, IFC has been a pioneer DFI in selectively identifying leads to support the Lebanese private sector, which has remained resilient.

Despite high uncertainties, fragility, and multiple crises facing the country, IFC has maintained an opportunistic approach by identifying selective cross-border investment opportunities in the real sector with export potential clients focused on manufacturing, disruptive technologies, and funds from Lebanon. IFC’s FY20-FY21 commitments in this space have reached US$30 million, and the upcoming pipeline of activities could reach around US$133 million. In parallel, IFC continues to explore/extend upstream/advisory services interventions in several themes and cross-cutting areas in Lebanon, such as Climate, Corporate Governance, and Gender, as well as client-specific interventions such as MFIs and private equity funds.  IFC is also conducting sector-focused studies to assess means to provide support to MSMEs, particularly when it comes to ESG compliance, Legal and Regulatory Aspects of Movable Asset Based Lending (ABL), and Supply Chain Finance (SCF). 

Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) 

Until June 30, 2022, MIGA’s outstanding exposure in Lebanon stood at US$35 million related to guarantees for an electricity distribution service provider under a PPP contract with the national utility, Electricité du Liban. The project was signed in FY14 and extended for an additional four years in FY18, expiring in FY22. In recent years, many of the political risks that MIGA covers—including sovereign default, currency restrictions and civil disturbances—have been witnessed in Lebanon. At the same time, Lebanon’s ongoing crises have adversely affected the operating environment for foreign investors in the country, limiting foreign direct investment and in turn, demand for MIGA’s political risk insurance products. The adoption of critical and overdue structural and sectoral reforms, which can develop pathways out of Lebanon’s crisis and improve the operating environment, will be important to generate foreign direct investment, thereby enabling a greater role for MIGA to support Lebanon’s recovery alongside the World Bank and IFC.

Building Beirut Businesses Back and Better - B5 Fund

Lebanon: commitments by fiscal year (in millions of dollars)*, around the bank group.

Find out what the Bank Group's branches are doing in Lebanon.

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• About Lebanon

Lebanon's location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian hinterland.

The earliest evidence of civilization in Lebanon dates back more than seven thousand years, predating recorded history.

Evidence of early settlements was found in many cities and villages all over Lebanon , especially on Lebanese coast. Archaeologists discovered remnants of prehistoric huts with crushed limestone floors, primitive weapons, and burial jars left by the fishing communities who lived on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea over 7,000 years ago.

Lebanon | Facts & Information

• Lebanon Profile
• News and Current Events

Facts & Figures

President: Tammam Salam (acting) (2014)

Prime Minister: Tammam Salam (2014)

Land area: 3,950 sq mi (10,230 sq km); total area: 4,015 sq mi (10,400 sq km)

Population (2014 est.): 5,882,562 (growth rate: 9.37%); birth rate: 14.8/1000; infant mortality rate: 7.98/1000; life expectancy: 77.22

Capital and largest city (2011 est.): Beirut, 2.022 million

Monetary unit: Lebanese pound

National name: Al-Joumhouriya al-Lubnaniya

Current government officials

Languages: Arabic (official), French, English, Armenian

Ethnicity/race: Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, other 1%; note : many Christian Lebanese do not identify themselves as Arab but rather as descendents of the ancient Canaanites and prefer to be called Phoenicians

Religions: Muslim 54% (27% Sunni, 27% Shia), Christian 40.5% (includes 21% Maronite Catholic, 8% Greek Orthodox, 5% Greek Catholic, 6.5% other Christian), Druze 5.6%, very small numbers of Jews, Baha'is, Buddhists, Hindus, and Mormons. (2012 est.) note: 18 religious sects recognized

National Holiday: Independence Day, November 22

Literacy rate: 89.6% (2007 est.)

Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2013 est.): $64.31 billion; per capita $15,800. Real growth rate: 1.5%. Inflation: 5%. Unemployment: 9.2% (2007 est.). Arable land: 10.72%. Agriculture: citrus, grapes, tomatoes, apples, vegetables, potatoes, olives, tobacco; sheep, goats. Labor force: 1.481 million; note: in addition, there are as many as 1 million foreign workers (2007 est.). Industries: banking, tourism, food processing, jewelry, cement, textiles, mineral and chemical products, wood and furniture products, oil refining, metal fabricating. Natural resources: limestone, iron ore, salt, water-surplus state in a water-deficit region, arable land. Exports: $5.826 billion (2012 est.): authentic jewelry, inorganic chemicals, miscellaneous consumer goods, fruit, tobacco, construction minerals, electric power machinery and switchgear, textile fibers, paper. Imports: $20.97 billion (2013 est.): petroleum products, cars, medicinal products, clothing, meat and live animals, consumer goods, paper, textile fabrics, tobacco. Major trading partners: Syria, UAE, Turkey, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Italy, France, Germany, U.S., Egypt, , China, Greece, South Africa (2012).

Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: 878,000 (2012); mobile cellular: 4 (2012). Broadcast media: 7 TV stations, 1 of which is state-owned; more than 30 radio stations, 1 of which is state-owned; satellite and cable TV services available; transmissions of at least 2 international broadcasters are accessible through partner stations (2007). Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 64,926 (2012). Internet users: 1 million (2009).

Transportation: Railways: total: 401 km (unusable because of damage in civil war) (2008). Highways: 6,970 km (includes 170 km of expressways) (2005). Ports and terminals: Beirut, Tripoli. Airports: 8 (2013).

International disputes: lacking a treaty or other documentation describing the boundary, portions of the Lebanon-Syria boundary are unclear with several sections in dispute; since 2000, Lebanon has claimed Shab'a Farms area in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights; the roughly 2,000-strong UN Interim Force in Lebanon has been in place since 1978.

Major sources and definitions

Lebanon lies at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, north of Israel and west of Syria. It is four-fifths the size of Connecticut. The Lebanon Mountains, which run parallel to the western coast, cover most of the country, while on the eastern border is the Anti-Lebanon range. Between the two lies the Bekaa Valley, the principal agricultural area.

After World War I, France was given a League of Nations mandate over Lebanon and its neighbor Syria, which together had previously been a single political unit in the Ottoman Empire. France divided them in 1920 into separate colonial administrations, drawing a border that separated mostly Muslim Syria from the kaleidoscope of religious communities in Lebanon, where Maronite Christians were then dominant. After 20 years of the French mandate regime, Lebanon's independence was proclaimed on Nov. 26, 1941, but full independence came in stages. Under an agreement between representatives of Lebanon and the French National Committee of Liberation, most of the powers exercised by France were transferred to the Lebanese government on Jan. 1, 1944. The evacuation of French troops was completed in 1946.

According to the unwritten National Pact, different religious communities were represented in the government by a Maronite Christian president, a Sunni Muslim prime minister, and a Shiite national assembly speaker. This arrangement worked for two decades.

Civil war broke out in 1958, with Muslim factions led by Kamal Jumblat and Saeb Salam rising in insurrection against the Lebanese government headed by President Camille Chamoun, a Maronite Christian favoring close ties to the West. At Chamoun's request, President Eisenhower, on July 15, sent U.S. troops to reestablish the government's authority.

Warring Factions Within Lebanon and Regional Conflicts Make Peace Impossible

Clan warfare between various religious groups in Lebanon goes back centuries. The combatants include Maronite Christians, who, since independence, have dominated the government; Sunni Muslims, who have prospered in business and shared political power; the Druze, who have a faith incorporating aspects of Islam and Gnosticism; and Shiite Muslims.

A new—and bloodier—Lebanese civil war that broke out in 1975 resulted in the addition of still another ingredient in the brew, the Syrians. In the fighting between Lebanese factions, 40,000 Lebanese were estimated to have been killed and 100,000 wounded between March 1975 and Nov. 1976. At that point, Syrian troops intervened at the request of the Lebanese and brought large-scale fighting to a halt. In 1977, the civil war again flared and continued until 1990, decimating the country.

Palestinian guerrillas staging raids on Israel from Lebanese territory drew punitive Israeli raids on Lebanon and two large scale Israeli invasions, in 1978 and again in 1982. In the first invasion, the Israelis entered the country in March 1978 and withdrew that June, after the UN Security Council created a 6,000-man peacekeeping force for the area called UNIFIL. As the UN departed, the Israelis turned their strongholds over to a Christian militia that they had organized, instead of to the UN force.

Continuing Conflict with Israel Leads to the Formation of Hezbollah

The second Israeli invasion came on June 6, 1982, after an assassination attempt by Palestinian terrorists on the Israeli ambassador in London. As a base of the PLO, Lebanon became the Israelis' target. Nearly 7,000 Palestinians were dispersed to other Arab nations. The violence seemed to have come to an end when, on Sept. 14, Bashir Gemayel, the 34-year-old president-elect, was killed by a bomb that destroyed the headquarters of his Christian Phalangist Party. Following his assassination, Christian militiamen massacred about 1,000 Palestinians in the Israeli-controlled Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, but Israel denied responsibility.

The massacre in the refugee camps prompted the return of a multinational peacekeeping force. Its mandate was to support the central Lebanese government, but it soon found itself drawn into the struggle for power between different Lebanese factions. The country was engulfed in chaos and instability. During their stay in Lebanon, 241 U.S. Marines and about 60 French soldiers were killed, most of them in suicide bombings of the U.S. Marine and French army compounds on Oct. 23, 1983. The multinational force withdrew in the spring of 1984. In 1985, the majority of Israeli troops withdrew from the country, but Israel left some troops along a buffer zone on the southern Lebanese border, where they engaged in ongoing skirmishes with Palestinian groups. The Palestinian terrorist group Hezbollah, or “Party of God,” was formed in the 1980s during Israel's second invasion of Lebanon. With financial backing from Iran, it has launched attacks against Israel for more than 20 years.

In July 1986, Syrian observers took up a position in Beirut to monitor a peacekeeping agreement. The agreement broke down and fighting between Shiite and Druze militia in West Beirut became so intense that Syrian troops mobilized in Feb. 1987, suppressing militia resistance. In 1991, a treaty of friendship was signed with Syria, which in effect gave Syria control over Lebanon's foreign relations. In early 1991, the Lebanese government, backed by Syria, regained control over the south and disbanded various militias, thereby ending the 16-year civil war, which had destroyed much of the infrastructure and industry of Lebanon.

Israeli Attacks and Syrian Meddling Continue

In June 1999, just before Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu left office, Israel bombed southern Lebanon, its most severe attack on the country since 1996. In May 2000, Israel's new prime minister, Ehud Barak, withdrew Israeli troops after 18 consecutive years of occupation.

In the summer of 2001, Syria withdrew nearly all of its 25,000 troops from Beirut and surrounding areas. About 14,000 troops, however, remained in the countryside. With the continuation of Israeli-Palestinian violence in 2002, Hezbollah again began building up forces along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

In Aug. 2004, in a stark reminder of its iron grip on Lebanon, Syria insisted that Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Émile Lahoud, remain in office beyond the constitutional limit of one six-year term. Despite outrage in the country, the Lebanese parliament did Syria's bidding, permitting Lahoud to serve for three more years.

Syrian Occupation Ends, but Syrian Influence Continues

A UN Security Council resolution in Sept. 2004 demanded that Syria remove the troops it had stationed in Lebanon for the past 28 years. Syria responded by moving about 3,000 troops from the vicinity of Beirut to eastern Lebanon, a gesture that was viewed by many as merely symbolic. As a result, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (1992–1998, 2000–2004), largely responsible for Lebanon's economic rebirth in the past decade, resigned. On Feb. 14, 2005, he was killed by a car bomb. Many suspected Syria of involvement and large protests ensued, calling for Syria's withdrawal from the country. After two weeks of protests by Sunni Muslim, Christian, and Druze parties, pro-Syrian prime minister Omar Karami resigned on Feb. 28. Several days later, Syria made a vague pledge to withdraw its troops but failed to announce a timetable. On March 8, the militant group Hezbollah sponsored a massive pro-Syrian rally, primarily made up of Shiites. Hundreds of thousands gathered to thank Syria for its involvement in Lebanon. The pro-Syrian demonstrations led to President Lahoud's reappointment of Karami as prime minister on March 9. But an anti-Syrian protest—twice the size of the Hezbollah protest—followed. In mid-March, Syria withdrew 4,000 troops and redeployed the remaining 10,000 to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, which borders Syria. In April, Omar Karami resigned a second time after failing to form a government. Lebanon's new prime minister, Najib Mikati—a compromise candidate between the pro-Syrian and anti-Syrian groups—announced that new elections would be held in May. On April 26, after 29 years of occupation, Syria withdrew all of its troops.

In May and June 2005, Syria held four rounds of parliamentary elections. An anti-Syrian alliance led by Saad al-Hariri, the 35-year-old son of assassinated former prime minister leader Rafik Hariri, won 72 out of 128 seats. Former finance minister Fouad Siniora, who was closely associated with Hariri, became prime minister.

