I was born on the 'Arab Riviera', a term you may hear today applied to Dubai, but which was a very real and accurate description of Lebanon in the 1950s and early 1960s. When I was a kid living in Syria and Jordan, we would go to Lebanon to enjoy the beautiful beaches and stay in a nice hotel - older folks went there for the nightclubs and casinos and ski resorts with a view of the ocean. I was born there because Beirut had the best, most modern hospital in the area, and it was a reasonable drive from Damascus.
It was a cosmopolitan, westernized, and affluent society. A third of the people were Christian, a third were Moslem, and a third were Jews or Druze or members of other strange sects, and they all got along with each other. The women dressed and looked like Sophia Loren, the men dressed like Danny Thomas and usually looked better. They drove Mercedes, drank martinis, and there wasn't a Kaftan or Hijab to be seen - except on wide-eyed tourists from the more backwards parts of the Arab world. This was Lebanon from about 1950 to 1967 - a brief renaissance for the Arab Riviera.
Then came the Six-Day-War, a war in which Lebanon was pointedly not a participant. Of all the surrounding Arab nations, they were the only one not to send troops or even provide logistical support for the attempted invasion of Israel. They stood by the peace they had negotiated with Israel after the Arab-Israeli war as they had for 18 years. But after the war Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their captured territory and over 100,000 of them ended up in southern Lebanon and over time their numbers grew to three times that many largely poor, unskilled, and angry refugees - a major administrative challenge even for an affluent nation like Lebanon.
This poor, displaced population was easy pickings for the promoters of both militant fundamentalist religion and militiant political ideologies. Pretty soon that population of Palestinian refugees became the powerbase for a succession of terrorist groups, starting when the socialists of Fatah and the PLO were kicked out of Jordan in 1970, and then continuing when they moved their main operations to the West Bank and the terrorist void was filled with the arrival of the Iranian-backed Shiite Hezbollah in 1982, accompanied by about a thousand of the Ayatollah's Revolutionary Guard which formed the nucleus of a very active terrorist organization.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - NASSERALLAH
long live for lebanese national resistance [hezollah],they are the one who liberated lebonan from the bloody israelie occupation,go go resistance,go go hezollah.
2 - Dean
Dave, you write:
“But after the [1967] war Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their captured territory and over 100,000 of them ended up in southern Lebanon … this poor, displaced population was easy pickings for the promoters of both militant fundamentalist religion and militant political ideologies…”
This is the source of the problem we have today… resulting in a “radicalizing force of terror”.
Yes, some of the “displaced population“ are behaving like animals.
The problem is when you treat people like animals, they behave like animals.
What else would you expect?
3 - Mohammed
Libanon becomes Israels ally was the stupidest thing I read in this post, een though almost everything was pretty stupid.
4 - RJ Elliott
Israel should pull out of Lebanon...and move into Syria instead...
5 - Christopher Rose
Nicely written stuff, Dave, thanks.
RJ: Indeed, but unlikely!
6 - Dean
Some animals are more equal than others.
7 - Lumpy
Mohammed. I read the post (unlike you) where does it say anything about Lebanon becoming Israel's ally? Or are you one of those people who just sees what he expects to see, be it there or not?
8 - Les Slater
The fact is that the garrison settler state of Israel exists. As long as it exists nobody will be safe.
9 - Peter J
Excellent article Dave,
I have to admit that I know very little about the entire situation in the middle east aside from the faction which has infected the land, and the ease at which innocent people, women and children alike, would be butchered, the country bastardized, ultimately in the name of 'god' or land.
It makes me wonder if it hasn't already gone so far that total annihilation is the inevitable peace.
Thanks for a first person view of a land I will never claim to understand.
10 - Dave Nalle
long live for lebanese national resistance [hezollah],they are the one who liberated lebonan from the bloody israelie occupation,go go resistance,go go hezollah.
Ok, that's just utter propagandistic bullshit, and I'm betting you know it and just posted it to stir up trouble. It wasn't Hezbollah marching in the streets of Beirut when Hariri was killed - he was likely killed by them or their Syrian allies. Hezbollah is part of the occupation which the protesters were objecting to.
