HISTORY
Lebanon is the historic home of the Phoenicians, Semitic traders whose
maritime culture flourished there for more than 2,000 years (c.2700-450
B.C.). In later centuries, Lebanon's mountains were a refuge for
Christians, and Crusaders established several strongholds there.
Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the
League of Nations mandated the five provinces that comprise present-day
Lebanon to France. Modern Lebanon's constitution, drawn up in 1926,
specified a balance of political power among the various religious
groups. The country gained independence in 1943, and French troops
withdrew in 1946. Lebanon participated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and
signed an armistice with Israel on March 23, 1949.
Lebanon's history since independence has been
marked by periods of political turmoil interspersed with prosperity
built on Beirut's position as a regional center for finance and trade.
In 1958, during the last months of President Camille Chamoun's term, an
insurrection broke out, and U.S. forces were briefly dispatched to
Lebanon in response to an appeal by the government. During the 1960s,
Lebanon enjoyed a period of relative calm and Beirut-focused tourism
and banking sector-driven prosperity. Other areas of the country,
however, notably the South, North, and Bekaa Valley, remained poor in
comparison.
In the early 1970's, difficulties arose over the
presence of Palestinian refugees, many of whom arrived after the 1967
Arab-Israeli war, the secret 1969 Cairo Agreement permitting the
establishment of Palestinian camps in Lebanon, and 1970 "Black
September" hostilities in Jordan. Among the 1970 arrivals were Yasser
Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Coupled with
the Palestinian problem, Muslim and Christian differences grew more
intense.
Beginning of the Civil War--1975-81
Full-scale civil war broke out in April 1975. After shots were fired at
a church, gunmen in Christian East Beirut ambushed a busload of
Palestinians. Palestinian forces joined predominantly leftist-Muslim
factions as the fighting persisted, eventually spreading to most parts
of the country and precipitating the Lebanese President's call for
support from Syrian troops in June 1976. In fall of 1976, Arab summits
in Riyadh and Cairo set out a plan to end the war. The resulting Arab
Deterrent Force, which included Syrian troops already present, moved in
to help separate the combatants. As an uneasy quiet settled over
Beirut, security conditions in the south began to deteriorate.
After a PLO attack on a bus in northern Israel and
Israeli retaliation that caused heavy casualties, Israel invaded
Lebanon in March 1978, occupying most of the area south of the Litani
River. In response, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 425
calling for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces and creating the
UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), charged with maintaining peace.
Israeli forces withdrew later in 1978, turning over positions inside
Lebanon along the border to their Lebanese ally, the South Lebanon Army
(SLA) under the leadership of Maj. Sa'ad Haddad, thus informally
setting up a 12-mile wide "security zone" to protect Israeli territory
from cross border attack.
U.S. Intervention--1982-84
An interim cease-fire brokered by the U.S. in 1981 among Syria, the
PLO, and Israel was respected for almost a year. Several incidents,
including PLO rocket attacks on northern Israel, as well as an
assassination attempt on the Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom,
led to the June 6, 1982 Israeli ground attack into Lebanon to remove
PLO forces. Operation "Peace for Galilee" aimed at establishing a
deeper security zone and pushing Syrian troops out of Lebanon, with a
view toward paving the way for an Israeli-Lebanese peace agreement.
With these aims in mind, Israeli forces drove 25 miles into Lebanon,
moving into East Beirut with the support of Maronite Christian leaders
and militia.
In August 1982, U.S. mediation resulted in the
evacuation of Syrian troops and PLO fighters from Beirut. The agreement
also provided for the deployment of a multinational force composed of
U.S. Marines along with French and Italian units. A new President,
Bashir Gemayel, was elected with acknowledged Israeli backing. On
September 14, however, he was assassinated. The next day, Israeli
troops crossed into West Beirut to secure Muslim militia strongholds
and stood aside as Lebanese Christian militias massacred almost 800
Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Israel's
then-Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon was held indirectly responsible
for the massacre by the Kahane Commission and later resigned. With U.S.
backing, Amin Gemayel, chosen by the Lebanese parliament to succeed his
brother as President, focused anew on securing the withdrawal of
Israeli and Syrian forces. The multinational force returned.
