"Middle Eastern population, down from 20% in the early 20th century. This was before the devastating civil wars in Syria and Iraq. Proportionally, Lebanon has the highest rate of Christians in the Middle East, where the percentage ranges between 39% and 40.5%, followed directly by Egypt where most likely Christians (especially ethnic Copts) account for about 10 percent, while in total the largest absolute figures. The majority of the Lebanese Christians consists of the Maronite Church based in Beirut, an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Pope and the rest of the Catholic Church. The second largest Christian"
"in 1975 when the Lebanese Civil War broke out throughout the country. During most of the war, Beirut was divided between the Muslim west part and the Christian east. The downtown area, previously the home of much of the city's commercial and cultural activity, became a no man's land known as the Green Line. Many inhabitants fled to other countries. About 60,000 people died in the first two years of the war (1975–1976), and much of the city was devastated. A particularly destructive period was the 1978 Syrian siege of Achrafiyeh, the main Christian district of Beirut. Syrian troops relentlessly"
"the Lebanese Civil War, Beirut was widely regarded as ""The Paris of the Middle East,"" often cited as a financial and business hub where visitors could experience the Levantine Mediterranean culture. Beirut's diverse atmosphere and ancient history make it an important destination which is slowly rebuilding itself after continued turmoil. Although in recent times, certain countries such as the United States frequently place Lebanon and Beirut in particular, within their travel warnings list due to a large number of car bombings and orchestrated political violence. According to the 2012 tourist statistics, 34% of the tourists in Beirut came from states"
"of the Hospital St Charles, which had been founded by the German religious order of Saint Charles Borromeo in 1908, but had moved to Baabda, north of Beirut, in 1963. The Holiday Inn opened in 1974, at the height of Beirut's economic boom, when the city was the glamorous tourist center of the Middle East. The Holiday Inn operated normally for only a year before the Lebanese Civil War broke out in 1975. The hotel was a war zone beginning on October 25, 1975 in a months-long conflict known as the Battle of the Hotels, as over 25,000 combatants fought"
"al-Tawileh and Souk al-Jamil were a favorite shopping destination before the civil war and were frequented by Lebanese and Europeans alike since they housed fashionable boutiques and haute-couture houses, while Souk al-Franj functioned as Lebanon’s biggest fruit, vegetable and flower market. During the Lebanese Civil War, Beirut was the scene of fierce battles between warring factions; after a few months of fighting, the brief ceasefire in September 1975 allowed the business owners of Beirut's central district to evacuate their shops' assets before fighting resumed turning downtown Beirut, including its souks into a sniper patrolled no man's land. In October 1975,"
"has been marked by alternating periods of political stability and turmoil interspersed with prosperity built on Beirut's position as a freely trading regional center for finance and trade. Beirut became a prime location for institutions of international commerce and finance, as well as wealthy tourists, and enjoyed a reputation as the ""Paris of the Middle East"" until the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. In the aftermath of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Lebanon became home to more than 110,000 Palestinian refugees. In 1958, during the last months of President Camille Chamoun's term, an insurrection broke out, and 5,000 United States"
"this gained the name for Beirut as the 'Paris of the Orient' and Lebanon as the 'Switzerland of the East'). However this period was also partly marred by the Intra Bank crisis of 1966 and Lebanon's increasing inability to avoid involvement in the Arab–Israeli conflict. The Six-Day War of 1967, strained sectarian relations in Lebanon. Many Muslims wanted Lebanon to join the Arab war effort, while many Christians wished to eschew participation. Helou managed to keep Lebanon from entanglement, apart from a brief air strike, but found it impossible to put the lid on the tensions that had been raised."
