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. "About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.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. (Apr.)Ĭopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. Hirst's is a passionately partisan and eloquent recounting of the tragic fate of modern Lebanon and the Palestinian people. for provoking the 2003 invasion of Iraq and anoints the Iranians as the only true victor of America's war in Iraq.
The author also faults the United States for its deference to all things Israeli takes to task Israel and the Israeli lobby in the U.S. Hirst is solidly in the Palestinians' corner throughout he inveighs against Israeli policies of ethnic cleansing and blocking progress toward a settlement of the Palestinian issue. Displaced Palestinians flooded into southern Lebanon following the first Arab-Israeli War (1948) and spawned a guerilla 'state-within-a-state' on Israel's northern border. Lebanon's role in the struggle for Palestine, however, is the author's primary interest. Given Lebanon's tiny size, sectarian polity, and strategic location in a volatile region, Hirst observes that it was almost designed to be the everlasting battleground for others' political, strategic and ideological conflicts.
A former Middle Eastern correspondent for the Guardian, Hirst ( The Gun and the Olive Branch) chronicles the travails of modern Lebanon in this provocative polemic that doubles as a history of the Arab-Israeli struggle.
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