A Short History of Lebanon
(4000 BC) The Phoenicians/ Canaanites
The recorded history shows a group of coastal cities and heavily forested mountains inhabited by the Canaanites around 4000 BC. These early inhabitants referred to themselves according to their city of origin, and called their nation Canaan. They lived in the narrow East-Mediterranean coast and the parallel strip mountains of Lebanon. Around 2800 BC Canaanites traded cedar timber, olive oil and wine from Byblos for metals and ivory from Egypt. The Coastal cities fell to Amorites around 2000 BC, and to Egyptians from round 1800 until 1200 BC when they recovered independence.
The Canaanites who inhabited that area were called Phoenicians by the Greeks (from the Greek word phoinos, meaning ‘red’) in a reference to the unique purple dye the Phoenicians produced from murex seashells. The Phoenicians mastered the art of navigation and dominated the Mediterranean Sea trade for over 500 years. They excelled in producing textiles, carving ivory and working with metal and glass. The Phoenicians built several local cities East of the Mediterranean among which are: Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Berytus (Beirut), Tripoli, Arvad Island-City, Baalbek and Caesarea.
They established trade routes to Europe and Western Asia. Phoenician ships circumnavigated Africa a thousand years before those of the Portuguese. They founded colonies wherever they ventured on the North and South of the Mediterranean in Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Marseilles, Cadiz, and Carthage around the first Millennium B.C.
Inventing the Alphabet
Around 1600 B.C. the Phoenicians invented the alphabet, and passed them onto the world. The Greeks adopted the 22-letter alphabet from the Phoenicians which has led to the Latin letters of present day.
The Phoenician king Hiram of Tyre (989-936 BC) built a palace for David and two palaces and a temple for Solomon. The Bible provides a vast amount of information about them. The Phoenicians built David’s Palace and Solomon’s Temple. They also built King Solomon two palaces, of which one was called ‘Forest of Lebanon’. Craftsmen of Phoenicia used Lebanon’s cedar and metal to accomplish the work around the mid of the tenth century BC.
The Phoenicians adjusted to successive conquerors later and managed to keep their trade business ongoing, and kept a sort of political independence.
(875-608 BC) The power-raising Assyrians invaded Phoenicia in 875 BC and deprived the Phoenicians of their independence. Byblos, Tyre and Sidon rebelled several times and the Assyrians brought total destruction to the cities in response.
(585-538 BC) The Babylonians became the new power and occupied Phoenicia. Phoenician cities rebelled and Tyre was destroyed, again.
(538 BC-333 AD) The Persians occupied the region including Phoenicia. The Phoenician navy supported Persia during the Greco-Persian war (490-449 BC). Phoenicians revolted when overburdened with heavy tributes imposed by the Persians in the forth century BC.
(333 – 64 BC) The Greeks defeated the Persian troops when Alexander the Great attacked Asia Minor in 333 BC. The Phoenician cities made no attempt to resist and acknowledged Alexander’s suzerainty. However, when he tried to offer a sacrifice to Melkurt, Tyre’s god, the city resisted and he besieged it.
The city fell after 6 months of resistance. Alexander’s conquest left a Greek imprint on the area. The Phoenicians, being a cosmopolitan civilization amenable to outside influences, adopted aspects of Greek civilizations and continued with their trade business.
(64 BC – 600 AD) Romans and Christianity
The Romans added Lebanon to its Empire. Economic and intellectual activities flourished in Lebanon during the Pax Roman. The inhabitants of the principal Phoenician cities of Byblos, Sidon and Tyre were granted Roman citizenship.
These cities were centers of the pottery, glass and purple dye industries; their harbors also served as warehouses for products imported from Syria, Persia and India. They exported cedar, perfume, jewelry, wine and fruit to Rome.
Economic prosperity led to a revival in construction and urban development; temples, palaces and the first School of Law in history were built throughout the country, as well as paved roads that linked the cities. Ruins of Roman temples and monuments are found all around Lebanon with the largest in Baalbek.
The Bible states that the first woman who believed in Christianity, became the first convert outside the Jews was a Phoenician woman. From the Northern Phoenician ports Saint Peter left to Rome and built the first church.
After the Roman Empire divided, the economic and intellectual activities continued to flourish in Beirut, Tyre and Sidon for more than a century.
The fifth century witnessed the birth of Maronite Christianity. Saint Maroun (also Maron) found a refuge in the northern mountains of Lebanon. A great portion of the Phoenicians became Christians, and their faith was named for him. Maronite Catholics later made great contributions to the Lebanese history, independence and culture.
(636-750) Arab Rule
The sixth century witnessed an increased feeling of nationalism in Mount Lebanon and the Phoenician coast that gradually gave way to the name of Lebanon for the entire territory. The seventh century started the shaping of the multi-cultural Lebanon we know. The Lebanese adopted many aspects from the Arabic culture, and excelled in science and Arabic literature.