On May 17, 1983, Lebanon, Israel, and the United
States signed an agreement on Israeli withdrawal that was conditioned
on the departure of Syrian troops. Syria opposed the agreement and
declined to discuss the withdrawal of its troops, effectively
stalemating further progress. In August 1983, Israel withdrew from the
Shuf (southeast of Beirut), thus removing the buffer between the Druze
and the Christian militias and triggering another round of brutal
fighting. By September, the Druze had gained control over most of the
Shuf, and Israeli forces had pulled out from all but the southern
security zone, where they remained until May 2000. The virtual collapse
of the Lebanese Army in February 1984, following the defection of many
Muslim and Druze units to militias, was a major blow to the government.
With the U.S. Marines looking ready to withdraw, Syria and Muslim
groups stepped up pressure on Gemayal. On March 5, 1984 the Lebanese
Government canceled the May 17 agreement; the Marines departed a few
weeks later.
This period of chaos witnessed the beginning of
terrorist attacks launched against U.S. and Western interests. These
included the April 18, 1983 suicide attack at the U.S. Embassy in West
Beirut (63 dead), the bombing of the headquarters of U.S. and French
forces on October 23, 1983 (298 dead), the assassination of American
University of Beirut President Malcolm Kerr on January 18, 1984, and
the bombing of the U.S. Embassy annex in East Beirut on September 20,
1984 (9 dead).
It also saw the rise of radicalism among a small
number of Lebanese Muslim factions who believed that the successive
Israeli and U.S. interventions in Lebanon were serving primarily
Christian interests. It was from these factions that Hezbollah emerged
from a loose coalition of Shi'a groups. Hezbollah employed terrorist
tactics and was supported by Syria and Iran.
Worsening Conflict and Political Crisis--1985-89
Between 1985 and 1989, factional conflict worsened as various efforts
at national reconciliation failed. Heavy fighting took place in the
"War of the Camps" in 1985 and 1986 as the Shi'a Muslim Amal militia
sought to rout the Palestinians from Lebanese strongholds. The Amal
movement had been organized in mid-1975, at the beginning of the civil
war, to confront what were seen as Israeli plans to displace the
Lebanese population with Palestinians. (Its charismatic founder Imam
Musa Sadr disappeared in Libya three years later. Its current leader,
Nabih Berri, is the Speaker of the National Assembly.) The combat
returned to Beirut in 1987, with Palestinians, leftists, and Druze
fighters allied against Amal, eventually drawing further Syrian
intervention. Violent confrontation flared up again in Beirut in 1988
between Amal and Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, on the political front, Prime Minister
Rashid Karami, head of a government of national unity set up after the
failed peace efforts of 1984, was assassinated on June 1, 1987.
President Gemayel's term of office expired in September 1988. Before
stepping down, he appointed another Maronite Christian, Lebanese Armed
Forces Commanding General Michel Aoun, as acting Prime Minister,
contravening Lebanon's unwritten "National Pact," which required the
prime minister to be Sunni Muslim. Muslim groups rejected the move and
pledged support to Salim al-Hoss, a Sunni who had succeeded Karami.
Lebanon was thus divided between a Christian government in East Beirut
and a Muslim government in West Beirut, with no president.
In February 1989 Aoun attacked the rival Lebanese
Forces militia. By March he turned his attention to other militias,
launching what he termed a "War of Liberation" against the Syrians and
their Lebanese militia allies. In the months that followed, Aoun
rejected both the agreement that ultimately ended the civil war and the
election of another Christian leader as president. A Lebanese-Syrian
military operation in October 1990 forced him to take refuge in the
French Embassy in Beirut and later to go into a 15-year exile in Paris.
After Syrian troop withdrawal, Aoun returned to Lebanon on May 7, 2005
and won a seat in the 2005 parliamentary elections. His Free Patriotic
Movement became a principal element of the pro-Syrian opposition bloc.
End of the Civil War--1989-91
The Ta'if Agreement of 1989 marked the beginning of the end of the war.
