At the same time, these cities became Egyptian “protectorates”, then passed under the Babylonian domination, then Persian. The relative independence of Phénicie ended with the conquest of Alexandre in 333 av. J. - C.

Lebanon was then integrated in a vast “Syrian” zone, initially under the domination of the Hellenistic kingdom of Séleucides, before being conquered by the legions of Pumped and integrated into Provincia Syria, rested by the Romans in 64 av. J. - C. In 395, at the time of the division of the Roman Empire, Syria, become Christian, was attached to the Byzantine Empire. From 636, it was integral part of the Arab Empire.  

The theological quarrels tore the populations, which were divided into sects. It is undoubtedly as of this time that separated and started to be opposed the various communities. The Lebanese mountain became a territory refuge; the Maronites, of the Christians of the area of Antioche, subjected initially to the annoyances of the Byzantine emperors then to the Arab pressures, took refuge there to the VIII E century. It also offered asylum to the Shiites (IX E century) and to the Druzes (XI E century). The Sunni Moslems were distributed especially in the coastal area and Beqaa. The period of the crusades was strongly disturbed: the Latin States occupied the coast and the mountain before being driven out by the Mamelukes of Egypt, which restored Islam (XIII E century).  

From the XVI E century, the Othoman domination opened a new period. In charge of an immense multinational empire, the Sublime Door did not exert direct control. Autonomy was granted after the payment of a tribute. To a certain extent, the Lebanese company then had already acquired its most outstanding features. Very strong family solidarity, close to the tribal clan, were based on cousinhoods with the multiple ramifications. They were tied around a chief with whom the interested parties were discovered a relationship inside the same religious confession: the community became a framework of social organization. The Lebanese mountain, poor and semi-arid area, at the strengthened villages, was divided between the communities being attached to the three great denominational units: Maronite, Druze and Shiite. Politically, this period was unstable.

At the end of the XVI E century, the chief Druze Aldine Fakhr II conquered the Lebanon Mount and controlled part of current Syria and Palestine. At the next century, the Druze influence declined and opened the way with that of the Maronites: part of the dynasty Chihab (or Chehab) converts with Christianity and joined the community Maronite. Lebanon opened in Europe to weave cultural commercial links, monks and.

To the XIX E century, Lebanon became the ground of the competitions between the European great powers. In 1840 a rising against the abuses Bachir II Chihab and its suzerain burst, Méhémet-Ali, viceroy of Egypt and Master of the country since 1831. The European powers ensured the protection of certain ethnico-monk groups. The confrontations between Druzes and Maronites became violent one (massacres of Maronites in 1860). France, which ensured the protection of the Maronites, intervened in 1861 and made recognize by the Othomans the autonomy of “Mount-Lebanon”. An autonomous governorship Maronite, placed under his protection, was created in 1864.  

The shortly after the First World War, the Ottoman Empire, combined Germans, was dismembered. In accordance with the agreement Sykes-Barb (1916), France accepted in 1920 a mandate on Lebanon and Syria. In 1920 “Large Lebanon was created”, whose borders were those of the current country. This new territorial entity caused the opposition of the Arab nationalists, who wished the creation of “Large Syria” including Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Transjordanie.

Syria, in particular, independent at the same time, never admitted to be private of most of its maritime frontage. Occupied by the British in June 1941, Lebanon obtained its total independence in 1943. A “national pact” aimed at establishing a balance between the communities: the Christians being most numerous, the president of the Republic would be Maronite; the president of the Council, Sunnit; the president of the Parliament, Shiite. Lebanon took part in the foundation of the Arab League in 1945. The first twenty years of independence were remembered by an economic prosperity, which, however, increased the social inequalities.  

The considerable population growth of the Muslim communities was going to make burst this fragile Community balance. The Lebanese government having supported the position of the Westerners in the conflict which opposed them to Nasser, the opposition between the Arab nationalists (mainly Moslem), supported by United Arab Republic (union of Egypt and Syria, 1958-1961), and the pro-Westerners (primarily Christian), supported by Iraq and Jordan, caused intercommunity confrontations and the intervention of the United States in 1958, called by president Camille Chamoun.  