On Sept. 1, four were charged in the murder of Rafik Hariri. The commander of Lebanon's Republican Guard, the former head of general security, the former chief of Lebanon's police, and the former military intelligence officer were indicted for the Feb. 2008 assassination. On Oct. 20, the UN released a report concluding that the assassination was carefully organized by Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials, including Syria's military intelligence chief, Asef Shawkat, who is the brother-in-law of Syrian president Bashar Assad.

A Failed Israeli Attack Increases Hezbollah's Power

On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah fighters entered Israel and captured two Israeli soldiers. In response, Israel launched a major military attack, bombing the Lebanese airport and other major infrastructures, as well as parts of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, led by Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, retaliated by launching hundreds of rockets and missiles into Israel (Iran supplies Hezbollah with weapons, which are transported through Syria). After a week of fighting, Israel made it clear that its offensive in Lebanon would continue until Hezbollah was routed. Although much of the international community demanded a cease-fire, the United States supported Israel's plan to continue the fighting until Hezbollah was drained of its military power (Hezbollah is thought to have at least 12,000 rockets and missiles and had proved a much more formidable foe than anticipated). On Aug. 14, a UN-negotiated cease-fire went into effect. The UN planned to send a 15,000-member peacekeeping force. About 1,150 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 150 Israelis, mostly soldiers, died in the 34 days of fighting. More than 400,000 Lebanese were forced from their homes. Almost immediately, Hezbollah began organizing reconstruction efforts, and handing out financial aid to families who had lost their homes, shoring up loyalty from Shiite civilians.

In November, Pierre Gemayel, minister of industry and member of a well-known Maronite Christian political dynasty, was assassinated, the fifth anti-Syrian leader to be killed since the death of Rafik Hariri in Feb. 2005. Pro-government protesters blamed Syria and its Lebanese allies, and staged large demonstrations following the assassination. These protests were then followed by even larger and more sustained demonstrations by Hezbollah supporters. Beginning Dec. 1, tens of thousands of demonstrators, led by the Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, occupied the center of Beirut and called for the resignation of the pro-Western coalition government.

About 60 people were killed in May 2007 in battles between government troops and members of Islamic militant group Fatah al-Islam, which is based in a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli in Lebanon. The group is similar in philosophy to al-Qaeda.

Terrorism Within Lebanon Leads to a Troubled Government

In June 2007, anti-Syrian member of Parliament Walid Eido was killed in a bombing in Beirut. In Sept. 2007, another anti-Syrian lawmaker, Antoine Ghanem of the Christian Phalange Party, which is part of the governing coalition, was assassinated. Those assassinations were followed in December with the killing of Gen. François al-Hajj, a top general who was poised to succeed army chief Gen. Michel Suleiman.

In Sept. 2007, Hezbollah legislators boycotted the session of Parliament at which lawmakers were to vote on a new president. The Hezbollah faction had wanted the governing coalition to put forward a compromise candidate. Parliament adjourned the session and rescheduled elections. A caretaker government, led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, took over on November 24 after President Émile Lahoud's term expired and Parliament for the fourth time postponed a vote on his successor.

Hezbollah Flexes Its Muscle and Gains a Greater Stake in the Government

Tension in Lebanon peaked in February 2008, after the assassination of top Hezbollah military commander, Imad Mugniyah. He was killed in a car bombing in Damascus, Syria. Mugniyah is thought to have orchestrated a series of bombings and kidnappings in the 1980s and 1990s, and he was one of America's most wanted men with a price tag of $25 million on his head. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who accused Israel of arranging the assassination, called for an "open war" against Israel.

Sectarian violence between Hezbollah, a Shiite militia, and Sunnis broke out in May. Fighting began when the government said it was shutting down a telecommunications network run by Hezbollah, calling it illegal, and attempted to dismiss a Hezbollah-backed head of airport security. Members of Hezbollah took control of large swaths of western Beirut, forced a government-supported television station off the air, and burned the offices of a newspaper loyal to the government. The government accused Hezbollah of staging an "armed coup." After a week of violence, in which 65 people died, the government rescinded its plans concerning both the telecommunications network and the head of airport security. In return, Hezbollah agreed to dismantle roadblocks that had paralyzed Beirut's airport. The government concessions were seen as a major victory for Hezbollah.

After several days of negotiations, Hezbollah and the government reached a deal that had Hezbollah withdrawing from Beirut. In return, the government agreed that Parliament would vote to elect as president Gen. Michel Suleiman, the commander of Lebanon’s army; form a new cabinet, giving Hezbollah and other members of the opposition veto power; and pursue passage of a new electoral law. Parliament went ahead and elected Suleiman as president. He's considered a neutral figure, and his election ended 18 months of political gridlock. Prime Minister Siniora formed a 30-member cabinet in July, with the opposition holding 11 positions.

Lebanon and Israel took part in a prisoner exchange in July. Israel released five Lebanese prisoners, including Samir Kuntar, who killed an Israeli policeman, a man, and his young daughter in 1979. Lebanon, in turn, returned to Israel the bodies of two soldiers who were captured in the 2006 cross-border raid into Israel.

Suleiman met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in October 2008, and the two agreed that Lebanon and Syria would establish full diplomatic relations—for the first time since both countries gained independence from France in 1943.

Pro-Western Coalition Maintains Its Majority in Parliament

On March 1, 2009 an international court at The Hague was set up to investigate the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. The move generated hope that progress was being made in the case. However, in May the court freed four pro-Syrian generals who had been linked to the murder, claiming it lacked evidence to convict them.

In June 2009 parliamentary elections, the March 14 coalition, led by Saad Hariri, son of the slain former prime minister, retained its majority in Parliament by taking 71 of 128 seats. The Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition won 57 seats. After nearly five months of negotiations with the opposition Hariri finally assembled a 30-member government of national unity in November. His coalition received 15 cabinet posts, Hezbollah and its allies 10, and President Suleiman selected the remaining five.

Lebanon's government fell apart in January 2011, when Hezbollah's ministers resigned from the cabinet to protest Prime Minister Hariri's refusal to reject the UN tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of his father, Rafik Hariri. The tribunal released a sealed indictment to a judge that is expected to include members of Hezbollah. In fact, Hezbollah said its members were included in the indictment, yet continued to deny responsibility for Hariri's murder. Two weeks after the government's collapse, Hezbollah won enough support in Parliament to form a new government with Najib Mikati, a billionaire businessman, as prime minister. Mikati, a Sunni and former prime minister, said even though he was backed by Hezbollah, he will govern as an independent. After five months of negotiations, Mikati assembled a cabinet in June, with 16 out of 30 seats going to Hezbollah and its allies. The main reason for the delay was the opposition's insistence that the government abide by the tribunal's recommendations; Hezbollah had refused to comply with them. The cabinet, however, agreed to cooperate with the tribunal as long as the country's stability was not at risk. Later in the month, the tribunal issued arrest warrants for four high-ranking members of Hezbollah in connection wtih the murder of Hariri and 21 others. Hezbollah refused to turn the suspects over to authorities.

Lebanon Dragged into War in Syria

When anti-government protests broke out in Syria in early 2011, prime minister Mikati declared he intended to disassociate from Syria to avoid being drawn into the conflict. The policy was largely effective until May 2012, when battles broke out in Lebanon between pro- and anti-Assad groups. Hezbollah supports President Bashar Assad, while most Sunni groups would like to see him deposed. Tensions increased in August during a sectarian, cross-border kidnapping spree between Shiite and Sunni groups. Then, on October 19, intelligence chief Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, a foe of Syria who was an ally of slain prime minister Rafik Hariri, was killed in a bombing in Beirut. Hassan was the driving force behind the arrest of former Michel Samaha, Lebanon's former information minister who had close ties to Syria, on charges of orchestrating attacks and assassinations of Sunnis in Lebanon. Many people suspect Samaha was taking orders from Assad, who sought to destabilize the region by fomenting sectarian violence in Lebanon.

Prime Minister Mikati Resigns

On March 22, 2013, Prime Minister Najib Mikati resigned in protest over parliament's failure to agree on how to oversee upcoming elections. Mikati was also unhappy with the cabinet's refusal to consider extending the police chief's tenure. Tammam Salam was asked to form a government in April 2013. After 10 months of negotiations, Salam formed a cabinet represented equally by members of the pro-Syria, Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition and the Western-backed March 14th group headed by Saad Hariri. Salam assumed office as prime minister in Feb. 2014. Salam previously served as minister of culture from 2008 to 2009.

Civil War in Syria Spills over into Lebanon

In May 2013, Syria's civil war spilled into Lebanon, mainly due to Hezbollah's increased involvement. On May 25, 2013, Hezbollah and Syrian forces bombed the rebel-controlled town of Al-Qusayr in the Syrian province of Homs. Dozens were killed. The following day, multiple rockets hit Beirut, mainly striking Shiite suburbs, also strongholds of Hezbollah. The ban against arming the Syrian rebels was lifted by the European Union on May 27, 2013.

Fighting also erupted in Tripoli in late May 2013. The battles occurred between Sunnis and Alawites, allies of Hezbollah. The fighting between the two militias was so intense that schools and businesses in Tripoli were closed for a week. At least 24 people were killed. Sectarian violence broke out again in June when an armed, extremist Sunni group led by Sheikh Ahmed Assir attacked an army checkpoint in Sidon. Government troops, backed by Hezbollah, retaliated. About 35 people were killed in the fighting.

On May 31, 2013, Parliament voted to delay elections in Lebanon for at least 17 months, citing indecision over a new electoral law and the deteriorating security in the country as a result of the Syrian crisis spreading into Lebanon. Parliamentary elections were supposed to take place on June 16, 2013. It was the first time an election had been delayed since Lebanon's civil war ended in 1990. A national unity government was formed in Feb. 2014, ending 10 months of deadlock caused by a power struggle between blocks led by Hezbollah and Sunnis. Tammam Salam took office as prime minister. He cited improving security and dealing with Syrian refugees as his top priorities.

The European Union declared the military wing of Hezbollah a terrorist organization in July 2013. The move makes it illegal for Europeans to send money or arms to Hezbollah and freezes the assets held in European institutions by the group's members. The U.S. has long considered Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

A double suicide bombing outside the Iranian Embassy in Beirut killed at least 23 people in November 2013. The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an affiliate of Al Qaeda, takes responsibility for the attack, which is seen as retribution for Iran's support of Hezbollah and the Syrian government.

The former Lebanese finance minister and U.S. ambassador, Muhammad Shatah, was killed by a car bomb, along with seven others in Beirut in December 2013. Shatah was a leading Sunni and his death, coupled with the Syrian crisis, has served to exacerbate existing tensions within Lebanon's religous communities; about a third of the population are Sunni Muslim, a third Shia, and a third Christian.

By April 2014, more than 1 million Syrian refugees had entered Lebanon, exacting an economic burden on the country of 4 million.

On Jan. 18, 2015, one Iranian general and six Hezbollah fighters were killed during an Israeli air strike on the Syrian section of Golan Heights. After the attack, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened retaliation. Ten days later Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles into an Israeli-occupied area along the Lebanon border, killing two Israeli soldiers. Israeli forces responded with ground and air strikes on several villages in southern Lebanon. The exchange was the worst fighting between Hezbollah and Israel since their 2006 month long war. Despite the attacks, both sides indicated that they were not interested in engaging in an ongoing conflict.

See also Encyclopedia: Lebanon . U.S. State Dept. Country Notes: Lebanon Central Administration for Statistics www.cas.gov.lb/ . See also Lebanon Timeline .

Here are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.

Photo credit: Muse Mohammed / IOM

Selective and Strategic indifference: Lebanon’s migration and refugee landscapes

Selective and strategic indifference: lebanon’s migration and refugee landscapes in the absence of inclusive legal frameworks.

The following essay was originally compiled for the  Mixed Migration Review 2023  and has been reproduced here for wider access through this website’s readership.

The essay’s author, Jasmin Lilan Diab, is the Director of the Institute for Migration Studies, and Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Migration Studies at the School of Arts and Sciences at the Lebanese American University.

Introduction

Lebanon remains entangled in one of the worst socio-economic crises of the 21st century. Ever since Michel Aoun’s six-year term as president ended in October 2022, Lebanese lawmakers have persistently failed to pick a successor , leaving the country stuck in the most prolonged power vacuum in its complex and conflict-ridden history. While Lebanon’s population struggles to meet their basic needs, secure their livelihoods and access goods and services, policymakers have been unable to elect a president, push for reform, or hold anyone accountable for the injustices the country has endured since 2019, including a mismanaged global pandemic and the largest non-nuclear explosion in history.

