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Lessons of American Evacuation in Lebanon

by Elliott Abrams & Zachary Shapiro -- Politico -- the 2006 evacuation was an overall success. But according to a 2007 assessment from the Government Accountability Office, the internal federal government watchdog, the operation demonstrated a number of difficulties that called for changes that would be even more important in a larger and more complex future conflict. The report found that evacuation from Lebanon presented the State Department and Pentagon with several significant challenges. First, it was undertaken during an ongoing conflict in which evacuation routes were blocked. Safely navigating sea routes required difficult coordination with Israeli forces while they conducted a war. And because the crisis was unforeseen, the U.S. military did not have naval assets immediately available for a sea evacuation. If there is another round between Israel and Hezbollah this year, all those problems will be greatly magnified.

Ultimately, the GAO identified three major shortcomings:

First, the magnitude of the Lebanon crisis taxed State’s capacity to respond. Second, State did not communicate effectively with the public, including potential evacuees in Lebanon and their family and friends in the United States. For example, State initially restricted the ability of U.S. Embassy officials in Beirut to convey critical information via the media to Americans seeking to leave Lebanon. Third, State and the Department of Defense’s different institutional cultures and systems impeded their ability to work together; among other things, these differences resulted in miscommunications and possible delays in chartering ships and planes to evacuate American citizens. As it turns out, the 2006 evacuation was precedent-setting in one way: U.S. Embassy employees in Beirut were overwhelmed with calls from U.S. nationals seeking to leave, realized that they could not carry out the operation on their own, and turned to the Pentagon. The State Department was able to carry out the majority of the 80 or more evacuations it undertook all over the world from 2001-2006 using only commercial flights. Not this time.

From July 14-23, State and DOD were able to evacuate nearly 10,000 U.S. nationals to Cyprus. Yet the sudden spike in demand for hotel rooms for the U.S. entities, coupled with the fact that Cyprus was at the height of its summer tourist season, made accommodations scarce. The situation became so desperate that the U.S. Embassy in Nicosia and the Cypriot government “arrange[d] for the Americans to stay at the Nicosia fairgrounds, in large exhibit halls normally used for trade shows.” Generally, the Pentagon’s role is restricted to evacuating U.S. nationals to “a safe haven” (often a local military base or embassy). The State Department then supervises the final step: return trips to the United States. Yet the influx of tourists in Cyprus prompted the Pentagon to assist with booking charter and military planes to get the U.S. citizens from safe havens back to the United States. In fact, the military was responsible for most return trips to the United States. Because of the intensity and scale of the war, the State Department was unable to rely on its existing emergency plans. For instance, the Beirut emergency plan did not account for the possibility that Israel would bomb the airport—which it did right at the outset of the 2006 conflict.

In addition, many U.S. citizens who had never registered with the U.S. Embassy sought evacuation assistance as the war went on. Their numbers and whereabouts were unknown to embassy personnel and had not been included in the prior emergency planning. To make matters worse, the GAO report found that the State and DOD have “different institutional cultures and systems, which impeded their ability to work together,” including clashing terminology and methodology. For example, “where State officials might request 10 planes, DOD officials would want to know the precise numbers of people and tonnage of equipment to be transported.” This was compounded by some degree of overlapping duties, resulting in inadvertent self-sabotage: “State and DOD were competing for some of the same commercial planes, thereby creating duplicate requests that gave the perception of fewer available planes for contract.” The State Department has made several adjustments to expedite future evacuations, working to improve embassies’ communications guidelines, submitting best practices reports to other embassies, and presumably revising the Beirut emergency plan. Still, the prospect of a larger and more intense war ahead leaves many open questions.

Ready for the Next Round?

Is the United States ready for the next round in Lebanon? By all accounts, there remain something like 15,000-25,000 Americans, and perhaps more, in Lebanon. If war breaks out, every indication is that it will be a fiercer conflict than in 2006. The U.S. Embassy will not have two weeks or more before ground combat begins—and it was in those first two weeks when most Americans were evacuated last time. The airport and seaport are sure to be closed again. Ground routes for getting Americans to safety will be harder to carve out when there is air and ground combat throughout the country. Of course temporary cease-fires can be tried, and the ports could be opened for hours at a time—but the logistical burden falling on State and DOD, and the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in particular, will be far greater than last time. It can be assumed that the Pentagon will have to take on the same, or even more, responsibilities than in 2006. Has it prepared to use warships or to lease ferries for the evacuation? Is the embassy fully ready with a communications package to reach all Americans at once, perhaps using the technologies that were new and not widespread in 2006? Has the embassy increased the percentage of Americans who have registered, so that it has a far better grasp of who and where they are? Has the United States discussed all the evacuation issues with the Israeli government and military, agreeing now on plans to cope and methods of working together if war starts? Perhaps war will be avoided, and perhaps there will be a slow and steady buildup of tension during which time Americans can begin to leave safely. But it’s at least as likely that war will break out suddenly—stranding thousands of Americans who then desperately seek help to get to safety. The time to work through these problems is right now

