Lebanon History

Lebanon – national flag

The flag was officially adopted in 1943. Due to. strife between the country’s religious groups chose a neutral biblical symbol, Lebanon’s cedar. The symbol was first used on a flag in 1861, and it stands for strength, immortality and holiness. The red and white colors symbolize self-sacrifice and peace.

• Countryaah: What does the flag of Lebanon look like? Follow this link, then you will see the image in PNG format and flag meaning description about this country.

Lebanon – history

In ancient times, Lebanon was often invaded by rulers from Egypt, Babylon and Assyria. The great empires of antiquity were interested in the area, because the mountains of Lebanon at that time were very wooded and thus could supply timber for the giant temple structures built in both Egypt and Mesopotamia.

The area was conquered by the caliphatein the 630’s, and a number of coastal towns functioned in the 700-t. as ports for the caliphate fleet. Most of Lebanon was in the 1100’s and 1200’s. subject to the control of the Crusaders. From 1517, Lebanon came under formal Ottoman control, but in the period 1517-1918, large parts of the area were actually controlled by various local clans, each representing its own religious tradition. Through the 1800’s. the area around the Lebanon Mountains was marked by antagonisms between Druze and Maronites. Violent clashes that culminated in 1860 led to European interference and the establishment of a new administrative system. An Ottoman, non-Maronite and non-Lebanese Christian governor, appointed by the Ottoman sultan, was to administer the Lebanon Mountains in cooperation with a local council. The system, established in 1861, existed until World War I.

• AbbreviationFinder: Check three-letter abbreviation for each country in the world, such as LBN which represents the official name of Lebanon.

Lebanon in the 1920-46 term

According to a2zgov, France was given a mandate over Syria by the League of Nations in 1920 and in the same year separated a special administrative area, Le Grand Liban, consisting of the cities of Beirut, Tripoli, Tyros and Sidon with the Bekaa Valley to the east, the Akkar area to the north and the area to Palestine to the south. During the 1920’s and 1930’s, the various groups agreed that the country formed a political entity. In recognition of this, leading representatives of the major religious groups in 1943 entered into the National Covenant, which became the political foundation of independent Lebanon. The two largest groups, Maronites and Sunni Muslims, reached a compromise in which the Maronites formally abandoned the idea of ​​continued cooperation with France, while the Sunni Muslims guaranteed that in future they would not work for Lebanon to become part of Syria. The country’s other religious groups joined the National Pact on the guarantee that they would share in the political power in accordance with their share of the population.

Independent Lebanon 1946-75

From its independence until the outbreak of the civil war in 1975, Lebanon experienced tremendous economic development as a result of various circumstances. With the establishment of Israel in 1948, Beirut became the center of economic relations between the Arab world and the West. Beirut’s importance was further taken into account by the political developments that characterized parts of the rest of the Arab world in the 1950’s, where Egypt nationalized Western economic enterprises. With the exception of a crisis in the summer of 1958, the period 1946-75 was generally marked by political stability.

As a result of the First Arab-Israeli War, Lebanon received approximately 100,000 Palestinian refugees who were predominantly settled in refugee camps around the major Lebanese coastal cities. The Lebanese government managed to stay out of the Arab-Israeli conflict until approximately 1970, when many Palestinians were expelled from Jordan and searching for Lebanon. The PLO then relocated its headquarters to Beirut, and from the early 1970’s onwards, Lebanon became increasingly involved in the Palestinian conflict with Israel. As a result, traditional co-operation between Sunni Muslims and Maronites was hampered.

The Lebanese Civil War 1975-90

The outbreak of the civil war was the result of growing antagonisms in Lebanese society, represented by two movements. The Lebanese National Movement, LNM, advocated a showdown with the political system that had existed since the conclusion of the National Covenant, and a strengthening of the Lebanese state at the expense of the power traditionally vested in the leaders of the individual religious groups.. The other movement, the Lebanese Forces, LF, maintained for its part that the foundation established by the conclusion of the National Covenant could not be shaken. Regarding the course of the civil war, see The Lebanese Civil War.

