This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 69.196.164.190 (talk) at 22:23, 1 October 2006 (→Demographics). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 22:23, 1 October 2006 by 69.196.164.190 (talk) (→Demographics)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Everybody, please remember to sign your name and date using the four tildes, and always try to be as polite as possible even if others are rude to you. Many topics in this page are under hot debate, so please keep a cool head, and try to stay away from controversial stuff as much as possible. More discussion can be found in the archives. Also, please please do not swear. Thank you.
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Current Events
I've altered the first sentance because it sounded like the IDF forces were captured inside Lebanease territory, a statement that wasnt even varified by the sources given! And also was contradicted by the next paragraph. I will include the alternate point of view now.
Note: I have left the original sources for this bar one which was removed as a dead link
--Rick browne 14:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Civil War
I have deleted some passages that are neither balanced and not relevant (bold has been deleted):
"Initially, fighting began between these Palestinians (referred to as "anti-Lebanese militias" by some) and the indigenous Lebanese "leftists" (the communists and socialist parties). As the fighting intensified, the sides involved became more distinct. On one side was the Christian resistance led first by Bachir Gemayel and later by Samir Geagea. The other side comprised a coalition of Palestinian refugees, Sunni Muslim, and Druze forces who were united in their detestation of the 1943 National Pact. The (so-called civil) war left the nation with no effective central government." --Emirbachir 18:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Oops?
I have removed the word "accidentally" in referring to the Israeli bombing of the UN post. The facility was hit 15 consecutive times, so I guess that doesn't qualify as an accident. Also, you should check whether the damage was caused by an air strike. I believe it was ground artillery. Even so, the attack was certainly not accidental, which the next paragraph confirms (if it was a "tactical necessity" then that implies it was premeditated). And even if they were bombing the area close to the place and "accidentally" hit, why didn't they call the UN personnel and warn them to evacuate, just as they do in Gaza where they call people and tell them to get out of their houses before shelling them. Israel was just trying to show that no one can tell it what to do to scare the Lebanese who had hope that the UN wouldn't just sit with its arms folded. LestatdeLioncourt 12:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Personal Freedom
I have erased the "eradicating personal freedoms" part where Syria's effect on Lebanon is discussed. Now I'm not doing this in support of Syria, it's just that I can very well remember many people who spoke openly of the Syrian influence (or domination if you wish) on the Lebanese governemnet and critisized such an invlovement. However, the rights of Lebanses citizens to freely express their ideas and thoughts has been guranteed throught Lebanon's history, which has certainly been (to say the least) the most deomcratic country in the Arab world. LestatdeLioncourt 15:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
French Name
I added the French name of the country, since it is an official language. Take a look at Afghanistan, where the name of the country appears in both official languages.Heja Helweda 04:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Syrian intervention and consequent occupation of Lebanon
I believe that section is not very accurate, it mentions that the palestinians were pushed out of beirut by the joined syrian-maronite forces, to my knowledge the palestinians continued to control significant areas in beirut until the israeli invasion & seige of Beirut in 1982, I also didn't understand what(Ezzat)stands for. 213.42.2.23 12:23, 4 September 2006 (UTC)The man who sold the world
Since nobody cared to comment I have removed the following sentence Together the Syrians and Maronites pushed the Palestinians out of Beirut and into southern Lebanon. & replaced it with the syrian army joined the Maronites in their fight against the palestinians, I think its more accurate since intense fighting was still going on in Beirut & other parts of lebanon between the Palestinians & Syrians-Maronites untill the israeli invasion of 1982. please let me know if any one object.213.42.2.22 09:09, 7 September 2006 (UTC)The man who sold the world
Hariri assassination
This section claims, "others have suggested it was carried out by Israeli's secret service MOSSAD and/or the CIA, to force the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, making an Israeli invasion feasible." Since the author fails to cite this assertion or at least identify who "others" are, it qualifies as a personal opinion, and therefore, should be corrected or deleted.
