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Home » What’s happening in Lebanon?

What’s happening in Lebanon?

The New Neo Posted on by

There have been protests recently in Lebanon, and Prime Minister Saad Hariri has resigned as a result. What’s it all about?

Well, some is economics:

Lebanon, one of the most heavily indebted countries in the world, already was dealing with a severe fiscal crisis before the protests began, one rooted in years of heavy borrowing and expensive patronage networks run by entrenched political parties.

That sounds a bit…familiar. Elites, unresponsive to the people

A proposed tax on the WhatsApp messenger service, coming on the heels of a deeply unpopular austerity package, sent hundreds of thousands of people into the streets starting on Oct. 17 in the largest protests the country has seen in more than a decade.

Banks have remained closed since then, as protesters have packed public squares and blocked major thoroughfares, bringing the country to a halt in hopes of pressuring the government to resign.

The army reopened roads on Wednesday as the protesters stood down in the wake of their first victory, the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri the night before. The Association of Banks in Lebanon said banks would reopen Friday for the first time since the protests began…

“The cost the political elite have imposed on the Lebanese population is in billions of dollars of public theft and mismanagement of the economy,” said Sami Atallah, an economist who heads the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies…

The sectarian political system put in place after the civil war distributes political power and high offices to Lebanon’s various religious sects.

While it has kept the country from slipping back into armed conflict, it has transformed parties into political machines that maintain loyalty by distributing government jobs, contracts and other favors to supporters. The result is a bloated and costly public sector that struggles to provide even basic services like electricity, water and trash collection.

Basic services like electricity. Hmmm. California, anyone?

And to add to the California analogy (which granted, only involves certain aspects of the situation), we this little detail which will sound familiar, as well:

The trigger was a government proposal to impose a $6 monthly tax on WhatsApp users to raise funds following disastrous forest fires that burned thousands of acres…

The country is also facing electricity and water shortages, and has seen protests in the recent past over garbage pileup in cities.

That first article I linked mentioned the “sectarian political system put in place after the civil war” in Lebanon, but never described the details of that system. The second article explains it thusly:

Lebanon has a confessional system, which was introduced after the 1975-1990 civil war, in which a Christian will be President, a Sunni will be Prime Minister and a Shia Parliament Speaker. Roughly 54% of Lebanon population are Muslims (Shias and Sunnis make up 27% each), 40.5% Christians and 5% Druze.

Before that civil war, Lebanon had been one of the most religiously diverse countries in the Middle East and Beirut an international capital of some renown and influence. Then the tide began to turn:

Lebanon reached the peak of its economic success in the mid-1960s—the country was seen as a bastion of economic strength by the oil-rich Persian Gulf Arab states, whose funds made Lebanon one of the world’s fastest growing economies. This period of economic stability and prosperity was brought to an abrupt halt with the collapse of Yousef Beidas’ Intra Bank, the country’s largest bank and financial backbone, in 1966.

Additional Palestinian refugees arrived after the 1967 Arab–Israeli War. Following their defeat in the Jordanian civil war, thousands of Palestinian militiamen regrouped in Lebanon, led by Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization, with the intention of replicating the modus operandi of attacking Israel from a politically and militarily weak neighbour. Starting in 1968, Palestinian militants of various affiliations began to use southern Lebanon as a launching pad for attacks on Israel. Two of these attacks led to a watershed event in Lebanon’s inchoate civil war. In July 1968, a faction of George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked an Israeli El Al civilian plane en route to Algiers; in December, two PFLP gunmen shot at an El Al plane in Athens, resulting in the death of an Israeli.

As a result, two days later, an Israeli commando flew into Beirut’s international airport and destroyed more than a dozen civilian airliners belonging to various Arab carriers. Israel defended its actions by informing the Lebanese government that it was responsible for encouraging the PFLP. The retaliation, which was intended to encourage a Lebanese government crackdown on Palestinian militants, instead polarized Lebanese society on the Palestinian question, deepening the divide between pro- and anti-Palestinian factions, with the Muslims leading the former grouping and Maronites primarily constituting the latter. This dispute reflected increasing tensions between Christian and Muslim communities over the distribution of political power, and would ultimately foment the outbreak of civil war in 1975.

