Time was in the 1990s, even after 2000, that any country in danger of political chaos or “implosion” – a word I still instinctively loath, along with “epicentre” – was in danger of being “Lebanised”. Djibouti would become “the Beirut of the Horn of Africa” and the Balkans, inevitably, subject to “Lebanonisation”. For a…
Reacting to the explosion of the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020, the Lebanese people and the international press saw it as an accident due to the corruption of the port authorities. For our part, after analyzing the first clues, we immediately questioned the thesis of the accident and favored that of the attack….
A month and a half after detonating several tons of ammonium nitrate into the port of Beirut, which caused crushing economic and human losses for the country, the situation in Lebanon is only getting worse. The only grain storage in Lebanon, located near the port was completely destroyed as a result of this explosion, puts…
As one Gulf state after another embraces formal ties with Israel, some have looked to the Arab League to condemn normalisation. Yet to understand why the league will do nothing of the sort, one has to go back to its founding. The League of Arab States was founded in 1945 at the instigation and planning…
I am trying to think how best to write about Lebanon, about the BIGGER picture and the complicated political situation and structure there. It goes beyond the Beirut port bombing or the source of the fertiliser, well beyond the recriminations, and what is actually being reported in the news as well. This is a topic…
Months before the announcement that the UAE was going to recognise Israel, breaking the status quo that normalisation would come only after Palestinians achieved statehood, analysts puzzled over US President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century”. Why, they asked themselves, is the US president investing so much energy in a deal that Palestinian leaders boycott,…
