The Kuwaiti newspaper As-Siyassah is reporting that Hizballah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been invited to Ankara to meet with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Neither Hizballah nor the Turkish government have confirmed the story, but if it is true, it marks a significant deterioration in Turkey’s relationship with Israel in the wake […]
Lebanon’s abstention in last week’s United Nations Security Council vote on Iranian sanctions should have surprised no one. The vote not only represents internal divisions among the Lebanese political establishment, but also that country’s precarious position in the escalating confrontation between Iran and the West. Steadily over the last thirty years, Hizballah has gained traction […]
The presidents of Syria and Lebanon are scheduled to meet next Tuesday in Damascus to discuss the relationship between the two neighbors, as well as how recent developments in the region might affect them. Meetings between Lebanese and Syrian leaders are growing more commonplace, as their once frosty relations continues to thaw at a steady […]
Lebanese leaders and citizens are expressing their outrage over last Sunday’s botched Israeli raid in international waters off the coast of Gaza that resulted in at least 9 deaths. Since the Hamas-led government took over control of Gaza in 2007, Israel has had the territory under siege. In 2009, Israel launched an assault on Gaza […]
Officials from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) have stated that they expect charges to be filed in the Hariri murder case between September and December of this year. Former Prime Minister Rafik Hairri was assassinated in 2005 by a massive explosion as his motorcade drove through the streets of Beirut. The STL was established […]
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri is scheduled to meet with President Obama in Washington on May 24th, and the two will have much to discuss. Hariri and Obama Lebanon’s and the United States have a long relationship loosely based on their common democracy and Christian influence. But the relationship between America and Lebanon is not […]
The Scud missile scandal of two weeks ago has turned into the M600 scandal of today. Does Israel really believe these accusations? Is Syria really smuggling these weapons to Hizballah? And if so, what does it mean for the future of the Levant? While the prospect of Hizballah actually obtaining Scuds is discussed here, these […]
There have been at least two odd scenes in Beirut over the last couple of weeks. The first was a soccer game played by MPs which was supposed to demonstrate cross-sectarian cooperation, and the second was a fairly large march & rally whose participants called for a more secular Lebanon. Both events reflect the sentiment […]
Author’s note: a previous version of this article appeared on the MEA website. Israeli officials claimed last Thursday that they had intelligence indicating that Syria has been arming Hizballah with SCUD missiles. If so, it would mark a significant departure for Hizballah in terms of military strategy and weapons capability. Now, nothing should come as […]
As Iraq enters its post-parliamentary election phase, the situation resembles that which Lebanon faced after its own parliamentary elections last June. The two countries have much in common and it might be useful to compare them. Their Shia Iraq and Lebanon have similar heterogeneous sectarian breakdowns. For Lebanon, the Shia, Sunni, and Christians represent the […]
There has been a game afoot since President Obama took office last January. While much has been made of Obama’s sweeping domestic agenda, his foreign policy ideas are no less ambitious. In the end, his foreign and domestic agendas are closely related, as the goal of both is to protect and improve America. In the […]
On Valentine’s Day 2005, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed as his motorcade traveled near the Beirut seaside. To date, Hariri’s killers have yet to be identified, and like many other high-profile cases in the this part of the world, it might never happen. After Hariri’s death, the United Nations Security Council set […]
The annual Arab League summit is being held this year in Libya, and Lebanon’s attendance at the meeting is doubtful. Libya and Lebanon have been at odds since the highly influential Imam Musa Sadr went missing on a 1978 visit to Tripoli. Many Lebanese blame Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for Sadr’s disappearance, and tensions between […]
While Lebanon worries about another attack from Israel, two other issues have been consistently popping up on the radar: the question of Hizballah’s arms, and the prospect of ending sectarianism. Not surprisingly, the three are closely related. — During the run-up to the 2009 parliamentary elections in Lebanon, a cloud of anxiety blanketed the country. […]
Israel seems to be facing something that it might not have expected in its war of words with its neighbors: unity. And it looks like some nations of the Middle East are hanging together in the face of Israeli aggression instead of hanging alone, which has often been the tradition in the past. Falling far […]