"of the Arab world. During the Lebanese Civil War that broke out in 1975, PFLP forces were decimated in battle against Syria. Later, the PFLP would draw close to Syria, as Syria's government shifted, but PFLP involvement in the Lebanese war remained strong until the U.S.-negotiated evacuation of PLO units from Beirut in 1982, and continued on a smaller scale after that. After the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993, Habash and the PFLP again broke completely with Arafat, accusing him of selling out the Palestinian revolution. The group set up an anti-Arafat and anti-Oslo alliance in Damascus,"
"of Palestinian civilians, prompted full-blown fighting in Beirut. In August 1975, Jumblatt declared a program for reform of the Lebanese political system, and the LNM openly challenged the government's legitimacy. In October 1975, a new round of fighting broke out, and quickly spread throughout the country: the Lebanese Civil War had begun. During the period between 1975 and 1976, Jumblatt acted as the main leader of the Lebanese opposition in the war, and with the aid of the PLO the LNM rapidly gained control over nearly 70% of Lebanon. This prompted Syrian intervention, since the Assad regime feared a collapse"
"requested assistance, and 5,000 United States Marines were briefly dispatched to Beirut on 15 July. After the crisis, a new government was formed, led by the popular former general Fuad Chehab. With the defeat of the PLO in Jordan, many Palestinian militants relocated to Lebanon, increasing their armed campaign against Israel. The relocation of Palestinian bases also led to increasing sectarian tensions between Palestinians versus the Maronites and other Lebanese factions. In 1975, following increasing sectarian tensions, a full-scale civil war broke out in Lebanon. The Lebanese Civil War pitted a coalition of Christian groups against the joint forces of"
"former capital of Huế during the 1968 Tet Offensive. The Republic of Vietnam Air Force bombed contested cities in South Vietnam in 1968, 1972 and 1975, while the Vietnam People's Air Force attacked Southern cities (including the capital city of Saigon) in 1975. The Lebanese capital of Beirut was attacked by the Israeli aircraft during the Siege of Beirut in 1982, and during the 2006 Lebanon War (using guided munitions). Israeli cities were bombed by Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian aircraft during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the Six-Day War. The bombing included attacks on some of Israel's largest cities, such"
"1991 Gulf War, with a second wave occurring in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Most recently a wave of Syrian refugees have arrived in the city during the ongoing Syrian Civil War which began in 2011. Amman was a principal destination for refugees for the security and prosperity it offered. In 1970, Amman was a battlefield during the conflict between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Jordanian Army known as Black September. The Jordanian Army defeated the PLO in 1971, and the latter were expelled to Lebanon. On 9 November 2005, Al-Qaeda under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's"
"was later found and exhibited in mid-2011. Bus massacre The Bus Massacre, also known as the ""Ain el-Rammaneh incident"" (or massacre) and the ""Black Sunday"", was the collective name given to a short series of armed clashes involving Lebanese Christian and Palestinian elements in the streets of central Beirut, which is commonly presented as the spark that set off the Lebanese Civil War in the mid-1970s. Early in the morning of April 13, 1975, outside the Church of Notre Dame de la Delivrance at the predominantly Greek-Orthodox district of Ain el-Rammaneh in East Beirut, occurred an altercation between half a"
"by new construction and cultivation. The Iraq War (2003–2011) also caused damage to the site, including in 2005 when a bomb was detonated at the top of the minaret of the Great Mosque. The palace complex of Sur Ashinas was the site of fighting between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the Iraqi Army and tribal militias during the ISIL offensive in Iraq in 2015. The Samarra Archaeological City was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2007. Abbasid Samarra Samarra is a city in central Iraq, which served as the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate"
"Battle of the Hotels The Battle of the Hotels, also known as the ""Hotel front"", was a subconflict within the 1975–77 phase of the Lebanese Civil War which occurred in the Minet-el-Hosn hotel district of downtown Beirut. This area was one of the first fronts of the war that began in April 1975. The battle was fought for the possession of a small hotel complex, the St. Charles City Center, adjacent to the gilded Corniche seafront area on the Mediterranean, in the north-western corner of the downtown district of Beirut, and it quickly spread to other areas of central Beirut."