Lebanon hosts the highest per capita number of refugees in the world, including some 1.5 million Syrians, 479,000 Palestinians (comprising both people who fled the Syrian conflict and those who were previously present in Lebanon), and more than 12,000 people from other countries. In addition, more than 250,000 migrant domestic workers (MDWs) from African and Asian countries live in Lebanon. According to the European Commission , 80 percent of Lebanese live in poverty and 90 percent of Syrian refugees in Lebanon cannot cover their basic needs. According to a 2022 survey , 93 percent of Palestinian refugee households are poor.

Lebanon’s approach to refugees and migrants

Lebanon has never signed the 1951 Refugee Convention , instead resorting to ad-hoc agreements with the UNHCR for its operations in the country amid different refugee influxes. Lebanon’s only asylum law is outlined in its 1962 Order 319 Regulating the Status of Foreigners (Article 26), which remains the primary legal instrument for the regulation of the rights and obligations of foreigners in the country. While the 1951 Convention restricts the definition of refugees to individuals facing persecution in their country of nationality based on their “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion,” Lebanon’s 1962 law outlines that “any foreign national who is the subject of a prosecution or a conviction by an authority that is not Lebanese for a political crime or whose life or freedom is threatened, also for political reasons, may request political asylum in Lebanon.” Interestingly, this definition may even be interpreted as going beyond the 1951 Convention’s definition. Not only does it cover a broader understanding of threats to “freedoms” that the 1951 definition restricts to more specific categories under an umbrella of a “well-founded fear”, but it also does not require asylum seekers to frame their persecution under one of the aforementioned “types” to justify their right to seek asylum.

Through the 1940s until the 1960s, Lebanon was a strong proponent for the rights and protection of refugees, as well as an active participant in the founding stages of international refugee law. In 1946, it formed part of a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)-appointed committee of only 20 states that laid the basis for the then International Refugee Organization . In 1949, it helped create the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and was even an active participant in the formation of the 1967 Additional Protocol, which expanded the temporal and geographic application of the 1951 Convention. Lebanon’s moral momentum and its commitment to refugee protection would begin to slowly falter shortly after, largely due to the rising number of Palestinian refugees entering the country following the 1967 Naksa. The country’s civil war, coupled with Lebanese authorities’ unwillingness to integrate Palestinian refugees durably , would go on to shape the country’s refugee policy moving forward and in the long-term. For Palestinians, Lebanon approved the establishment of 12 recognised “ Palestinian refugee camps .” According to UNICEF and UNRWA (the UN relief and works agency for Palestine refugees in the near east), these camps suffer from overcrowding, poor infrastructure, poverty and violence, posing significant risks for children and youth. For Palestinians residing outside the 12 official camps, in adjacent areas referred to as “ Palestinian gatherings ”, conditions are much more dire.

Over a decade after the beginning of the Syrian conflict, Lebanon maintains its position that Syrian refugees within its borders are temporary and in transit. While the Lebanese government would not directly engage through a policy lens with the Syrian refugees between 2011 and 2014, it would go on to develop a 2014 “Policy Paper on Syrian Refugee Displacement” which outlined regulations preventing Syrians from entering Lebanon and restricting their ability to secure residency and work permits in the long-term. Shortly after, in 2015, Lebanon closed  its border and requested UNHCR to no longer register new refugees . In the absence of a national legal mechanism to obtain residency permits, coupled with the inability of Syrian refugees to register with UNHCR, Syrians in Lebanon have long endured arbitrary arrests and mistreatment by local authorities and have lived in an overall state of insecurity in the country. In light of this, only 17 percent of refugees above the age of 15 currently hold legal residency in Lebanon, leaving the overwhelming majority under threat of potential deportation , a threat that has grown amid the country’s latest and ongoing anti-refugee campaign and plan to return Syrian refugees . Lebanon continues to prohibit the establishment of official camps for Syrians, ultimately pushing them to settle in different types of shelters including informal tented settlements .

Migrant domestic workers

For decades now, the Lebanese government has been unwilling, inactive and ineffective in implementing laws that protect migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in the country. With the arrival of African and Asian migrant workers in the 1970s, followed by the evident feminisation of this migrant labour force in the 1980s and early 1990s, Lebanon became home to more than 250,000 MDWs, the majority of whom hailed from countries such as Sri Lanka , India, the Philippines, Ethiopia and Bangladesh among others. Migrant labour was supported by the sending countries due to the foreign exchange remittances that now constituted a significant portion of these countries’ GDPs and alleviated much of their national debts. The recruitment of a migrant domestic worker in Lebanon is conducted through the kafala system ,  a sponsorship system used to monitor migrant labourers working primarily in the construction and domestic sectors. It gives private citizens and companies almost complete control over MDWs’ employment and immigration status. The ambiguity of the kafala system in Lebanon has resulted in MDWs enduring legal challenges and violations of their basic human rights . In order to recruit MDWs, recruitment agencies in Lebanon collaborate with agencies in the migrant-sending countries .

Article 7 of Lebanon’s Labour Law excludes MDWs from the standard protections granted to the other classes of both local and foreign employees. MDWs have subsequently been banned from establishing unions and denied the right to freedom of association under Article 92 of the Labour Law. MDWs are thus vulnerable to abuse, trafficking and exploitation. Article 92 of the Labour Law is considered to be in direct violation of Lebanon’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which it ratified in 1972 and which entered into force in 1976. Article 22 of the ICCPR stipulates that “everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests,” and that “no restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those which are prescribed by law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order, the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

Under the kafala system, a domestic worker may be administratively detained or considered “illegal” if they flee the household of their employer or leave without their employer’s consent, as the kafala system stipulates that a sponsor is legally responsible for their MDWs throughout the contract period. Human Rights Watch has said that the kafala system is a form of modern-day slavery, and that it continues to put MDWs at risk of exploitation and abuse across Lebanon, the Middle East and Gulf States, where only minor reforms have been undertaken to improve the situation for MDWs. Their investigation found that every week a domestic worker in Lebanon dies from unnatural causes, mostly from suicide and attempted escapes. Calls to suspend the kafala system in Lebanon and the region have been made by Amnesty International, Anti-Slavery International as well as local NGOs and human rights advocates for decades. A 2020 decision by Lebanon’s State Shura Council to suspend the introduction of a new standard unified contract that would have allowed MDWs to terminate their contract without the prior consent of their employer was the latest blow to attempts at dismantling key exploitative practices under the kafala system.

The impact of Lebanon’s crisis on refugees and migrants

Lebanon’s overlapping socio-economic, political and health crises have had a particular impact on the country’s most vulnerable refugee and host communities. In 2022, the UN’s Vulnerability Assessment of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon revealed an ongoing struggle to secure basic needs, with 90 percent of Syrian refugees still living in extreme poverty, and found that negative coping mechanisms, deterioration in the food security situation of families, and living in substandard shelter conditions remain prevalent.

Rates of food insecurity among Syrian refugees sharply increased from 49 percent in 2021 to 67 percent in 2022, while the percentage of households with inadequate food consumption rose from 46 to 57 percent. Over two-thirds of Syrian refugees were found not to have the economic capacity to afford the minimum essential items needed to survive, with 90 percent of the Syrian refugee households surveyed unable to meet their survival needs in remote regions. As of 2022 , close to the entire Syrian refugee population (more than 94 percent) had accrued debts to cover their essential food and non-food needs, and 97 percent had resorted to negative coping strategies to meet their food needs, including reducing meal portions and the number of meals consumed each day. The percentage of working Syrian refugees in 2022 stood at 33 percent. However, employed Syrians were found to be unable to adequately cover the costs of basic food and non-food needs without the additional humanitarian and/or financial aid. The percentage of children aged between five and 17 years old who were engaged in various forms of child labour in 2022 stood at just four, with this proportion being dominated by boys.

Almost all (93%) of the 498 Palestinian refugee households that took part in a separate socio-economic survey conducted by UNWRA in 2022 were found to live below the poverty line, as a direct result of the increase in consumer prices stemming from Lebanon’s ongoing economic crisis. Some 62 percent of respondent households had reduced the number of meals they consumed, and about half had begun to accumulate debt to secure basic needs. Employment remained precarious in 2022, with 61 percent of those interviewed having been employed for fewer than nine months out of the year, and 50 percent having not had a contract with their employer throughout these unstable periods of employment. As the majority of Palestinian refugees continue to work in the informal economy as a result of the fact that they are not naturalised, Palestinians continue to be denied access to more than 39 professions, including medicine, law and engineering. They are further denied entry to professions that encompass membership in a syndicate or trade union.

In 2021, Lebanon’s Ministry of Labour relaxed labour laws to allow Palestinians to work in managerial, business, tourism, industrial, information, health, education and service sectors, but this right was restricted to Palestinians born in Lebanon, born to a Lebanese mother, or married to a Lebanese citizen. According to UNRWA’s survey , employment conditions of Palestinians in 2022 did not improve over 2021, with only 12 percent of those surveyed having an official written contract with their employer. According to the International Labour Organization , the majority of Palestinian refugees are engaged in low-status jobs that are “poorly paid, insecure and lack adequate social protection.” Decades of marginalisation and exclusion have left the refugee community in Lebanon vulnerable to exploitation in the workplace, insecure contracts, as well as inter-generational poverty. (Less information is available about the realities and impacts of the country’s ongoing crisis on other smaller refugee groups, such as Iraqis and Sudanese).

MDWs have been particularly impacted by Lebanon’s crisis, as they (as discussed above) continue to be governed under a system that deprives them of their basic human rights. The onset of the crisis in 2019, coupled with the limitations imposed by the kafala system, has also led to many MDWs losing their employment, leaving them homeless and unable to meet their basic living needs or the cost of their flight home should they wish to leave the country. For MDWs who were still employed, lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic left them isolated in the homes of their employers, many of whom are mentally and physically abusive . According to multiple local reports , since 2019, MDWs have suffered worsening financial constraints due to being fired from their jobs or facing cuts to their salaries, while a rapid devaluation of the Lebanese pound reduced the purchasing power of wages. Consequently, many MDWs are being pushed into severe poverty, and are unable to secure food and shelter.

Well over half (58%) of migrant workers surveyed for a local NGO’s rapid needs assessment in 2020 reported having lost their jobs since the beginning of the economic crisis, and 49 percent said they wanted to return to their country of origin. Respondents further reported living in multi-dimensional poverty and lacking sufficient funds to send remittances to their families back home. Almost two-thirds (62%) of respondents said they were unable to pay their rent and were at risk of eviction, 61 percent did not have access to the medication they needed, 60 percent had limited access to hygiene supplies, 51 percent had limited access to food and 34 percent had limited access to drinking water.

A 2022 survey of migrant households conducted by the UN’s migration agency, IOM, across all governorates of Lebanon found that close to a quarter (23 percent) of people in respondent households were unemployed and seeking work, and that 26 percent of such households were in debt. In half of these cases, this debt was incurred in order to meet basic household needs. In 60 percent of surveyed households, at least one occupant had reduced their food expenditure, and 12 percent of surveyed households reported moderate or severe hunger. Over one-third of surveyed households reported that at least one member had spent some or all household savings on food. The main forms of assistance received by migrant households were food, followed by cash.

Deportations and returns

In 2019, Lebanon’s Higher Defence Council ordered security forces to begin deporting Syrians entering Lebanon through “illegal border crossings.” The General Directorate of General Security reportedly deported more than 6,800 Syrians in 2019 and 2020, only to halt deportations when Covid-19 lockdowns began. In late 2022, Lebanon’s caretaker minister of the displaced announced a plan to repatriate 15,000 Syrian refugees to Syria every month, insisting that the war in Syria was over and the country had become safe. No clear strategy or official agreement between the Lebanese and Syrian governments has been announced, and Lebanese authorities are not coordinating these efforts with UNHCR . In 2018, Lebanon opened registration for voluntary return for Syrians, which according to Lebanese officials resulted in the return of 21,000 refugees in 2020 . According to UNHCR, 76,500 Syrians have returned voluntarily from Lebanon since 2016.

When it comes to Syrian refugee return, in the absence of discussion on different and intersectional forms of persecution, conversations on safety remain difficult to frame . The lack of a comprehensive domestic legal framework for refugees in Lebanon has resulted in a series of directives and decisions that are politically charged and that have frequently changed over the last decade. This has led to a failure to address the protection concerns faced by refugees in all their diversity, as well as in the homogenisation of refugees and the lack of an intersectional approach to refugee management. Alongside reports about Syria by international humanitarian organisations and testimonies highlighting forced conscription, torture and detention, as well as persecution on the grounds of religion, nationality, gender, membership of a particular social group and political opinion, have long formed part of Syrians’ realities. Despite these realities, 168 Syrians were reportedly forcibly returned from Lebanon in April 2023 alone. In April and May, the Lebanese Armed Forces conducted a series of raids and arrests that led to the deportation of displaced Syrians, including people registered with UNHCR, and to “ an overall reduction of protection space in Lebanon ”.