- Please note, Mr. Smartpants-who-forgot-to-sign-his-name, that while your objection is %100 accurate (I even went back to fix the "mistake" and attribute this conspiracy theory to actual people, only to find you have hastened to earse it) you fail (perhaps intentionally?) to notice that the same mistake has been committed when the author poses the "Syria-did-it" conspiracy theory (yes they are all consirpacy theories). Next time, you might want to look for a better excuse to try and omit an opposing opinion. LestatdeLioncourt 14:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
- I apologize for not noticing the similar mistake of the Syrian conspiracy. However, my obligation is not to identify and resolve every single issue of this article, even if a similar problem exists in the same paragraph. I merely noticed a mistake, commented on it, and then decided to fix it. I also believe the section on Syria should be attributed or deleted. My personal beliefs might have caused me to single out the Israeli conspiracy in particular, but like you said, my objection was "100% accurate." And since I learned how to sign (SuperKid 19:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC))
- Sorry, I didn't know you didn't know how to sign :), now you're just Mr. Smartypants. Anyways, please check the paragraph again and see if the fixes I made are suitable. LestatdeLioncourt 10:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Clean up 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
A lot of this should be merged into the main article -- Kendrick7 02:48, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Someone please clean up this paragraph from obviously one-sided propaganda: "The 2006 Israel-Lebanon war was one of the most brutal Lebanon has witnessed. The level of destruction that has hit Lebanon has been described by the country's Prime Minister Fuad Seniora as "unimaginable."" I just have to scroll up two pages to see that every single conflict in libanon was several time more serious than the rather small Israel-Hizballah-war, eg. with 10.000 to 100.000 dead. -- Crass_Spektakel 03:28, 18 September 2006 (MEC)
- I am the one who wrote that paragraph (I was trying to summarize the section). You say that "every single confilct in was several times more serious than the rather small Israel-Hezbollah war." First of all, your statment is unsupported in that it presumes your complete knowledge of all the conflicts Lebanon has lived through; but, personally (no offence meant), I doubt that. At least you could have listed the conflicts which illustrate your point. Still, this won't change a thing. Reasons are as follows:
- My parents lived through each and every and single one of the conflicts listed above, including the last (summer 2006). They didn't hesitate in declaring that it was much more brutal than all the previous conflicts with Israel. I myself have survived through the 1993, 1996, 1999, and the last conflict. I would easily give my vote to 2006. Although, I count first-hand experience as priceless, you may disagree. If so, please move to reason 2.
- (First, I must apologize for not referencing anything I will say now with information from websites, but everything that follows I personally heard on local TV in statements made by Lebanese officials.) Economically, the war managed to destory more of the Lebanese economy than the 15-year-long civil war. Regarding human loss, the 2006 death toll was so relatively "low" due to the mass displacement of Lebanese civilians from the targeted areas. The first estimate of destroyed residential units was 15,000. With an average 5 persons per unit, you have 75,000 dead, not to mention those who would have died from serious injuries in areas close to the bombing site. I hope 75,000 is good enough for you. The only conflict in the entire history of Lebanon that reaped more lifes (even with the 1,200 death toll) is the 1975 Civil War, so I believe it qualifies as "one of the most brutal"; I didn't go so far as to call it the most brutal.LestatdeLioncourt 08:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
- I am the one who wrote that paragraph (I was trying to summarize the section). You say that "every single confilct in was several times more serious than the rather small Israel-Hezbollah war." First of all, your statment is unsupported in that it presumes your complete knowledge of all the conflicts Lebanon has lived through; but, personally (no offence meant), I doubt that. At least you could have listed the conflicts which illustrate your point. Still, this won't change a thing. Reasons are as follows:
- Being personally involved makes you biased and doing a math like "it could have killed theoretically 75.000 people" makes this point even more obvious. Rethink your position, it should be good enough to leave the citing of the president but not the personal evaluation of the situation. The hard numbers speak enough for themselves. Crass Spektakel 06:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