Lebanon: Set Vote on Waste Management Law

By hrw.org (Beirut) – Nabih Berri, Lebanon’s speaker of parliament, should schedule a vote on a draft waste management law before parliamentary elections on May 6, 2018, Human Rights Watch said today. The law has been stuck in parliament since 2012, but came before the joint committees of parliament in January, the final step before a vote by the full parliament. Human Rights Watch has collected more than 12,000 signatures on a petition calling on parliament and cabinet to pass a national law and develop a strategy on waste management. Lebanon has made some progress on this issue in recent months, but passing a national law is a key step to ending the ongoing crisis. Human Rights Watch found in a December 2017 report that open burning at more than 150 open dumps across Lebanon was risking the health and violating the human rights of nearby residents, leaving Lebanon in breach of its obligations under international law. “Time is quickly running out for parliament to pass a waste management law,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Lebanon’s residents have made it clear that they expect their elected representatives to take immediate and decisive action to end the ongoing waste crisis.”

Lebanon has never had a national waste management law. Cabinet approved a draft law in 2012 which would create a Solid Waste Management Board headed by the Environment Ministry, responsible for the national-level decision-making and waste treatment. The law would also set clear lines of authority over waste management, ban open dumping and burning of waste, and set penalties for violations. The draft law came before the joint committees of parliament in January and was sent back to parliament’s environmental committee for further amendments with a three-week deadline. A member of that committee told Human Rights Watch that the amendments were completed, but the speaker of parliament has not referred it back to the joint committees, the final step before scheduling a vote by the full parliament. Despite a decades long waste crisis, Lebanon has made some recent progress on this issue. In November 2017, the Environment Ministry sent letters to all municipalities in Lebanon, urging them to adopt sustainable waste management practices. In January, Cabinet passed a summary waste management plan, and the environment minister formed a committee on waste management, which includes a civil society representative. The ministry and committee are holding meetings with municipalities to discuss solid waste management options. Human Rights Watch has urged Cabinet to build on the summary plan by developing a long-term strategy on waste management, outlining how Lebanon can comply with its international obligations to protect the right to a healthy environment. In January, as part of a decision to expand two temporary coastal landfills, Cabinet approved a composting facility at one of the landfills. In February, the health minister ordered inspections of open dumps to identify violations such as open burning and held a news conference calling for an end to the open burning of waste and a health-conscious solution to the waste crisis. The ministry also created a mobile application to allow residents to report violations.

In February, Cabinet allocated US$20 million for the Environment Ministry to begin closing or rehabilitating the 941 open dumps across Lebanon. However, the decision focuses on Beirut and Mount Lebanon, some of the wealthiest areas in the country and the areas least affected by dangerous open burning. Cabinet and the Environment Ministry should take immediate action to end open dumping and burning across the country, including in poorer areas in Lebanon’s South and Bekaa Valley, some of the areas most affected by open burning of waste. The government’s lack of effective action to address the issue violates Lebanon’s obligations under international law, including the government’s duties to respect, protect, and fulfill the right to health. The Environment Ministry appears to lack the necessary personnel and financial resources for effective environmental monitoring. “Lebanon urgently needs a national law on waste management to end this crisis, yet this bill has sat in parliament since 2012,” Fakih said. “It would be inexcusable for parliamentarians to end their 9-year term without tackling this issue.”

Amazon is LinkedIn's No. 1 most attractive U.S. company—here's how to score a job there

By Ruth Umoth cnbc.com Amazon has been on a hiring spree lately and it appears that employees are liking what they see. The retail giant topped LinkedIn's 2018 Top Companies list, unseating last year's No. 1 Google. The e-commerce site, which has 566,000 global employees, enjoyed a successful 2017 with the $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods. The Seattle-based company also has plans to expand by securing another U.S. headquarters. Cities like Boston, Atlanta, New York City and Washington, D.C. are rumored to be possible locations. With so many prospective candidates vying for a position at the rapidly expanding company, CNBC Make It spoke with Amazon's director of university recruiting Miriam Park to find out how the company hires. Her No. 1 piece of advice? "Be your authentic self."

