Lebanon

Lebanon (Arabic: لبنان Lubnān), officially the Lebanese Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية اللبنانية), is a small, largely mountainous country in the Middle East, located at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Due to its sectarian diversity, Lebanon follows a special political system known as confessionalism, meant to distribute power as evenly as possible among different sects.^[1] The country enjoyed relative calm and prosperity, driven by the tourism, agriculture, and banking sectors of the economy,^[2] until the onset of wars beginning with the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) and continuing through recent conflicts like the 2006 Lebanon War. Its current head of government is Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

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Quotes

Darweesh: Why were they late until they killed him?
[Both laugh.]
Off-Screen Man: We are not gloaters.
Darweesh: It's not gloating, but we're tired of this. There's still Ahmed Fatfat, I'm counting them.
Off-Screen Man: We still need … four, five.
- Conversation between news anchor Darweesh and an off-screen man during a 13 June 2007 news broadcast on "the NBN channel of pro-Syrian Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri", reporting on the bombing death of anti-Syrian Lebanese lawmaker Walid Eido
- "Lebanon minister sues TV anchor over on-air gaffe". Reuters. 15 June 2007. Retrieved on 2007-06-15.
- "Lebanon minister sues TV anchor over on-air gaffe". Middle East Online. 15 June 2007. Retrieved on 2007-06-15.

Hizbollah is not and has never been a terrorist organisation. It is the legitimate national resistance movement of Lebanon. [...] I glorify the Hizbollah national resistance movement, and I glorify the leader of Hizbollah, Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
- George Galloway, (29 July 2006). "Hizbollah is right to fight Zionist terror". Socialist Worker.

Lebanon is our country, and in it we are staying (as a minority christians).
- Samir Geagea, March 1989, addressing crowds in ain el remeneh.^{[specific citation needed]}

You have your Lebanon and its dilemma. I have my Lebanon and its beauty. Your Lebanon is an arena for men from the West and men from the East. My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadow and rising in the evening as farmers return from their fields and vineyards. You have your Lebanon and its people. I have my Lebanon and its people.
- Khalil Gibran, "You Have Your Lebanon and I Have My Lebanon", Mirrors of the Soul, trans. Joseph Sheban, p. 30–31 (1965).

After four decades of rivalry between two foes in constant competition for influence, both abusing religion, both weaponizing sectarian identities, the past is no longer history for some. Rather, it is alive in the boiling rancor of the present, and there is no chance of forgiveness. Once obscure, forgotten historical wrongs have been turned into fresh memories in the collective consciousness, as a result of the relentless crescendo of sectarian spin created by Iran and Saudi Arabia. In 2018, Hezbollah did well in legislative elections in Lebanon while Saad Hariri’s coalition suffered losses, even in Beirut. The sentiment of victory was expressed by a Hezbollah supporter in a statement on Facebook: “We will not vote for the candidates of the Yazidi state, the killer of the children in Yemen, the supporter of Daesh and Nusra, but most importantly, the destroyer of the tombs of the Imams, peace be upon them.” Yazid was the caliph who faced off with Imam Hussein in the battle of Karbala in 680 AD, and the term “Yazidi state” was being used to refer to Saudi Arabia, now seen as the ultimate embodiment of oppression of the Shias; the mention of the destruction of tombs was a reference to the cemetery of Jannat al-Baqi, leveled by the Al-Sauds at the turn of the twentieth century. The candidate of this Yazidi state was Saad Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, who had made many compromises with Hezbollah and had been humiliated by his Saudi patrons precisely for this reason in his bizarre, televised forced resignation in November 2017. After the 2018 election results were announced, Hezbollah supporters on mopeds or hanging out of their cars drove through the city waving the yellow flag of the party, stamped with a fist raising a Kalashnikov. They chanted: “Beirut is Shia, Beirut is Shia”—an echo of the 1980s when young men with beards and women in chadors went on a rampage on Hamra Street, smashing liquor bottles and laying claim to that part of the city. The men on mopeds made a frenzied spectacle of pulling down posters of Saad. They drove up to the Saint George Hotel, site of the 2005 assassination of Rafiq Hariri, Mr. Lebanon. A bronze statue of him stood near the spot where the bomb had cratered the road and changed the political trajectory of the country. Hezbollah supporters attached their yellow party flag to it, declaring their final victory over a dead man.
- Kim Ghattas, Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East (2020)

