Lebanon’s neo-liberal wheels sped to a dream future, but the past applies the brakes


Issued on: 10/07/2020

File photo taken June 13, 2020 of Lebanese anti-government protesters in Beirut participating in a symbolic funeral for the country. AFP - ANWAR AMRO

Text by:Leela JACINTO

For decades, Lebanon was a poster child of the triumph of private enterprise, its failure to close its civil war chapter overlooked in the hopes that prosperity would overcome the weakness of the state. But now that the current economic crisis has ripped the neo-liberal band-aid, can the Lebanese confront the wounds of the past?

The trains in Lebanon are an unfortunate metaphor for the state. They’re going nowhere. In fact, they haven’t budged since the national rail system ground to a halt during the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war.

But they live in the public memory, an object of yearning and a testimony to the limitations of private enterprise. Artists put up shows offering sepia-tinted nostalgia of a heritage service. Newspapers feature profiles of “Lebanon’s last living train driver”. NGOs raise awareness, via songs and video clips, hoping it will lay the groundwork for a modern railway system linking cities as they did under Ottoman and colonial rule.

The wheels of the dream however are stuck, like the country’s trains going rusty in yards roamed by packs of wild dogs.

Meanwhile, Lebanon has a Public Transport and Railway Administration – or Office des Chemins de Fer et des Transports en Common (OCFTC) in French. The department is staffed by civil servants and has a budget of more than $8 million a year.

But the OCFTC’s only transportation offering is a fleet of public buses with a grand total of 35 vehicles officially running nine routes nationwide. In reality, many OCFTC bus drivers never get behind a wheel. Some confess they haven’t driven for years because they’re afraid of being attacked by the drivers of private minibuses, who dominate Lebanon’s public transport sector.

Transport regulation services, meanwhile, range from corrupt to non-existent. Red registration plates necessary for public transport vehicles are issued by the Transport and Vehicle Management Authority (TVMA) under the Interior Ministry. But they can be bought and sold or simply forged, with the number of red plate vehicles on the streets far exceeding TVMA-issued registrations.

But Lebanon nevertheless kept moving, its estimated 4 million citizens – famed for their enterprise, resilience and business acumen – getting where they needed to somehow. The rich and upper middle classes in their cars maneuvered traffic snarls, the less fortunate hailed minibuses or “service” – Lebanon’s celebrated shared taxis.

The money also flowed, with Lebanese banks – the historic “jewel” of the country’s economy” – offering high interest rates, attracting currency from local and regional depositors as well as the large Lebanese diaspora across the world.

“Little Lebanon” has long been the hailed liberal island in an autocratic Arab neighbourhood. After the civil war, it turned into a neo-liberal dream, the absence of effective state services, it was believed, could be filled by private enterprise, mirroring the post-Soviet zeitgeist of privatisation against the sin of “bloated” governments. International attention instead was focused on Lebanon’s precarious political equilibrium in a volatile region. The Lebanese, it was believed, could manage finance.

But the neo-liberal bubble has burst with deadly consequences. A spiraling economic crisis driven by a currency collapse is driving the state and its people into destitution. The Lebanese pound in recent days fetched more than 9,000 to the greenback on the black market, hyper-inflation has wiped meat off many Lebanese tables – including the army’s menu – and the desperation has triggered a spike in suicides.

Four Lebanese killed themselves last week in suicides apparently linked to the economic downturn.

In one case, a 61-year-old man shot himself before a Dunkin’ Donuts shop in the heart of capital, Beirut. A suicide note on his chest quoted a line from a popular song, “I am not a heretic. But hunger is heresy,” according to local media reports.


IMF as ‘defenders of widows and orphans’

Meanwhile talks between Lebanon and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for an emergency bailout have stalled over the country’s inability to overhaul its entrenched patronage systems.

Two members of Lebanon’s negotiating team resigned last month, including one of the main architects of the government’s rescue plan. Alain Bifany, the top civil servant in the Lebanese finance ministry, told a news conference he “refused to be part of, or witness to, what is being done”.

A blame game has since dominated the Lebanese airwaves. But it hasn’t changed the facts on the ground. The collapse of talks was not due to differences between Lebanon and the IMF, the two negotiating parties. It was sparked by infighting within the Lebanese team, pitting civil servants against bankers and politicians over the extent of losses accrued by the banks, particularly Lebanon’s central bank.

The government’s assessment of central bank losses of around $50 billion – equivalent to more than 90 percent of Lebanon’s 2019 total economic output – was rejected by the central bank governor and some parliamentarians who maintained the amount was lower, according to the Financial Times. The IMF is more in line with Lebanese civil service figures, estimating losses of over $90 billion.

The collapse of IMF talks “is really disappointing. Basically, there is no plan B and it was the last hope to inject badly needed foreign currency which could offer a respite to the economy,” said Karim Emile Bitar, senior fellow at the Paris-based Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS) and director of the Institute for Political Science at St. Joseph University, Beirut.

While IMF bailouts, with the accompanying austerity and belt-tightening measures, tend to be unpopular across the world, the reverse is true in Lebanon, Bitar explained.

“The irony in Lebanon is that there’s such a degree of egregious corruption, political clientelism and kleptocracy that the IMF ended up being seen as defending the widows and orphans,” said Bitar in a phone interview with FRANCE 24 from Beirut. “This is one of the very few cases when the IMF is seen on the side of social justice against political elites in cahoots with private interests, banks and big depositors – the few who have over $10 million each [in bank deposits] and don’t want to contribute to a fair solution.”

The IMF bailout of around $5 billion in aid – after Lebanon for the first time defaulted on its sovereign debt – would pave the way for contributions from France, the EU, and Gulf states keen to rescue the country, but wary of pouring money into the morass.

But overhauling Lebanon’s entrenched patronage systems has proved to be easier said than done. “You would not think this would be difficult,” a senior European diplomat told the Guardian. “We have been begging them to behave like a normal state, and they are acting like they are selling us a carpet.”

Beautiful, but threadbare national carpet

The Lebanese national carpet though is a structurally threadbare tapestry of sectarian divides that has been historically managed – more often mismanaged – by feudal lords, warlords and their families and friends.

The carpet is ripped in times of war, but when the conflict ends – with an invariable division of spoils – the fabric of the nation is rarely strengthened. The country’s once warring elites and weary populace instead place their hopes on the magic of the market and the memory of the last bloodbath as a deterrent against future man-made disasters.