The head recruiter, who has worked at the retail giant for almost six years, says that companies are truly interested in learning about their prospective employees. Employers want to know "how you have owned a role and moved the needle forward, demonstrated curiosity and where you have solved a problem," says Park. More importantly, applicants should express who they are rather than who they think the company wants them to be. "Be you," she says.

Amazon, which hired 110,000 employees last year and plans to grow its full-time U.S.-based workforce to over 280,000 in the next 18 months, looks for candidates who fit the company culture. Core company-wide beliefs include customer obsession, ownership, curiosity and thinking big. "We have phenomenal thought leaders, and we have built a brand that's amazing," says Park. "It's a very dynamic environment because we are growing at a fast rate." To find candidates who can help the company grow, Park says interviewers must get to know candidates authentically during the interview process. Candidates go through an online assessment and a phone screening before their first in-person meeting. Interview questions can run the gamut, she says, from behavioral and situational to technical and functional questions. "We focus on hard and soft skills to learn about candidates and how they operate in different situations," says the recruiter. Another suggestion for young professionals seeking a job: "Don't be nervous. Focus on what your strengths are, your accomplishments and a demonstration of deep curiosity."

A Mideast Nuclear Deal Trump Might Actually Like

by KRISHNADEV CALAMUR - THE ATLANTIC--

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is showing off the new face of Saudi Arabia in the U.S. He has emphasized women’s rights in his country, long known for enforcing strict gender rules; made much of his plan to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil, on which it is heavily reliant; and is pitching the kingdom as an investment destination to CEOs in Silicon Valley. But in Washington, where the crown prince met with President Trump on Tuesday, the conversation was mostly about what the U.S.-Saudi relationship has for been about decades: mutual geopolitical interests. “The White House visit, the speeches, it’s kabuki theater,” said Thomas Lippman, a journalist who covered Saudi Arabia for decades who is now a scholar at the Middle East Institute, told me ahead of Tuesday’s meeting. “They’re going to meet, they’re going to say nice words, and they’re going to talk about fighting terrorism, and they’re going to announce deals that may or may not ever happen. We’ve seen this a hundred times. What I’m looking for is what happens on the nuclear cooperation agreement—if anything.” And indeed, the meeting Tuesday bore this out, while leaving unanswered the nuclear question. At issue is whether the U.S. will waive section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act for Saudi Arabia so it can sell the kingdom nuclear reactors. Under that section, countries to which the U.S. transfers nuclear material and technology will, among other conditions, guarantee that they won’t use that technology to develop nuclear weapons. They must also get U.S. consent to enrich or reprocess nuclear material obtained as a result of any agreement with the U.S.

Enter Saudi Arabia. The kingdom wants to build two nuclear reactors because of a severe energy shortage it has, despite its vast oil reserves. There are fears its rising domestic electricity consumption will erode its ability to export oil, and thus severely damage its economy. The U.S. wants to sell Saudi Arabia the reactors it needs for its internal energy requirements, but the Saudis also want to retain the ability to enrich their own uranium and reprocess the spent fuel from the reactor—both of which would give them the ability to produce nuclear weapons at some point. U.S. lawmakers are wary of the Saudi demands. Last month, Energy Secretary Rick Perry met with Saudi officials in London, but no announcement was made about whether the impasse was resolved. (Perry was present Tuesday at the White House meeting between Trump and Mohammed.) Westinghouse and other U.S. companies are reportedly in talks on building the Saudi reactors, but the kingdom is also talking to France, Russia, and China, who could also theoretically supply nuclear technology, but do not apply the same kinds of conditions the U.S. does. “It’s going to be very difficult for the kingdom to accept terms that are worse that what [President] Obama gave the Iranians,” Ali Shihabi, founder of the Arabia Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, told me. “Because, after all, the kingdom is an ally and friend of America and Iran was an adversary.”

The nuclear deal with Iran allows the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium to a level lower than what is needed for a nuclear weapon. That condition lapses in 2031 (a fact critics of the agreement cite in their opposition to the deal). The Saudis are seeking something similar—and hoping the Trump administration will accede. “Saudi Arabia has a built-in preference for American for obvious reasons,” Shahibi said, citing the decades of close cooperation between the two countries. “But it has options. And I think that the Trump administration realizes that.” But Saudi Arabia’s motives are a concern. Mohammed told CBS’s 60 Minutes that while his country didn’t seek a nuclear bomb, “without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb we will follow suit as soon as possible.” Simon Henderson, the director of the Gulf and energy policy program at the Washington Institute, told me there were only a few reasons a country would want to be able to enrich its own uranium. “If you were Denmark, it’s because you’re a proud nation and you want to be able to master all aspects of the nuclear cycle,” he said. “Saudi Arabia is not Denmark. It’s Saudi Arabia. And it’s a hint that we want to go and make nuclear weapons.”

