Lebanon 2012

By | March 27, 2021

Yearbook 2012

Lebanon. The unrest in neighboring Syria spread to Lebanon, causing old sectarian contradictions to flare up. Prime Minister Najib Mikati, formally independent, made efforts to keep his country out, but this proved difficult as the government was otherwise dominated by the Syrian-friendly Hezbollah movement with a militia in the back that was stronger than the Lebanese army. In practice, Lebanon became a playground for power measurements between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his opponents.

Intelligence chief Wissam al-Hassan was killed on October 19 by a car bomb in the capital Beirut. No guilty persons were arrested, and no group assumed responsibility for the assassination, but judges believed that those responsible had links with Syria and Hizbullah. al-Hassan had been closely following the murdered former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri and had assisted the UN tribunal that investigated the murder with materials that helped Hizbullah be identified as involved. The assassination of al-Hassan temporarily united Sunni Muslims and Maronites in demanding that the government resign. al-Hassan was the fifteenth anti-Syrian front figure in Lebanon murdered since 2003. Maronite politician Samir Geagea, who had sharply criticized al-Assad, was subjected to an assassination attempt on April 4.

  • AbbreviationFinder.org: Provides most commonly used acronyms and abbreviations for Lebanon. Also includes location map, major cities, and country overview.

The area along the border with Syria was troubled as Syrian troops entered Lebanon to attack rebels who had retreated there. Armed supporters and opponents of al-Assad also on several occasions also met in the city of Tripoli in the north. The worst was the fighting in June and August when a total of at least 30 people were killed.

The UNHCR reported in July that there were 27,000 registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon, but the actual number was significantly higher. The vast majority were exhausted, but rich Syrians also came to Beirut to shop when the war reached Damascus.

The Lebanese gay movement, at everyday very quiet, protested in August after it was revealed that the police routinely let doctors check the anal opening of people arrested on suspicion of having “intercourse in violation of nature”, which is a crime in Lebanon. The government also criticized the police’s methods.

Employees at the state power plant repeatedly struck during the year, causing long and recurring power outages in many parts of the country.

The role of the United States

From the outset, the United States proved to be a very active participant in the war. After a few days, it became clear to the world community that Israel’s daily killing of dozens of Lebanese civilians and violent aerial bombardment of the country’s civilian infrastructure was completely out of proportion to the alleged cause: the arrest of 2 Israeli soldiers. On July 14, Qatar sought to intervene in the UN Security Council and adopt a resolution. This was blocked by the US declaring that “Israel has the right to defend itself”. A court that did not apply to other states in the Middle East. On July 17, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair proposed that the UN should send a greater force into southern Lebanon, but this was unanimously rejected by the United States and Israel, which referred to Israel first crushing Hezbollah.

On 19 July, the international humanitarian organizations, that it was not managed to get guarantees from Israel that the war power not to attack emergency transports. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s urgent ceasefire appeal was rejected on July 20 by both Israel and the United States. Super Power United Nations Ambassador John Bolton declared: “We’ll stay on until we’re done.”

US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice revealed the neoconservative agenda on July 22 when she declared, “It may be a bit of a hard birth, but a new Middle East is being born these days.” The United States wanted the power structures in the region changed for its own benefit through war, and a ceasefire would be directly destructive to such a plan.

At a peace conference in Rome, on July 26, the United States – across the world, with the exception of Israel, Denmark and the United Kingdom – succeeded in preventing a ceasefire.

John Boltonprevented the day after the UN Security Council from passing a resolution condemning Israel for its killing of 4 UN observers 2 days earlier. After two days of negotiations, China’s draft was cut down to the UN pronouncing “shock” over the killings. It had never happened in the history of the World Organization that a member state had blocked criticizing the killing of UN staff. Bolton at the same time prevented a claim being written into the text requiring the UN to participate in Israel’s investigation into the killings. Israel welcomed the statement that de-facto stamped its targeted bombing of UN targets in southern Lebanon. Already on July 26, the country’s Justice Minister Haim Ramon declared it considered all persons who had not left southern Lebanon to be members of Hezbollah. He also stated that the Rome Conference 26. July had “approved Israel’s continuing operations in Lebanon”. This powerful reinterpretation of the conference was immediately contradicted by both the German and British Foreign Ministers and by the EU President Finland, who declared that everyone – except the US – had demanded immediate ceasefire. Following the US blockade of a sharper UN opinion, China declared it would have a decisive negative impact on cooperation in the Security Council. A reference to the US attempts to use the UN in its diplomatic operations against North Korea and Iran. Following the US blockade of a sharper UN opinion, China declared it would have a decisive negative impact on cooperation in the Security Council. A reference to the US attempts to use the UN in its diplomatic operations against North Korea and Iran. Following the US blockade of a sharper UN opinion, China declared it would have a decisive negative impact on cooperation in the Security Council. A reference to the US attempts to use the UN in its diplomatic operations against North Korea and Iran.

Population 2012

According to countryaah, the population of Lebanon in 2012 was 6,532,567, ranking number 108 in the world. The population growth rate was 5.690% yearly, and the population density was 638.5805 people per km2.

Lebanon Population 1960 - 2021