The roots of the current crisis lie in the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war and the country’s failure to effectively close that historical chapter by addressing existential issues. The lessons of the past are important not just for Lebanon, but also for other countries in the region, such as Syria and Iraq, grappling with sectarianism and strife.

Lebanon’s brutal civil war between internecine sectarian groups backed by regional powers ended with the Taif Accord. The agreement reached in the mountainous Saudi city of Taif ended the fighting, but failed to effectively secure the peace. Instead of abolishing colonial era divide-and-rule policies, imperative for newly independent democracies, the parties merely updated the confessional equation.

Post-conflict justice and reconciliation was avoided in favour of national amnesia, encapsulated by the dictum “la ghalib, wa la maghloub” (no victors, no vanquished). The old system of zaims, or feudal overlords, providing protection and services in exchange for patronage survived with a few nomenclature tweaks: warlords became politicians, their funding sources switched to international business and finance, territories turned into ministries, and profiteering proceeded at usual unregulated levels.

>> Read more: Lebanon’s modern zaims, or feudal lords-turned-candidates

‘Mr Lebanon’ rebuilds corruption

The postwar healing focused on obliterating the visual signs of the conflict, particularly in Beirut with its bombed out buildings and pockmarked concrete carcasses.

But the national reconstruction, which was essentially a construction boom, soon became a symbol of the ailments infecting the state.

The country’s first postwar prime minister, Rafik Hariri, led a reconstruction that set the bar for politico-business enrichment. A businessman tycoon with close Saudi ties and dual citizenship, Hariri was the largest stakeholder in Solidere, a joint stock company that snagged most of his government’s reconstruction projects. Hariri also owned Lebanon’s largest private construction company, whose director was appointed the head of the Council for Development and Reconstruction, leading an architect to explain to the Washington Post that “the agency that the government used to control private development has now reversed its role.”

The fact that Hariri was not a warlord and had the drive and pockets to rebuild his country made him a popular figure in Lebanon. The corruption was evident – Hariri was called “Mr. Lebanon” – but it was tolerated as the price of Lebanon’s “reentry in the world” as the businessman-prime minister repeatedly proclaimed.

Critics of his rebuilding – particularly architects and heritage groups bemoaning the demolition of historic sites – were brushed aside. Downtown Beirut turned into a glitzy giant shopping mall financed by debt on the detritus of Lebanon’s past, a perfect symbol of the reemerging nation.

File photo from May 2001 shows construction in downtown Beirut. AFP - RAMZI HAIDAR

“We were sold a myth, that many had an interest in telling, that there was no need for a strong state, Lebanese resilience would always come on top. Today, those truly resilient are the oligarchs, ruling class and corrupt elites while average citizens are no longer capable of making ends meet,” said Bitar.

The construction and reconstruction boom was financed by borrowing, increasing the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio to recent peaks of nearly 150 percent, putting Lebanon in the world’s top three most-indebted countries. Interest payments, meanwhile, covered more than a third of the government’s annual spending.

But the banks, which own most of the debt, happen to be controlled by politicians and their families and friends who are sinking Lebanon.

Toward a zaim-less state

The “Mr. Lebanon” template for the state could be negotiated, with wry humour, by the affluent and upper middle classes. But it was never amusing for the less fortunate, who were driven to their communities – Hezbollah for the Shiites, modern day zaim-politicians for others – to survive. This entailed non-state patronage networks that often exploited the state.

The defunct railways was just one of several departments staffed by salaried cadres who secured jobs by wasta (influence) but did precious little. The system, at the very least, managed to prop a middle-class. But the current crisis has pulled the rug on that. “The country had a solid middle class. Today, the middle class has all but vanished. Many are thinking of leaving the country,” said Bitar.


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The Lebanese, acutely aware of the brewing problem, have been trying to do something about it. Grassroots movements have included the 2015 “You Stink” protest campaign against the garbage collection problem. In the 2018 parliamentary elections, a record number of civil society figures, under an umbrella coalition called Kuluna Watani, stood for the long-delayed polls. But while that fired up hopes on the campaign trail, it did little to change the post-election power dynamic since electoral rules ensured the survival of the old guard.


Anti-government protests once again broke out in October, with demonstrators demanding an end to the system. They got, instead, a change of government with Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s resignation, but nothing changed. Ministry posts are still doled out on patronage terms, the trains are still stuck.

The only silver lining of the current crisis is that this time it’s so serious, the Lebanese will not be hoodwinked by a bailout band-aid on the national wound.

“There must be a rejection of the old clientelist system. Many aspire to a new Lebanon based on citizenship rather than community affiliations,” said Bitar. “They want rights from the state without having to go begging to sectarian leaders begging for jobs, asking for money for medicine. Today, Lebanon needs a new social contract.”

A year after Beirut blast, Lebanese diaspora in Canada demands accountability

Activist group brings together Lebanese people in 35 cities around the world

Michelle Ghoussoub · CBC News 

· Posted: Aug 04, 2021 

Julnar Doueik is a member of the United Diaspora Network — also called Meghterbin Mejtemiin — a group based in 35 cities around the world including Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa, that seeks to support Lebanon from abroad. 

(Antonin Sturlese/CBC)

A year after a massive explosion in Beirut killed 214 people, destroyed much of the city and sank Lebanon's economy further into despair, Lebanese Canadians are calling on Ottawa to redirect its financial assistance away from Lebanon's government while demanding a complete investigation into the blast.

On Aug. 4, 2020, a fire at the Port of Beirut ignited a stash of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that had been stored for six years in a warehouse, without proper safety measures, after having been confiscated by the Lebanese authorities from an abandoned ship.

It was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. Two Canadians, including a three-year-old girl, were among those killed.

Documents have since shown that high-level officials were warned multiple times of the risk but failed to act.

An investigation has so far failed to determine who ordered the shipment of chemicals and why officials ignored those warnings.

Parents of Canadian child killed in Beirut blast say lack of justice is 'enraging'

Julnar Doueik, who moved from Beirut to Vancouver just weeks before the explosion, says there has been little to no accountability, making it impossible to move on.

"Our wound is still open, our emotional and psychological bruises are as painful as they were a year ago — but we're also very furious because justice is nowhere to be found in Lebanon. The political class that is the cause of the Beirut blast, because of criminal negligence, they're still obstructing the investigation," she said.

"A lot of lives were lost. A whole city was destroyed. Canadian lives were lost as well during this explosion and we don't have answers."

People in Beirut carry pictures of some of the victims of the blast in the city's port district, during a march on Wednesday, as Lebanon marks the one-year anniversary of the explosion. (Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)

Doueik is part of the United Diaspora Network — also called Meghterbin Mejtemiin — a group based across 35 cities around the world including Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa, that seeks to support Lebanon from abroad.