In January of that year, a committee appointed by the Arab League,
chaired by Kuwait and including Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Morocco, had
begun to formulate solutions to the conflict, leading to a meeting of
Lebanese parliamentarians in Ta'if, Saudi Arabia, where they agreed to
the national reconciliation accord in October. Returning to Lebanon,
they ratified the agreement on November 4 and elected Rene Moawad as
President the following day. Moawad was assassinated in a car bombing
in Beirut on November 22 as his motorcade returned from Lebanese
Independence Day ceremonies. Elias Hrawi, who remained in office until
1998, succeeded him.
In August 1990, parliament and the new President
agreed on constitutional amendments embodying some of the political
reforms envisioned at Ta'if. The National Assembly expanded to 128
seats and was divided equally between Christians and Muslims (with
Druze counted as Muslims). In March 1991, parliament passed an amnesty
law that pardoned all political crimes prior to its enactment. The
amnesty was not extended to crimes perpetrated against foreign
diplomats or certain crimes referred by the cabinet to the Higher
Judicial Council. In May 1991, the militias (with the important
exception of Hezbollah and Palestinian militias) were dissolved, and
the Lebanese Armed Forces began to slowly rebuild itself as Lebanon's
only major nonsectarian institution.
In all, it is estimated that more than 100,000
were killed, and another 100,000 left handicapped, during Lebanon's
16-year civil war. Up to one-fifth of the pre-war resident population,
or about 900,000 people, were displaced from their homes, of which
perhaps a quarter of a million emigrated permanently. The last of the
Western hostages taken during the mid-1980s were released in May 1992.
Postwar Reconstruction--1992 to 2005
Postwar social and political instability, fueled by economic
uncertainty and the collapse of the Lebanese currency, led to the
resignation of Prime Minister Omar Karami in May 1992, after less than
2 years in office. Former Prime Minister Rashid al Sulh, who was widely
viewed as a caretaker to oversee Lebanon's first parliamentary
elections in 20 years, replaced him.
By early November 1992, a new parliament had been
elected, and Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri had formed a cabinet,
retaining for himself the finance portfolio. The formation of a
government headed by a successful billionaire businessman was widely
seen as a sign that Lebanon would make a priority of rebuilding the
country and reviving the economy. Solidere, a private real estate
company set up to rebuild downtown Beirut, was a symbol of Hariri's
strategy to link economic recovery to private sector investment. After
the election of then-commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces Emile
Lahoud in 1998, following Hrawi's extended term as President, Salim
al-Hoss again served as Prime Minister. Hariri returned to office as
Prime Minister in November 2000. Although problems with basic
infrastructure and government services persist, and Lebanon is now
highly indebted, much of the civil war damage was repaired throughout
the country, and many foreign investors and tourists returned.
In early April 1996, Israel conducted a military
operation dubbed "Grapes of Wrath" in response to Hezbollah's continued
launching of rockets at villages in northern Israel. The 16-day
operation caused hundreds of thousands of civilians in south Lebanon to
flee their homes. On April 18, Hezbollah fired mortars at an Israeli
military unit from a position near the UN compound at Qana, and the
Israeli Army responded with artillery fire. Several Israeli shells
struck the compound, killing 102 civilians sheltered there. In the
"April Understanding" concluded on April 26, Israel and Hezbollah
committed themselves to avoid targeting civilians and using populated
areas to launch attacks. The Israel-Lebanon Monitoring Group (ILMG),
co-chaired by France and the United States, with Syria, Lebanon, and
Israel all represented, was set up to implement the Understanding and
assess reports of violations. ILMG ceased operations following the May
2000 Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon.
On May 23, 2000, the Israeli military carried out
a total withdrawal of Israeli troops from the south and the Bekaa
Valley, effectively ending 22 years of occupation. The SLA collapsed
and about 6,000 SLA members and their families fled the country,
although more than 3,000 had returned by November 2003. The military
court tried all of the SLA operatives who remained in the country and
the average sentence handed down was 1-year imprisonment.