- Hard numbers themselves place the 2006 conflict as the third bloodiest war in Lebanon's history (the two others were the civil war and the 1982 Israeli invasion, even though most victims were Palestinians in the latter). This statement is a matter of fact, not my opinion. I think the statement will give the reader an idea of how to place the war in a wider perspective (relative to other Lebanese wars). If the statement annoys you in any way, then please delete it. I will not complain. I would just like to point out that your last reply was based on two myopic arguments: 1) being personally involved in all the wars makes a person more qualified to provide comparison than an objective observer (I'm an existentialist, so what?), though objective observation does confirm the subjective observation as in this case (see sentence 1). 2) I didn't deem the war brutal because it "could have" killed 75,000. I repeat that with the current death toll, the 2006 conflict remains the third most brutal. I suggest that we place the PM's quote as a reference to the statement; that'll make it less redundant. LestatdeLioncourt 12:41, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Semi-Protection
I propose that the article be semi-protected (again) but this time permenantly. It has clearly become an arena for political debate and having it open to more and more people is the last thing you want. LestatdeLioncourt 09:07, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
That's It
I'm just so, so sick with all this debate that's going on around here. Here's what I'm going to do: I will move the "History" section to the end of the article and have all the other (neutral) sections pushed up. I think some of the most important aspects of Lebanon (such tourism and superior education) are being drowned in all the continuous obssessing over whether Christians or Muslims are the majority in Lebanon. If you're truly a patriotic Lebanese citizen maybe you should focus more on bringing positive light and publicity to your country, instead of making it look like it's a country full of politically-OCD people. We're just coming out of a war and Lebanon's tourism has been devestated (knowing that it is the most productive section of the Lebanese economy, along with commerce). Why don't you take a minute off and consider that maybe, just maybe, it'll help your country more to focus on topics like touristic attractions than to ramble politics?
Once I have a decent tourism section ready (everyone is naturally invited to participate and propose ideas here in the talk page), I am going to do the changes I just mentioned. I will also cut down on the History section as much as possible, just providing links to relevant articles. Seperate articles can be written (or already exist) about sensitive issues... maybe the debate can be taken there.
Anyways, here's my proposed new outline:
- Introduction
- Geography
- Adminstrative Divisions
- Demograhpics
- Economy
- Commerce
- Tourism
- Agriculture
- Industry
- Education
- Culture
- Histroy
- Links, resources, etc... (these remain unchanged except perhaps for the spam links).
By section 4, the reader will have some basic information about Lebanon, like location, area, and population... no need to start right away with the civil war. By section 7, the reader has much more detailed and expansive information on Lebanon. Now, the usual symptoms of reading the History section for the first time can be avoided. LestatdeLioncourt 09:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Official Langauge
Since I've noticed that there's been a large dispute over the official langauge(s) of Lebanon, I decided to include French as former official language just so nobody complains. French was indeed an official language, but a consitutional ammendment did make Arabic the only official language of Lebanon. LestatdeLioncourt 17:10, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
French was never an official language, during the french mandate, france tried to impose it,it tried doing the same in syria, while the british tried imposing their language on their colonies, this was a procedure followed by all colonial countries to try & prolong their existence in the occupied countries. I think if you want to add french as a former official language in lebanon, you will have to do the same for all arab countries formerly occupied by france, Britain & Italy. I don't think it will be accurate to do so, however am not going to remove it since am starting to sense it is becoming rather personal, if you are convinced by what I just said, you can remove it yourself.
French is included as an official language of Lebanon in the pre-1942 consitution. Leave it there.
Was that the same constitution authored by the French while detaining the lebanese politicians in Rachia, I would like you to point out where i can find a copy, am sure there are lots of interesting stuff in it, the Libyan pre-independence constitution states that Libya is a state of Mousolini's italy, would that mean that libya was really a state belonging to italy, as i said, am not going to change it, you seem more proud to speak french than to be lebanese, but please post a website where i can find the pre-1942 constitution as i would like to see the rest of the articles in that constitution which you regard as a lebanese one.