The group is calling on the Canadian government to provide technical assistance in the investigation, to halt humanitarian assistance to the Lebanese government and to, instead, redirect funds to civil society groups.

Over the past year, Canada has provided around $50 million toward early recovery efforts, humanitarian assistance and long-term reconstruction of the city.

Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau said Wednesday that Canada continues to call for a full and transparent investigation.

"We continue to firmly stand with the Lebanese people and are ready to support them further. Canada will continue to reiterate that Lebanon's leaders must act now to form a government that can and will begin the reforms the country so desperately needs," Garneau said in a statement.

Thousands of Lebanese call for justice 1 year after massive explosion
Economic crisis deepens

Since the explosion, Lebanon has fallen further into economic crisis while trying to rebuild, leading to a devastating currency crash, hyperinflation and widespread shortages.

Doueik says the United Diaspora Network is fundraising to send supplies, including life-saving medicines, in suitcases with people travelling back to Lebanon.

"We're trying here to mobilize the Lebanese community in Canada. We need to gather our energy to support the people back home," she said.

"We get calls every day from our families back home, from friends, about how hard it is the get the basic supplies. Mothers cannot find milk for their babies. Sick people cannot find medicine. There's a shortage of electricity and fuel. It is heartbreaking."

A vigil for the victims of the blast will be held at UBC Robson Square in downtown Vancouver at 6 p.m. PT on Wednesday.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michelle Ghoussoub is a television, radio and digital reporter with CBC News in Vancouver. Reach her at michelle.ghoussoub@cbc.ca or on Twitter @MichelleGhsoub.

OPINION
Lebanon is edging toward the abyss, suffering from existential divisions stoked by sectarian leaders

DANY ASSAF
CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED  AUGUST 4, 2021
Dany Assaf is a Toronto-based lawyer and author and member of the Lebanese Canadian Coalition, which helped organize relief efforts for the Beirut explosion.

On this first anniversary of the devastating explosion in Beirut, it’s important to assess the broader damage suffered in Lebanon and the global implications. In the aftermath of the disaster, I worked with Lebanese Canadians and people from many other backgrounds to get humanitarian aid to Lebanon.

Yet a year on, the larger issues for Lebanon’s rebuilding and its progress remain unresolved as the country edges toward the abyss, threatened by forces of institutional corruption and outdated sectarian government structures.

At the time of the explosion, Canadians of all stripes and our government jumped to help because of the strong connections built over the past century. Many of us see Lebanon as an ancient crossroads of civilization and, like Canada, a place of accommodation between peoples of different faiths and family histories, and one that has contributed much beauty in poetry, the arts, fashion, food and culture.

Indeed, Lebanon is a place where Christians and Muslims share life and love of country. Yet today, sadly, it suffers from existential divisions. These divisions have been stoked and manipulated by sectarian leaders in the wake of the devastation of the explosion and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Lebanese joie de vivre is renowned, but today the country’s indelible spirit has been weakened and Lebanon is aching for a hand up. Sometimes in helping friends, we can also help ourselves by engaging globally in responsible ways to champion shared values. In this case, “we” means not only Canada, but the West generally as the values that are important to us are important to most Lebanese, who are fiercely independent people who cherish the value of freedom.

This is why the West can’t lose Lebanon. With recent failures to bring sustainable security and beat back threats to freedom in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine and elsewhere, it becomes only more critical today for the West to prioritize help to save Lebanon. If, as U.S. President Joe Biden has stated, “America is back,” Lebanon is the place to unite the West to push back against the erosion of freedom we see in many corners.

While we have seen the folly of unwise military adventures, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a continuing role for leaders of freedom and inclusive progress to support liberal values in this increasingly multipolar world. Times change, but it remains constant that humans are born free, yet many people then spend their lives struggling to resist the efforts of others to control them. Regardless of what we see in any headline or government news release, humanity always yearns for freedom.

The loss of Lebanon and what it represents to its region and beyond would be a sad chapter in the current global climate. The country should be a model for religious accommodation, the advancement of women’s rights in Asia and entrepreneurial energy in the digital age.

Yet Lebanon is being threatened by a sectarian government framework that substitutes loyalty to sect for merit as the operating principle to run its vital functions. In short, Lebanon is an extreme example of a country no longer run in the interests of a large majority of its population, and it is incapable of self-correction.


So how can the country be fixed? Today, the U.S. is in the midst of renegotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran’s government, and a hard term of settlement should include support for the demilitarization of all militias in Lebanon and the consolidation of all military power in the hands of the Lebanese army.

This is an essential starting point, as the very definition of a nation is that the state controls its sole military power. As well, no significant investments can be made in a country with more than one military force.

Lebanon also represents key U.S. and Western interests as home to a large refugee population, and the collapse of Lebanon would trigger another wave of refugee migration to Europe. Successful efforts by the U.S., Canada and others may also improve Lebanese-Israeli security, and help set the stage for more effective future Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

Today, Canada should draw upon on its Lester B. Pearson moment in the Suez Crisis of 1956 to reinvigorate our diplomatic tools and rally global efforts to help save Lebanon and secure a win for freedom and hope in these messy times. It has often been said the world needs more Canada. The question today is whether Canada will deliver.

Analysis: Often on brink, Lebanon headed toward collapse

By ZEINA KARAM

1 of 7  https://apnews.com/dfd6b687da750f7f7c971e04a2bb0daf
A gas station workers gestures as he saying no fuel at the station, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, July 29, 2020. Lebanon is hurtling toward a tipping point at an alarming speed, driven by financial ruin, collapsing institutions, hyperinflation and rapidly rising poverty _ with a pandemic on top of that. The collapse threatens to break a nation seen as a model of diversity and resilience in the Arab world. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

BEIRUT (AP) — Power cuts that last up to 20 hours a day. Mountains of trash spilling into streets. Long lines at gas stations.

It may seem like a standard summer in Lebanon, a country used to wrestling with crumbling infrastructure as it vaults from one disaster to another.

Only this time, it’s different, Every day brings darker signs Lebanon has rarely seen in past crises: Mass layoffs, hospitals threatened with closure, shuttered shops and restaurants, crimes driven by desperation, a military that can no longer afford to feed its soldiers meat and warehouses that sell expired poultry.

Lebanon is hurtling toward a tipping point at an alarming speed, driven by financial ruin, collapsing institutions, hyperinflation and rapidly rising poverty — with a pandemic on top of that.