On June 16, 2000, the UN Security Council adopted
the report of the Secretary General verifying Israeli compliance with
UN Security Council Resolution 425 (1978) and the withdrawal of Israeli
troops to their side of the demarcated Lebanese-Israeli line of
separation (the "Blue Line") mapped out by UN cartographers. (The
international border between Lebanon and Israel is still to be
determined in the framework of a peace agreement.) In August 2000, the
Government of Lebanon deployed over 1,000 police and soldiers to the
former security zone, but Hezbollah also maintained observation posts
and conducted patrols along the Blue Line. While Lebanon and Syria
initially agreed to respect the Blue Line, both since have registered
objections and continue to argue that Israel has not fully withdrawn
from Lebanese soil. As regional tension escalated with the Palestinian intifada
in September 2000, Hezbollah cited Blue Line discrepancies when it
reengaged Israel on October 7, taking three Israeli soldiers captive in
an area known as Sheba'a Farms. (In 2001, the Israeli Government
declared the three soldiers were believed to be dead.) Sheba'a Farms, a
largely unpopulated area just south of the Blue Line opposite the
Lebanese town of Sheba'a, was captured by Israel when it occupied
Syria's Golan Heights in 1967. The Lebanese Government has repeatedly
laid claim to the area since shortly before Israel's general
withdrawal. Meanwhile, the Syrian Government has verbally stated that
the Sheba'a Farms tract is Lebanese, but, as with the rest of the
Lebanon-Syria border, has been unwilling to commit to a formal border
demarcation in the area. As a result of secret mediation by the German
Government, Israel released a number of Lebanese prisoners held by
Israel in early 2004 in exchange for Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli
reservist abducted by Hezbollah in late 2000.
In January 2000 the government took action against
Sunni Muslim extremists in the north who had attacked its soldiers, and
it continues to act against groups such as Asbat al-Ansar, which has
been linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, and other
extremists. On January 24, 2002, Elie Hobeika, a former Lebanese Forces
figure associated with the Sabra and Shatila massacres and who later
served in three cabinets and the parliament, was assassinated in a car
bombing in Beirut.
A September 2004 vote by the Chamber of Deputies
to amend the constitution to extend President Lahoud's term in office
by 3 years amplified the question of Lebanese sovereignty and the
continuing Syrian presence. The vote was clearly taken under Syrian
pressure, exercised in part through Syria's military intelligence
service, whose chief in Lebanon had acted as a virtual proconsul for
many years. Syria, which views Lebanon as part of its own territory,
has not signed a boundary agreement with Lebanon and does not have
normal diplomatic relations with Lebanon. The UN Security Council
expressed its concern over the situation by passing Resolution 1559,
also in September 2004, which called for withdrawal of all remaining
foreign forces from Lebanon, disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese
and non-Lebanese militias, the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces
throughout the country, and a free and fair electoral process in the
presidential election.
Syrian Withdrawal--2005
Former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, who had resisted Syria's effort to
secure Lahoud's extension, and 19 others were assassinated in Beirut by
a car bomb on February 14, 2005. The assassination spurred massive
protests in Beirut and international pressure that led to the
withdrawal of the remaining Syrian military troops from Lebanon on
April 26. In the months that followed Hariri's assassination,
journalist Samir Qassir, Lebanese politician George Hawi, and
journalist Gebran Tueni were murdered by car bombs, and Defense
Minister Elias Murr and journalist May Chidiac narrowly avoided a
similar fate when they were targeted with car bombs. The UN
International Independent Investigative Commission (UNIIIC) headed by
Detlev Mehlis began an investigation of Hariri's assassination and
related crimes, beginning with the October 2004 attempt to assassinate
Communications Minister Marwan Hamadeh. Serge Brammertz took over the
investigation at the beginning of 2006. In December 2006, the Lebanese
Cabinet approved an agreement with the UN Security Council to create a
Special Tribunal of international character which will be responsible
for trying those who may be indicted as a result of the investigation.
President Lahoud, Parliament Speaker Berri, and the Shia ministers who
resigned from Lebanon's cabinet in November 2006 do not recognize the
cabinet's decision on this matter, however.
Parliamentary elections were held May 29-June 19,
2005 and the anti-Syrian opposition led by Sa'ad Hariri, Rafiq Hariri's
son, won a majority of 72 seats (out of 128). Hariri ally and former
Finance Minister Fouad Siniora was named Prime Minister and Nabih Berri
was reelected as Speaker of Parliament. Parliament approved the first
"made-in-Lebanon" cabinet in almost 30 years on July 30. The
ministerial statement of the new cabinet (which included two Hezbollah
ministers), a summary of the new government's agenda and priorities,
focused on political and economic reform, but also endorsed Hezbollah's
right to possess military weapons to carry out a "national resistance"
against the perceived Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory.