In the interim, while armed Lebanese forces under the Maronite-controlled government sparred with Palestinian fighters, Egyptian leader Gamal Abd al-Nasser helped to negotiate the 1969 “Cairo Agreement” between Arafat and the Lebanese government, which granted the PLO autonomy over Palestinian refugee camps and access routes to northern Israel in return for PLO recognition of Lebanese sovereignty. The agreement incited Maronite frustration over what were perceived as excessive concessions to the Palestinians, and pro-Maronite paramilitary groups were subsequently formed to fill the vacuum left by government forces, which were now required to leave the Palestinians alone. Notably, the Phalange, a Maronite militia, rose to prominence around this time, led by members of the Gemayel family…

For its part, the PLO used its new privileges to establish an effective “mini-state” in southern Lebanon, and to ramp up its attacks on settlements in northern Israel. Compounding matters, Lebanon received an influx of armed Palestinian militants, including Arafat and his Fatah movement, fleeing the 1970 Jordanian crackdown…The consequences of the PLO’s arrival in Lebanon continue to this day.

The main consequence was the civil war that just about destroyed Lebanon as a successful, functioning economy and diverse state. One of the consequences of all of this was the departure of many of the Christians of Lebanon. You may have noted that 40.5% Christian figure for present-day Lebanon, but all the population figures are suspect:

Lebanon has by far the largest proportion of Christians of any Middle Eastern country, but both Christians and Muslims are sub-divided into many splinter sects and denominations. Population statistics are highly controversial. The various denominations and sects each have vested interests in inflating their own numbers. Shias, Sunnis, Maronites and Greek Orthodox (the four largest denominations) all often claim that their particular religious affiliation holds a majority in the country, adding up to over 150% of the total population, even before counting the other denominations. One of the rare things that most Lebanese religious leaders will agree on is to avoid a new general census, for fear that it could trigger a new round of denominational conflict. The last official census was performed in 1932.

Religion has traditionally been of overriding importance in defining the Lebanese population. Dividing state power between the religious denominations and sects, and granting religious authorities judicial power, dates back to Ottoman times (the millet system). The practice was reinforced during French mandate, when Christian groups were granted privileges. This system of government, while partly intended as a compromise between sectarian demands, has caused tensions that still dominate Lebanese politics to this day.

The Christian population majority is believed to have ended in the early 1960s, but government leaders would agree to no change in the political power balance. This led to Muslim demands of increased representation…

I have read previously that the majority of civil war Lebanese refugees leaving the country were Christians, and that this changed the demographics of the country markedly. But the absence of reliable census figures makes it difficult or impossible to know.

At any rate, the country is a mess. Some of the causes of the mess are unique to Lebanon, and others represent trends common today in the world. What will happen as a result of the present upheaval? I doubt there will be a fundamental change for the better, but one can hope.

This, at least, is encouraging:

The resignation announcement Tuesday by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri could have been expected to please Hezbollah. After all, Hariri — the son of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, who was murdered by Hezbollah emissaries in 2005 — is a longtime foe of the terror group.

But in reality, the resignation — like the protests raging across the country, which prompted it — is causing Hezbollah’s top brass a serious headache…

Hezbollah’s negative response to the protests mainly stems from its fear that the unrest gripping Lebanon since October 17 will spiral still further out of control. Criticism of Hariri is one thing, and is welcome as far as the terror group is concerned. But changing the regime system is another thing entirely, and could cause severe tension between the different ethnic and religious groups and potentially even far more violent confrontations.

Hezbollah is comfortable with the status quo and with the current failing system. It manages to rule the country even without its members serving as prime minister or president. It controls the Lebanese army even though the chief of staff is Christian, and it sets the country’s foreign and domestic policies, while leveraging the inter-religious divide to maintain its power.

Hezbollah is of course the Iranian-backed terror group, and if they’re worried it sounds like it could be a good thing.

Comments

What’s happening in Lebanon? — 19 Comments

  1. Most cogent comment on Lebanon I’ve seen: No monetary bailout for Lebanon until after Hezbollah disarms of its weaponry”.

    Which means practically, no bailout.

    But China will offer to step in, right?

  2. There was a time when I looked to Michael Totten for an understanding of Lebanese politics. He lived there for a couple of years and interviewed some of the major political figures, including leaders of Hezbollah.