Presently, there are more Lebanese living outside Lebanon than inside the country . Reportedly, the largest Lebanese diaspora resides in Brazil, with as many as 7 million people there claiming Lebanese descent . Lebanese diaspora networks around the world are vast, and their existence has facilitated regular migration from Lebanon for decades and made the country the most remittance-dependent state in the world . Such departures have picked up dramatically since 2019. Estimates of the scale of such recent emigration vary widely, with one local NGO reporting that as many as 230,000 Lebanese had left their home country between January and April 2021, and a 2022 study—apparently based on General Security data—putting the number of Lebanese emigrants in 2021 at just under 80,000, a more than four-fold increase over the 17,721 who had left the previous year.

A recent research conducted by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in early 2023 with almost 1,000 Lebanese showed that 78 per cent said they were considering leaving Lebanon, with one quarter saying they were also willing to consider migrating irregularly.  The key drivers for those interviewed were economic hardship, conflict, and unmet basic needs.

In 2022, UNHCR reported that the number of migrants resorting to irregular migration from Lebanon across the Mediterranean into Europe doubled for the second year in a row, with 2022 witnessing a 135 percent year-on-year increase in the number of people intending to make these journeys to countries such as Cyprus, Greece and, more recently, Italy. While media and political attention has focused on the Syrian refugees attempting onward movement, the proportion of Lebanese nationals on board the boats attempting to leave the Lebanese coast has been growing—from 12 percent of passengers in 2020, to 24 percent in 2022—creating a textbook example of mixed migration.

This author’s previous research suggested that in the best-case scenario for 2023, a minimum of 7,500 irregular migrants and refugees will leave Lebanese shores in around 50-plus boats. This research projected that at least 10,000 migrants and refugees would leave Lebanese shores on 75-plus boats in 2023. The data has also shown an increasingly mixed nature of these departures with a significant increase in the number of Lebanese migrants in absolute numbers and as a share of all migrants leaving the Lebanese shores. In previous years, most departing refugees and migrants were Syrians, with a limited number of Palestinians also attempting to make the journey. However, every year since 2019 the number and percentage of Lebanese migrants on boats heading out of Lebanon increased. According to UNHCR numbers from 2022, 62 percent of irregular migrants from Lebanon were Syrian, 11 percent were Palestinian, and 28 percent were Lebanese.

Concluding remarks and ways forward

Important conversations on the potential for adequate refugee and migrant integration into Lebanon’s labour force and its positive impacts on the economy are largely overdue. Contrary to the widespread belief that refugees serve as an economic burden to host countries, a 2022 study found no correlation between the numbers of refugees in Lebanon and the deterioration of the country’s economy; on the contrary, the research found refugees’ impact to have been positive, through increased and steady international aid.

Although refugees have had no adverse effects on Lebanon’s economy, host communities have seen increasing strains on the infrastructure in their areas, including schools and hospitals, in addition to competition for scarce jobs and limited resources. As Lebanon’s economic crisis persists, and more Lebanese citizens require assistance, many of them continue to believe that refugees are receiving more support from humanitarian actors, even if certain aid organisations do assist host communities and aim to reduce negative competition over resources between Lebanese and refugee groups. These beliefs have exacerbated tensions between refugees and host communities and have further propagated anti-refugee narratives and sentiments . Nonetheless, until recently, Lebanon upheld the non-refoulement principle for close to a decade, and continues to host the highest per capita number of refugees in the world as states in the Global North continue their selective approaches to refugee and asylum management . Despite these efforts, the deteriorating quality of life in Lebanon has still pushed migrants and refugees to risk their lives on mixed migration journeys.

With their own selective and discriminatory refugee and migrant policies , countries in the Global North continue to claim that refugees are a financial burden and consequently severely restrict the number of refugees they will accept. This approach of course has not been without exception—particularly when viewed by the Global North as a strategic priority or interest. A clear example of this was the European Union’s open-armed response to the exodus of millions of people from Ukraine after Russia invaded the country in February 2022, an approach indicative that when there is the political will to do so , international refugee law can in fact be upheld . Many European governments with a history of uncompromising stances toward refugees from countries such as Syria and Afghanistan in recent years have adopted a decidedly different tone in pledging to protect, integrate, host and support their refugee neighbours, with the EU activating its Temporary Protection Directive in 2021 for the benefit of Ukrainians, the first time the directive had been activated since its adoption 20 years earlier. Ultimately, this raises the question of whether or not the refugee crisis is in fact a crisis of numbers, or a crisis of identity.

In contrast to many international conflicts, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ignited a visible outpouring of support for those fleeing the violence. Despite Ukraine not being part of the EU, in a statement, the European Commission expressed that the EU was “ well prepared ” to absorb Ukrainian refugees as a matter of “unity” and “solidarity.” This experience has highlighted not only the dimensions of political will associated with the applicability of international refugee law, but also the selectivity of the refugee regime, particularly in the Global North. Importantly, it sheds light on how this impacts broader discourse on humanitarian intervention, conflict management, discrimination, movement and access.

With aid pledges intended to restrict the number of migrants and refugees who reach its shores, Europe in particular has attempted to absolve itself of responsibility for sheltering many vulnerable groups, leaving it to countries in the developing world , like Lebanon, to step up to meet refugee needs to the limited extent possible. As Lebanon continues to adhere to an “ invisibility bargain ,” whereby refugees and vulnerable migrant groups are present and tolerated in a country so long as they contribute to the economy, do not cause economic losses and remain politically, civically and socially invisible, conversations on durable solutions for these groups remain out of reach. The presence of Palestinians, Syrians, other refugee groups and MDWs in Lebanon for decades has not only economically embedded them into Lebanese society, but has also rendered them as important stakeholders in its ongoing economic, labour and social crises. Marginalising these groups, and the insistence on maintaining aid-centred rather than development-centred approaches to their livelihoods not only prevents Lebanon’s socio-economic standing from advancing, but additionally impacts the country’s host community negatively.

Nonetheless, Lebanon demonstrates what can be done to protect individuals fleeing conflict with very little resources and, importantly, with very little management and vision. Within a mere two months of its invasion by Russia, six million people had fled Ukraine. It took close to a decade for the Syrian conflict to produce the same number of refugees. Yet somehow, Syrians and refugees fleeing the MENA region have posed much more of a “shock” to the EU system. As the Global North continues to grapple with what it has deemed a “refugee crisis” for years now, its actions ultimately exacerbate pressures and therefore the number of migrants and refugees reaching their shores. Meanwhile, the Global South continues to offer a clear example of how the non-refoulement principle is upheld—even when resources and capacities to adequately respond to needs are limited.

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Lebanon’s economic crisis: A tragedy in the making

Amer Bisat , Marcel Cassard , Ishac Diwan

For the past 18 months, Lebanon has been reeling from a wrenching economic crisis. This essay deciphers the crisis’s origin, describes the current juncture, and reflects on the likely outcomes in the proximate future.

How did we get here?

With hindsight, Lebanon’s economic crisis was predictable . By the time the crisis erupted in October 2019, the economy was facing four extraordinary challenges. First, public sector debt had reached such elevated levels that a default had become a question of when, not if. Second, the banking sector, having lent three-quarters of deposits to the government, had become functionally bankrupt and increasingly illiquid. Third, the productive economy had experienced virtually no growth for an entire decade — a development with acute socio-political implications. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the country was politically rudderless: there was no president between 2014 and 2016, there were multiple and lengthy delays in cabinet formation, and the 2018 parliamentary elections took place but only after a five-year delay. The Hariri government that was in place when the crisis hit in 2019 became impotent to such an extent that it lacked power to deliver on any of the reforms required as a condition for foreign support.

By October 2019, the citizenry had had enough. Sensing a looming crisis and frustrated by the utter lack of action by the political class, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets demanding radical political change. The cabinet resigned, throwing the country into a political crisis. Unsurprisingly, capital inflows came to a sudden halt. Banks, already insolvent, experienced a sharp liquidity crunch, forcing them to declare a “bank holiday” and institute severe restrictions on bank withdrawals. A foreign exchange black market emerged and the national currency, the lira, sharply depreciated. In turn, inflation soared and people’s real wages and purchasing power collapsed. In addition, as if all these woes were not sufficient, a severe COVID-19 crisis hit the country and, most tragically, a devastating explosion took place on Aug. 4, leveling a third of downtown Beirut.

The confluence of these large negative shocks led to the implosion of the economy: GDP is estimated to have contracted by 25% in 2020, with an additional 10-15% decline forecast for 2021. When measured in USD, the Lebanese economy may end up shrinking from $60bn in 2018 to $15bn in 2021. An extreme form of wealth destruction is taking place with the Lebanese de facto losing the majority of their bank savings. Meanwhile, four out of every ten Lebanese are out of work, and half the population is under the poverty line. 

But what these numbers do not reveal are the structural scars. Human capital is fast eroding due to a massive brain drain of the young and skilled. Equally worrying is the loss of physical productive capacity resulting from widespread business closures. Much more alarming are the security consequences of the economic implosion. Lebanon’s sectarian history is rife with conflict. An economic collapse provides a perfect habitat for a return of violence.

What is being done?

Confronted with these traumatic shocks, the Lebanese political class has been appallingly missing in action. A new government was formed in January 2020 and, to its credit, worked with an international consultant on an emergency economic program and initiated IMF negotiations. The program spelled out the size of the financial losses and called on all stakeholders to share in the burden, starting with creditors and bank shareholders. Unfortunately, the effort quickly proved quixotic. Under concerted attack from a wide-ranging coalition of political and vested interests, the government balked at the required economic and financial measures, which in turn led to a halt in IMF negotiations. In the event, the government became ineffectual and, following the Aug. 4 explosion, tendered its resignation, creating another political vacuum.

What explains the political class’s inaction?

There are three likely explanations. First, an intractable political environment that makes collective decision-making difficult, especially given the size of the losses that need apportioning. Second, Lebanese political parties are “agents and not principals,” effectively acting as messengers of regional and international players who are currently not incentivized to solve the Lebanese crisis. Third, paralysis reflects an active decision by the political class to do nothing: high inflation, exchange rate depreciation, and deposit “lirafication” shift the burden onto the population at large and away from the interests of the oligarchy. Regardless of which of these reasons dominates, policy neglect is creating seismic political shifts that will eventually threaten the survival of the current political class.

Where do we go from here?

Predicting how the crisis evolves from here is difficult, but we can frame the contours of the likely outcomes around three different scenarios.

The worst-case scenario is a continuation of the path of “ malign neglect .” While not our baseline, we see the probability of this scenario playing out as reasonably high. This scenario allows for a continuation of the ongoing but extremely insidious process of “auto-adjustment” of macroeconomic imbalances, albeit in a very sub-optimal and regressive manner, and with a long-term negative impact on growth and the social fabric of the country. Left to its own devices, the economy will generate an alarming acceleration of youth and skilled labor emigration, and enterprise closures. The currency will become further un-anchored, hyperinflation will wipe out incomes and wealth, and food and medical shortages will escalate, requiring rising levels of humanitarian support. The security situation will inevitably deteriorate into, at best, a state of lawlessness and, at worst, organized armed conflict of the kind the country has experienced in the past.

The best-case scenario involves a political consensus around a comprehensive economic program, on which basis a credible and independent government with emergency legislative powers is formed. Such a cabinet would start with a short-term stabilization program involving tightening of liquidity, arresting the fiscal implosion, officializing capital controls, and obtaining an urgent bridge loan under the umbrella of an IMF Stand-By agreement. The cabinet would also commit to a three-year program that would restructure the debt, recapitalize the banking sector, streamline the public sector, and enact “real economy” reforms that would put the country on a recovery path.

At this juncture, we assign to this positive scenario a very low probability of coming to fruition. Indeed, such an ambitious program, albeit essential for the long-term survival of the country, will almost certainly be rejected by an entrenched political class and vested interests, who would see it as political suicide.

The most likely scenario lies somewhere in the middle and involves the formation of a “traditional” (as opposed to independent) government, with the backing of all political parties. A shift in regional dynamics (with the promise of an Iran/U.S. rapprochement) may open a space for domestic compromise. Furthermore, the magnitude of the recent economic collapse may have created enough fear among local players regarding their political survival, that they may be willing to implement some difficult measures.

Under this middle scenario, the government would only have limited room for maneuver and will remain hostage to the political class and associated vested interests. It would not have the political muscle (or willingness) to put in place the structural transformation required by the country and would be unlikely to adhere (on an ongoing basis) to the conditions of an IMF program . With elections planned in 2022, political parties would block measures required to put the economy on a sustainable path, including reducing subsidies, restructuring the banking sector with an even distribution of the massive losses across the various segments of the economy and population, and cutting government spending and raising taxes. As such, although this middle-of-the-road scenario may stabilize the situation in the short run (and may even mobilize some limited foreign funding), it has little chance of allowing the country to genuinely turn the corner.