Hezbollah forces continued to launch sporadic
military strikes on Israeli forces, drawing responses that produced
casualties on both sides and, on two occasions in 2001, Israeli air
strikes on Syrian radar sites in Lebanon. Israel continues to violate
Lebanese sovereignty by conducting overflights of Lebanese territory
north of the Blue Line. UNIFIL has recorded numerous violations of the
Blue Line by both sides since the Israeli withdrawal. In general,
however, the level of violence along the Israeli-Lebanon front
decreased dramatically from May 2000 until mid-2006.
War with Israel--2006
On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah guerillas crossed into Israel, killed three
Israeli soldiers, and kidnapped two others, precipitating a war with
Israel. Israeli air strikes hit Hezbollah positions in the south and
strategic targets throughout Lebanon, and Israeli ground forces ground
forces moved against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah resisted
the ground attack and fired thousands of rockets at civilian targets in
Israel. By the time the war ended, on Aug. 14, an estimated 1200
Lebanese civilians and hundreds of Hezbollah fighters had died, along
with 119 Israeli military and 43 Israeli civilians. UN Security Council
Resolution 1701, which ended the war, provided for a ceasefire, Israeli
withdrawal and lifting of blockades, disarming of Hezbollah and other
militias, and a ban on unauthorized weapons transfers into Lebanon.
UNSCR 1701 also significantly strengthened UNIFIL's mandate and
authorized its enlargement from about 2,000 initially up to a maximum
of 15,000. Bolstered by UNIFIL, which by the beginning of 2007 had more
than 11,000 personnel, the Lebanese Armed Forces deployed to southern
Lebanon and the border with Israel for the first time in almost four
decades.
The war temporarily or permanently displaced
roughly one-fourth of Lebanon's population, and caused enormous damage
to homes, businesses, and infrastructure. The country, which was
already seriously indebted, suffered roughly $5 billion in damages and
financial losses. The international community provided massive
humanitarian relief, plus substantial aid for economic reconstruction
and reform, with $940 million in aid pledged at an August 31, 2006
donors conference in Stockholm and $7.6 billion in pledges announced at
a Paris conference January 25, 2007. Aid pledged in Paris was to be
coordinated with the Lebanese Government's program for fiscal and
economic reform.
Although Syria withdrew its military forces from
Lebanon, intelligence assets remained, and Syria continues to have a
strong influence in Lebanese politics. In November 2006, as Siniora's
cabinet neared approval of the Hariri tribunal, pro-Syrian ministers,
including all the Shi'ite ministers, withdrew from the cabinet. Led by
Hezbollah, pro-Syrian forces began months of massive demonstrations,
sit-ins, and occasional violence with the aim of either paralyzing or
bringing down the cabinet. Minister of Industry Pierre Gemayel, son of
ex-president Amin Gemayel, was assassinated November 21.
POLITICAL
CONDITIONS
Lebanese political institutions often play a secondary role to highly
confessionalized personality-based politics. Powerful families also
still play an independent role in mobilizing votes for both local and
parliamentary elections. Nonetheless, a lively panoply of domestic
political parties, some even predating independence, still exists. The
largest are all confessional based. The Phalange, National Bloc,
National Liberal Party, Lebanese Forces and Free Patriotic Movement
(FPM) are overwhelmingly Christian parties. Amal and Hezbollah are the
main rivals for the organized Shi'a vote, and the PSP (Progressive
Socialist Party) is the leading Druze party. In the recent
parliamentary elections, an anti-Syrian opposition coalition ("March
14") emerged, led by Sa'ad Hariri's predominantly Sunni Future Movement
and allied with Druze leader Jumblatt, the Qornet Shehwan coalition of
center-right Christian politicians, Samir Geagea's mostly Maronite
Lebanese Forces, and Elias Attallah's Democratic Left secular movement.
In addition to domestic parties, there are branches of pan-Arab secular
parties (Ba'ath, socialist and communist parties) that were active in
the 1960s and throughout the period of civil war.
