Several Lebanese truck drivers were able to cross to Lebanon on Sunday after being stranded for four days along the Syrian-Jordanian …

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by Mike Butcher (@mikebutcher) TC

As my flight out of Beirut reached cruising altitude, and the seat buckle lights flickered off, I leant back in my chair and wondered if I had, in fact left the country just in time. Admittedly, it wasn’t quite an ‘Argo-esue’ escape from another Middle Eastern country, but labelling a controversial government minister on a conference stage as an “idiot” maybe wasn’t the wisest of moves. Beirut is not a town known for its placid history, after all. Furthermore, my comment had made the front page of the Beirut Daily Star the next day. Perhaps it was just as well that I left the next day.

But the trip was worth it. Beirut is rapidly shaping up to be a powerhouse for startups in the Middle East. It has many of the key elements: a highly entrepreneurial culture; incubators and accelerators; venture capital; some gradually favourable government policy and access to growth funding. The exits and the ‘PayPal mafias’ may be a ways off but its a beginning. In part because it is the most liberal state in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa)region, and has a western-style banking system bequeathed to it by the French a long time ago, Lebanon is uniquely poised to generate startups which aim both at the Arab world and the wider world at large.

Happy Easter from Khazen.org