Lebanon is facing an existential moment. Over the short term, the best one can hope for is a “muddle through” scenario (with limited foreign financial support) that arrests the economic collapse. In the medium term, the 2022 parliamentary elections, if they are held on time, and the hoped-for resolution of regional crises may open up a window for the emergence of a new leadership that can finally put the country on the trajectory of prosperity it so deserves.

Amer Bisat is Head of Sovereign and Emerging Markets (alpha) at BlackRock and a former IMF economist. Marcel Cassard was the global head of Fixed Income and Economics Research at Deutsche Bank and a former IMF economist. He is a member of LIFE's Advocacy Committee.   Ishac Diwan is professor of economics at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and a former Director at the World Bank. The views expressed in this piece are their own.

Photo by JOSEPH EID/AFP via Getty Images

The Middle East Institute (MEI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-for-profit, educational organization. It does not engage in advocacy and its scholars’ opinions are their own. MEI welcomes financial donations, but retains sole editorial control over its work and its publications reflect only the authors’ views. For a listing of MEI donors, please click here .

Lebanon: a Bibliography: History

• Multiethnicity & Indentification
• Economy & Administration
• The War & After

• Beirut through the ages by Nina Jidejian Call Number: RLEB 939.44:J61be:1997:c.1 Publication Date: 1997
• See Lebanon : over 100 selected trips, with history and pictures by Conde, Bruce Alfonso. Call Number: CA 915.692:C738s2:c.1 Publication Date: 1960

• The Roman temples of Lebanon : a pictorial guide = Les temples romains au Liban : guide illustré by George Taylor. Call Number: J 726.1:T241ro:c.1 Publication Date: 1971
• Architecture in Lebanon : the Lebanese house during the 18th and 19th centuries by Friedrich Ragette Call Number: RLEB 728:R141ar:c.1 Publication Date: 1980
• A short history of Lebanon by Hitti, Philip K Publication Date: 1965
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• Historical Dictionary of Lebanon by As'Ad Abukhalil ISBN: 0810833956 Publication Date: 1998-04-16 The Lebanese civil war has made the study of Lebanon a difficult endeavor.
• The shadows of Hell by Ajami, Fouad. Publication Date: 1876

• From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. Friedman Call Number: J 956.04:F911fa:c.1 ISBN: 0374158940 Publication Date: 1989-05-01
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• Maronite historians of mediaeval Lebanon by Kamal S. Salibi Call Number: J 956.9:Sa16s2:c.2 Publication Date: 1959
• Lebanon : land of honey and milk by / Samir C. Atallah Call Number: CA 915.692:A862L:c.1 Publication Date: 1973

• The opening of south Lebanon, 1788-1840 : a study of the impact of the West on the Middle East by William R. Polk Call Number: J 956.92:P771o:c.1 Publication Date: 1963

Rafeq, A. (1966). The province of Damascus, 1723-1783. Beirut: Khayats.

• Al-ta ifiyya fi lubnan: Hahiruha al-tarikhiyya wa al-ijtima iyya by SHAHIN, Fu ad, Publication Date: 1980

• Identités et solidarités croisées dans les conflits du Liban contemporain by Fawaz N. Traboulsi Publication Date: 1993

• The Lebanon (Mount Souria) : a history and a diary by David Urquhart Call Number: CA 956.9:U79L:v.1:c.1 Publication Date: 1860
• Maronite historians of mediaeval Lebanon by Kamal S. Salibi ; with a preface by Bernard Lewis Call Number: J 956.9:Sa16s2:c.2 Publication Date: 1959

• Munṭalaq tārīkh Lubnān, 634-1516 by Ṣalībī, Kamāl Publication Date: 1992
• The origins of the Druze people and religion : with extracts from their sacred writings by Philip K. Hitti Call Number: CA 297.85:H67or:c.2 Publication Date: 1966

• Syria and Lebanon by Ziadeh, Nicola A. Call Number: J 956.9:Z64s:c.1 Publication Date: 1057

• Travels through Syria and Egypt, [electronic resource] : in the years 1783, 1784, and 1785. Containing the present natural and political state of those countries by Volney, C.-F. Publication Date: 1793 2v.(xvi,557,[17]p.) ; 8°

Hourani, A. (2016). Lebanon from feudalism to modern state . Middle Eastern Studies, 2 (3), 256-263.

Bourgey, A. & Chevallier, A. D. (1974). La Société du Mont Liban à l'époque de la révolution industrielle en Europe. Revue de Géographie de Lyon . 49 (4), 381-382.

Tanenbaum, J.K. (1978). France and the Arab Middle East, 1914-1920.   Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 68 (7), 1-50.

Liebling a. j (1958). Along the Visa Via -The land of the Didymon. The New Yorker, 30

Messara, A. (1988). Théorie generale du système libanais et sa survie.  Oxford Journals. Retrieved http://lebanesestudies.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/62b9ab52.-challenge-of-coexistence-.pdf  book

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Colin Legum. (1978). In Lebanon (pp. 492-525). New York: Holmes and Meier.

Rabinovich,, I. (1979). "Lebanon. In Z. Hanna (Ed.), Colin Legum (pp. 603-627). New York: Middle East Contemporary Survey.

Seeden, H. (1969). Coastal Lebanon. In Beirut College for Women (pp. 57-70). Beirut: Cultural Resources in Lebanon.

Ward,, W. A. (1969). Ancient Lebanon. In Beirut College for Women. Beirut: Cultural Resources in Lebanon.

Yazbek, Y. I. (1969). Lebanese History Between 1841 and 1920. In  Beirut College for Women  (pp. 240-242). Beirut: Cultural Resources in Lebanon.

French Mandate

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Publication          بيروت : الجامعة اللبنانية، 1999

Bookmark link for this record

Location               Call No. Volume No         Information        Status

Jafet:J  J 956.92:D271dwA:c.1                    Standard Loan  Available

Author  بيهم، محمد جميل .

Title       النزعات السياسية بلبنان : عهد الانتداب والاحتلال، 1918-1945 / محمد جميل بيهم .

Publication          بيروت : جامعة بيروت العربية، 1977 .

Jafet:J  J 956.9204:B357nA:c.1                

Author  جحا، شفيق

Title       معركة مصير لبنان في عهد الانتداب الفرنسي، 1918-1946

Publication          بيروت : مكتبة رأس بيروت، 1995

Jafet/ASC:CA    CA 956.9204:J61mrA:v.1:c.1                        Building Use      Available

Jafet/ASC:CA    CA 956.9204:J61mrA:v.2:c.1                        Building Use      Available

Jafet:J  J 956.9204:J61mrA:v.1:c.1                            Standard Loan  Available

Jafet:J  J 956.9204:J61mrA:v.2:c.1          

Author  الحداد، حكمت البير .

Title       لبنان الكبير / حكمت البير الحداد

Publication          بيروت : دار نظير عبود، c1996

Jafet:J  J 956.9204:H126LbA:c.1              

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Title       تاريخ لبنان من الاحتلال الى الجلاء، 1918-1946

Publication          بيروت : دار الفارابي، 1990

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دولة لبنان الكبير

لنزعات السياسية بلبنان : عهد الانتداب والاحتلال، 1918-1945

بيهم، محمد جميل .

بيروت : جامعة بيروت العربية، 1977 .

Author  ابيلا، روبير، مؤلف . Author.

Ābīlā, Rūbīr, author.

Title       أطوار الحكم في لبنان : من مطلع الإنتداب حتى الآن / بقلم روبير ابيلا .

Atwār al-ḥukm fī Lubnān : min maṭlaʻ al-intidāb ḥattá al-ān / bi-qalam Rūbīr Ābīlā.

Publication Info.               بيروت : منشورات الأنباء، 1943

Bayrūt : Manshūrāt al-anbāʼ, 1943.

Jafet:J  J 354.569:A14aA:c.1                       Standard Loan  Available

Author  بختي، سليمان، 1957- مؤلف . Author.

Bakhtī, Sulaymān, author.

Title       بيت الإستقلال : بشامون - 22 تشرين الثاني 1943 / كتابة النص: سليمان بختي وجهاد حسان .

Bayt al-Istiqlāl : Bishāmūn - 22 Tishrīn al-Thānī 1943 / kitābat al-naṣṣ: Sulaymān Bakhtī wa-Jihād Ḥassān.

Publication Info.               لبنان : دار نلسن للنشر، 2014 .

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Jafet/ASC:CA    CA 956.92035:B168bA

Author  قربان، ملحم .

Title       تاريخ لبنان السياسي الحديث / ملحم قربان

Publication          بيروت : الأهلية للنشر والتوزيع، 1978 -

Jafet/ASC:CA    CA 956.92:Q676tA:v.1:c.1                             Building Use      Available

Jafet:J  J 956.92:Q676tA:v.1:c.1              

Author  الصليبي، كمال س. (كمال سليمان)، 1929-2011، مؤلف . Author.

Salibi, Kamal S. (Kamal Suleiman), 1929-2011, author.

Title       تاريخ لبنان الحديث / كمال سليمان الصليبي .

Tārīkh Lubnān al-ḥadīth / Kamāl Sulaymān al-Ṣalībī.

Publication Info.               بيروت، لبنان : دار النهار للنشر، 2002 .

Bayrūt, Lubnān : Dār al-Nahār lil-Nashr, 2002.

Jafet:J  J 956.92:S165t7A                             Standard Loan  Available

Author  خليفة، عصام كمال، مؤلف . Author.

Khalīfah, ʻIṣām Kamāl, author.

Title       أبحاث في تاريخ لبنان الحديث والمعاصر / عصام كمال خليفة، احد أساتذة التاريخ في الجامعة اللبنانية .

Abḥāth fī tārīkh Lubnān al-ḥadīth wa-al-muʻāṣir / ʻIṣām Kamāl Khalīfah, aḥad asātidhat al-tārīkh fī al-Jāmiʻah al-Lubnānīyah.

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Publication Info.               London : I.B. Tauris, 2018.

Jafet:J  J 956.91041:O931s                          Standard Loan  Available

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Publication          London : Pluto Press, 2007

Jafet/REF:RLEB RLEB 956.92:T758h:c.1                                  Course Reserve Available

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Publication          London : Hutchinson Educational, 1985

Jafet:J  J 956.92:C653m:c.1                         Standard Loan  Due 2019-04-30

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Title       The modern history of Lebanon / Kamal S. Salibi

Publication          Delmar NY : Caravan Books, c1965, repr. 1977

Jafet:J  J 956.92:S165m:1977:c.1                              Standard Loan  Available

Title       La Syrie et le Liban sous l'occupation et le mandat français, 1919-1927

Publication          Nancy : Berger Levrault, [1929]

Jafet/ASC:CA    CA 354.569:F815s:c.1                     Building Use      Available

Jafet/ASC:CA    CA 354.569:F815s:c.2                     Building Use      Available

Jafet:J  J 354.569:F815s:c.1                         Standard Loan  Due 2019-05-03

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Publication          London : Croom Helm, c1985

Jafet:J  J 956.9204:Z24f:c.1                         Standard Loan  Available

Title       Lebanon's quest : the road to statehood 1926-1939 / Meir Zamir

Publication          London : I.B. Tauris, 1997

Jafet:J  J 956.9204:Z24L:c.1                         Standard Loan  Available

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Jafet:J  J 320.95692:F527i:c.1                     Course Reserve Available

Jafet:J  J 320.95692:F527i:c.2                     Standard Loan  Available

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Title       Lebanon : the challenge of independence / Eyal Zisser

Publication          London : I.B. Tauris, c2000

Jafet:J  J 956.92:Z81L:c.1                              Standard Loan  Available

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Title       Lebanon's struggle for independence / By Walter L. Browne

Publication          Salisbury NC : Documentary Publications, c1980

Jafet:J  J 956.9204:B884L:pt.1:c.1                            Standard Loan  Available

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Title       Les etats du Levant sous mandat français / preface de M.F. Pierre-Alype

Publication          Larose, c1931

Jafet/ASC:CA    CA 915.69:O99eF:c.1                      Building Use      Available

Jafet:J  J 915.69:O99eF:c.1                          Standard Loan  Available

Title       The political history of Lebanon, 1920-1950 / [edited] by Walter L. Browne

Publication          Salisbury NC : Documentary Publications, 1980

Jafet:J  J 956.9204:P769p:v.1:c.1                              Standard Loan  Available

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Title       Syria and Lebanon under French mandate / Stephen Hemsley Longrigg

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Jafet:J  J 956.9:L856s:c.3                              Standard Loan  Available

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• Last Updated: Jul 24, 2020 9:57 AM
• URL: https://aub.edu.lb.libguides.com/lebcivilwar

• العربية ( Arabic )

• July 12, 2021
• Gender Equality , Women's rights

Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in Lebanon: An Introduction

Mirna sabbagh.