Those people marching in the street were Lebanese, asserting themselves for the first time in decades, and claiming otherwise diminishes their accomplishments, which is pretty shameful when your objective is to glorify murderous invaders like Hezbollah.
Dave
11 - Dean
Where would the Middle East be today if UN Resolutions 242 and 338 had been enforced by the United States?
12 - Dave Nalle
Odd, there was a long and interesting comment here that I was about to respond to, but it seems to have disappeared. Maybe I have it in cache...
Dave
13 - Dean
The long and interesting comment in your cache is #11.
14 - Mark Schannon
Dave, it's too bad that your article, which I think is one of the best I've read on the situation, gets so distorted by the moronic ravings of some of the commenters here. That's the problem with writing anything--people only hear what they want to hear.
Les wants Israel destroyed. What possible reason or logic could break through that fundamentally anti-semetic wall of bigotry?
Mohamed--well, let's be generous and say that English is not his first language.
And Dean's lack of historical knowledge has created a solid barrier of bias that no reasoned approach can penetrate.
That being said, it's a great piece. I just wish people would read it without preconceptions and biases and ideology and understand what you were trying to say.
In Jameson Veritas
15 - Abdallah
This is a great article. Mohammad, I am a Palestinian. This is the Hizbollah achievements:
Sprading fear among Lebanese
Spreading hate and tarnishing Islam
Teaching barbaric and animal behavior to thier followers
Supporting Hamas, who has killed more Palestinians and terrorized us more than Israel ever will.
Using the Lebanese as human shields and causing Israel to bomb civilians,
And Oh, yes, getting a medal from the ignorance and anger of the Arabs who don;t have the backbone to see what their leaders are doing to them.
Good job Hizbollah...
16 - Dave Nalle
Abdallah. It's good to hear from a Palestinian with such a sensible viewpoint. I didn't see how I could address it in the same article, but my experience with Palestinians when I was a kid living in Jordan was very positive. They're good people too. They aren't as 'modern' as the Lebanese, perhaps, but they've been given a lot fewer opportunities, especially those under Israeli rule. Jordan is essentially a palestinian nation, and after Lebanon it's one of the most progressive nations in the region, despite being under a ridiculous amount of political and economic pressure.
Dave
17 - pleasexcusetheinteruption12
Thanks for the first hand article- very informative. My outlook on democracy for Lebanon was much more bleak. Very surprised to learn that Lebanon was only 1/3 Muslim. I looked up the current demographics and found 59% of the country is muslim, 39% is christian and only 1.3% other (which I am guessing is largely Jewish). I don't know what it was like 40 years ago, but where did the aproximately nearly 1 million Jews go from 1960-2000? Israel???
PETI
18 - Dave Nalle
Thanks for the first hand article- very informative. My outlook on democracy for Lebanon was much more bleak. Very surprised to learn that Lebanon was only 1/3 Muslim. I looked up the current demographics and found 59% of the country is muslim, 39% is christian and only 1.3% other (which I am guessing is largely Jewish). I don't know what it was like 40 years ago, but where did the aproximately nearly 1 million Jews go from 1960-2000? Israel???
Yes, lots of Lebanese Jews went to Israel. As for the population breakdown, Lebanon originally had a LOT more Christians than it does now - they went to the US and Europe in the 70s and 80s - and I wasn't counting the Druze and Yezidis as mainstream Moslems. Back in the 60s it was a third Sunni and a third Christian and a third other, mostly Jews and Druze. The Sunnis stayed and have been joined by some Shia, so though their numbers aren't much bigger they now make up a much larger percentage of the population.
Dave
19 - Dean
Mark Shannon says:
"And Dean's lack of historical knowledge has created a solid barrier of bias that no reasoned approach can penetrate."
Thanks for the specific critique.
With the amount of detail given here by Mark, all I can say is he is a man of few words.
His ability to get to an opinion without providing any rationale is remarkable.
All Mark wants is for his opinion to be taken on our faith in his great wisdom.
20 - Bird of Paradise
Dave, That long and interesting comment was from me. I don't know where it went, either. I double entered it so it appeared twice. Perhaps the blogexperts deleted them both by mistake? Hmmmm. I don't have a copy of it either. In any case I complemented you on your objective and accurate summary and added a few personal comments. In any case, Aloha
21 - Dave Nalle
Well then clearly it was a fine and intelligent comment - if it included compliments for me.
