The mass plundering of rock and sand to build monstrous high-rise apartment blocks and private villas, and the subsequent violation of the country’s landscape is down to the greed and hypocrisy of the Lebanese – and the Lebanese only
“Foreigners” are easy to blame; oil conglomerates for the devastation of West African land, IMF demands for the impoverishment of Arab nations, Western powers for the invasion of Middle East lands and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of Muslims. Lebanon was always blaming foreigners for its tragedies: it was always the Israelis or the Syrians or the Americans or the UN who were the culprits. And all of the above is true. Many Lebanese still refer to their civil war as “the war of the others”.
But for once in the Middle East, it is a single Arab nation – Lebanon – which is solely responsible for the destruction of its heritage, its land and its mountains. The mass plundering of rock and sand to build monstrous high-rise apartment blocks and private villas, and the subsequent violation of the country’s landscape, the subject of an Independent investigation last week, is down to the greed and hypocrisy of the Lebanese – and the Lebanese only.
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Categories: Arab World, Asia, Lebanon