    Sadly, Totten became entrenched in never-Tumpism, and then devoted himself to writing zombie novels. For himself, a tragic loss. For those seeking a sane voice, a loss as well. RIP.

  3. OT:
    I saw on TV tonight that various groups within Syria are starting peace talks at the UN. I certainly have no idea what will happen, but it seems like Trump’s let them figure it out for themselves message may have done some good. Of course, Trump was mentioned in the report, but the UN was. I don’t remember which channel this was on.

  5. expat:

    Could be it’s not so much that the Syrians will “figure it out for themselves”, but that Russia will — see this piece: “Russia-backed Syria constitution talks begin in Geneva”:

    Foreign ministers from Russia, Iran and Turkey were in Geneva on Tuesday night to meet negotiators, even though Pedersen [UN special envoy] had asked all countries to stay away and leave the talks as an exclusively “Syrian owned, Syrian led process”. The three countries put out a joint statement before the opening, welcoming the committee they helped to create and insisting no external timetable should be imposed upon its work.

    But in a sign of Russia’s influence, the government and some of the opposition delegation arrived in Geneva on a Russian-chartered plane. …

    Previous Syria peace talks in Geneva foundered over a Russian unwillingness to press the negotiating team of President Bashar al-Assad to engage, but the current process is a largely Russian construct, and the most senior Russian diplomat on Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, has been preparing the ground.

  6. Re Michael Totten: It seems that the World Affairs Journal (Totten et al.) closed down after James Denton, its founder (IIRC) and President died last year. There’s an obit by Joshua Muravchik.

    The last capture of the site — http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org — is from 3/19/19. (3/10/19 is the date of last capture of the normal format for the site.) After that, there are 404 Not Found Errors.

    The last publications of W.A.F. were posted on Aug. 3, 2018.

    .

    Cornflour, thanks for your comment above on Mr. Totten. Very sad.

  7. Yes. I’m capable of talking about Lebanon without making wiseacre jokes about girls liking girls.

    For such a small country Lebanon has, in my experience, a long reach. I experienced my first brush with terrorists back in 1982 when the bastards blew up the Marine barracks. They weren’t Lebanese.

    Just like Jussie Smollett who found hate in such short supply he had to hire Nigerians to be white supremacists.

    $3,500? For two? I’ll commit a hate crime. But it’s going to cost you, gay black man, a lot more than that. And I still won’t actually hate you.

    At the prices I’m thinking of I’ll probably like you a lot.

  8. I should be more careful. I’ve met some of the troglodytes who work at NSA. No sense of humor. Now I’m on the intel community’s short list.

    And I’m one of them.

  10. Basic services like electricity. Hmmm. California, anyone?

    And to add to the California analogy (which granted, only involves certain aspects of the situation), we this little detail which will sound familiar, as well:

    The trigger was a government proposal to impose a $6 monthly tax on WhatsApp users to raise funds following disastrous forest fires that burned thousands of acres…

    The country is also facing electricity and water shortages, and has seen protests in the recent past over garbage pileup in cities. …”

    Gee what’s next? No more freelance writers on contracts? How dare you try and escape the net! Everybody gotta be da employee of someone. You want your lawn raked? Looks like you have just adopted a new child or acquired a state appointed tarbaby you cannot easily shake.

    This is the Marxist mindset. They stick like glue to whoever has the misfortune of brushing up against their worthless carcasses.

  12. Tony Badran, Hudson Institute: Hezbollah’s Agenda in Lebanon

    Conclusion

    Everything for Hezbollah—society, culture, economy, politics, alliances, media—is in the service of the totalitarian vision of the “Resistant Society.” That conceptual universe is tied to vilayat-e-faqih and the Islamic Revolution. Hezbollah uses the ambiguity of its hybrid nature to tactically navigate towards its strategic goals without having to abandon any of its options. This is what the Syrians managed to do in Lebanon in the 1990s—to have their cake and eat it too, affording Hezbollah the same.

    If we are to believe Naim Qassem, Hezbollah cannot be anything else and remain Hezbollah. As such, the Iranian-sponsored group will continue to pose a challenge to Israel, although Israel is well equipped to deal with it. The challenge is far more severe, and perhaps fatal for Lebanon. Lebanon’s system—dysfunctional as it may be—has prevented the rise of an indigenous totalitarian regime. But the challenge Hezbollah poses is new in certain key respects. The experience of the Palestinian “Fateh Land,” parallel state of resistance in the 1970s led to war. This may well be in store once again for Lebanon. Hezbollah, by its very nature and platform, will prevent the rise of a normal, independent, peaceful state in Lebanon and will continue to be a source of instability for its security, its system, and its citizenry—all talk of “Lebanonization” notwithstanding.