The Lebanese civil war

Vis-a-vis the Israeli question, the Lebanese position had been always placed in withdrawal compared to that of its Arab neighbors. The 77 km of common border between the two countries had remained rather calm. Lebanon accommodated the Palestinians driven out of Galileo after 1948. The latter settled in camps périurbains and provided labor necessary during the boom. After the Israeli-Arab war of 1967, to which Lebanon did not take share, the Palestinian refugees flowed in mass; the shortly after the confrontations with the army hachémite, in September 1970 (“black September”), the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), driven out of Jordan, was installed with its combatants on the Lebanese territory. Some 500 ' 000 Palestinians lived thus in Lebanon (approximately 15 % of the population). This Palestinian presence, skilfully circumscribed in the Lebanese territory, was going to cause the intervention of the armies of two powerful neighbors: Syria and Israel. Fragile official construction could not resist these events and the civil war burst in April 1975.  

She opposed the Lebanese National movement which gathered many Moslems, nationalist progressists or nassériens, and members of left organizations under the aegis of the PLO, with the Lebanese Face gathering primarily, around the phalanges Maronites, the hostile Christian parties with the PLO. The Palestinian militia took a dominating share in the confrontations with the Christian phalanges

In 1976, a first intervention of Syria tried to contain the Palestinians, to which it had however brought its support in the past (1965). In 1978, Israel occupied South-Lebanon, but its army had to compose with the Force of interposition of the United Nations (FINUL). The latter could not however prevent in 1982 a news, and more fatal, Israeli intervention (operation “Peace as a Galileo”), during which Beirut was besieged and the driven out PLO. The Israelis withdrew themselves in 1985, but kept the control of a band of territory from approximately 1 200 km©~ in the south of Lebanon (always occupied in 1998).  

Beginning of the war of Lebanon
The Syrians, who intervened again in 1983 against the PLO in the septentrional part of the country (head office of Tripoli), took the control of 60 % of the territory and occupied from now on a strong position. Amine Gemayel (Maronite) become president of the Republic in 1982, formed in 1984 a government of national union supported by Syria.

The civil war continued nevertheless, complicated by fights between the various Moslem tendencies, socialist party progressist (Druze), Amal and Hezbollah (this last multiplying the taking of Western hostages). These conflicts between the Lebanese communities made fear a fast disintegration: the order imposed and guaranteed by Syrian “protectorate” seemed with much preferable with the perpetuation of the civil war.

After the expiry of the mandate of president Gemayel in 1988, the agreements of Taef (October 1989), defining a rebalancing of the legal representation of the religious communities in the profit of the Moslems, allowed a progressive return to a state of calm, in spite of a last resistance of certain Christian factions (attempt at rebellion of the general Michel Aoun); these agreements, ratifying Syrian protectorate, envisaged the reduction of the power of the president Maronite in favor of the Prime Minister (Sunni), of the president of the National Assembly (Shiite) and the Cabinet.  

Lebanon today

The return to a state of calm was established little by little, but Lebanon left ravaged (145 ' 000 died, 200 ' 000 wounded, 18 ' 000 missings) and ruined by these conflicts. It did not control any more from now on totality of its territory. With the southernmost borders, Israel always occupied a band of about forty kilometers, while, in a vast zone under Syrian control, the sovereignty of the Lebanese State was still not restored: in a geopolitical environment marked by the war of the Gulf, Syria and Lebanon signed in May 1991 a treaty “of fraternity and co-operation”, which returned to a recognition of the statute of Syria like guardian power; its troops always occupy the parts septentrional and Eastern country, in particular in the plain of Beqaa.

In 1995, the mandate of president Elias Hraoui (elected in 1989) was extended for a further three years. In place October 1992, the government of Rafic Hariri, a Sunni businessman, establishes little by little the conditions of an economic revival: the growth of the GDP was of 12 % in 1992 and 10 % in 1993. The year 1998 was remembered by the come to power of president Emile Lahoud and that of Salim el-Hoss to the direction of the government. Whereas the rebuilding of Beirut was started on bottom of resumption of the economic growth, the political situation of Lebanon festered by the Israeli-Arab tension. After the operation “Grapes of the anger” launched in 1996, the Israeli troops multiplied the bombardments against the positions of Hezbollah pro-Iranian.

In the first half of 2000, the pressure of the forces of Hezbollah was accentuated, causing many desertions in the rows from the Israeli troops and throwing the disorder in those from the force from interposition from UNO (Finul). The urgency of the situation thus forced Israeli the Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, to precipitate the calendar initially envisaged, which, according to the adopted resolution on on March 5th, envisaged an effective withdrawal of the Israeli army at the latest in July, and to announce officially, on on May 23rd, the departure of the Israeli troops of southern Lebanon, which they occupied since 1978.