From the ruins of civil war and a seaside garbage dump, urban planners hope to build a tree-lined park and a yacht-filled marina anchoring a multibillion-dollar redevelopment of this city’s downtown.
But Israel’s 17-day offensive against Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas has set that dream back.
And many Lebanese wonder aloud whether Israel’s ulterior motive was to cripple Lebanon’s economy and establish itself as the main place to do business if peace comes to the region.
“They have that competitive advantage: an F-16,” said one embittered Lebanese business executive during the recent flareup between Israel and Hezbollah, which caused an estimated $500 million in damage.
“I don’t think they sit around a table in Israel and say, `The plan is to destroy the Lebanese economy.’ But some people there probably do want it destroyed so that in the new Middle East, Israel will be the dominant figure,” he added.
Three days after a U.S.-mediated cease-fire against civilians took hold, the guns erupted again Tuesday as Hezbollah fighters fired mortars against Israeli soldiers occupying a self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon.
In Washington, President Clinton met with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres Tuesday and awaited a Wednesday meeting with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, hoping to boost their joint peace efforts. Lebanon, meanwhile, was agonizing over the deadly impact of Israel’s onslaught.
In the southern village of Qana, scores of civilian dead were buried in a mass grave near the spot where an April 18 Israeli artillery barrage killed nearly 100 people in the bloodiest attack of the 2 1/2-week conflict.
“Death Oh Israel,” chanted thousands of mourners who attended, shouting their support for Hezbollah’s armed resistance to the Israeli occupation. “Oh Jews, the army of the prophet will return.”
Israel openly acknowledged in the early days of Operation Grapes of Wrath that Lebanon could not have peace and work to rebuild toward a normal life in Beirut as long as Israelis lived in bomb shelters in Kiryat Shmona and other northern cities pelted by Hezbollah’s rockets.
But across Lebanon, civilians who endured Israel’s attacks expressed fears that once the Jewish nation makes peace with its Arab neighbors, it will seek to replace its regional military dominance with economic hegemony.
Peres often has indicated that Israel has no intention of dominating the region economically, but wants to compete on a level playing field for business opportunities and investment after decades of an Arab boycott. He even offered Israeli help in reconstructing Lebanon after the latest assault, which Israel has said was aimed at Hezbollah, not at Lebanon’s government, economy or people.
Still, Israeli guns blasted power plants, roads and other economically important installations. They threatened Lebanon’s $2.3 billion infrastructure rebuilding program and Beirut’s ambitious 25-year downtown revitalization aimed at reviving a cultural and financial glory that existed before the disastrous 1975-1990 civil war. Lebanon plans to spend about $12 billion reconstructing the country.
Virtually no one in Lebanon thinks the capital can one day reclaim its storied status as “the Paris of the Orient.” But they had hoped the rebuilding effort would return Beirut to the financial mainstream.
“It’s too early for me to judge the effect of the offensive on our effort,” said Nasser Chammaa, chairman and general manager of the Lebanese Company for the Development and Reconstruction of Beirut Central District S.A.L., known by its French acronym, SOLIDERE.
“This is threatening our reconstruction, this is clear,” said Chammaa, whose company is focused on a bombed-out Central District, where squatters still occupy derelict buildings along the Green Line near Martyrs’ Square.
“But our construction was not directly imperiled and we anticipate we will complete the infrastructure on time,” he said in a recent interview. “We believe this project will give Beirut an added advantage because this is a city that’s being reconstructed from scratch.”
The first phase of the reconstruction project, nearing completion, involved knocking down 600 buildings damaged beyond repair in the civil war. Others will be remodeled and new ones will be built to turn the downtown into a modern mecca for business, investment, hotels, malls, arts centers, public parks and recreation areas.
A huge garbage dump along the seafront is to be reclaimed and transformed into a park with gardens, recreation areas and office buildings. If all goes well, a downtown marina would beckon yachters and tourists on a site now occupied by mountains of garbage.
“It (the garbage) was floating up to Turkey and Cyprus,” said Kamez Maluf, manager of SOLIDERE’s International Department. “People would be swimming in the pristine waters off Anatolia, and Lebanese Pepsi cans would float by.”
Now, Maluf said, the garbage is being treated, the pollution contained and people are swimming off the coast again. Roads are being completed in the development zone, and power and telephone lines installed.
“It has restored the dream,” he asserted. “It’s almost, with a bang, brought Lebanon back into the international community.”
SOLIDERE has the backing of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Lebanon’s billionaire leader who owns 6.7 percent of the $1.82 billion in company shares, issued when it was formed in May 1994. Some of the 100,000 landowners forced to give up property balked, accusing Hariri of seeking personal gain, but most have welcomed the project.
Some $1.17 billion of the shares are held by the downtown core’s former property owners who were compelled to donate property and compensated with shares in the company.
The other $650 million in shares were sold to investors, mainly from Lebanon, Arab states and government bodies. The redevelopment project is scheduled to be finished in 2018.
“It definitely will be a tourist center. It will be a cultural center again. Banks will come back because of the cosmopolitan environment of this city,” predicted Chammaa, who remains optimistic despite the recent conflict.
During the recent Israeli onslaught, many Lebanese expressed a belief that Israel was trying to halt Lebanon’s recovery.
“We don’t have any weapons. We don’t have a big army. All we have is economic power,” said Ali Zayyat, 60, a farmer from Tyre who is among those who saw another agenda at work in Israel’s military incursion.
“The aim of Israel is to hit the infrastructure,” added Zayyat, recalling the 1982 Israeli invasion. “In 1982, Israel had control of all the economic sectors and this is what they want.”
Chammaa and other Lebanese business people disagree.
“These are not realistic fears,” he said. “No country can dominate the economy of a region.”