On Monday, the country’s foreign minister resigned, warning that a lack of vision and a will to implement structural reforms risked turning the country into a “failed state.”

The collapse threatens to break a nation seen as a model of diversity and resilience in the Arab world and potentially open the door to chaos. Lebanese worry about a decline so steep it would forever alter the small Mediterranean country’s identity and entrepreneurial spirit, unparalleled in the Middle East.

In the past, Lebanon has been able to in part blame its turmoil on outsiders. With 18 religious sects, a weak central government and far more powerful neighbors, it has always been caught in regional rivalries leading to political paralysis, violence or both. Its 1975-90 civil war made the word “Beirut” synonymous with war’s devastation and produced a generation of warlords-turned-politicians that Lebanon hasn’t been able to shake off to this day.




Since the war ended, the country has suffered a Syrian occupation, repeated conflict with Israel, bouts of sectarian fighting, political assassinations and various economic crises, as well as an influx of more than a million refugees from neighboring Syria’s civil war. The presence of the powerful Shiite group Hezbollah — a proxy army for Iran created in the 1980s to fight Israel’s occupation — ensures the country is always caught up in the struggle for supremacy by regional superpowers Iran and Saudi Arabia.

But the current crisis is largely of Lebanon’s own making; a culmination of decades of corruption and greed by a political class that pillaged nearly every sector of the economy.

For years, the country drifted along, miraculously avoiding collapse even as it accumulated one of the world’s heaviest public debt burdens. The sectarian power-sharing system allotted top posts according to sect rather than qualifications, which in turn allowed politicians to survive by engaging in cronyism and patronage for their communities.




“One of the problems in Lebanon is that corruption has been democratized, it’s not sitting centrally with one man. It’s all over,” says Marwan Muasher, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Every sect has a sector of the economy that it controls and draws money from, so that it can keep their sect happy,” he said in a recent talk organized by the Center for Global Policy.

The troubles came to a head in late 2019, when nationwide protests erupted over the government’s intention to levy a tax on the WhatsApp messaging app, seen as the final straw for people fed up with their politicians. The protests touched off a two-week bank closure followed by a run on the banks and then informal capital controls that limited dollar currency withdrawals or transfers.

Amid a shortage in foreign currency, the Lebanese pound has shed 80% of its value on the black market, and prices for basic food items and other goods have seen a meteoric rise. Savings have evaporated, plunging many into sudden poverty.

Lebanon’s fall “represents an epic collapse with a generational impact,” wrote Maha Yehia, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center.

The pillars that long sustained Lebanon are crumbling, including its trademark freedoms and role as a tourism and financial services hub, and wiping out its middle class, she wrote in a recent analysis.

Left on its own, Lebanon could within months reach a point where it can no longer secure needs for its citizens like fuel, electricity, internet or even basic food.

Already, there are signs of the country being pushed toward a hunger crisis. Fears of a breakdown in security are real. The purchasing power of an ordinary soldiers’ salary has declined in dollar terms from around $900 to $150 a month. Public sector employees have similarly seen their salaries wiped out.

Unlike in previous crises when oil-rich Arab nations and international donors came to the rescue, Lebanon this time stands very much alone.

Not only is the world preoccupied with their own economic crises, traditional friends of Lebanon are no longer willing to help a country so steeped in corruption, particularly after the state defaulted on its debt in April. Moreover, the country is led by a Hezbollah-supported government, making it even more unlikely that Gulf countries would come to the rescue.

Lebanon’s only hope is an IMF bailout, but months of negotiations have led nowhere.

The French foreign minister, on a recent trip to Beirut, could not have been clearer that there would be no assistance for Lebanon before credible reform measures are taken. “Help us to help you!” he repeated.

The words appear to have fallen largely on deaf ears. Lebanese politicians can’t agree on the size of the government’s losses, much less carry out reforms to end the corruption from which they profit.

A complete breakdown of Lebanon threatens the wider region, potentially leading to security vacuums that could be exploited by extremists.

Writing in Washington-based The Hill newspaper, Mona Yaacoubian, senior adviser to the vice president for Middle East and Africa at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said a total meltdown in Lebanon could also provoke new refugee flows to Europe and add yet more turmoil to the arc of instability stretching from Syria through Iraq, with negative implications for U.S. allies in the region.

Given the stakes, the United States cannot afford to ignore Lebanon’s impending collapse, she argues.

“Lebanon is rapidly spiraling toward the worst-case scenario: a failed state on the eastern Mediterranean.”

___

EDITOR’S NOTE: Zeina Karam, the news director for Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, has covered the Middle East since 1996. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/zkaram.

Face to Face with Hezbollah

The Many Faces of the Lebanese Shiite Organization

by Dan Lieberman / December 7th, 2023

As part of a fact-finding mission to the Middle East in late 2007, one year after Hezbollah concluded a war with Israel, we spent a few days with Hezbollah. I knew that Hezbollah carried heavy baggage, could be threatening, and operated as a state within a state, but it never seemed, as bludgeoning reports insisted, an international terrorist organization. All of the few horrific actions involving Hezbollah have been tit-for-tat revenge attacks for Israeli murder of its cadres, such as the February 16, 1992, Israeli Apache AH64 helicopter missile attack on an automobile that killed Sheikh Abbas Musawi, the then secretary-general of Hezbollah, his wife, and five-year-old son.

Face-to-face in November 2007 revealed an organized and thoughtful Hezbollah without traces of being fanatical.

---

They speak English, carry I-pods, and listen to Santana and Guns and Roses. They don’t approach with anger and don’t behave overbearing. They are well-educated, mostly from Beirut’s American University, relaxed and alert to world happenings. They impress as being more secular than pious. They are spokespersons for Hezbollah – the Party of God.

Maybe they are a selected group of well-trained talkers for foreigners; a subtle means to convince the unwary that Hezbollah’s followers are just everyday guys and gals. Maybe, but observations and events were inconsistent with the media’s drastic descriptions of the militant Lebanese Shiite movement.

The Party of God has insufficient support for exercising political control of Lebanon and knows it doesn’t have the numbers or the strength to turn the Levant into an Islamic Republic. Hezbollah’s clerics don’t indicate they intend to force Shari’a upon their constituencies. More an amalgam of differing viewpoints – religious, social, political, and militant – Hezbollah is solidified by a common struggle for the dispossessed and a battle against corruption. Meetings with Hezbollah and Lebanese officials together with a trip to southern Lebanon, as a member of a Council for National Interest peace delegation, revealed much about the nature of the Party of God.