There are differences both between and among
Muslim and Christian parties regarding the role of religion in state
affairs. There is a very high degree of political activism among
religious leaders across the sectarian spectrum. The interplay for
position and power among the religious, political, and party leaders
and groups produces a political tapestry of extraordinary complexity.
In the past, the system worked to produce a viable
democracy. The civil war resulted in greater segregation across the
confessional spectrum. Whether in political parties, places of
residence, schools, media outlets, even workplaces, there is a lack of
regular interaction across sectarian lines to facilitate the exchange
of views and promote understanding.
Some Christians favor political and administrative
decentralization of the government, with separate Muslim and Christian
sectors operating within the framework of a confederation. Muslims, for
the most part, prefer a unified, central government with an enhanced
share of power commensurate with their larger share of the population.
The trajectory of the Ta'if Agreement points towards a non-confessional
system, but there has been no real movement in this direction in the
decade and a half since Ta'if.
Palestinian refugees, predominantly Sunni Muslims,
who numbered 405,525 in 2006 according to UNWRA, are not active on the
domestic political scene. Nonetheless, they constitute an important
minority whose naturalization/settlement in Lebanon is vigorously
opposed by most Lebanese, who see them as a threat to Lebanon's
delicate confessional balance. During 2002, parliament enacted
legislation banning Palestinians from owning property in Lebanon. The
Labor Ministry opened up professions previously closed to Palestinians
in June 2005. The number of recent Iraqi refugees numbers in the tens
of thousands and is believed to be growing.
ECONOMY
Lebanon has a free-market economy and a strong laissez-faire commercial
tradition. The Lebanese economy is service-oriented; main growth
sectors include banking and tourism. According to the Lebanese Ministry
of Economy and Trade, Lebanon posted 5% real growth in 2004, with
inflation running at 3%. There are no restrictions on foreign exchange
or capital movement, and bank secrecy is strictly enforced. Lebanon has
adopted a law to combat money laundering. There are practically no
restrictions on foreign investment; however, the investment climate
suffers from red tape, corruption, arbitrary licensing decisions, high
taxes, tariffs, and fees, archaic legislation, and a lack of adequate
protection of intellectual property. There are no country-specific U.S.
trade sanctions against Lebanon.
Lebanon embarked on a massive reconstruction
program in 1992 to rebuild the country's physical and social
infrastructure devastated by both the long civil war (1975-90) and the
Israeli occupation of the south (1978-2000). In addition, the delicate
social balance and the near-dissolution of central government
institutions during the civil war handicapped the state as it sought to
capture revenues to fund the recovery effort. Monetary stabilization
coupled with high interest rate policies aggravated the debt service
burden, leading to a substantial rise in budget deficits. Thus, the
government accumulated significant debt, which by 2005 had reached $36
billion, or 185% of GDP. Unemployment is estimated at 18% officially,
but in the absence of reliable statistics, some estimate it could be as
high as 20-25%.
The government also has maintained a firm
commitment to the Lebanese pound, which has been pegged to the dollar
since September 1999. The government passed an Investment Development
Law as well as laws for the privatization of the telecom and the
electricity sector, signed the Euro-Med Partnership Agreement with the
European Union (EU) in March 2003, and is working toward accession to
the World Trade Organization (WTO). In order to increase revenues, the
government introduced a 10% value added tax (VAT) that became
applicable in February 2002 and a 5% tax that became applicable in
February 2003.
Plagued by mounting indebtedness, Lebanon
submitted a comprehensive program on its financing needs at the Paris
II donors conference in November 2002 and succeeded in attracting
pledges totaling $4.4 billion, including $3.1 billion to support fiscal
adjustment and $1.2 billion to support economic development projects.
Despite the substantial aid it had received, the government made little
progress on its reform program, and by 2006, even before the war, the
debt problem had grown worse. After the war, $940 million in relief and
early reconstruction aid was pledged to Lebanon August 31, 2006 at a
donors conference in Stockholm, and an additional $7.6 billion in
assistance for reconstruction and economic stabilization was pledged
January 25, 2007 at the International Conference for Support to
Lebanon, "Paris III". Unlike the Paris II aid, much of the Paris III
aid was to be contingent on Lebanon's meeting agreed benchmarks in
implementing its proposed five-year economic and social reform program.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to initiate a
Post-Conflict Program and to assign a team to Lebanon to provide
technical assistance, to monitor the progress of reforms, and to advise
donors on the timing of aid delivery.
