Introduction
Lebanon is a country in Western Asia, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.
It is bordered by Syria to the north and east, and Israel to the south.
Lebanon is known for its unique efforts in the Middle East to guarantee civil rights and freedom to its citizens, ranking first in the Middle East and 26th in the world (out of 66 countries) for The World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index 2011. This is a reason why Lebanon has remained free of the Arab Spring confrontations.
Lebanon has been recovering well from the consequences of the bloody Lebanese
Civil War that continued from 1975 to 1990. By 2006, Beirut's reconstruction
was almost complete and increasing numbers of tourists were pouring into the
nation's resorts.
The month-long 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah caused significant civilian deaths and heavy damage to Lebanon's civil infrastructure. When the Hezbollah militia seized two Israeli soldiers in a raid in an area under Israeli occpuation, Israel responded with a violent offensive that left around 2,000 Lebanese injured and dead, the vast majority of them civilians.
The damage to civilian infrastructure and to the peace processes in the region was wide-ranging. Lebanon, with the assitance of foreign donors is once again on its way to a fast recovery.
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