The voyage started in Beirut, at a tenement building that is indistinguishable from the adjoining buildings in the Shiite district. Hezbollah followers crowd the sidewalk to greet and lead to a simple apartment on an upper floor. Sayyid Nawaf Al-Musawi, the head of Hezbollah’s International Relations, is dressed in conventional clothes.

The only indication of religious fervor is the beads he rotates in his right hand. He sits relaxed but talks seriously and with conviction. The female translator’s minor errors and dubious translations of colloquial expressions are politely excused. The head of Hezbollah’s International Relations has a lot to say – about everything.

Region

In Iraq there is a severe humane problem – same as in Palestine. The West Bank is now a prison. The US gives no importance to the Iraqi people. US policy is based on Israeli safety and Middle East oil. America is creating chaos and the region is under its hegemony. The regime is increasing the problems rather than resolving them. Now they are talking about a new war in Iran. Iraq was weak, but Iran is strong and it will be a much harder war. A barrel of oil and a barrel of gunfire will create a catastrophe that is beyond comprehension. A disaster is happening and Americans are giving a story that is false. They were lying about WMDs in Iraq and now they are lying about nuclear issues in Iran. They told the people that the Iraqis would welcome them as liberators. This is an example of a delusion to the citizens of the US. American citizens deserve to know the truth. Colin Powell gave false information to the UN but he thought it was the truth. When someone tries to find the truth he is called a terrorist. America operates on misleading evidence.

Governing Lebanon

The one who rules must be accepted by all the others. Now the minority is ruling, but this is supported by the U.S. Why does the U.S. want this? For the benefit of the Israelis. We are a movement only against Israeli attack and Israeli occupation. We support unity. We encourage consensus. The Vatican, the Arabs want unity in Lebanon, but the American influences in Lebanon do not want this. We want a multi-ethnic nation and not as in Israel, which calls itself a Jewish country even though ¼ of its citizens are Christians and Muslims. We cannot have an election with 50% plus one because the text of the constitution is clear – there has to be a 2/3 majority. A person elected by 50% plus one is not the President and only an impostor.

Israel

Hezbollah will never recognize Israel. Israel (Palestine?) should be a democratic nation where all religions exist together and have equal freedom. In the 1919 Paris meeting, the Zionists presented a document which coveted South Lebanon and delineated four river basins they wanted to own.

Sayyid Nawaf Al-Musawi ended his conversation with prophetic expressions.

We don’t judge you on the basis of your stand on Israel. Do not judge us on that issue. There are natural ties between Shia Lebanon and Iran. They have the same source. The fifteenth century Iranian studies came from Lebanon. The geography of Lebanon enabled the Shia to stay. It is tough to conquer Southern Lebanon because of its geography.

Leaving Beirut for the South of Lebanon is similar to leaving any metropolis – traffic jams, new expressways, and roadways that cut through residential areas. The Paris of the Middle East has lost much of its charm. It is heavy until the view of the blue-green Mediterranean waters calm the atmosphere. Banana groves, similar to those that camouflaged the Hezbollah rocket carriers during the 2006 summer war, are prominent. Also prominent are posters of Rafiq Hariri, the assassinated and previous Prime Minister. After the Sunni city of Sidon, the peaceful countryside of groves and orchards is marked with newly repaired bridges that cross ready-to-be-paved roads. The war-damaged roads lead to Tyre.

The Shiite city has freshly sanded beaches and a picturesque seaside promenade. The posters have changed – they now feature Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s political leader, Tyre is the home of Sheik Nabil Kaook, Hezbollah commander of South Lebanon, who narrowly escaped death when Israeli warplanes bombed his home in the 2006 war.

In his presence, women are not greeted with handshakes, but with hands respectfully placed over the heart. The women sit veiled and separate from the men. The cleric is well-groomed and well-tailored – his white turban shows his status and his brown cloak matches the brown chair on which he sits.

Harsh and accusatory, interspersed with feelings for the dispossessed, the Hezbollah Sheik has one succinct message: “The United States took the decision to go to war and to continue the war. It treats Lebanon as just another occupation.”

Tyre is also identified with the Al-Sadr Foundation, which manages an orphanage under the control of Rabab al-Sadr, sister of disappeared Shiite cleric Sayyid Musa al-Sadr. Shi’a clerics who have the title of Sayyid claim descent from Muhammad. Sayyid Musa al-Sadr is more famous than his designation. His life, a story of dedication, success, and an eventual mystery reveal strong links between Shiites from Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon.

Born in Qom, Iran in 1928 to a Lebanese family of theologians, Musa al-Sadr studied theology in Najaf, Iraq. Being related to the father of Iraq’s Muqtada al-Sadr, Iraq was another home for him. In 1960 Musa al-Sadr moved to Tyre, his father’s birthplace. He soon became recognized as a strong advocate for the economically and politically disadvantaged Shi’ite population. His role in establishing schools and medical clinics throughout southern Lebanon led to the 1974 founding of the Movement of the Disinherited, whose armed wing became Amal, the other Shiite party in Lebanon.

While successfully improving economic and social conditions for a disenfranchised Shiite population, Sayyid Musa al-Sadr made enemies of landlords, corrupt officials, political establishment, and members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. His eventual disassociation with, what was then, a corrupt Amal, created other groups, some of whom later coalesced into Hezbollah. On February 16, 1985, an “Open Letter to the Downtrodden in Lebanon and the World,” alerted the world to Hezbollah’s formal existence. Musa al-Sadr was not present. In 1978, when attending a conference in Libya, Musa al-Sadr mysteriously vanished. No clue to his disappearance has surfaced.

Elegant chalets grace the barren hills of southern Lebanon. Many of them are homes of expatriate Lebanese, who have always been principal contributors to Lebanon’s economy. Expatriates from Sierra Leone, the Gulf States, Dearborn, Michigan, and other U.S. cities send funds to their Lebanese relatives who purchase properties throughout Lebanon. Southern Lebanon has many retired Dearborns who have returned to their families and to a land they always cherished. But that’s not all, informed persons claim Southern Lebanon has diamond and drug smuggling that help finance Hezbollah and local communities.

The elegant chalets emphasize the destruction of villages during the 2006 summer war. Bint Jbiel, “the daughter of the mountain,” rested in the path of the invading Israeli army. Israel’s military dropped leaflets that ordered the population to leave the village. The inhabitants obeyed the order and now the old city, not the new part, is 70% destroyed; a mound of rubble that includes the 600-year-old mosque.