"small ZLA entered the civil war only in July 1975, in response to a series of attacks in the Sunni Muslim-dominated northern port city of Tripoli on shops and offices owned by Christians from Zgharta by local Muslim militias. On 28 August 1975, the ZLA clashed again at Tripoli with the local Sunni militias, but also at Zahlé with the local Greek-Catholic Zahliote Group (ZG) militia, despite the intervention of Lebanese Army troops in a vain attempt to curb the fighting. In October that year, ZLA militiamen were heavily committed in the Battle of the Hotels in Beirut, though later"
"(Arabic:نهر الزهراني). The Lebanese Civil War began in April 1975, pitting the Christian-rightist militias of the Lebanese Front against the Muslim-leftist militias of the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) and their Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrilla factions' allies. This early phase lasted two years until the Syrian Army invaded Lebanon under the pretext of ""stopping the war and protecting the Christians"". However, it was later revealed that the Syrian Army had entered Lebanese territory at the beginning of the war under the cover of the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) in order to put the resisting Christians in a vulnerable position in"
"roads construction, water facilities, telephone centers, power plants projects and a large number of governmental hospitals and schools. In 1973 Talal got nominated as Minister, but wasn't chosen due to his age. The spark that ignited the war occurred in Beirut on April 13, 1975, when gunmen killed four Phalangists (Kataeb) during an attempt on Pierre Jumayyil's life. Perhaps believing the assassins to have been Palestinian, the Phalangists retaliated later that day by attacking a bus carrying Palestinian passengers across a Christian neighborhood, killing about twenty-six of the occupants. The next day fighting erupted in earnest, with Phalangists pitted against"
"quarter of the population) were wounded, and today approximately 76,000 people remain displaced within Lebanon. There was also a mass exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon. The Western Sahara War was an armed struggle between the Sahrawi Polisario Front and Morocco between 1975 and 1991, being the most significant phase of the Western Sahara conflict. The conflict erupted after the withdrawal of Spain from the Spanish Sahara in accordance with the Madrid Accords, by which it transferred administrative control of the territory to Morocco and Mauritania, but not the sovereignty. In 1975, Moroccan government organized the Green March"
"building up towards all-out conflict, with the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) pitted against the Phalange, and the ever-weaker national government wavering between the need to maintain order and cater to its constituency. On the morning of 13 April 1975, unidentified gunmen in a speeding car fired on a church in the Christian East Beirut suburb of Ain el-Rummaneh, killing four people including two Maronite Phalangists. Hours later, Phalangists led by the Gemayels killed 30 Palestinians traveling in Ain el-Rummaneh. Citywide clashes erupted in response to this ""Bus Massacre"". The Battle of the Hotels began in October 1975, and lasted until"
"Movement (1961), Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation (1969) and the Organisation internationale de la francophonie (1973). Despite its small size, the country has developed a well-known culture and has been highly influential in the Arab world, powered by its large diaspora. Before the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), the country experienced a period of relative calm and renowned prosperity, driven by tourism, agriculture, commerce, and banking. Because of its financial power and diversity in its heyday, Lebanon was referred to as the ""Switzerland of the East"" during the 1960s, and its capital, Beirut, attracted so many tourists that it was known"
"Israel, mostly due to large Christian population in Lebanon. In the early 1950s, direct flights linking Beirut with East Jerusalem were not uncommon. In 1951, Middle East Airlines, Lebanese national flag-carrier, expanded its regional network to include East Jerusalem, Jordan. Also, Air Liban, another Lebanese airline carrier, had flights routes linking Beirut with Jerusalem since 1945. However, the 1967 Six-Day War disrupted Middle East Airlines's operations for about two weeks, and led to the suspension of flights to Jerusalem. Lebanon's civil war began in 1975 when Phalangist gunmen ambushed a bus killing the 27 Palestinian passengers on board. The complexities"
"Bus massacre The Bus Massacre, also known as the ""Ain el-Rammaneh incident"" (or massacre) and the ""Black Sunday"", was the collective name given to a short series of armed clashes involving Lebanese Christian and Palestinian elements in the streets of central Beirut, which is commonly presented as the spark that set off the Lebanese Civil War in the mid-1970s. Early in the morning of April 13, 1975, outside the Church of Notre Dame de la Delivrance at the predominantly Greek-Orthodox district of Ain el-Rammaneh in East Beirut, occurred an altercation between half a dozen armed Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrillas"
"continued, though from August 1981 to May 1982, the PLO adopted an official policy of refraining from responding to provocations. On 6 June 1982, Israel launched an invasion of Lebanon to expel the PLO from southern Lebanon. Beirut was soon besieged and bombarded by the IDF; Arafat declared the city to be the ""Hanoi and Stalingrad of the Israeli army."" The Civil War's first phase ended and Arafat—who was commanding Fatah forces at Tel al-Zaatar—narrowly escaped with assistance from Saudi and Kuwaiti diplomats. Towards the end of the siege, the US and European governments brokered an agreement guaranteeing safe passage"