Hezbollah enjoys utmost prestige in Lebanon, because it freed our country. All over the Arab world you hear: Hezbollah maintains Arab honor, and even though it (Hezbollah) is very small, it stands up to Israel. And of course Nasrallah has my respect.
- Emile Lahoud, Spiegel Interview with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud: 'Hezbollah Freed Our Country'. Der Spiegel. 25 July 2006.

The current fascination among Muslims with the history of the Crusades, the vast literature on the subject, both academic and popular, and the repeated inferences drawn from the final extinction of the Crusading principalities throw some light on attitudes in this matter. Islam from its inception is a religion of power, and in the Muslim world view it is right and proper that power should be wielded by Muslims and Muslims alone. Others may receive the tolerance, even the benevolence, of the Muslim state, provided that they clearly recognize Muslim supremacy. That Muslims should rule over non-Muslims is right and normal. That non-Muslims should rule over Muslims is an offense against the laws of God and nature, and this is true whether in Kashmir, Palestine, Lebanon, or Cyprus. Here again, it must be recalled that Islam is not conceived as a religion in the limited Western sense but as a community, a loyalty, and a way of life—and that the Islamic community is still recovering from the traumatic era when Muslim governments and empires were overthrown and Muslim peoples forcibly subjected to alien, infidel rule.
- Bernard Lewis, "The Return of Islam". Commentary. January 1, 1976.

I have come to operate on you.
- Charbel Makhlouf St Charbel to the rescue; Miracles are on the rise in Lebanon, The Economist, (15 Dec 2018)

אני אכן חושב שמלחמת לבנון היתה מהמוצדקות במלחמות ישראל. ועכשיו לעובדות: אני שומע את האמירות של ברק על הטרגדיה של 18 השנים בלבנון. צריך לזכור שהכניסה שלנו ללבנון החלה לפני 25 שנה, כשיצחק רבין היה רה"מ ופרס שר הביטחון. בשלב הראשון נכנסנו לדרום לבנון ואחרי חודש כבר היינו נוכחים בצפון לבנון וזאת בשל טרור מצד אש"ף. הגענו למצב שמחצית מאוכלוסיית הארץ נטשה את הצפון וזזה דרומה. אחרי המלחמה השתרר בצפון שקט להרבה שנים [...] כבר באוקטובר 82' הייתי היחיד שאמר שכבר אפשר לצאת מלבנון, אבל אז כבר לא הייתי שר ביטחון
- Ariel Sharon Translation: I do think that the Lebanon War was one of the most justified of Israel's wars. Now to the facts: I hear Barak's statements on the 18 years tragedy in Lebanon. It should be remembered that our entrance to Lebanon started 25 years ago, when Yitzhak Rabin was the Prime Minister and Peres was the Minister of Defense. At the first stage, we entered south Lebanon and after a month we were already present in north Lebanon due to PLO terrorism. We reached a situation in which half of Israel's population deserted the north and moved southwardly. After the war, the north became quiet for many years [...] As early as October 1982, I was the only one who said that it's already possible to get out of Lebanon, but then I was no longer the Minister of Defense.
  - Elections campaign speech at a high school, Ynet, January 18, 2001

You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much more pleasing is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume more than any spice! Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride; milk and honey are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride; you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain. Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, with henna and nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices. You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water streaming down from Lebanon. Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread everywhere. Let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.
- New International Version, Song of Solomon 4:9-16

You must realize that many Lebanese are not at ease either with Syrian policy in Lebanon or with the presence of Syrian troops in our country.
- Gebran Tueni open letter to Syrian leader Bashar Assad, published March 23, 2000,

leave now, while commercial flights remain available
- The U.S. Embassy addressing Americans in Lebanon according to [Israel targets underground tunnels in night bombings as blackout causes chaos in Gaza] (Posted: Oct 28, 2023 2:36 AM PDT | Last Updated: 1 minute ago)