Homes along a nearby dirt road are pocked with shell and bullet holes, evidence of tanks having discharged random fire at empty houses for no apparent reason except they were close to the path of the tank. A total of eighteen Israeli tanks broke down, crashed, or were destroyed by Hezbollah ambushes during the Israeli invasion.

From a hill close to the mined border with Israel, the deputy mayor of Marjayoun pointed to the verdant fields of Northern Israel. He claimed that in 1948 Israel seized one kilometer of Lebanese territory and that the houses in the distance are mainly empty.

Damage-weary Lebanon is not confined to the border area. Timur Goksel, former senior advisor to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), who has been in Lebanon for twenty years, noted he had never witnessed so much wanton destruction. He said that Iran funds an Iranian Hezbollah that has no connections with Lebanese Hezbollah. Five hundred million dollars of these funds are being used to repair war-damaged southern Lebanon. In contrast, the U.S. is contributing 34 million dollars to repair a large bridge.

Timor Goksel refutes the March 14 majority party charge that Hezbollah is obstructionist: “The Shiites (not all Hezbollah) are 30% of the country and cannot rule on their own. They want to have a role in the government and they want to be a mainstream party.” Principal leaders in the Lebanese government support Goksel’s evaluation. Former general Michel Aoun, Christian head of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc, wants what Hezbollah wants; a new parliament where the new majority will be accepted. Aoun’s bloc has a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Hezbollah. He insisted the MOU is not an alliance but a strategy for integrating Hezbollah into a mutual defense of Lebanon. Former General and then Maronite President of Lebanon, Emil Lahoud, agreed with Hezbollah’s determination to follow constitutional law and only elect a president with a 2/3 quorum.

The Lebanese president describes Hezbollah as “one hundred percent Lebanese. Hezbollah takes material assistance from Iran and would take it from the devil if necessary to protect their country. They are not terrorists.” Fawsi Salloukh, Lebanon’s Minister of Foreign Affairs talked from a prepared

document that severely criticized Israel and the United States. He also wants a new election and not a litigious issue. He doesn’t believe Iran wants to dominate Hezbollah and stressed its natural for Shiites in Lebanon and Iran to establish good relations.

Forgotten amidst the rhetoric, but mentioned by Michel Aoun and Emil Lahoud are simple facts: Hezbollah has had electoral alliances with Saad Hariri’s Future Movement, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, and Noah Berri’s Amal. In 1999, Hezbollah members of Lebanon’s engineering syndicate formed a coalition with the Phalange Party, a rightist Christian group, and the National Liberal Party, both allies of Israel during the civil war.

The Halifee restaurant in the Dahieh neighborhood is considered a popular dining place for Hezbollah followers; only two blocks from the Haret Hreil Hussineyeh mosque, whose senior cleric is Hezbollah religious leader Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. Israeli bombers, during the July 2006 war, leveled the cleric’s home, as well as part of the surrounding area. The restaurant crowds with people enjoying the food, enjoying the elegant surroundings, enjoying the evening. There is no indication of a particular type of person; no sign of a distinctive Hezbollah character.

La Terrase is a restaurant located on Hadi Nasrallah, a street, named after leader Hasan Nassrallah’s deceased son. Huge craters from Israeli bombing remain in the adjacent neighborhood. Enter la Terrase and first have a choice of a coffee bar. Go deeper and there is a cafeteria. Further in is a small restaurant. Climb the stairs and enter a huge restaurant surrounded by couches on which linger multitudes of young couples; drinking coffee, engaged in conversations and quiet embraces – not the ordinary media images of Hezbollah life.

Innocent Americans were killed on September 11, 2001, by Al-Qaeda terrorists who considered the World Trade Center to be imperialist land – the center of the U.S. establishment. Innocent Lebanese were killed on July 15, 2006, one day of many bombardments that contributed to the vast destruction of the Dahieh district by Israeli military who considered Dahieh to be Hezbollah land – the center of the Hezbollah establishment.

The U.S. and Hezbollah establishments still exist. Many innocents died in both places. The U.S. remembers the day 9/11 as a bitter memory. Lebanon had a mid-summer nightmare of smaller 9/11’s; angry memories the residents of Dahieh will forever retain. The Western world rightfully memorializes America’s tragedy but neglects Lebanon’s equal tragedies.

It is that neglect which created Hezbollah, sustained Hezbollah, and made Hezbollah popular throughout the Arab world. Years of punishing emergencies in Lebanon — refugees from the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah’s attachment to the Syrian strife, the 4 August 2020 explosion of ammonium nitrate stored at the Port of Beirut that caused at least 218 deaths, 7,000 injuries, $15 billion in property damage, and left an estimated 300,000 people homeless, followed by economic collapse have polarized the Lebanese and may have affected contemporary Hezbollah’s operations and its acceptance by the Lebanese population.

Dan Lieberman publishes commentaries on foreign policy, economics, and politics at substack.com. He is author of the non-fiction books A Third Party Can Succeed in America, Not until They Were Gone, Think Tanks of DC, The Artistry of a Dog, and a novel: The Victory (under a pen name, David L. McWellan). Read other articles by Dan.

Poverty in Lebanon's 'city of billionaires' drives deadly migration
After a migrant boat tragically sunk, leaving 94 dead in an ill-fated voyage, new light is shed shed on poverty in Lebanon.

By REUTERS
Published: SEPTEMBER 25, 2022 

lebanon refugees 
(photo credit: AP)

In the city from which Lebanon's richest politicians hail, the poorest residents once again mourn their dead.

Among them, Mustafa Misto, a taxi driver in the city of Tripoli, and his three young children, whose bodies were found off Syria's coast on Thursday after they left Lebanon on a migrant boat carrying more than 100 people.

With 94 bodies recovered, dozens of them reported to be children, it marks the deadliest such voyage yet from Lebanon, where mounting despair is forcing ever more people to attempt the perilous journey on rickety and overcrowded boats to seek a better life in Europe.

Before embarking on the ill-fated voyage, Misto had fallen heavily into debt, selling his car and his mother's gold to feed his family yet still unable to afford simple things, like cheese for his childrens' sandwiches, relatives and neighbors said.

"Everyone knows they may die but they say, 'Maybe I may get somewhere, maybe there is hope,'" said Rawane El Maneh, 24, a cousin. "They went... not to die, but to renew their lives. Now they are in a new life. I hope it's much better than this one here."

A view shows the exterior of Lebanon's Central Bank building in Beirut, Lebanon June 29, 2022. (credit: REUTERS/MOHAMED AZAKIR)

The tragedy has underscored soaring poverty in northern Lebanon, and Tripoli in particular, that is driving ever more people to take desperate measures three years into the country's devastating financial collapse.

