Lebanon

Lebanon, which used to be called “Switzerland of the East”, was devastated by a civil war which started on April 1, 175 and lasted for 16 years and 7 months. The impacts of this war are still present until these days.

In my paper, I’ll show that, in addition to Lebanese groups which were involved in the war, there were some external forces which played a major role in the Lebanese civil war. Every foreign group involved, had an agenda the Palestinians, Syrians and Israelis, not to mention the Americans whose troops were also sent in.

Before I start my proof, I would like to give a brief history of Lebanon prior to the civil war. Lebanon, which is multi-religious country, is mainly composed of Muslims and Christians. It’s one of the Arab countries, if not the only one, that has a relatively percentage of Christian population. It’s also considered to be the country of all Arabs where they could meet freely to exchange services and ideas, and communicate with the western world . However, the lack of national integrity, that most of the developing countries suffer from, including Lebanon, has cost this small country a huge price.

In 14, and after the end of French Mandate on Lebanon, the foundations of the state were set out in a National Covenant, which distributed the seats in the Chamber of Deputies on a ratio of 6 to 5 (6 for Christians and 5 for the Muslims). The Lebanese President is to be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies a Shiite Muslim. The distribution of seats was based on the 1 census which had shown that Christians were 54% of the total population .