The fact there has been little publicly said about a nuclear deal could suggest that Saudi demands remain a sticking point. Meetings such as those between Mohammed and Trump are often weeks—if not months—in the making. But, said Anthony H. Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “This is a conversation between ... a uniquely powerful Saudi and the president. … [T]hey might raise the subject particularly if the president moves away from the” Iran deal. Trump has called that agreement “the worst … in history” and has vowed to walk away from it. U.S. diplomats are hoping to persuade other signatories to the deal—Britain, France, Germany, the EU, Russia, and China—that the agreement must be strengthened by May, when the president faces his next deadline to waive sanctions imposed on Iran, as mandated by the deal. Trump says he will not extend such a waiver. The shadow of Iran might loom over the nuclear-energy ambitions of Saudi Arabia, its main rival in the region, but it also plays an outsized role in other regional crises. Iran and its actions in the neighborhood—its support of Houthis in Yemen, the Assad regime in Syria, Shia groups in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon—have been part of the conversations between Mohammed and Trump. “Iran has not been treating that part of the world or the world itself appropriately,” Trump said Tuesday, with Mohammed sitting beside him. “A lot of bad things are happening in Iran.” Henderson told me: “You can agree on great themes, which MBS sees as being Iran, Iran, and Iran, and although President Trump doesn’t quite see it in such simplistic terms, he can sort of agree with the rhetoric. But the ... significance to my mind is the extent of agreement on minutiae.”

Henderson cited war in Yemen, where the Saudis and Iranians are engaged in a brutal proxy war that shows no sign of ending; the resolution of the Qatar crisis, where the Saudis and other Arab countries have imposed a blockade on Qatar, a U.S. ally that’s now being aided by Iran and others; ways to stop “Iran’s regional mischief”; the stalled Mideast peace process; and terrorist groups. Those issues are clearly destined to defy short-term progress. And publicly at least, the Saudi crown prince has made his trip to the U.S. about economics—not geopolitics. He has pledged to transform the Saudi economy away from its reliance on oil in the next 12 years, by 2030, and he has embarked on a powerful—if controversial—agenda of domestic change. “From the Saudi viewpoint, one of the key questions is U.S. help or encouragement in getting investment and support for the 2030 plan,” Cordesman told me. “Getting a strong presidential endorsement of the crown prince's trip to the U.S. to encourage investment in Saudi Arabia, that, I think, could be something that could be done.”

Lebanese buying second citizenship up 27 pct in 2017

The Daily Star BEIRUT: A Dubai-based company said Monday that the number of Lebanese investors who obtained a second citizenship surged by 27 percent in 2017 compared to 2016. The figures came in a report by Citizenship Invest which is specialized in programs to legally obtain a second nationality. “Demand for obtaining a second passport by Lebanese nationals increased by 27 percent in 2017. According to the study, Lebanese residing in Lebanon accounted for 34 percent of the total demand, whereas Lebanese nationals residing in the GCC countries accounted for an immense 66 percent of total demand,” the report said. It added that among the reasons for this trend in Lebanon is political and economic unrest in the Levant. “Lebanese nationals are mostly looking for a second citizenship that helps eliminate difficulties to obtain travel visas, getting approvals for residency visas, as well as overcoming restrictions in their professional growth. Further data reveals that Lebanese applicants are mostly families with 75 percent of the total demand against 25 percent for single applicants,” the report said.

The report also listed the countries that attracted Lebanese investors in 2017. “With a total of 32 percent increase for St. Kitts & Nevis, and 21 percent increase for Commonwealth of Dominica, these countries top the list of most desired citizenship by investment programs among Lebanese nationals. Fast track European second citizenship programs like Cyprus account for a 10 percent increase in the total demand. Almost 93 percent of Lebanese looking for a second citizenship preferred to obtain their second passports through the option of a financial contribution to a government funds and 7 percent chose the real estate investment. The difference arises from the fact that the real estate option is initially more expensive. However. the property can be sold after a period of time cashing out like this the investment,” the report said. Veronica Cotdemiey, CEO of Citizenship Invest, said: “This trend is mainly affected by the political and economic unrest witnessed by Middle East, specifically the Levant region. We have been advising increasingly more Lebanese applicants who are largely driven by the necessity of visa-free travel, the security of being able to obtain or renew their residence visas if they are living outside Lebanon, and general stability for their families and their professional lives.” It added Lebanon ranked 86th on the list of countries allowed to travel to other countries without a visa. “With one rank shy of North Korea and South Sudan’s passports, the Lebanese passport currently ranks 86th with a visa-free score of 39 countries, qualifying it among some of the weakest passports to have. According to the status quo of the political and economic situation in Lebanon, we predict that the demand for a second passport programs will stay on the rise during the course of 2018,” the report said. A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on March 20, 2018, on page 4.