- First of all guys, I need to remind you to please sign your names. No matter, I'll proceed. In response to the first paragraph, French was indeed an official language in the 1926 constitution. The amendment intoduced in 1943 made Arabic the only official language. Thanks to replier number 2 for pointing that out :)... In response to paragraph 3, I would like to tell him/her that I don't speak French and that I'm not even Lebanese. I only included French as a former official language because there was a very large dispute over the matter, and I thought it would pacify everyone to see it that way (apprently I was wrong). Unfortunately, I don't know any website where you can find the pre-1942 consitution (although it was under French rule, the constitution remains, in official terms, Lebanese). However, I can tell you that if you buy a histroy school book, you will find a consensus on what I just said (that French was an official language in the Lebanese constitution until the 1943 ammendment), which is saying something since consensus is an alien concept to Lebanese history books. I ask you to please leave it the way it is because I really think it seems fair to both parties. LestatdeLioncourt 10:44, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
No problem man, am sorry if I sounded harsh earlier, I just wanted to have a look on the old constitution for my personal infomation. This being the case can someone please rearrange the sentence regarding the official language, for example ( Arabic-Formerly Arabic & French), cause the way it is presented doesn't really specify whether formerly is regarding Arabic or French. As I promised earlier, I will not change or remove anything..am not lebanese either, & from my signature, you can see i don't know much in french too213.42.2.11 06:13, 17 September 2006 (UTC)La vache qui ri
- Hey, it's alright. God knows I've made the mistake of being harsh in replying many times. Your suggestion seems right. I must say though that I have seen this form "Arabic, French (formerly)" in a geography book, so it might be a sort of convention. In any case, I want to repeat my request for everyone to do their best to contribute to the other sections of the article (Geography, culture, etc...). Oh and by the way, I do know a little French (not enough to be fluent, but a working knowledge) so I thought I should tell you that it's "La vache qui rit" not "ri" ;). And one more thing, I saw this sort of poll on a talk page for another article, where people post their opinion for or against a suggestion, and I think we might find these very useful here. Look forward for one very soon.LestatdeLioncourt 13:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Archived
I have moved a lot of the old discussion from this talk page to Archive 2. The talk page was much too large (114 KB), well above the recommended size. A lot of discussion was also old and inactive. And I really think we need more space to discuss future (non-political) changes. I hope every one is OK with this. I also think the To-Do list needs a lot of cleaning-up. Me to the rescue! LestatdeLioncourt 18:29, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Poll #1 - Talk:Lebanon/Temp: To Stay or Not to Stay - CLOSED
Please express support for only one of the following options, or add an additional option, with an explanation of your reasoning. Poll closed on September 30, 2006.
Delete the article, attempt to merge additional info
- Support - I don't see the point of the article. Changes can be made to the original article, no matter how bold or extensive. There's no need to create a whole new article from scratch. I believe our efforts should be concentrated on one article instead of two. LestatdeLioncourt 19:58, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Leave it there... who knows?
Comment here
Dump this article
Comment here
History edit button?
I just went to correct a spelling in the History section, but clicking that section's edit button took me to an article section on sweden. Weirdest s***. I'm unable to return to this article anytime soon, so this is just an fyi. --Gbinal 15:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
A Note on acronyms for school concentrations
Editors please note that the abbreviations of the concentrations available to 12 graders are from the French names not the English ones. That's why Life Sciences is abbreviated to SV (Science de la Vie). This the way the abbreviations are officialy recognized (you can see these abbreviations on www.schoolnet.edu.lb in all three versions of the website: Arabic, English, and French). LestatdeLioncourt 13:01, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Israel-Hezbollah?
Somebody changed 2006 Israel-Lebanon war to 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war. To whomever did this, please post here when editing the article (unless it's a minor edit). Still, it's not up to us to decide what to name wars. The events of summer 2006 involving Israel and Hezbollah are now known as the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, period. I realize you are trying to make a point about Israel targeting Hezbollah only, but Lebanon was directly and invariably involved in the war, perhaps more than any other party, and the widespread damage in Lebanon and Israel bear testimony to that fact. If you change it back, against official conventions, then you'll just be opening the door to all the US-Iran, Israel-Iran, US-Lebanon, Liverpool-Arsenal conspiracy theorists (no offence to any). Let's all just stick to conventions and have a good night's sleep for once. LestatdeLioncourt 08:16, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Flag detail
To the user who reverted my edit in the Introduction, I just want to say that while I was reading the introduction it felt like too much detail. If someone is interested in finding out how the Lebanese flag is structured there is a whole article for that (plus the picture in the info box). When a reader is just starting to read an article they don't want so much detail right off from the start. Just saying that there are two horizontal red stripes is enough. It's all for the sake of clarity vs. too much information. LestatdeLioncourt 11:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Victory celebration
I have removed the following statement: While his groups attack on an Israeli outpost, its killing of eight Israeli soldiers and its kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers precipitated this present "conflict" it would seem that Lebanon either does not have the ability or the will to disarm Hezbollah and fully reclaim its sovereignity over its territory.
