Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon (officially: the Lebanese Republic) is an Arab country located in the Middle East in western Asia. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east, and occupied Palestine - Israel to the south, and overlooks the west to the Mediterranean. It is a sectarian, republican, democratic country. Most of its population is from Arab Muslims and Christians. Unlike most Arab countries, there is an effective presence of Christians in public and political life. His children immigrated and spread around the world since the days of the Phoenicians, and currently, the number of Lebanese immigrants is estimated to be twice the number of Lebanese residents.

Lebanon is considered one of the most important banking centers in Western Asia, and when it reached the height of its prosperity it became known as "Switzerland of the East", due to the strength and stability of its financial position at the time and its diversity, and also attracted huge numbers of tourists to the point that Beirut became known as the East Paris. After the end of the civil war, many attempts were made and are still being made to rebuild the national economy, to revive it again, and to develop all infrastructures. Some of them have succeeded. Most Lebanese banks avoided falling into the maze of the global economic crisis of 2007 that affected most companies and banks around the world, and in In 2009 Lebanon witnessed economic growth of 9% despite the global economic recession, and welcomed the largest number of Arab and European tourists in its history.

In the old days, the Phoenicians inhabited the present land of Lebanon with part of the land of Syria and Palestine, and these are Semitic people who took navigation and trade as a profession for them, and their civilization flourished for about 2500 years (from about 3000 to 539 BC). There have been several civilizations and peoples in Lebanon that have settled in Lebanon since the time of the Phoenix, such as the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Ottoman Turks, and the French.

The nature of the impenetrable mountainous land of Lebanon, like most of the mountains of Bilad al-Sham, has been a haven for the oppressed in the region since ancient times. 65% of the total GDP.

Since ancient times, Lebanon has faced the multiplicity of civilizations that crossed or occupied its lands due to its central location between the European North, the Arab South, the East Asia, and the West Africa. This intermediate location is one of the most prominent reasons for the diversity of cultures in Lebanon. Civil and fateful conflict with Israel. The oldest evidence of human settlement in Lebanon and the emergence of civilization on its land dates back more than 7,000 years.

Lebanon is famous for its pioneering and ancient educational system, which allows the creation of educational institutions from different cultures and encourages education in different languages ​​in addition to Arabic. His children had a great role in enriching Arab and international cultures in the fields of science, arts and literature, and they were pioneers of journalism and media in the Arab world.

Lebanon is a diverse country with its people. About 40% of the 22-year-old population belongs to the Christian faith, and it is the only country in the Arab world that is headed by Christians by virtue of a constitutional custom. The Lebanese people are divided into 18 recognized sects.

The Lebanese are spread all over the world as expatriates or as immigrants of Lebanese origin. The population of Lebanon, according to the United Nations estimate for 2008, is about 4,099,000 people.

It is estimated that there are 8,624,000 Lebanese expatriates and of Lebanese descent in the world, according to the 2001 census, most of whom belong to the Christian religion, because Lebanese emigration started from the disposition of Mount Lebanon with a Christian majority.

The rate of population increase is 0.85%. The population of Lebanon in 2050 is expected to decrease to 3,001,000. The population density of Lebanon is 344 people / km2. Between 87% and 90% of the Lebanese live in cities, including more than 1,100,000 people - equivalent to a quarter of the population - in the capital, Beirut and its suburbs.

The percentage of educated in it is 87.4%. Its residents speak Arabic and many of them are French and English. In addition, other languages ​​are less used, such as Armenian, Kurdish, and Syriac.

The population of Lebanon in July 2008 was estimated at 3,971,941 people. While the number of foreign refugees in 2007 was estimated at more than 375,000 people: 270,800 from Palestine, 100,000 from Iraq, and 4,500 from Sudan. Lebanon deported more than 300 refugees in 2007.

The current Lebanese people are considered a mixture of different peoples that have nationalized and settled Lebanon through the ages. Many Lebanese have Phoenician, Romanian, Turkish and Persian roots, and some of them have European roots from the era of the Cross and the French Mandate period. In that era, a significant minority of the French settled in Lebanon. But most of them left after independence in 1943, and very few are left. A large number of Syrians and Egyptians are still in Lebanon, most of whom work in the construction and services sector.

The Lebanese scene remained quiet until 2005, and specifically after the re-election of President Emile Lahoud, defying international laws such as UN Security Council Resolution 1559, when the former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated, and Syria was accused of the operation, so the Lebanese were divided into two main groups, a team called the March 14 Alliance. It demands the independence of Lebanon and its disengagement from any relationship with the crises of the Middle East, and the second group is called the March 8 Alliance, which considers Lebanon at the center of regional and international crises. This split led to many confrontations, including the assassination of Lebanese anti-Syrian figures, and then the war launched by Israel on 12 July 2006.

And the ensuing sit-in of the opposition against the government in December 2006, and it was finally known as the Battle of Beirut on May 7, 2008, when Hezbollah's armed forces took control of the capital to compel the Fouad Siniora government to resign, and this continued for a few days when All political parties accepted the mediation of the State of Qatar to solve the problem, so they concluded a settlement in the capital of the latter known as the Doha Agreement.

There was a certain calm after the Doha agreement that facilitated the election of army chief Michel Suleiman as the consensus president of the republic and the formation of a national unity government. The agreement also laid the foundations for the holding of parliamentary elections in 2009. The elections were held according to the Doha agreement on June 7, 2009, and this was the first time The parliamentary elections are held one day. This government continued until the autumn of 2010, when differences began to reappear between members of the government belonging to the Arab-Western axis and between members belonging to the Iranian-Syrian axis led by Hezbollah. After the withdrawal of the so-called idle third and the fall of the government, he entered the country in a vacuumA politician as a result of the power struggle between the Hizbullah team and the March 14 team, until suddenly the Tripoli politician Najib Mikati, who was elected on the parliamentary lists of the Future Movement, announced his candidacy for the position of Prime Minister in the face of Saad Hariri, the dismissed prime minister of his government. After the vote, President Mikati received the parliamentary majority as a result of the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt's coup against his allies on March 14, 2011. On the 25th of January 2011, after the term of President Michel Suleiman, it was not possible to elect a successor to the presidency of the Republic, as the government collectively ran the affairs of the state as stipulated in the constitution. And the country lived in what was known as the presidential vacuum for two and a half years, until October 31, 2016, the date of the election of President Michel Aoun.