  14. What’s happening in Syria?

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/10/29/strategic-shift-in-u-s-syria-posture-armor-and-rumors-of-armor/

    Strategic shift in U.S. Syria posture: Armor and rumors of armor
    By J.E. Dyer October 29, 2019
    Last week, a series of reports indicated that the U.S. intends to move a relatively small contingent of armored force into Syria. Although it ultimately wasn’t clear what the force would consist of, Abrams main battle tanks and armored personnel carriers (for mechanized infantry) were discussed.

    Shaking the various reports out, they seem to indicate a task-organized company-size contingent, likely to include tanks, to be deployed at a gas field in eastern Syria near Deir-ez-Zor.
    …
    But note that this stake-driving signal in Syria is being floated at the same time the U.S. is sending a plus-up of air defense and surveillance assets to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states. In that context, it looks even more like a deterrence move against Iran.

    While this development is not not about the oil and gas infrastructure – it can be about that, viewed through a certain prism – it is always well to remember what we have discussed before: that militarizing landscapes makes fighting over them more likely. The aspirations of the radical regime in Tehran are forcing a rapid, unprecedented militarization of the vast, inhospitable interior of western Iraq, northern Saudi Arabia, and southeastern Syria. Technology and the modern basis for frequent human contact are now such that there is no foreseeing de-militarization of this region in the future.

  15. Cornflour –

    I was friends with Michael Totten and his wife here in Portland, and we used to go have coffee and discuss whether he should uproot his life to live in Beirut in order to further his career as a journalist. He respected my opinion because I had published novels and been a regular for some years at the LA Times. I told him to go, to take the chance, and of course this worked out very well for him for some time.

    Unfortunately, our friendship suffered because we were so long apart, and although I was interested in anything he wrote about the Mideast he gradually developed the habit of employing the conversation-stopping “I’ve been there and you have not” to have the last word in any debate.

    Meanwhile, he’d always been interested in writing science-fiction. So far I haven’t felt the need to read any of his output there.

  16. The view from the Left on Trump’s new moves in Syria:

    https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trumps-baffling-plan-to-pillage-syrias-oil

    Trump’s Baffling Plan to Pillage Syria’s Oil
    By Robin Wright1:03 P.M.

    President Trump dropped a stunner during his rambling press conference, on Sunday, after announcing the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State leader, in a U.S. raid. In a major policy flip-flop, the President said that he is not only keeping American forces in Syria to “secure” its oil fields, he is willing to go to war over them. “We may have to fight for the oil. It’s O.K.,” he said. “Maybe somebody else wants the oil, in which case they have a hell of a fight. But there’s massive amounts of oil.” The United States, he added, should be able to take some of Syria’s oil. “What I intend to do, perhaps, is make a deal with an ExxonMobil or one of our great companies to go in there and do it properly,” he said. The goal would be to “spread out the wealth.”

    The President was wrong on so many counts.
    …
    After isis seized a third of Syrian territory, in 2014, oil became the financial lifeblood for the isis caliphate. “Syrian oil took on global interest when it became a machine for generating revenue for isis,” Yergin said. As the caliphate collapsed, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces took over running the fields. Oil revenues supported its military and civilian programs.

    As justification for redeploying U.S. forces, Trump cited the need to prevent isis from returning to the resource-rich area. “We’re securing it for a couple of reasons,” he said. “No. 1, it stops isis, because isis got tremendous wealth from that oil. We have taken it. It’s secured.” The other reason is that it helps America’s Kurdish allies. “They were able to live with that oil,” he added.
    …
    The Administration may have unspoken ancillary goals in its decision to keep some U.S. troops in Syria. Having physical control over the oil fields could give the U.S.—and its allies—leverage down the road with the Syrian regime and its allies Russia and Iran, Landis said. “It would keep Russia weak and Iran weak in the Middle East, as their client state wouldn’t be able to rebuild—and therefore they would not be able to ‘win.’ ” On Saturday, Russia’s Defense Ministry charged that “what Washington is doing now, the seizure and control of oil fields in eastern Syria under its armed control, is, quite simply, international state banditry.”
    …
    Trump’s original decision to withdraw U.S. troops had weakened its leverage and forced the S.D.F. to turn to Damascus for help. With Graham’s nudge, Trump may be trying to regain the U.S. position—as much over Russia and Iran as over Syria.