I hadn't had time to read through it all before it disappeared, unfortunately.
Dave
22 - Christopher Rose
BOP did indeed post twice and I deleted one copy. No idea what happened to the other one, I'm afraid.
23 - Bird of Paradise
[Comment restored by admin, originally posted by Bird of Paradise on July 30 @ 8:19pm]
Dave, Your post states what I believe to be one of the most objective, succinct and comprehensive descriptions that I have read concerning the tragedy that has befallen Lebanon over the past 30 years. Sadly, the 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 division of the population that gave Lebanon its unique and equitable form of government is long past. Many Lebanese Christians (who were the highly educated middle class) have fled to the United States. Their loss has decimated the economic stability of the country leaving a far greater dependence on investment and influence from conservative Arab/Muslim countries.
The immense growth of the Muslim population (especially Shia) has skewed this political teeter-totter completely out of balance. This, more than anything, accounts for the political strength and influence that Hezbollah now enjoys in spite of the bitter rejection of their imperialistic and colonial attitude toward the historic population of Lebanon (which includes yourself).
If Lebanon is ever again to enjoy the peace and stability it once had then it is a prerequisite that Hezbollah be both disarmed and disestablished as a representative political constituency of the national government.
How this can be accomplished without the military intervention of Israel is hard for me to see. Even much of the so-called Lebanese army is made up of Shia soldiers who will not find much enthusiasm for attacking and destroying the cancer of Hezbollah among their own people in the south and east.
The people of Lebanon are in my prayers every day. I have one good friend who (as an Ameircan Christian who had spent 20+ years in Lebanon bringing Muslim, Druze and Christian youth together to nurture dialogue, mutual understanding and respect) was kidnapped during the early years of the civil war and spent one year blindfolded and chained to a radiator somewhere out in the Bekaa Valley...held hostage by the forerunners of Hezbollah who were acting on behalf of Iran and, later, Syria as well.
While I also pray for the safety and future of the displaced Palestinians who remain in Lebanon and the families of the native and "imported" Shia in the south, I find that I must place the full weight of responsibility for their suffering on the shoulders of those so-called "leaders" of the PLO and Hezbollah who have used them as pawns and chattel for their own political ambitions.
24 - Dave Nalle
The immense growth of the Muslim population (especially Shia) has skewed this political teeter-totter completely out of balance. This, more than anything, accounts for the political strength and influence that Hezbollah now enjoys in spite of the bitter rejection of their imperialistic and colonial attitude toward the historic population of Lebanon (which includes yourself).
Well, since both my parents were American I'm not that historically Lebanese, just by accident of birth. Plus since I hit 18 during the period when the militias were slaughtering each other, I decided not to give dual citizenship a try.
To me the really troubling thing about the Shia presence in Lebanon is that it's completely artificial. They were moved in there by Iran and are nothing but invaders. And BTW, Iranians are volunteering in large numbers to go there and fight Israel in this current conflict.
If Lebanon is ever again to enjoy the peace and stability it once had then it is a prerequisite that Hezbollah be both disarmed and disestablished as a representative political constituency of the national government.
Not just that. They need to be removed. The Palestinians need to be sent to Jordan and the Iranians need to be sent back to Iran.
How this can be accomplished without the military intervention of Israel is hard for me to see. Even much of the so-called Lebanese army is made up of Shia soldiers who will not find much enthusiasm for attacking and destroying the cancer of Hezbollah among their own people in the south and east.
This is why I think a lot of people in Lebanon are secretly pretty happy to see Israel attacking Hezbollah so long as they don't attack major targets farther north.
Dave
25 - Richard Brodie
I think a lot of people in Lebanon are secretly pretty happy to see Israel attacking Hezbollah so long as they don't attack major targets farther north.
Very secretly - especially those whose children's charred and mangled bodies lie in the streets of Beirut next to bombed out apartment buildings.
The Lebanese now see that that Israel is bent on conducting a total war against its citizens. The Israeli genocide against Lebanon's civilian population has been made crystal clear by Generalissimo Halutz: “For every rocket we shall destroy ten high rise buildings in Beirut”