LEBANON

Although the geographical area of Lebanon is home to some of the earliest human settlements and its Phoenician ports of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos (today's Jubayl) were major centers of commerce and culture dating back to the third century B. C.E., the contemporary state of Lebanon was not created until 1920. Thereafter it became a republic in 1926 and gained full independence in 1943. Since its birth Lebanon's struggles have been caused by internal political, social, and economic strife as the nation's diverse ethnic-religious groups have attempted to coexist. Lebanon's internal conflicts have repeatedly been complicated by confrontations centered on the country's relationship to Israel, its Arab neighbors, and numerous Palestinian refugees who relocated there following the Arab-Israeli wars and the Jordanian civil war. The twentieth century saw Lebanon serve as a continual battlefield upon which both internal forces and foreign powers unrelentingly massacred militiamen and civilians. Lebanon remains an active front in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The seventeen-month Lebanese civil war, which began in 1975, is possibly the bloodiest civil war in modern history, engendering political instability and devastating the infrastructure, economy, and tourism industry of what had been one of the most developed Middle Eastern countries.

The modern Republic of Lebanon is an Arab nation located in southwest Asia on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. One of the world's smallest sovereign states, with an area of 4,015 square miles, Lebanon is surrounded on the north and east by Syria and on the south by Israel. Its seaport capital of Beirut formerly operated as the commercial hub of the Middle East.

The rugged and snowcapped Lebanese mountains, which run parallel to the coast from the Kebir River Valley in the north to the Litani River in the south, have made the country an attractive asylum for disparate religious and ethnic groups and political dissidents.

Lebanon and Regional Politics

The territory of modern Lebanon has played a critical role in