    The President was correct in identifying the ongoing threat from isis. The terrorist group still has thousands of fighters waging a deadly insurgency—of assassinations and suicide bombings—in both Syria and Iraq. But the jihadist movement is not strong enough to retake and run Syria’s oil fields, U.S. officials and Middle East experts told me. It would first need to reëstablish its pseudo-caliphate over a vast swathe of Syria. Trump’s sudden interest in Syria’s measly oil seems odd on multiple levels. After repeatedly pledging to withdraw American troops from “endless wars” in the Middle East, the President is now pledging a new fight, if necessary, over Syria’s meagre oil. His words will resonate across a region where America’s commitment has long seemed tied more to energy than political values.

    Shades of Halliburton and Darth Cheney!

    Some of those “unspoken ancillary goals” were, perhaps, vaguely acknowledged by Wright, but without giving them the primary emphasis (“Trump may be trying to regain the U.S. position—as much over Russia and Iran as over Syria”).
    Dyer gives them more weight (“But note that this stake-driving signal in Syria is being floated at the same time the U.S. is sending a plus-up of air defense and surveillance assets to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states. In that context, it looks even more like a deterrence move against Iran.”).
    Hmmm.
    Progressive pundit of international affairs, or Conservative intel analyst?
    You choose.

  17. Sen. Ted Cruz, twitter:

    Read @LindseyGrahamSC’s & my joint statement in response to reports that the administration will once again renew the civil nuclear waivers allowing Iran to build up areas of its nuclear program here ??

    “This is disappointing and another lost opportunity to tear up the catastrophic Obama Iran nuclear deal once for all. President Trump should immediately order his administration to stop issuing civil nuclear waivers. These waivers allow Iran to build up its nuclear program, including at their Fordow nuclear bunker, which they dug out of the side of a mountain to build nuclear weapons. Iran is now openly violating the nuclear deal and stockpiling dangerous nuclear material. There is no justification for letting them continue to build up their program. We intend to work with our Congressional colleagues to advance legislation to reverse this misguided decision.”

    An actual national security matter, as over against the crap Democrats occupy the Intel Committee with.

  18. Tony Badran, Foundation for Defense of Democracies: Lebanon is a basket case run by a terror group: don’t fund it

    There is a longstanding conceit in Washington and in Europe that Lebanon must be “saved” — an impulse undiminished by the fact the country is dominated by Hezbollah, and serves as a hub for its operations and criminal enterprise. However, a basket case run by a terror group cannot be treated like a normal state.

    For the United States, the conclusion ought to be clear: the claims that Washington should back off its sanctions policy lest Lebanon break, that instability would only benefit Hezbollah, and that the US should continue instead to invest in Lebanon’s “state institutions,” are deluded.

  19. sdferr on November 1, 2019 at 9:22 am said:
    Tony Badran, Foundation for Defense of Democracies: Lebanon is a basket case run by a terror group: don’t fund it
    * * *
    Following your link led me to looking up FDD’s founder, Clifford D. May, to refresh my memory about his partisan leanings. FDD claims to be a non-partisan think tank, but the articles currently listed at it’s website are Republican oriented, as is May’s vitae at Wikipedia, although he has worked with and written for Democrat publications (although that seems to have been before they outed themselves as rabid Leftists).

    A lot of May’s work is posted at Jewish News Services, for anyone interested in his oevre, but an excellent article on point for Lebanon was written by one of his colleagues.

    https://www.jns.org/opinion/is-lebanon-sliding-into-another-civil-war/

    IDF Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, a special analyst for the Middle East at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, was formerly Foreign Policy Adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Deputy Head for Assessment of Israeli Military Intelligence.

    Some articles are duplicated; all of the ones I read were very interesting, and included sufficient back-story for the infrequent news reader followed by cogent analysis and argument for May’s position (which I frequently agreed with even before reading his posts).

    https://www.jns.org/writers/clifford-d-may/
    https://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/clifford-d-may/

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