It has also brought into focus stark inequalities that are particularly acute in the north: Tripoli is home to a number of ultra-rich politicians but has enjoyed little in the way of development or investment.

While many of Lebanon’s sectarian leaders have spent money in their communities to shore up political support, residents in Tripoli say their area has been neglected despite the wealth of its politicians.

As mourners gathered to pay their respects in Tripoli's impoverished Bab al-Ramel neighborhood, many voiced anger at the city's politicians including Najib Mikati, Lebanon's billionaire tycoon prime minister.

"We're in a country where politicians just suck up money, talk, and have no regard for what people need," El Maneh said.

Tripoli, Lebanon's second city with a population of roughly half a million, was already Lebanon's poorest before the country plummeted into financial crisis, the result of decades of corruption and bad governance overseen by ruling elites.

People sit together as they pay condolences for Mustafa Misto, a Lebanese man who was on the migrant boat with his three young children which sank off the Syrian coast on Thursday after sailing from Lebanon (credit: REUTERS)

Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center said Tripoli had seen no major development efforts since the 1975-90 civil war despite the political rise of rich businessmen from the city. This "resembled the growing inequality and income disparity in the country," he said.

Billionaires and Poverty

Mikati made much of his fortune in telecoms and is ranked the Arab world's fourth richest man in 2022 by Forbes.

Mikati's office said in a statement to Reuters on Thursday that he had been the "biggest supporter of socio-economic development in Tripoli" for more than 40 years, through his charitable foundations.

He also understood "the agony the people of Lebanon in general and Tripoli in particular are going through," due to the crisis, it added.

Electricity cables are seen near shops at Tripoli's impoverished Bab al-Ramel neighbourhood

 (credit: REUTERS)

Mikati's seaside mansion on the city's edge, known locally as "Mikati's Palace," has been a rallying point during protests in recent years over government corruption and economic desperation.

A Lebanese prosecutor in October 2019 charged Mikati with illicit enrichment for using funds designated for a subsidized housing loan scheme for poor families - accusations he has denied.

His office said the charges were "politically motivated to smear" his reputation, and noted another judge dropped the case earlier this year.

Troubled Region

Reflecting a disconnect between people in Tripoli and the politicians and a belief nothing will change, just three in 10 people in the city voted in May parliamentary elections.

The north has been one of Lebanon's most troubled regions since the end of the civil war. The city and its surrounding areas have been a fertile recruiting ground for young Sunni Muslim jihadists.

A woman walks down the stairs near residential buildings in Tripoli 

(credit: REUTERS)

Most recently, Tripoli has been a focal point of a worsening security situation linked to the financial collapse.

Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi has announced a new security plan that followed a spike in crimes and violence.

Several dozen of the people on the migrant boat came from the sprawling Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, according to camp residents. There were also many Syrians, around 1 million of whom live in Lebanon as refugees.

The economic crisis has led poverty to sky-rocket, with 80% of the population of some 6.5 million poor, according to the United Nations. The government has done little to address the crisis, which the World Bank has called a deliberate depression "orchestrated" by the elite through its exploitative grip on resources.

Several other boats attempted the voyage from Lebanon last week: Cyprus rescued 477 people from two vessels that left Lebanon.

Shadi Lababidi's brother sits at their home in Tripoli 

(credit: REUTERS)

The UN Refugee Agency said 3,460 individuals had left or attempted to leave Lebanon by sea this year, more than double the number in the whole of 2021.

Those who perished on the boat carrying Misto also included a woman and her four children from the northern Akkar region. The father was one of few survivors, said Yahya Rifai, the mayor of their town. He said the crisis was worse than the civil war.

"I don't know what's wrong with these politicians," he said. "They will have to answer for this."

Cyprus accused of migrant pushback to Lebanon as three boats returned to Tripoli's shores

Migrants said that Cypriot authorities stopped them in water for two days, denying their requests for food and water and forcing them to return to Lebanon.



William Christou
Lebanon
19 April, 2024

Cyprus has taken new restrictive policies in a response to a recent influx of migrants originating from Lebanon and Syria. [Getty]


Migrants who left via boat from Lebanon to try to reach Cyprus accused the island's authorities on Wednesday of leaving them stranded at sea and conducting a pushback amid rising alarm in Cyprus over increased migrant boats arriving on its shores.

Three boats carrying dozens of mostly Syrians left the coast of Lebanon off the northern city of Tripoli on Monday afternoon but were quickly intercepted by Cypriot authorities in the water.

Passengers said they were kept stranded in the water with dwindling food and water, and the Cypriot Coast Guard denied their requests for supplies.

"They had to go back to Lebanon; they were starving at that point. The Cypriots threatened them with guns, telling them they had to return," Ahmad (a pseudonym), a 33-year-old Syrian refugee living in Jounieh, north Lebanon, who had nine relatives on the boats, told The New Arab.

TNA approached Cyprus's Interior Ministry for a comment but did not receive a response by the time of publishing.

The three boats returned to Lebanon, with videos showing migrants disembarking an overcrowded trawler off Tripoli port on Wednesday.


One of the ships was apprehended by the Lebanese army. All of the Syrians on the boat who were registered as refugees with the UN were released, but those without official refugee status were kept.

Ahmad said that three of his cousins were still with the army and were threatened to be deported to Syria, as their residency papers had expired.

Since 2019, Lebanese authorities have deported returning Syrians who have left the country via an unofficial exit point.

Rights groups have said that Syria is still not safe for refugee return, citing the documented instances of arbitrary detainment, torture, sexual violence and even death at the hands of Syrian authorities.

According to the Lebanese Center for Human Rights, by returning Syrians to Lebanon with the knowledge that they would likely be deported to Syria, Cyprus has adopted a policy of "chain refoulment."
Cyprus on high alert

Cypriot authorities have taken new measures against migrants coming via boat from Lebanon and Syria after a 27-fold increase in migration to the island as compared to last year. Cyprus has the highest level of asylum seekers per capita in the EU.

On Tuesday, Cyprus announced that it would suspend the processing of Syrians' asylum requests in a bid to discourage new arrivals.

Cypriot coast guard ships also started patrolling Lebanon's coast after Cyprus's president visited Lebanon on 8 April.

Previously, under a 2020 bilateral deal between the two countries, Cyprus would return any migrants who left Lebanon, regardless of whether they were Lebanese nationals.

