Fifty years ago today, Lebanon and its people were plunged into the abyss of civil war. Partly as a reaction to the horror of more than 150,000 deaths in 15 years of bitter armed conflict, there has been a tendency to somewhat romanticise the country’s pre-war history – yet Lebanon’s sectarian tensions and social inequalities left the state brittle and prone to collapse.

The war brought a special period in Lebanon’s history to a shuddering halt. Its position as a vibrant cultural and intellectual bridge between East and West became another victim of the conflict. Before the war, cosmopolitan Beirut was a luxury tourism destination, a hub for Arab commerce and home to a flourishing and stable banking sector. The conflict that erupted on April 13, 1975 was manipulated by an array of countries including Israel, Syria and........

© The Frontier Post (Editorial)