|
Formerly, the Christians represented the majority in Lebanon. In recent years, the balance has shifted to the advantage of the Muslim population. The Muslims in Lebanon are divided into the groups of Shi’a and Sunni, whereof the Shi’a have their strongest support in southern Lebanon. Even after the end of the French mandate in Lebanon, the country was never free from outside actors’ interference shaping its domestic politics. The status and number of Palestinian refugees living in the country has been the subject of continuous debate, and the relationship between the Lebanese and Palestinians has remained tense. The Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon were granted self-rule limiting the Lebanese sovereignty over the camps. Formerly, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) operated from Lebanon, drawing Israeli military strikes and interventions towards Lebanon. These strikes caused destruction among the Lebanese population and infrastructure. Hezbollah’s ongoing military presence in southern Lebanon has been a similar cause for Israeli strikes on Lebanese territory. Syria, in turn, was for a long time the guarantor and stabilizer of the peace agreement following the civil war. Only a part of the Lebanese, mainly Shia, was in support of the Syrian presence eroding, for its part, the Lebanese sovereignty. Consequently, the Lebanese state structures’ fragility owes both to internal and external factors. The ghost of the violent civil war is still haunting the country.
|