(750-1110) The Abbasids
The Abbasids replaced the Umayyads ruling the Islamic Empire in early 750. They treated Lebanon as a conquered country.
(1095-1291) The Crusades
After capturing Jerusalem, the Crusaders turned to the Lebanese coast. Tripoli surrendered in 1109 while Beirut and Sidon in 1110. Tyre stubbornly resisted but finally fell in 1124 after a long siege.
Although they failed to establish a permanent presence, the Crusaders left their imprint on Lebanon as clear in the remains of many towers, castles and churches along the coast and in the mountains.
The Crusaders, the Mamluks and Mongols armies sought to master the region during the thirteenth century; however the victory came to the Mamluks.
(1282-1516) The Mamluks
Mamluk Islamic dynasty ruled Egypt for more than two centuries. They ruled Syria and parts of Lebanon in the late thirteenth century. Meanwhile, from the 11th to the 13th century, the Shia Muslims migrated from Syria, Iraq and Arabian Peninsula to Lebanon seeking refuge. The Shais and Druze rebelled in 1921 while the Mamluks were busy fighting the Crusaders and Mangols. They turned later and crushed the rebellion in 1309.
Beirut became a center of intense trading activities between the Middle East and Europe. Intellectual life in Lebanon flourished, and economic prosperity continued till the end of Mamluk rule.
(1516 – 1916) The Ottomans (Turks) and Lebanon
The Ottoman Empire who occupied the Middle East and Eastern Europe in the sixteenth century, ruled Lebanon through local leaders. Lebanon managed to get conditioned or total independence several times under Ottoman rule.
(1916-1920) World War I
After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the Turkish (Ottoman) forces in Syria occupied Lebanon and appointed a Turk ruler over the country. The Lebanese refused the occupation.
The Turks responded by commandeering Lebanon’s food supplies causing famine and plagues. Lebanon lost more than one third of its population then.
The Turks cut down Lebanon’s trees to fuel their trains and military consuming more than half of Lebanon’s forests. In 1916 the Turkish authorities executed Lebanese leaders in Beirut for alleged anti-Turkish activities.
That date of May 6th is commemorated annually in Lebanon as Martyrs’ Day.
Lebanon was relieved in September 1918 when the British general Edmund Allenby and Faysal I, son of Sharif Husain of Mecca reached the region. In 1920, the League of Nations gave France a mandate over Lebanon.
(1920-1943) Mandate Period and Independence
On September 1st, 1920, France proclaimed the establishment of Greater Lebanon with its present borders. In 1926, the Lebanese constitution was modeled after that of the French.
The constitution provided a parliament, a president and a cabinet. The president is elected by the parliament, which is popularly elected. After the allies won World War II, Lebanese national leaders asked France to end the mandate.
France proclaimed the independence of Lebanon in 1941 but continued to exercise authority. In 1943, Lebanon formed its first democratic government of independence and amended the constitution ending the mandate.
The French helped rebuilding the Lebanese infrastructure, economy and social systems. They developed a network of roads linking major cities and enlarged the harbor of Beirut.
The governmental and judicial systems were fundamentally developed while the educational, agricultural and public-health systems improved.
1943 National Pact
The Lebanese political Christian and Muslim leaders forged an unwritten National Pact post independence in 1943. The pact was designed to promote cooperation among the rival religious groups starting a unique concept of a confessional democracy. The pact states that Lebanon is an independent country with Arabic and European cultures.
Switzerland of the East
Lebanon enjoyed three decades of prosperity under a free-market economy. Tourism, agriculture, education and democracy flourished and advanced claming for Lebanon the title ‘Switzerland of the East’, and for Beirut ‘ Paris of the Middle East’. Lebanon was known to be the most democratic country in the Arab league.
However, the golden decades of this tiny country of Lebanon did not continue to thrive with the surrounding regional and international events and discord of that era.
War in Lebanon
Between 1970-1975, the situation in the Middle East declined rapidly and every major political party began organising and arming itself. In 1976, the Syrian army invaded the Lebanese northern region of Akkar, and advanced into the Bekaa valley east of Lebanon.
A month later, the Syrian dictator delivered his famous speech in the Syrian capital stating that he sent the Syrian army to Lebanon without permissionfrom any authorities.
The League of Arab Countries tried to send peace-keeping troops to Lebanon, but they were forced to leave the country for the Syrian army later. The Syrian troops in Lebanon meanwhile worked on silencing the Lebanese voices that were criticizing its martial interference by assassinating several Lebanese national and religious figures.
Palestinian militiamen kept launching attacks from the areas they controlled in South Lebanon against Northern Israel. The Israeli response was more severe and often impacted Lebanese civilians.
