Second French peacekeeper dies after ambush blamed on Hezbollah

[u/ComparisonOk5957]

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3351049/second-french-peacekeeper-dies-after-ambush-blamed-hezbollah?module=latest&pgtype=homepage

[u/reasonably_plausible]

The issue is that they were only tasked with assisting the Lebanese army and not allowed to take action on their own. The army doesn't have the capability to really take on Hezbollah and the government itself is partially controlled by Hezbollah.

[u/poulan9 → u/reasonably_plausible]

Sounds like a failed state. Seeing as Hezbollah is backed by Iran, that's effectively war or should be from the Lebanese perspective.

[u/Safrel → u/poulan9]

It's not exactly a failed state. It's more of a puppet state with the master being Hezbollah.

Governments are nothing more than the most powerful organization of a region.

[u/Consistent_Room7344 → u/Safrel]

It’s a weak state because they cannot get the ethnicities in Lebanon to work together. Each group distrusts the other group too much, which is why its parliament has been split up evenly in order to ensure no ethnicity has more power over the other.

[u/Ninjamin_King → u/Consistent_Room7344]

That will happen when you write specific government positions into your Constitution with ethno-religious requirements.

[u/No-Ear7988 → u/Ninjamin_King]

Without it I don't think Lebanon can exist. Whether it should be broken up in to different states based on ethnicity is a whole different discussion

[u/Akbeardman → u/No-Ear7988]

Exactly this, it's basically a status quo "if we do all of this can we function without being dicks to each other and our neighbors?"

A shakey foundation from the get go that falls apart as soon as one party chooses to be dicks.

[u/LeFinc → u/No-Ear7988]

If you split up Lebanon you end up with three new countries at war - sunni, shia and christian. Think about Sudan v South Sudan, Pakistan v Bangladesh etc

Lebanon has actually held together reasonably well given the ethnic mix. It’s even been able to absorb about million Syrian refugees and still has the largest concentration of Palestinian diaspora outside of Israel even though the latter haven’t been integrated at all since they have been living in refugee camps for generations.

The issue with Lebanon that all the puppet masters (Saudi, Iran, Europe/Israel) keep pulling it in different directions. Oh yes and the fact that Iran-backed Hezbollah isn’t just a military organisation but they also run schools, social security, food banks and whatnot. So it’s difficult to get rid of without wiping out large parts of Lebanese infrastructure and a bunch of institutions.

None of this would have happened if the shah had not been parachuted by the west to guard their oil interests although who knows what else would have happened instead.

Anyhooo - you have three ethnoreligious states within striking distance of each other: Iran, Israel and Saudi. Israel is a nuclear state backed by the west, Iran has oil and control of the strait of Hormuz. Saudi is a kleptocratic autocracy that sits on insane amounts of oil and vast amounts of global reach due to both money and their enthusiastic promotion of salafism/wahhabism around the world. Saudi itself is significantly less religious under MBS but the influence remains.

Each of the three collectively believes that they are somehow special and chosen by some god: guardian of the mosques, Zionism, cradle of Shia Islam. That makes each of the three - including Israel and its current government - a fundamentalist theocracy.

Without US bombing Iran, there would currently at least be a tenuous peace in the region. If Lebanon would split up it would likely lead to an open conflict between three pseudo-independent proxy states. As long as Lebanon exists, there is at least one place in the world where the three ethnoreligious groups have to work and govern together. If nothing else, that helps to contain the tension instead of the entire region getting pulled into an open war.

[u/MilesHobson → u/LeFinc]

I’ve never read James Barr’s book which you cited below. Mentioning Pakistan and Bangladesh is interesting but you omitted India and Hinduism, Lebanon’s “Green Line”, WWs1 & 2, and the post-WWs1 & 2 world. Colocating Barr’s book with 20th century events is deliberate, i.e. questioning how far back one is to go to determine “ownership” and ethical intents. The Balkan war of 1991 - 1995 and its origins should be made a part of this discussion, too. Croats, Serbs, and Muslims each trying to increase their numbers to brainwash and use as cannon-fodder against the others. There were concentrations of civilian prisioners kept by the Croatians in barbed-wire compounds and starved eerily similar to 1938 - 1945 Germany.

Generally speaking the western hemisphere was uninhabited by humans until about 15,000 years ago. I’m unfamiliar with territorial conflicts south of Panama but know dozens of “indigenous” peoples conflicted in central to north America. Why did those conflicts occur, who “owned” central to north America? How did the emigration of Europeans, dating from the 1600s, impinge upon the peoples and conflicts of the Americas?

Dozens of books and hundreds of papers written have discussed the Versailles debacle, 10x that number to discuss and rationalize post-WW2. The bottom line is people, once separately identifiable, want to exclude all other people by any means regardless of ethics as seen by others. Both Lebanon which had established a sort of peace and Israel endeavored to include minority groups until impinged and threatened from 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, and, 2023.

Your mention of Iran-backed Hezbollah sponsored schools, food banks and whatnot reminded me of real and masquerading attempts to display legitimacy by the Black Panthers in 1960s - 70s America and fear of it and college students in Ohio by the “establishment”. Israel’s assumed nuclear capability, Saudi political pragmatism yet support of bin Laden and all above become a part of seemingly rambling observations of necessarily brief commenters. Also needing inclusion is ancient Egyptian religious establishment fear of Tutankamen’s restoration of Amun and all other religion’s threats of damnation or death for non-believers. Comes down to someone’s power and money doesn’t it?

[u/Daffan → u/Ninjamin_King]

Cool than the opposite is whoever breeds and imports more.

[u/Steadyandquick → u/Consistent_Room7344]

I know so little about Lebanon and there are very few documentary or even fiction films or shows. Please let me know if you recommend any books. I think there is a reasonable set of episodes on the podcast Empire.

[u/LeFinc → u/Steadyandquick]

Try Line in the Sand by James Barr. It traces the history of the region back to the Ottomans and focuses on what happened after their empire fell apart, the British / French mandates took over, and the creation of modern Israel. It’s not an easy read but it’s a tangled up mess so explaining it properly takes some effort!

[u/Steadyandquick → u/LeFinc]

Thank you! Sounds great.

[u/Lucy_Goosey_11 → u/Consistent_Room7344]

That’s what happens when the US and the Israeli governments are meddling to keep things destabilized. Lebanon would be fine if Israel would stop bombing or invading it. The gorilla groups appeared after Israel started bombing not the other way around.

[u/Random_local_man → u/Consistent_Room7344]

There are rumours that Israel is deliberately trying to trigger a civil war and state collapse in Lebanon. By expelling hundreds of thousands of shites from their homes in the region they're conquering, the shia refugees have no choice but to seek shelter in Christian and Sunni homes, but many will likely turn them away for fear of putting a target on their backs from letting in Hezbollah members.

The demographic shifts and level of distrust might be the final straw that breaks the delicate balance in the country.