The image of Malak Alawiye kicking the armed bodyguard of former Education Minister Akram Chehayeb to stop him from attacking protesters will be engraved in the memory of Lebanese for decades to come. Countless Lebanese women from all walks of life, like Malak, played a critical role in the October 2019 revolution. Women young and old from all backgrounds led protests, chanted on megaphones, and formed human shields to protect protestors from security forces. 

Credits: An activist chants through a megaphone during the anti-government protests,  in downtown Beirut. March 5, 2020. Matthieu Karam

They took to the streets demanding reforms in the patriarchal system undermining their rights. In Lebanon, decision-making is controlled by men and women have to deal with  recurrent predicaments, as well as discrimination under the 15 separate personal religious-based status laws and courts for the 18 recognized sects.  

Many countries consider Lebanon a pioneer in the Arab world in women’s freedoms. However, this is an illusion. Whilst Lebanese women do have the freedom to move, dress, and live the way they want, this does not mean that they have equal rights. They live in a patriarchal society, where men and religious leaders monopolize decision-making. Politicians, religious leaders, and social norms have formed an almost unbreakable glass ceiling of boundaries and discrimination against women. Since Lebanon’s independence in 1943 and the writing of its constitution, gender equality has not been a walk in the park by any means.  

Credits: Families of Rola Yacoub and Manal Assi mourning the loss of their daughters victims of Domestic Violence  during International Women’s Day in Beirut March 8, 2014. Cynthia Ghoussoub   

It is true that Lebanon has an active past of women’s activism, but to date, the movement’s accomplishments are limited. Over the years, many civil society feminist organizations have succeeded in lobbying to amend a few laws or change some policies. In 1953, the Lebanese Council of Women (LCW), one of the main feminist civil society organizations at the time, successfully lobbied for women’s voting rights. In addition, the LCW’s efforts succeeded in eliminating the law forcing women to renounce their citizenship upon marrying foreign men and ended restrictions on a woman’s right to travel without the written consent of their father or husband. In April 2014 , through the collective efforts of many local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), a law that recognized the need to establish protection and legal resources for women subjected to abuse by their husbands or male relatives was passed. Also, in 2017 , the parliament abolished article 522 of the penal code, which gave men the chance to avoid a sentence of sexual assault, abduction, or statutory rape against a woman if a marriage contract was provided. Furthermore, the women’s movement designed many advocacy and lobbying campaigns to increase women’s participation in decision-making, but unfortunately, their success was limited. In addition, despite women’s increasing electoral turnout, less than 5 percent of parliamentarians elected in 2018 were women . This was a record high compared to previous elections. 

Another supposed step forward for women in Lebanon was in 1997 when Lebanon ratified the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women , yet to this day it still maintains reservations to several articles, specifically those related to equal rights to nationality, marriage, and family life. Politicians and religious leaders continue to block calls to lift these. The 18 legally-recognized religious groups all have different personal status laws and family matters such as marriage, inheritance, divorce, and custody are governed by the legal procedures of these religious groups. Each and every one of these laws, without exception, discriminates against women’s rights and turns their existences into living soap operas. Many key laws need to be abolished, amended, created, or passed in Lebanon to ensure women’s equality rights and protection. One of the most important ones to be amended is the nationality law. These regulations do not grant Lebanese women the same rights as men in regards to passing on their nationality to their children or husbands if married to foreigners.

Credits: Activists carry banners reading “ Our revolution is a women’s revolution.” and “Patriarchy is a killer” International Women’s Day, in Beirut, March 8, 2020. Cynthia Maria Aramouni

Additionally, besides the fact that it’s sadly a regular occurence, violence against women and girls in Lebanon is increasing incrementally. Data reported through the Gender-Based Violence Information Management System indicates a 5 percent increase in female survivors in 2020 (98 percent) in comparison to 2019 (93 percent). In the context of a crippled system, compounded crises, and the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of violent incidents are therefore climbing daily. The current protection measures, lack of accountability, and injustice towards women experiencing physical and psychological abuse will continue to hinder the advancement of women in Lebanon. 

Credits: Woman carrying the Lebanese flag stands in front of riot police during International Women’s Day, in Beirut, March 8, 2021. Simon Haddad

When it comes to the political, peacekeeping, and security spheres, women in Lebanon are significantly underrepresented. While there is wider recognition of the need to involve women in such matters, in practice women’s official engagement in these fields remains insufficient. This is partly because of Lebanon’s power-sharing political system, where executive power is shared amongst confessional lines. This model gave a major role to political elites in moderating inter-group conflicts and negotiating any peace or security agreements. Unfortunately, the ruling class is mainly male-dominated and represents the key religious sects in Lebanon. Thus, women were never present at the negotiation tables in the first place. 

Credits: Women banging on  metal barricades during the anti-government protests in downtown Beirut. March 5, 2020. Matthieu Karam

Correspondingly, social norms and discriminatory labor laws and policies are leading to women’s economic marginalization. In this patriarchal society, men are considered the main breadwinners and the sole income generators of the household. A woman’s role in the household is perceived as a conventional one and more complementary to that of the man rather than an equal one. Such social norms and perceptions create an environment of vulnerability and marginalization where women feel economically dependent on the male figure of the family. They will continue shying away from claiming any of their rights or standing in the face of domestic violence for fear of losing their financial security.

Under these conditions of extreme and structural gender inequalities, Lebanon is facing an unprecedented economic and political crisis, compounded by multiple shocks that have hit the country in the past few years, including the October 2019 revolution, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the August Beirut Blast. These multifaceted crises come on top of the Syrian refugee one, which represents a huge burden on the country’s fragile systems as it is.

The country is on the brink of collapsing and this is affecting its development and stability. More than 50 percent of the population is now living under the poverty line and people are fighting over basic commodities in supermarkets. Women are severely affected as large numbers are being laid off in spades, there is a substantial increase in gender-based violence, and as usual, they are carrying the burdens of the households in this patriarchal system. 

Credits: Women take the streets during  International Women’s Day, in Beirut, March 8, 2020. Cynthia Maria Aramouni

A holistic gendered approach is needed to address these deep and structured inequalities. In addition, without institutional reforms, amendments, and the adoption of key laws that ensure good governance, anti-corruption, and gender equality, the country won’t recover from this unprecedented crisis. Importantly, in transition periods, gender roles and social norms can be changed with the breakdown of existing social practices and state policies. The citizens of Lebanon have the opportunity to transform gender relations and create opportunities for women to challenge their current restrictive gender roles and assume leadership positions. Now is a good time to implement a new gender-sensitive social contract with the state. 

It is the right time to ensure that women are participating in the socio-economic recovery and response on both local and national levels. Future assessments and recovery/response plans must be developed in a gender-neutral way to ensure they are addressing the needs of both men and women equally. Ensuring women’s inclusion in both the planning and implementation of the recovery will help address the needs of women and tackle some of the barriers they are facing to access their basic needs in the first place. Most importantly, by supporting locally-led peacebuilding networks, forming female mediator networks, and opening dialogue spaces with grassroots groups, in particular those established by the protest movement post-October, the national Women, Peace and Security Agenda can be adequately informed. In that context, it is also imperative to increase the role of civil society women networks and activists in the oversight of formal structures. Moreover, gender-based violence must be addressed through the collaborative efforts of both international and local actors in changing the societal mindsets and reforming the current structures. Finally, without the creation of a unified personal status code, gender equality will continue to be a dream that might never come true. 

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Lebanon: A Natural Beauty

Forget the delicious food and hospitable, albeit nosy people. Forget the culture and history we’ve stacked under our cities. Forget our reputation as a nightlife hotspot. The one thing that makaes Lebanon truly extraordinary is right under our feet – the land. Lebanon, underneath it all, is naturally beautiful.

Maybe that’s why for millennia people have lived here, been drawn to this region and fought on and over this land. It’s not hard to see why – the location is strategic, the climate is mild and the landscape is magnificent and so varied that the national cliché offers skiing and swimming in one day.

Perhaps the most undervalued thing of beauty in our country is the country itself: the blue coast and rocky shoreline speckled with sandy pockets, white-coated coniferous mountains, lush green valleys and cascades pooling into cool rivers and ponds – all crammed into 10,452 square kilometers.

Today, Lebanon, the natural beauty, is damaged, frayed and dirty, maybe irreversibly so. An unresolved trash crisis, security threats and the usual lack of infrastructure are making the country harder and harder to promote to its own people, let alone tourists. We have so much wasted potential. Not only is the country not using its natural resources to their full potential, but it’s destroying these resources at an appalling rate. Why are people so adamant on destroying Lebanon? How is it possible to have so little regard for the land that feeds you?

Most of these issues must be resolved by the government, and while it’s the public that inexplicably continues to reelect the same people, they’re impossible to change by a few citizens singlehandedly. But despite the challenges hurled at them, a few individuals are doing a lot for the promotion of Lebanon’s natural beauty.

Live Love Beirut co-founder Eddy Bitar points out that the word “politics” comes from the Greek politikos, meaning of, for, or relating to citizens and city. Nothing about Lebanese politics seems to be about the citizens anymore but the efforts of his organization, among others, be they businesses or nonprofits, are commendable examples of real citizenship for a country that really has the makings of paradise.

Live Love Beirut began as a crowd-sourced social media “love campaign” for Lebanon in 2012, disseminating beautiful photos of the country for the world to see. “We are selling Lebanon. We’re creating attachment and belonging to Lebanon and to different places [within the country]that people didn’t know existed only a few years ago,” says Bitar.

Today, ‘Live Love’ accounts have been launched for various regions and interests and Live Love Beirut has grown into a community of 1.5 million worldwide followers and a team of 300 ambassadors in charge of different area accounts. Of course some people knew about these regions in the past but thanks to the wide reach of social media an exponential amount of people now know about places like the Baskinta waterfalls, beautiful parts of the underappreciated Bekaa valley, the Greece-like seaside town of Anfeh, the lush river haven of Chouwen and the large stretch of sandy beach in Tyre.

A good portion of the Lebanese public is shifting to discovery mode, exploring their country more than ever before. Biking-enthusiast Karim Sokhn launched Cycling Circle in 2012, organizing small bicycle tours for friends and those interested. He always explores an area himself first before creating a tour, sometimes with locals or officials from municipalities. Some of his excursions take bikers to the picturesque Bisri valley below Jezzine and along northern coastal towns like Byblos, Batroun and Chekka, among others. He says the south is largely undiscovered and also very beautiful, naming towns like Marjayoun, Rashaya and Shaqif.

In 2012 Sokhn had a total of close to 300 customers. Fast forward to today, he says he’s toured 1200 people already and it’s only halfway through the year. While some bikers join for the fitness of riding, others want to explore new areas or just experience the novelty of being on a bike. “The great thing about biking is that you are riding at a slow pace and you get to see the things around you,” he says.

He says social media played a huge role in his business – both in terms of posting photos of previous tours to attract clients to new sites and creating Facebook events that make it easy for people to join. Those actively promoting Lebanon’s tourism industry agree that social media has had a major effect on the public’s perception of Lebanon.

Live Love Beirut is a social movement that harnesses the power of social media. In fact 45 percent of their followers are the Lebanese diaspora. “It’s people like the guy in LA who’s dreaming about a manoushe,” Bitar says. The campaign has been such as success that Lebanon’s Ministry of Tourism adopted it two years ago.

It’s not only online that Lebanon is being promoted. The Lebanon Mountain Trail Association (LMTA) promotes Lebanon primarily through word of mouth, including through its worldwide ambassadors. Launched in 2007, its purpose is to develop and maintain a mountain trail in the country, as well as encourage responsible rural tourism, developing the country’s mountains and the communities living there. The trail is currently marked on around 60 percent of its 470 km stretch and LMTA is working on installing information panels in 28 of the villages on the trail, which extends from Andqet in the north to Marjayoun in the south.

Their annual springtime Thru Walk along the picturesque trail started with only 10 hikers in 2009 and this year has grown to 180. The organization’s current president Nadine Weber estimates around 30 percent of the hikers come from abroad and says the trail is perhaps better known in foreign hiking circles than it is in Lebanon. “Lebanon is very beautiful and we have many people come again and again to hike the LMT,” she says. One man from Holland has been coming to hike for the past eight years, sometimes twice a year. “It’s not just the beauty of the land, it’s also the diversity, history, food and people,” she adds.

Locally the market for hiking is limited and the Lebanese are more likely to spend on traveling abroad than spending time in local villages but Weber says it’s more about promoting areas, and not just hiking, which is the primary reason foreigners visit. “Maybe we can’t convince the Lebanese to hike but they can spend time in the mountains, sleep at a guesthouse and go for a shorter walk with the village guide,” she says, adding that their aim is to inject money into these rural communities. As part of their programs the LMTA also trains locals to become guides, helps owners of guesthouses with renovations and training, preserves archaeological sites on the trail and educates the youth from the areas.

