The Lebanon I left some five weeks ago was a country gearing itself up to ride on the crest of a building boom and a revived tourism sector that was drawing to its fold tourists of various nationalities, particularly from the Arab world and the Gulf countries.

Beirut was a carefree city with busy restaurants and chic coffee shops, while World Cup-watching youths drove by on motorbikes waving flags of different nationalities (particularly Brazilian and German) the way our football enthusiasts do – after every match. It was a city of smart hotels and efficiently run offices, with the protocol officer who accompanied me throughout my visit taking pride in the state-of-the-art airport they had that had just been named for assassinated Prime Minister Hariri.

The Lebanon about which I am writing today is a country that is being raped while the world looks on with indifference to its pains and sorrows – a country experiencing a war that is not of its own making.

While Israel has been quick to dismiss the Lebanese government as Syrian puppets, this is far from the truth. It is true that the Lebanese President is pro-Syrian and that the Lebanese Parliament still harbours a number of MPs who are sympathetic to Syria. However, the government itself is the fruit of the Cedar revolution, a revolution that eventually led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from the country, although I do not exclude the possibility that Syria still operates covertly within the intelligence community and other circles.

I pity the Lebanese most because for years they have been invariably subjected to proxy wars.

As if the presence of Israeli forces until 2000, and that of the Syrian military that ended recently, was not enough, Lebanon had to experience no less than 15 years of civil war.

While the death toll of innocent Lebanese bystanders and civilians rises daily, the country is still experiencing a situation where the Israelis, the Syrians, the Iranians and the Americans continue to fight their wars on Lebanese soil while playing with Lebanese lives.

As an American analyst recently claimed, Lebanon is more played against in the current Arab-Israeli balance than a player. It is a small country caught in the middle between Israel and Syria, with a total area of some 10,400 square kilometres, a 375km border with Syria, a 79km border with Israel and a 225km coastline on the Mediterranean.

There are many countries that have, over the years, been caught up in wars and conflicts, but Lebanon is indeed pitiful because although it has never been a significant military power, it has been caught up in several Arab-Israeli conflicts.

On the domestic front it has long experienced sectarian violence, and sometimes serious intra-sect violence, particularly among the leading families of its once dominant Maronites.

Its population barely numbers four million, but the diversity of its main

religious groups is amazing: from Shiites to Sunnis, from Druze to Isma’ilites, from Alawites to Maronite Catholics, from Greek Orthodox to Melike Catholics, from Armenian Orthodox to Syrian Catholics, from Armenian Catholics to Syrian Orthodox, and from Roman Catholics to Chaldean, Assyrian, Copt and Protestant.

When I visited Lebanon I felt a sense of fragility in

the air, almost as if one

happened to be handling a bone china statuette. It was a country still recovering from a long period of religious civil war between the above factions, that began in the 1970s, and from the Israeli and Syrian occupations that resulted from Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

It suffered from repeated Syrian interventions in its civil war before 1982 and Syria effectively dominated it, once its troops and intelligence forces and services moved into Lebanon as part of the Taif Accords peace settlement in 1990.

The Taif Accords had its major flaws – as explained to me by one of its chief architects, a former Speaker of their Parliament – but it created a political system that gave Muslim and other non-Maronite groups a larger role in the political system that more accurately reflected their share of the population while ensuring that all major sectarian groups would have some representation at the top of the government by requiring that given posts be held by a representative of given groups.

This explains why Hezbollah form part of the Lebanese government. Talking to Hezbollah parliamentarians as I did – as per the programme arranged for me by the Lebanese Speaker of the House – you could tell that not only were they a state within a state but also that, although in the cabinet, they acted very much as an opposition force, pressing for a so called government of national unity that would have drawn them into the decision-making process with the Aoun group which, although initially anti-Syrian, had assumed a pro-Syrian stance since the latter’s troops were shown the door in Lebanon.

All this explains why it was unfair of many to dismiss the Lebanese government as being pro-Syrian, particularly when only weeks ago the Lebanese were being promised considerable financial aid for infrastructural development by way of a long mentioned international donors’ conference, while their premier was feted in various European capitals and the son of former PM Hariri was received on the White House lawn by US President Bush.

I was in Lebanon for barely 72 hours but I could easily tell that its unity was still more a shell than a reality. Its leadership and politics were evidently divided along sectarian lines, with its PM and deputy PM being appointed by the president in consultation with the very powerful Speaker of the National Assembly.

What had always fascinated me was that its president must be a Maronite Christian, the PM must be a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of the legislature must be a Shi’ite Muslim.

The Israelis need not be so touchy when many international politicians claim that theirs was an overreaction, although the initial provocation came from the Hezbollah side through its kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.

Neither can I accept the argument that Lebanon was being subjected to war as part of an attempt to crush Hezbollah, which was, after all, for Lebanon’s own good.

Although at the time of writing none of the key players seems to want the fighting to extend beyond Lebanon itself, the risk of a regional conflagration remains high.

One of the main reasons for this is that Iran, which now sits comfortably with many of its allies occupying important positions of power in Iraq, has turned Lebanon into its strategic front line with Israel.

The interview with former President Guido de Marco in another local English

language weekly was masterly, showing his deep understanding of the dynamics of Middle Eastern politics while explaining why he is so highly regarded in international circles.

With Malta being an EU country I could not but feel embarrassed by the muted and ineffective manner in which the Union has acted. Merely coughing up financial aid – the way it did for the Palestinians in pre-Hamas days – is certainly not enough.

It was only Kofi Annan who managed to shine as a guiding light with his increasing demands for restraint, even though he often came across as a voice in the wilderness.

Not calling clearly for a truce, as many diplomatic communiqués have done, shows complicity with what Israel is doing and what the West – including the US – is tacitly backing.

I hold no brief for Hezbollah but the only way to neutralise them is not through military force but by giving the weak and fragile Lebanese government enough clout and support to be able to assert its sovereignty and total control of its territory through the implementation of UN resolution 1559.

I am among the first who want to see Hezbollah demilitarised and disarmed, but I do not believe that by bombing Lebanese airports, power stations, roads and people Israel will manage to get the few Lebanese who do support Hezbollah to stop.

Had the EU chosen to step back and let the terrorists get a good drubbing (as somebody crudely put it recently) one might have not had any cause for complaint, but the people who are dying and suffering are, in the majority, innocent people who want to live in peace in their own land.

Hezbollah played their cards badly because, since by seizing Israeli soldiers and killing some others, they broke their tacit pact with Israel through which they had avoided big clashes since the 2000 Israeli pullout.

The Western world must realise that raping Lebanon will not stop Hezbollah from re-arming with more sophisticated weapons and neither will it weaken its support at home.

This has also been a war of disinformation, with certain media claiming last week that Syrian and Iranian troops were present in Lebanon.

Although I did not see him on television myself, people who did were deeply touched by the sight of the Lebanese prime minister appealing in tears to an impotent United Nations to arrange a ceasefire for his disaster-stricken nation.

I sincerely hope that by the time this article appears in print it will have been overtaken by events.

But deep down I know that this is merely a case of wishful thinking.

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Leo Brincat is the main opposition spokesman for Foreign Affairs and IT.