The U.S. enjoys a strong exporter position with
Lebanon, generally ranking as Lebanon's fifth-largest source of
imported goods. More than 160 offices representing U.S. businesses
currently operate in Lebanon. Since the lifting of the passport
restriction in 1997 (see below), a number of large U.S. companies have
opened branch or regional offices, including Microsoft, American
Airlines, Coca-Cola, FedEx, UPS, General Electric, Parsons Brinkerhoff,
Cisco, Eli Lilly, and Pepsi Cola.
FOREIGN
RELATIONS
The foreign policy of Lebanon reflects its geographic location, the
composition of its population, and its reliance on commerce and trade.
Lebanon's foreign policy has been heavily influenced by neighboring
Syria, which has also long influenced Lebanon's internal policies as
well. Reflecting lingering feelings in Syria that Lebanon was unjustly
separated from Syria by European powers, Syria and Lebanon have never
formally agreed on their mutual boundaries, and, rather than having
normal diplomatic relations, the two countries are linked by a Higher
Council for Bilateral Relations. Syria has no embassy or equivalent
office in Beirut, while Lebanon has an "Interest Office" in Damascus.
The framework for relations was first codified in May 1991, when
Lebanon and Syria signed a treaty of mutual cooperation. This treaty
came out of the Ta'if Agreement, which stipulated "Lebanon is linked to
Syria by distinctive ties deriving strength from kinship, history, and
common interests." The Lebanese-Syria treaty calls for "coordination
and cooperation between the two countries" that would serve the
"interests of the two countries within the framework of sovereignty and
independence of each." Numerous agreements on political, economic,
security, and judicial affairs have followed over the years. Syria
maintained troops in Lebanon from 1976 until 2005; however, even
after the withdrawal of Syria's military troops, it is believed to have
maintained intelligence assets in Lebanon. In any case, Syrian
influence in Lebanese politics remains strong.
Lebanon, like most Arab states, does not recognize
Israel, with which it has been technically at war since Israel's
establishment. Lebanon participated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and
despite the 1948 Lebanon-Israel armistice, Lebanon's lack of control
over the border region resulted in repeated border hostilities,
initiated mainly by Palestinian exile groups from 1968 to 1982 and
later by Hezbollah. These attacks led to Israeli counterattacks,
including a 1978 invasion, a 1982 invasion and occupation which ended
in 2000, and the 2006 war. Lebanon did not participate in the 1967 or
1973 Arab-Israeli wars, nor in the 1991 Gulf War. The success of the
latter created new opportunities for Middle East peacemaking. In
October 1991, under the sponsorship of the United States and the
then-Soviet Union, Middle East peace talks were held in Madrid, Spain,
where Israel and a majority of its Arab neighbors conducted direct
bilateral negotiations to seek a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace
based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 (and 425 on
Lebanon) and the concept of "land for peace." Lebanon, Jordan, Syria,
and representatives of the Palestinians continued negotiating until the
Oslo interim peace accords were concluded between Israel and the
Palestinians in September 1993 and Jordan and Israel signed an
agreement in October 1994. In March 1996, Syria and Israel held another
round of Madrid talks; the Lebanon track did not convene. Lebanon has
repeatedly called for a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian problem as
a prerequisite to peace with Israel.
Lebanon concluded negotiations on an association
agreement with the European Union in late 2001, and both sides
initialed the accord in January 2002. Lebanon also has bilateral trade
agreements with several Arab states and is working toward accession to
the World Trade Organization. Aside from Syria, Lebanon enjoys good
relations with virtually all of the other Arab countries (despite
historic tensions with Libya, the Palestinians, and Iraq), and hosted
an Arab League Summit in March 2002 for the first time in more than 35
years. Lebanon also is a member of the Organization of Islamic
Conference and maintains a close relationship with Iran, largely
centered on Shi'a Muslim links. Lebanon is a member of the Francophone
countries and hosted the Francophone Summit in October 2002.
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