Similarly, the people behind Live Love Beirut are working on capacity building with rural NGOs, empowering locals on how to promote their work using social media and engaging their communities. They recently expanded with new projects like Live Love Tours, which organize visits to hidden gems around the country, and Live Love Festivals, bringing music, culture and life to different regions to attract crowds rather than just promoting them through photos.

“We are promoting a certain way of life in the country and we want people to work together to make it better. It takes time but we’re seeing the change in people’s mentality,” Bitar says, adding that he believes in Lebanon’s power of resilience.

Many of the problems Lebanon faces are bigger than its people but there are brave citizens battling against greedy Goliaths and against the current of Lebanon’s unnecessary, man-made crises. “We are not just trying to say that Lebanon is beautiful. We are promoting the Lebanon that we all believe in,” states Bitar.

If beautiful Lebanon has a standing chance of retaining its natural beauty, the Lebanese, here and abroad, need to join together – not only in spirit, words and Instagram likes – but in actual actions on whatever scale possible. Let’s not lose faith in the natural beauty of Lebanon while we can still see it. Start with a bike ride, a hike or even a drive this weekend to appreciate what we still have – it may be a first step to inspire concrete action to preserve this land.

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Lebanon’s Other Explosion

When disasters become the norm, people stop paying attention—but i’m still telling this country’s stories.

The aftermath of the Akkar explosion. Photograph courtesy of Abby Sewell

by Abby Sewell | October 21, 2021

It was the explosion that drove home to me how irrevocably Lebanon was broken.

Not the horrific August 4, 2020 Beirut port explosion, when a warehouse full of ammonium nitrate exploded, killing more than 200 and generating shock and sympathy around the world. Recently, that explosion made it back into the headlines when a protest over the investigation into its causes provoked deadly street clashes .

I’m talking about a different explosion, which took place on August 15, 2021 and killed more than 30 men and injured dozens more in a village in the neglected northern district of Akkar as they filled up plastic canisters with gasoline. You’ve probably never heard about that explosion. Few have, outside of Lebanon.

Had it happened at another time, or in another place, the Akkar disaster probably would have been international news. Maybe it went largely unnoticed because the blast coincided with the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Or perhaps the silence surrounding was inevitable. The first time a disaster happens, it’s news; when disasters become the norm, people stop paying attention.

Still, for the victims living through such events, the pain is no less. And for a journalist, it presents an existential dilemma. Most of us got into this business with the idea that telling stories will make a difference. How do you keep on when you know that it won’t?

I was in Beirut during the 2020 port explosion . Like many others there, I threw myself into frenetic action telling stories of pain and of hope, of so many ordinary people jumping in to help search for victims, clear rubble, and find housing for those who were displaced. Outside of Lebanon, too, people leaped to action. Hundreds of millions of dollars of aid flowed in, and teams of international experts flew in to investigate the cause of the blast.

For half a century the country had been repeatedly demolished—first by war, then by corruption, negligence, and political infighting, culminating, in 2019, in one of the most dramatic economic crashes in modern history. Now, with the world’s eyes upon them, Lebanon’s prime minister and cabinet resigned. For a time, it seemed that the explosion might be the catalyst that would finally turn the country around.

Of course, that didn’t happen. Various political factions soon began bickering, holding up the formation of a new government. International aid dried up. The country’s economic crisis reached a dystopian level as the value of the lira, officially pegged at 1,500 LBP to 1 USD, plunged from a black market exchange rate of 8,000 LBP to 1 USD at the time of the explosion to 20,000 LBP to 1 USD by August 2021.

Fuel imports, along with medicine and some food, remained partially subsidized by the central bank to protect the population from the worst effects of the devaluation. But a shortage of foreign currency, along with rampant smuggling of fuel and other subsidized imports to Syria, resulted in severe shortages of fuel, medicine, and even bread that has gotten progressively worse over the past six months.

The situation in Akkar, about three hours’ drive north of the capital, was even worse than in Beirut. The largely agricultural district had always been isolated and impoverished; by mid-August 2021, its gas stations had been closed for weeks. To get to work and ensure electricity at home, people were relying on expensive, poor quality, black market fuel, sold in plastic jugs on the side of the road . Lebanon’s cash-strapped power utility provides only a few hours of electricity a day, and diesel generators fill in the gap.

On the afternoon of August 14, the Lebanese Army found a tanker full of illegally stored gasoline and diesel on the property of a businessman in Tleil, a village along the small highway that climbs up from the district capital of Halba to the mountains above. The fuel was likely intended to be smuggled to Syria or sold on the local black market. The army confiscated the bulk of it but left a few thousand liters at the site, for reasons that are not entirely clear.

Photograph courtesy of Abby Sewell

Witnesses told me that late in the evening, soldiers at the scene gave in to the pleading of a few desperate locals who asked to fill up canisters. Word spread and soon hundreds of people arrived, hoping to get a couple of gallons. Chaos and fights broke out, someone lit a lighter, and the tanker exploded. While the government has not released an official death tally, a local activist who has been coordinating aid for victims’ families told me the count has now reached 36. Dozens more were injured, overwhelming the country’s already struggling hospitals.

The gasoline crisis also prevented most Beirut-based journalists, myself included, from immediately getting to the scene. Days prior, Lebanon’s central bank had announced plans to end its subsidy for fuel imports, signaling a potential fivefold increase in prices at the pump. Most gas stations promptly closed. Station owners blamed supply issues, but people I spoke to assumed that they were, in fact, hoarding supply and waiting for prices to increase.

On the day of the Akkar explosion, every gas station in Beirut was closed. I waited in line for five hours to get fuel the next day, when some stations opened up. I waited another seven hours to be able to return for a second reporting trip later in the week.

The stories I wrote about the explosion touched me deeply. I have a personal connection to Akkar. When I first arrived in Lebanon around five years ago , I spent three months volunteering with Syrian refugees in a village not far from the site of the explosion. The explosion victims I met reminded me of people I had encountered back then.

The soldier I watched sink to his knees, sobbing outside the hospital where his badly burned brother was taken, could have been any of the soldiers I sat beside, day after day, on the minibuses that run from villages in Akkar to the cities of Tripoli and Beirut. Another soldier, in a hospital bed in Tripoli, whispered to me hoarsely, “My father died. He was next to me.” His features were obscured by bandages, but I will never forget the look in his eyes. It was the look of someone who no longer cares if he lives or dies.

The disfigured 15-year-old Syrian boy could have been one of the children I used to help with their French homework. The Syrian woman whose husband died in the blast, leaving her with four young children and pregnant with a fifth, could have been one of my students’ mothers. On cold winter nights, we would drink tea next to the diesel-fueled stoves that warmed their makeshift homes. This winter, how will they get the diesel?

When I wrote victims’ stories and only a handful of people in Lebanon and even fewer outside reacted, perhaps I felt a small sliver of the despair and bitterness people of the area experience all the time. “Here in Akkar, no one thinks about us,” Marwan al-Cheikh told me, as we sat on the veranda at the home of his brother, Fadi al-Cheikh, overlooking idyllic rolling hills. Fadi, a retired soldier turned farmer, had been killed in the blast.

That week after the explosion was the first time in five years of reporting in Lebanon that I felt burned out. Why should I go through all this trouble, putting people through the pain of recounting their tragic stories, putting myself through the pain of listening to them, if in the end no one cared?

For me, the Akkar explosion encapsulates nearly all the factors that have destroyed Lebanon: the currency’s collapse, the fuel crisis, black market networks and the corruption and political patronage that allow them to go unchecked, and the absence of the state, particularly in areas outside the orbit of Beirut. It also underlines the miserable state of the Lebanese Army. Many killed and injured in the blast were off-duty soldiers who, like the rest of the crowd, desperately needed gas. A soldier’s monthly salary, now worth less than 100 USD, barely covers the cost of transportation to report to duty.

Today, several people have been arrested in connection with the Akkar explosion, but there has been no official accounting for what happened. Victims’ families have gotten assistance from charitable groups and from political parties looking to shore up influence, but have yet to receive compensation from the state.

Lebanon finally has a government, but its mission is now overshadowed by the threat of more political violence. The electricity supply has, if anything, gotten worse. Fuel shortages have waned slightly, though I suspect black market profiteers will find a way to make sure that shortages, and the resulting profits, persist.

The struggle will continue. In the end, all I know how to do is to keep on telling stories and hope that somewhere, eventually, someone will care.

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Confessionalism as Lebanon’s Political System Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

History of confessionalism in lebanon, problems of confessionalism in lebanon, how the policies formed the lebanese political structure, are the policies effective, references:.

Lebanon has had a great political shake-up following the resolutions that led to the solving of the civil war that rocked the nation. This comes as a result of the deep-rooted political system that had been the norm in the country for several years. Lebanon had been governed for years under a political system called confessionalism. Consequently, this had led to a civil war that threatened to tear up Lebanon based on its religious ground.

Later, a consensus was reached which came up with policies to enable Lebanon to remain as an independent and peaceful country despite its diversity in terms of religion. This paper will, as a result, analyze the problems of confessionalism in the Lebanese political system and the effects caused by the inertia of the system about the reforms promised by the new reform-minded leaders. In addition, the paper will attempt to outline whether the policies put up to bridge the gap caused by confessionalism have been effective or not.

To have a good understanding of this topic, we will first have to understand what confessionalism is. Harb (2006) defines confessionalism as a form of a political system that “…Proportionally allocates political power among a country’s communities- whether religious or ethnic- according to their percentage of the population. In Lebanon for example, its form of confessionalism is based on the religious foundation. In this state, cabinet positions, parliamentary seats, positions in the civil service, and other government institutions are apportioned relatively to the religious populations. Other countries that have used this system of government are Netherlands, India, Belgium, Spain, and Switzerland.

CJPME 2006 further classifies confessionalism under a larger form of the political system referred to as consociationalism. The basic pillars of this system are communities receiving a proportionate allocation of leadership posts basing on their population’s numerical representation, on matters of great importance on all the communities, the system demands that leaders form a grand coalition to reach a consensus for common good, freedom for each community to determine their own affairs like the laws of personal status, and finally the availability of “mutual veto power.” In this provision, a community has the power to vote out any decision that seems to undermine their well-being.

Many scholars argue that confessionalism had existed in Lebanon as early as the 13th century. Under Ottoman rule, confessionalism was also experienced in different forms. The modern-day boundaries of the “Greater Lebanon” were established in 1920 by the French government after the merging of the old Lebanon Province which included Mont-Liban a greatly Maronite region and other regions from the coast which included Beirut, Tripoli, Sidon, and Tyre.

The Muslim region of Bekaa Valley was also included in the merger to form the “Greater Lebanon.” (CJPME 2007). Problems resulted in the conflict of interests between the Christian Maronite regions who were supported by the French government to establish that the frontiers of Greater Lebanon were naturally marked to include the new territories while Syria and other Muslim regions preferred that the new territories be maintained under the control of Syria.

This caused a long-term turmoil whose end in 1943 marked the first understanding between the Christians and Muslims. They mutually decided to evict the French from their debate. This marked what was referred to as the National Pact, 1. In this agreement, the Muslim leaders agreed to accept the new frontiers marked by the “Greater Lebanon” and cease calling for greater control of the new territories by Syria. On their part, the Christians agreed to stop looking for help from France or any other Western nation in order to get military support. This marked an automatic entry into the political system of confessionalism.

In this pact which marked Lebanon’s independence from France, the Christian President, Bishara Al-Khouri and the Islam Prime Minister Riyadh al-Soloh who was Sunni made a pact allowing Christians and Muslims to have a 6:5 ratio in the parliamentary representation.

These agreements remained intact until 1975 when they failed subjecting the country to civil war. The country spent another 14 years in a war until the Ta’if accord brought it to an end. In the accord, the international leaders perpetuated the system of confessionalism but pointed out that soon, the system had to be abolished. In addition, they changed the first pact from a 6:5 representation ratio in the parliament in favor of the Christians to a 50:50.

The prime minister of the State of Lebanon Salim Hoss has referred to confessionalism as an illness that rages within the body of the Lebanese political system. According to him, the taifiya, as they commonly refer to the confessional system is just but “…a symbol of ignorance and backwardness amongst the people.” (Reinkowski 1992). What has this to show on the effects of confessionalism on Lebanon? This shows that it has had a negative effect. The following are some of the effects that this form of political system had on Lebanon.

One of the most outstanding weaknesses of the confessional system of leadership is the rigidity portrayed by the different groups within the pact. This forms a basis for the failure of the system. In the Lebanon case, they developed a fear that the other sect would dominate therefore making each side strongly hold on their side of the bargain and hence causing rigidity (Barclay 2007). According to Barclay, the rigidity could not have allowed the sustenance of the system.

