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Protests or revolution? The birth of a new Lebanon

14Nov

By Middle East Studies and Business CenterNo Comments

Cyprus, Lebanon, Middle East

Protests or revolution? The birth of a new Lebanon

Author: Leticia Fadlallah Western media portrayed the reason for the wave of protests that have been taking place in Lebanon since 17 October 2019 until the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, as a reaction to the imposition of a new tax on WhatsApp app voice calls, an error, because this is not the main reason why the Lebanese have called it a revolution. The real reasons behind the population's outrage, comes from an economic stagnation and political crisis that, years ago, unworthy the population. Before the pandemic, the country suffered from the lack of garbage collection because, according to the government, did not have enough financial resources to pay for the garbage trucks, which generated amounts of waste on the Lebanese streets. The voice call tariff was just the trigger for this real uprising..

Changes in Middle Eastern Geopolitics

Arabs and Israelis have gone to war several times since 1948, year of Israel's creation. The recurrence of armed conflicts and the so-called Palestinian Question maintained the rivalry between them as the main geopolitical issue in the Middle East in the second half of the century 20 and at the beginning of this century 21. However, Recent events indicate that this situation is beginning to change. Within about a month, in agreements brokered by the US government, who were baptized “Abraham's Accords”, the governments of Israel, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have signed treaties to normalize diplomatic relations between the two Arab countries and Israel. The two nations came together, in this way, to the group that until then was composed of only two other countries: Egypt and Jordan, c...

Lebanon tragedy

Photo of the port of Beirut after the explosion 5/8/2020 (AP Photo / Hussein Malla) The violent explosion in the port of Beirut caused more than two hundred deaths and thousands of injuries. The region around the port was completely destroyed, but the effects of the shock wave wreaked havoc even tens of kilometers from the epicenter. After a moment of perplexity by the seriousness of what happened, the city was filled with protests in which the population, enraged at the authorities, accused of negligence, demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Hassan Diab, what ended up happening on the last day 10 of August, only 6 days after the tragedy. The population's fury is explained. After all, everything indicates that the cause of the explosion was the combustion of 2.750 ton of ammonium nitrate, storage...