![]() ![]() At every stage, however, that conflict intruded on his subject, and became the lens through which he viewed Lebanon. He acknowledges that this book did not start out as a history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel’s role in Lebanon features prominently in Hirst’s narrative. Hirst, a 50-year resident of Lebanon as a reporter for The Guardian, relates in vivid detail a tragically familiar chronology, culminating in the attacks of 9/11 and a new era of upheaval: Lebanon’s slide into the Arab-Israeli conflict after the 1967 War the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) state-within-astate the disintegration of Lebanon and its collapse into civil war in the 1970s Israel’s invasion in 1982 the rise of Hizbullah, with Iranian support the ascendancy of fundamentalist Islam and the attempt to redraw the map of the Middle East to make Israel the cornerstone of a peaceful region. David Hirst’s Beware of Small States demonstrates the disastrous effect of these deficits on Lebanon’s recent history. The weakness of Lebanon’s inter-sect political system 1 and its strategic location in the Middle East has since the 19 th century allowed outside forces to influence its domestic affairs, and has led the small state into both regional conflicts and entanglements with the Great Powers. ![]()
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