Lebanon since 1990

In October 1989, an agreement was reached in al-Taif in Saudi Arabia, paving the way for an end to the civil war. The parties agreed partly on a reform of the political system and partly on the disarmament of the many militias that had emerged during the civil war. At the political level, the parties agreed on a redistribution of political power: the country’s parliament should in future consist of an equal number of Christian and Muslim representatives, and it was also agreed to limit the president’s powers. With Syrian support, in October 1990 he succeeded in defeating General Aoun (b. 1935), who in September 1988 had been installed as head of an interim government. Aoun had in 1989-90 tried in vain to do away with the Syrian military presence in the country.

In November 1989, the groups behind the Taif agreement elected René Mouawad as the new president. He was assassinated shortly after and Elias Harawi was elected as his successor. In May 1991, Harawi signed an agreement with Syria, which formally gave the country the right to intervene in Lebanese policy insofar as it had implications for Syrian security policy. Within a few years, the central government had regained control of the country, with the exception of the southern part, which was controlled by the South Lebanese Army, SLA, in close cooperation with Israel. Hezbollahsecured the right to continue the fight against Israel from the country’s other political groupings, and the movement established itself as part of the new political system in the country. The continued Syrian presence in the run-up to the 1992 and 1996 elections led to a partial Christian boycott. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the central part of Beirut was rebuilt and an economic policy was launched based on the re-establishment of Beirut as a financial center for the region.

Hibzollah’s fight against Israel in 1993 and 1996 led to Israeli attacks on targets in Lebanon, sending hundreds of thousands fleeing the southern part of the country to the north. In May 2000, Hezbollah finally succeeded in pushing the SLA and Israel out of the southern part of the country, but Israel has maintained the occupation of a few villages (the Sheba area), which both Lebanon and Syria claim. In October 1998, General Émile Lahoud (b. 1936) was elected new President, and new parliamentary elections were held in 2000, this time with full Christian participation. This led to growing criticism of the Syrian presence, and in an attempt to address the criticism, in 2001 and 2002 Syria diminished and reorganized its forces in Lebanon. Troops in the Beirut area were withdrawn to the Bekaa Valley, but the Christian groups demanded from 2003 complete Syrian withdrawal.

In September 2004, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1559, which, among other things, ordered all foreign troops to withdraw from Lebanon. In the late summer of 2004, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri also joined those demanding the expulsion of Syria. Hariri was killed in an assassination attempt in February 2005. Following massive international pressure, Syria promised in March 2005 to withdraw the rest of its troops from Lebanon. A UN commission was set up in 2005 to uncover who was behind the attack on Hariri; the investigations have not given a definitive answer, but strong indications are that people associated with the Syrian security service were involved.

Following the May-June 2005 elections, Parliament was dominated by an anti-Syrian alliance; however, Hezbollah also received a ministerial post. In the summer of 2006, with bombings and invasions into Lebanon, Israel tried to weaken Hezbollah militarily. However, after the confrontation, which had high costs for Lebanon’s people and infrastructure, Hezbollah was strengthened due to its resistance to the Israeli forces. At the same time, by virtue of the close alliance between the religious regime in Iran and Hezbollah, this has strengthened the Iranian influence on the political situation in Lebanon.

Since November 2006, Lebanon has been in a political crisis in which the opposition, led by Hezbollah and the Christian Free Patriotic Movement, has staged widespread demonstrations against the government, demanding greater influence and early elections. In November 2007, the president, Syrian-oriented Émile Lahoud, stepped downback when his term of office expired. It was not until May 2008 that a new president, Michel Sleiman, was agreed. Prior to the election, the political situation had become increasingly tense, and Hezbollah managed to seize power in large parts of Beirut by force of arms. After negotiations between the parties in Doha, tensions eased somewhat, but relations between the various groupings in the country remain tense. In 2012, the year after the devastating civil war broke out in neighboring Syria, unrest broke out between Sunni Muslims and Alawites, and there are concerns about whether the war should spread to Lebanon. Lebanon has also received more than one million refugees from the Syrian civil war.