"subsequent drafting of a new governmental structure that would reflect the census results. Political tension became military conflict, with full-scale civil war in April 1975. The leadership called for Syrian intervention in 1976, leading to the presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon, and an Arab summit in 1976 was called to stop the crisis. In the south, military exchanges between Israel and the PLO led Israel to support Saad Haddad's South Lebanon Army (SLA) in an effort to establish a security belt along Israel's northern border, an effort which intensified in 1977 with the election of new Israeli prime minister"
"place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Iranian Khuzestan, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests occurred in Djibouti, Mauritania, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, and the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ""ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām"" (""the people want to bring down the regime""). The wave of initial revolutions and protests faded by mid-2012, as many Arab Spring demonstrations were met with violent responses from authorities, as well as from pro-government militias, counter-demonstrators and militaries. These attacks were answered with violence from protestors in some cases. Large-scale conflicts resulted—the Syrian Civil War,"
"the country from falling to Communism. President Chamoun left office in September after having completed his term and a successor had peacefully been selected. In April 1975, an attempt on the life of Pierre Gemayel, a prominent Maronite figure, sparked clashes between Palestinian and Christian militias and was widely seen as having set off the Lebanese Civil War. Further instability ensued when Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982, the invasion targeted the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) bases in Beirut. As the capital city Beirut was besieged by the Israelis, U.S. special envoy Philip Habib negotiated with the warring parties for"
"the ground, with many deaths, and has since then been known as ""al-Hariqa"" (""the fire""). The old city was surrounded with barbed wire to prevent rebels infiltrating from the Ghouta, and a new road was built outside the northern ramparts to facilitate the movement of armored cars. On 21 June 1941, 3 weeks into the Allied Syria-Lebanon campaign, Damascus was captured from the Vichy French forces by a mixed British Indian and Free French force. The French agreed to withdraw in 1946, thus leading to the full independence of Syria. Damascus remained the capital. By January 2012, clashes between the"
"the world. But what was labeled as the ""Switzerland of the Middle-East"" was a shaky construction and the influx of Palestinian refugees after 1949 warned of an ominous future. Resistance against disintegration: in the early 1970s, Christian leaders in Lebanon were worried that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was increasingly operating in Lebanon like a state within a state. However, it is contested whether the Palestinian presence is a cause of the Lebanese Civil War as the Lebanon's political balance had been fragile since 1958 and as political tensions were already running high among the Lebanese at that time. In"
"East's then-most cosmopolitan city, the Lebanese capital of Beirut. When Lebanon's civil war broke out in 1975, the family fled for Britain. In Beirut, Basmah bint Saud attended a French school. In Britain, she attended a Hertfordshire girls' school and a College in London, before spending two years studying in Switzerland. Basmah studied medicine, psychology and English literature at Beirut Arab University. In 1979, she graduated from high school at the Leaders College in America. Basmah travelled between several European capital cities and the US, where she studied at various universities, before moving with her mother to Syria in 1983."
"to the forefront: the 1972 Olympic Munich massacre, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the ensuing 1973 oil crisis and, in 1975, the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War. The Geneva Conference of 1973 was an attempt to negotiate a solution to the Arab–Israeli conflict. No comprehensive agreement was reached, and attempts in later years to revive the Conference failed. On November 13, 1974, Yasser Arafat became the first representative of an entity other than a member state to address the General Assembly. In 1975, the PLO was granted permanent observer status at the General Assembly. Starting in 1974, Palestinian territories"
"1973 Yom Kippur War; while Bahrain's own reserves were being depleted the high oil price meant there was massive capitalisation in the Kingdom's neighbours. The Kingdom was able to exploit the situation thanks to another war in the Levant in 1975: the Lebanese Civil War. Beirut had long been the financial centre of the Arab world, but the outbreak of hostilities in the country had an immediate impact on the banking industry. Bahrain offered a new location at the centre of the booming Persian Gulf with a large educated indigenous workforce and sound fiscal regulations. Realizing the opportunity to become"
"1975 Morocco launched the Green March into Western Sahara. About 350,000 unarmed Moroccans accompanied by the Moroccan Army armed with heavy weapons converged on the city of Tarfaya in southern Morocco and waited for a signal from King Hassan II of Morocco to cross into Western Sahara. As a result of international pressure, Spain acceded to Moroccan demands, and entered bilateral negotiations. This led to the Madrid Agreement, a treaty that divided the territory between Morocco and Mauritania, in return for phosphate and fishing concessions to Spain. Spain and Morocco did not consult the Sahrawi population, and the Polisario violently"