The attacks developed into an Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon in March 1978. The United Nation Interim Forces were deployed in South Lebanon to reduce the tension and the Israeli forces pulled back later.
The Syrian army continued gradually occupying more regions in Lebanon including parts of the capital ‘Beirut’. The regions in which were not under Syrian occupation were punished by continuous bombing while pro-Syrian guerillas were committing massacres against civilians.
In the early eighties, Lebanon was being destroyed with contentious fighting, while PLO militias occupied most of Beirut and kept launching attacks against Northern Israel.
Israeli Invasion of 1982
In June 1982, the Israeli forces invaded Lebanon reaching into Beirut. A Multinational force made up of US and West European troops were deployed in Beirut after an international mediation.
The agreement called for PLO, Syrian and Israeli forces to pull of Beirut. Thousands of PLO militiamen were deported from Lebanon while the Syrian and Israeli army were withdrawing from Beirut.
(1988-1990)
In 1998, Syrian troops and their allies worked on preventing the election of a new Lebanese president in order to completely paralyze the Lebanese authorities. The Lebanese Government launched a war of liberation against the Syrian army demanding the scheduling of a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon.
(1990) Complete Syrian Occupation
In August of 1990 Iraq invaded its neighboring country of Kuwait, and drew the international community’s attention to the Iraqi occupation of the small oil-country and the threats to the world-largest oil reserve of Saudi Arabia.
The Syrian regime gained the opportunity and promised not to side with Iraq in return of controlling Lebanon. On October 1990, the Syrian troops launched aerial and ground attacks and occupied the Lebanese presidential palace and the ministry of defense defeating the reminder of the Lebanese army.
The Syrian regime appointed a proxy government and president in occupied Lebanon and started a large scale persecution operation against Lebanese people: arresting, abducting, torturing and killing whoever opposes its occupation.
Proxy Regime
The Syrian status quo imposed what became known as the “Taef Accord”. The Arab-League-brokered “Taif Agreement” called for political reforms and for disarming all militias in Lebanon.
Growing Opposition to Syrian Occupation
By the end of 2004, the public opposition to the Syrian occupation and its proxy regime in Lebanon grew substantially and attracted many political leaders including even some of those who were previously allied with the Syrian regime such as prominent Muslim-Sunni leader Rafik Hariri, and Druze leader Walid Juomblat.
The Cedar Revolution
Syria kept persecuting the Lebanese leaders who resisted its occupation of Lebanon. Exiled Premier General Michel Aoun was threatened to be arrested if he tried to return to Lebanon, while the leader of the Lebanese Forces ex-militia Samir Gaegae was also imprisoned
On March 5, 2005 the Syrian president bowed down to the national and international pressure, and announced that the Syrian army would pull out from Lebanon in two stages, without setting a timeline for the withdrawal, yet proclaiming the implementation of the UN resolution 1559. The Syrian troops started a partial withdrawal from Beirut and Northern Lebanon on March 8th. The popular demonstrations continued and reached their peak on March 14, 2005 when the Lebanese people rallying against Syrian occupation held the largest demonstration in Lebanon ’s history with over a million demonstrators.
By the end of March 2005, the Syrian government pulled most of their troops and dismantled all of its intelligence stations in Beirut and north Lebanon. While the Lebanese were celebrating the withdrawal of the Syrian army in the areas they evacuated, pro-Syrian militants made several appearances as several bomb explosions took place around the country. The Lebanese opposition, the United Nations and the international community held the Syrian regime and its proxy government responsible for any security problems against the people of Lebanon.
On February 26, 2005 , a United Nations fact-finding mission held Syria and its proxy regime in Lebanon responsible for the political events that led to Hariri’s assassination. It also accused the pro-Syrian government in Lebanon of misleading the investigation and hiding evidence to cover up the crime. On April 7, 2005, the United Nations Security Council ordered an international investigation into Hariri’s assassination opposition through resolution 1595.
In response to the continuous United States-led pressure and in face of popular protests, the Syrian government pledged to pull out by April 30, 2005.
The peaceful “Cedar Revolution” continued in Lebanon and around the world, seeking the independence of Lebanon, and calling for general elections free from Syrian interference. The Syrian army withdrew its troops from Lebanon end of April 2005 after 30 years of occupation.
Hezbolllah
The Shiite religious group and Iranian proxy , Hezbollah , established a powerful presence in south Lebanon in the early 21st century. The group , designated a terrorist group
by western countries and Israel ,supported Palestinian independence movements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
This led it in into frequent military skirmishes with Israel.Frequent rocket fire into Northern Israel in part resulted in further Israeli invasions of southern Lebanon and political instability in the country which continues to this day .
Israel has invaded the country four times in the last 60 years – in 1978, 1982, 2006 and 2024.
Destination – Middle East & North Africa