Since February, however, Lebanon has reportedly refused to continue taking back migrants, citing its already high levels of refugee populations.

Cyprus has publicly called for more EU funding and support for Lebanon so that it can step up its sea patrols and prevent more migrants from leaving its coast towards Cyprus. It has also called on the EU Council to recognise certain areas of Syria as safe so it can legally conduct refugee returns.
Rising violence against Syrians

Lebanon has been experiencing a wave of violence and state action against Syrians since the murder of Christian Lebanese Forces politician Pascal Sleiman on 8 April. The Lebanese army arrested several Syrians it said were responsible for killing Sleiman during a botched car-jacking.

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Killing of Lebanese Forces politician sparks fury on Syrians
William Christou

After his death was announced, gangs of Lebanese men began to beat up Syrians throughout Beirut, with at least one Syrian family in the Achrafieh neighbourhood having a Molotov cocktail thrown at their house.

Lebanese officials have announced that they will take harsher measures against Syrians with expired residency papers and draft up plans to deport those without. The Lebanese army dismantled informal settlements in the Bekaa Valley on Thursday and has reportedly stepped up deportations.

Ahmad said that he and his family have personally faced violence, with his brother being beaten up shortly before deciding to attempt the journey to Cyprus. Each passenger on the ship paid US$2,650 to smugglers for a spot on the boat.

Despite his family's failed journey to Cyprus and the potential to be deported back to Syria, Ahmad said that he will soon try to make it to Italy via sea. His own residency papers expired in 2019, and despite his attempts to renew them, Lebanese authorities did not grant him an extension.

"It's true that they were stopped in Cyprus, but maybe I will make it to Italy. I can't go back to Syria; I'm wanted there. And here, the situation is so bad. We are looking for a better life," Ahmad said.

Revolutionising Lebanon’s agriculture sector as food runs out

Lebanon’s farming industry has gone underfunded and underdeveloped for many years, hindered by a lack of modern equipment and inefficient production techniques.

An agricultural worker checks cucumber plants in a newly built greenhouse 

[Courtesy: Anera]

By Robert McKelvey
6 Jul 2021

Beirut, Lebanon – As time runs out for government subsidies in Lebanon, the troubled country faces an uphill battle to keep its population fed as food prices continue to rise, driven up by an ever-deepening liquidity crisis and a severe dependency on imported foreign goods.

Despite having the highest proportion of arable land in the Arab world with more than 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres), Lebanon’s own agricultural sector has gone underfunded and underdeveloped for many years, hindered by a lack of modern equipment and inefficient production techniques.

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Now, with Lebanese farmers unable to even cover their own operating costs and the government paralysed by political deadlock, international NGOs such as Anera have been forced to upscale their aid programmes to fight back against the rapid socioeconomic decline.

“I think that Lebanon is a rich country that has not been developed to its potential, and not just in the agricultural sector,” Samar El Yassir, Anera’s Lebanon country director, told Al Jazeera.

“With the bad governance we have instead of optimising our resources many times we are diminishing [them].

“Our interventions are at a grassroots, community level and not a policy level. There is not a government to influence. We are trying to find ways to build resilience and sustain these communities through these crises.”

Farm workers tend to newly planted fields 

[Courtesy: Anera]

Infrastructure non-existent

In happier times, some of Lebanon’s farmers made a tidy profit selling produce to foreign markets. However, this has led to a system of diminishing returns as those markets have become inaccessible.


Saudi Arabia suspended all imports of Lebanese fruit and vegetables back in April after a shipment of pomegranates was found to have been used to smuggle millions of Captagon pills into the kingdom, cutting off an important revenue stream and tainting the image of Lebanese produce internationally.

“Lebanon grows quality produce that sells at high prices in the Gulf region,” said Serene Dardari, Anera’s communication and outreach manager.

“When agricultural exports fetch high prices, Lebanon imports the same products from other neighbouring countries in order to benefit from the price difference and taxations, which is not really a sustainable economic system.

“Infrastructure and technological support is weak or nonexistent,” she continued. “Water supplies are in constant shortage due to a crucial lack of dams, which would otherwise allow for the use of surplus rainwater for irrigation and other functions, despite Lebanon having the highest rainfall levels in the region.”

Anera is working closely with farmers to improve both the quality and quantity of their crops [Courtesy: Anera]

In Lebanon’s coastal Akkar district, one of the country’s most fertile regions, Anera has been providing farmers with tools and technical assistance, as well as high-quality seeds and pesticides, while also helping them to take on additional agricultural workers, many of whom are Syrian migrants

This then allows farmers to expand their farmland and establish new plastic greenhouses and irrigation tubing systems, also provided by Anera.

“Many of our rivers are polluted and much of the land is not used properly,” explained Yassir. “We are teaching farmers how to do irrigation with water that isn’t polluted and with good practices. The hope is that this will not only improve their incomes, but also the quality of the food they produce.”

Dardari added: “The driving notion behind this is to teach a man how to fish rather than to give him one. By increasing the farmers’ capacities, as well as both the quantity and quality of their yields, we are trying to minimise their dependency on aid.”

With this scheme, the NGO hopes to provide a model for a more productive and profitable agriculture industry. This would allow Anera – as well as other organisations and local communities – to further build upon this for the future with an approach scalable to the resources available.
Fears of ‘brain drain’

In order for this development to continue in a meaningful and long-lasting way, a new generation of farmers is required to carry it forward. With so many Lebanese graduates and professionals leaving the country in search of a better life elsewhere, that may prove difficult.

“What concerns me as [both] a Lebanese and a development professional in this country is the ‘brain drain’ across all sectors,” lamented Yassir.

“One of Lebanon’s many resources is its people. [We] have access to good education, so we [need to] utilise these talents.”

A farmer displays freshly picked cucumbers [Courtesy: Anera]

Fortunately, Anera may have found a potential solution to this issue by offering young people a chance to try out farm work for themselves, synergising with their other development initiatives.

“We are investing in training youths in agriculture, placing them with different farmers so they can gain more experience while also helping these farmers,” said Yassir. “We are also helping them set up their own small agricultural practices on their own land.

“Lebanon has fallen and we need youth and communities to build it again,” she added. “Lebanon needs a government that is able to enact the reforms that are currently holding back foreign aid.”


By cultivating interest in the field among the younger generation, the NGO said it will come to appreciate the need for sustainable agriculture and possibilities it can offer as a potential career path.

With fuel subsidies also coming to their end, many in Lebanon are bracing for further dramatic increases in food prices, as farmers require large volumes of fuel to operate their machines and transport their goods to market.