This was a result of the changing political and economic environment within Lebanon. Among the changes were the modernization of the economy, counter elites’ emergence, and the sectarian mobilization which was taking place. In addition, the presence and the mobilization of the Palestinian refugees contributed to the fueling of the tension that was already existent. This marked the first problem experienced by Lebanon due to confessionalism.

Another weakness that causes problems within the confessional system is that for it to succeed, there must exist cooperation between the groups involved. Achieving this cooperation can sometimes be a great hurdle to cross. As Lijphart puts it, to make a decision that accounts for all the subcultures of a diverse community is difficult and, “consociational democracies are always threatened by a degree of immobilism…” (Barclay 2007). In the case of Lebanon, the effort to maintain the Sunni and Maronite dominance simply meant suffocating Lebanon’s political system. As pointed out earlier, the social and economic changes that Lebanon experienced caused a disequilibrium that led to the collapse of the political system.

Checking on the background of the Maronite politics shows that the Maronite system was completely based on the fear of extinction due to persecution that they had undergone before (Barclay 2007). The only way they could be assured of sustenance was through dominance. This translates that most of the Maronite institutions were founded for fear of extinction and thus they are bound to be rigid and based on defensive politics. This causes a lack of cooperation and rigidity which is one cause of problems in the confessional kind of government.

Another problem experienced by confessionalism is that it leads to the manipulation of the demographic and political position of the country. The rise of counter elite groups in the Islamic community led to tension between the Christian and Islam communities. Counter elite groups come up when smaller groups start appearing with conflicting ideas and interests within the larger conflicting groups. Once this takes over, the larger elites fail to be commanding the whole group leading to radicalization (Nordlinger 1972). A certain group was formed within the larger Sh’ia Muslims who felt that they were neglected by their representatives.

This group was led by Imam Mousa and came to be known as Amal. Most of the Sh’ia Muslims who felt that they were sidelined in the established government felt that Mousa was the best option and that he had their interests at heart. This, they felt would greatly contribute to their effort to get political participation and security economically. Although it was originally meant for the Sh’ia Muslims, Mousa advocated that the movement involved all the members of Lebanon that felt sidelined and neglected. This included the Palestinian refugees.

As Barclay puts it, radical tendencies on one side of the block could trigger the same response on the other side. The Maronites having felt a threat posed by the proliferation of several counter elite Muslim groups within the Islamic community had to make sure that they made their side more stable by ensuring their less fortunate citizens security, both financial and political participation. They regarded the rising of these counter elite groups most of them engulfing Palestinians with fear. This triggered the Christian Muslim tension and led to the collapse of the Lebanon political system.

Foreign interventions and interests can easily temper the stability of this system of government. Each country with interest in the country practicing this form of government can try to tip the balance to gain the friendlier group having more command of power so that they can enjoy their cooperation and thus get their interests. In parallel to its invasion of Lebanon, Israel signed an accord with the Maronite leaders of Lebanon promising to install them to power (CJPME 2006). The Israeli occupation of Lebanon later led to the refusal of the Hezbollah to disarm making them continue to fight within the southern “security belts” and calling for the Israeli vacation from Lebanon. Other countries that have a vested interest in Lebanon include the United States of America and Iran.

The first policy that was brought up to ensure that Lebanon became a single and united country was the recognition of Lebanon’s independence and sovereignty of the people of Lebanon. In addition, the policy highlighted the importance of the state’s commitment to reform and justice to the social and economic sector. In this policy, confessionalism was given the role as the regulator of the political organization principles. In its pact of co-existence, the policy stressed the importance of coexistence between all the Lebanese people and identified any effort that contravenes this to be illegal. And finally, the policy gave the real identity of the State of Lebanon (Barclay 2007).

How effective is this policy? According to Barclay, the identification of Lebanon as a country that is not a pan-Arab or Pan Syrian but with an Arab face stands out as not well defined thus showing a point of effectiveness that could lead to an understanding. This had been one of the causes of the civil war. This issue of identity would remain in a precarious position as pertains to the Christian population of Lebanon. However, the independence of Lebanon rested on this principle thus making Christians trade between identity and peace.

Another policy called for a comprehensive inclusion of a plan to observe the needs for social security within the political system. This part of the policy provides a remedy for one of the causes of war that had rocked Lebanon. Stable economic growth is given priority through the policy’s recognition of private property and personal initiatives. This policy will be effective as it recognizes the priorities of the liberal deputies among who the Ta’if was approved.

The second section of the reforms includes a clear route through which reforms in the political sector are to be achieved. In this policy, the powers and roles of different institutions of the government were clearly defined. Among the institutions are the post of the president, prime minister’s post, the speaker of the parliament, the cabinet, the electoral institution, and the parliament as a whole.

With its effort to “right shape” the country, Barclay argues that the policy put in place must have the right tools to enhance public policy, and also address the issue of geopolitical boundaries and ethnogeography in an appropriate manner (Barclay 2007). These she argues are appropriately addressed in the policies. This position is identified in the effort to proportionately redistribute power among the executives. This effort was made in a better way as compared to the initial method that was weighed down unfairness. One of the major weaknesses that had been addressed by these reforms was the presidential powers to sack the prime minister and other special executive powers that he could exercise any time he felt like doing it.

This was one cause of the civil war that had been experienced before. Through the reduction of the presidential powers, both positions realized a point of security assurance. The Sunnis had their position of the prime minister having more powers while the Sh’ias had their position of parliament speaker having his term extended and with less pressure from the president. Even the smaller groups in the coalition which included the Orthodox, Armenians, and Druze among others shared in the benefits through the increase of powers to the cabinet and other parliamentary positions.

The third section of the policies addressed the issues like decentralization of administration, issue of courts, and education. All domestic and foreign militias were disbanded under this section (Barclay 2007). This policy defined the form of cooperation between Lebanon and Syria. It also called for the intervention of the United Nations and other allies to ensure that appropriate means were used to ensure Lebanon’s freedom from Israel’s occupation.

From the views shown above, each policy identifies a problem that had led to the civil war. This, therefore, shows that the policies are effective because they address each political, social, and economic drawback associated with confessionalism. These policies also fall comfortably within Nordlinger’s conflict regulation tools (Nordlinger 1972). In his argument, he identifies six characteristics of an effective conflict resolution plan.

These are a stable coalition of governing parties, the proportionality principle and not the winner taking it all, the availability of a mutual veto, a depolarization that is purposive, a readiness to compromise, and availability of concession.

The fact that both the National pact and the Ta’if contain the characteristics has led to a debate with some scholars arguing that the new pact is as good as the old one and is bound to fail while others purport that the second pact which is the Ta’if is more flexible and is bound to last. In Krayem’s words, “The error committed in the preservation of the inadequate 1943 National Pact might be repeated with the Ta’if Agreement.” (Krayem 1997).

But then he does offer the position that gives hope in the chances of survival of Ta’if. This new Agreement is bound to survive as long as they establish a political system that is strong and which provides self-amendments that are peaceful and legal and which are ready to adjust to societal changes and thus meet new challenges. With such a political system, the Ta’if is bound to succeed and thus the policies will be effective.

Barclay, Sara. 2007. Consociationalism in Lebanon . University of Pennsylvania.

College Undergraduate Research Electronic Journal. Web.

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East. (2007) Understanding Lebanese Confessionalism. Fact Sheet Series No. 28. Web.

Harb, Imad. 2006. Lebanon’s Confessionalism: Problems and Prospects . United States Institute of Peace. Web.

Krayem, H. 1997. ‘The Lebanese Civil War and the Ta’if Agreement.’ In P. Salem (ed), Conflict Resolution in the Arab World: Selected Essays , American University of Beirut, Beirut, pp. 411-436.

Nordlinger, E. 1972. Conflict Regulation in in Divided Societies . Center for International Affairs, Harvard University.

Reinkowski, Maurus.1992. Ottoman “Multiculturalism? The Example of Confessional System in Lebanon. Orient Institute of Deutsche Morgenlandische Gesellschaft, Istanbul.

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• How to write an essay introduction | 4 steps & examples

How to Write an Essay Introduction | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on February 4, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on July 23, 2023.

A good introduction paragraph is an essential part of any academic essay . It sets up your argument and tells the reader what to expect.

The main goals of an introduction are to:

• Catch your reader’s attention.
• Give background on your topic.
• Present your thesis statement —the central point of your essay.

This introduction example is taken from our interactive essay example on the history of Braille.

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

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Table of contents

Step 1: hook your reader, step 2: give background information, step 3: present your thesis statement, step 4: map your essay’s structure, step 5: check and revise, more examples of essay introductions, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about the essay introduction.

Your first sentence sets the tone for the whole essay, so spend some time on writing an effective hook.

Avoid long, dense sentences—start with something clear, concise and catchy that will spark your reader’s curiosity.

The hook should lead the reader into your essay, giving a sense of the topic you’re writing about and why it’s interesting. Avoid overly broad claims or plain statements of fact.

Examples: Writing a good hook

Take a look at these examples of weak hooks and learn how to improve them.

• Braille was an extremely important invention.
• The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability.

The first sentence is a dry fact; the second sentence is more interesting, making a bold claim about exactly  why the topic is important.

• The internet is defined as “a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities.”
• The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education.

Avoid using a dictionary definition as your hook, especially if it’s an obvious term that everyone knows. The improved example here is still broad, but it gives us a much clearer sense of what the essay will be about.

• Mary Shelley’s  Frankenstein is a famous book from the nineteenth century.
• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement.

Instead of just stating a fact that the reader already knows, the improved hook here tells us about the mainstream interpretation of the book, implying that this essay will offer a different interpretation.

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Next, give your reader the context they need to understand your topic and argument. Depending on the subject of your essay, this might include:

• Historical, geographical, or social context
• An outline of the debate you’re addressing
• A summary of relevant theories or research about the topic
• Definitions of key terms

The information here should be broad but clearly focused and relevant to your argument. Don’t give too much detail—you can mention points that you will return to later, but save your evidence and interpretation for the main body of the essay.

How much space you need for background depends on your topic and the scope of your essay. In our Braille example, we take a few sentences to introduce the topic and sketch the social context that the essay will address:

Now it’s time to narrow your focus and show exactly what you want to say about the topic. This is your thesis statement —a sentence or two that sums up your overall argument.

This is the most important part of your introduction. A  good thesis isn’t just a statement of fact, but a claim that requires evidence and explanation.

The goal is to clearly convey your own position in a debate or your central point about a topic.

Particularly in longer essays, it’s helpful to end the introduction by signposting what will be covered in each part. Keep it concise and give your reader a clear sense of the direction your argument will take.

As you research and write, your argument might change focus or direction as you learn more.

For this reason, it’s often a good idea to wait until later in the writing process before you write the introduction paragraph—it can even be the very last thing you write.

When you’ve finished writing the essay body and conclusion , you should return to the introduction and check that it matches the content of the essay.

It’s especially important to make sure your thesis statement accurately represents what you do in the essay. If your argument has gone in a different direction than planned, tweak your thesis statement to match what you actually say.

To polish your writing, you can use something like a paraphrasing tool .

You can use the checklist below to make sure your introduction does everything it’s supposed to.

Checklist: Essay introduction

My first sentence is engaging and relevant.

I have introduced the topic with necessary background information.

I have defined any important terms.

My thesis statement clearly presents my main point or argument.

Everything in the introduction is relevant to the main body of the essay.

You have a strong introduction - now make sure the rest of your essay is just as good.

• Argumentative
• Literary analysis

This introduction to an argumentative essay sets up the debate about the internet and education, and then clearly states the position the essay will argue for.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

This introduction to a short expository essay leads into the topic (the invention of the printing press) and states the main point the essay will explain (the effect of this invention on European society).

In many ways, the invention of the printing press marked the end of the Middle Ages. The medieval period in Europe is often remembered as a time of intellectual and political stagnation. Prior to the Renaissance, the average person had very limited access to books and was unlikely to be literate. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century allowed for much less restricted circulation of information in Europe, paving the way for the Reformation.

This introduction to a literary analysis essay , about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , starts by describing a simplistic popular view of the story, and then states how the author will give a more complex analysis of the text’s literary devices.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale. Arguably the first science fiction novel, its plot can be read as a warning about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, and in popular culture representations of the character as a “mad scientist”, Victor Frankenstein represents the callous, arrogant ambition of modern science. However, far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to gradually transform our impression of Frankenstein, portraying him in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

The “hook” is the first sentence of your essay introduction . It should lead the reader into your essay, giving a sense of why it’s interesting.

To write a good hook, avoid overly broad statements or long, dense sentences. Try to start with something clear, concise and catchy that will spark your reader’s curiosity.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

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