It seems biased, or at least just a matter of opinion. The sentence starts out with a fact (a mutilated one for that matter; four of the dead Israeli died when they passed over a landmine in their tank), but then branches out into a political opinion. The fact can be stated elsewhere (just as is done in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict article), but Misplaced Pages articles are not the place to voice out political opinions regarding whether Lebanon can or cannot disarm Hezbollah. Also, on another note, the sentence looks grammatically incorrect. Lestat 08:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Recent Events section summary
I have summarized the Recent Events section as much as I could, leaving only important facts (although I admit, further summarization may be needed). My reasoning is that a reader coming to this article probably wouldn't be dying to know every single detail about the recent political turnovers in Lebanon. Interested readers will find the many links to in-depth articles about the subject. Now, the Recent Events section just provides a succinct summary of... well... recent events — suitable for the slightly interested passer-by. At least we've chopped off 3 KBs of the page size, which is closer to the recommended article size. Please understand that I have done my best not to modify the intended meaning of the sentences, but I may have messed up, so if you have any objections please address them here. Lestat 18:59, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Statements in 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
I have removed the following two statements from this section:
- The conflict has divided Lebanon into two political camps: The Pro-Western March 14th Coalition of Christians, Sunnis and Druze and the Pro-Iranian, Pro-Syrian Shiites.
- The Lebanese Broadcasting Company and Future TV reported from the Lebanese-Syrian border and filmed hundreds of thousands of Syrians traveling from Damascus to Beirut to attend the rally.
The problem with the first statement is that it is redundant: this division has been established long before the 2006 conflict. If you insist on keeping it, it belongs rather to the Cedar Revolution section under the Demonstrations subheading. You may also need to modify it a little, because some Christians (those allied with the Free Patriotic Movement) have sided with the Shi'a.
The problem with the second one is a little more complicated. I can't contradict the statement itself because it is partly true (more on that later). The thing is, you're citing two biased references. LBC and Future TV are both great TV channels, but they are not impartial TV channels. It is common knowledge that each TV station in Lebanon belongs to this or that political leader or this or that political party. It is therefore impossible to extract importial, NPOV news from these sources (imagine, for example, what you would have done if I had cited al-Manar TV saying that the rally attracted 1.8 million). I am not disputing the fact. I am disputing the source. If you can find better sources (like CNN or AP) then by all means leave it there. Still, this brings to an even more complicated problem. You see, other TV channels reported that Syrian convoys (certianly not the hundreds of thousands you speak of, and, btw, I was watching LBC and it certainly didn't speak of such high numbers) mainly carried Lebanese people who lived in Syria, just as Lebanese people came from Kuwait and Bahrain to participate in the celebration. If you want to achieve total NPOV in this article, you're going to have to provide all sorts of point of views on the subjects, so you don't upset anybody. This is the main reason why I think we shouldn't talk about these things, because they are just too contrversial to have a place in an encyclopedia (a place for facts not theories). This is only a small section of an article. We can't enter into an endless exhange of theories in it. You might find that the article devoted to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict is better suited for these needs.
Remember, I'm criticizing the statements, not you. Lestat 08:02, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Demographics
I deleted this sentence: "as well as Syriac Orthodox, Armenian Catholics, Syriac Catholics, Chaldean, Latin Rite Roman Catholics, Assyrians, Copts and Protestants". I did this because I think it's just way too much to enumerate every single sect there is in Lebanon. A reader who wants so much detail can go to the main article. These sects don't present a majority in Lebanon (with all due respect). I also think only Shia' and Sunni Muslims should be mentioned. By the way, Druze are Muslims, why aren't they mentioned with them? Lestat 10:31, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Major signs of more war in Lebanon
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NAZ20061001&articleId=3361
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