Exclusive: France's Total to stay clear of Lebanese maritime area contested by Israel

by Jennifer Gnana and Massoud A Derhally -- the national.ae -- French oil major Total will avoid work in the maritime area disputed by Lebanon and Israel as Beirut starts its delayed offshore exploration for oil and gas in the Mediterranean, the company's chief executive said. “We are a commercial company and we do things respecting the laws of the country and in the end, we do not target to drill anything near the Israeli border," Patrick Pouyanne said in an interview with The National. "I’m very clear about it, It’s not because we’re afraid, it’s because the geologists told us don’t drill there. We drill where the geologists ask us to drill.” Total, in consortium with Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Novatek, won two blocks offshore in Lebanon’s licensing round held under its newly formed government. Exploration work by the consortium partners is set to start next year. Lebanon has one of the highest public debts in the world and this reached US$80 billion (Dh294bn) - 150 per cent of the country's GDP - at the end of January. The debt crisis has in recent years been exacerbated by political uncertainty, internal disagreements and the burden of hosting more than a million Syrian refugees, about a quarter of the population.

The country imports about 90 per cent of its energy needs, which is mainly environmentally inefficient fuel oil, to keep power stations running. Several high-profile discoveries in the Mediterranean over the past couple of years, notably in Israel, Egypt and Cyprus, have raised hopes of a similar yield offshore of Lebanon. However an absent government and fear of arbitration with Israel, which plans to pursue exploration work in the disputed area, have long stalled Lebanese efforts to tender the blocks.

In December, the Lebanese cabinet approved bids on two blocks - nine and four submitted by a consortium led by Total, Eni and Novatek - to explore for oil and gas. Block 9 lies in an area offshore Lebanese territorial waters that is disputed by Israel. Lebanon and Israel have no diplomatic ties and the two countries are technically in a state of war. "Maritime disputes are not new in the oil industry; what is typical is that they take a long time to be resolved," said Dr Carole Nakhle, chief executive of Crystol Energy, adding that in the case of Lebanon and Israel "one can only expect the dispute to last much longer". Mr Pouyanne said that for now, exploration along Block 4 will be a priority for the consortium, that will stay clear of the disputed concession area. “Block 9 is a frontier which is disputed. It’s a limited area - 9 per cent or 8 per cent of the surface; we are very clear, our geological target is not at all in this disputed area, it is 25 kilometres north of that,” he said.

According to reports by the Lebanese media, arbitration efforts by the United States to mediate over the disputed concession block last month failed. The Lebanese side reportedly refused negotiations with Israel over concerns that it could be dragged into future peace negotiations, reported Al Joumhouria newspaper. Lebanese political party Hezbollah, which is part of Prime Minister Saad Hariri's government, has urged the cabinet to remain firm with respect to the country's ambitious oil and gas exploration plans. Hezbollah has threatened Israel with retaliation if it goes ahead with exploration work in the disputed area. The Total chief declined to comment on whether he was optimistic over gas discovery offshore of Lebanon, even though some estimates project the country's territorial waters may hold as much as 96 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 850 million barrels of oil. While that potential may invariably be a game changer for Lebanon, analysts say it's premature to factor in when exploration hasn't yet been carried out. "Unfortunately, some of our politicians have already claimed publicly that Lebanon has joined the club of oil and gas producers, and some institutions are already claiming that we are going to generate in $200 billion [Dh735bn] to $300bn in oil and gas revenues," said Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Byblos Bank. "This is very risky and irresponsible in my opinion. We need concrete evidence that we have enough commercial quantities and then it takes 10 years if everything goes according to plan to start seeing any revenues... As a government we should prioritise reforms, reduce the fiscal deficit, reduce our borrowing needs and not count at all on oil and gas revenue in the foreseeable future until we start seeing concrete results."

The International Monetary Fund warned last month that Lebanon’s debt-to-GDP ratio could reach 180 per cent by 2023 if the government does not undertake reforms to narrow its fiscal deficit, which may reach 10 per cent of GDP amid the current geopolitical tensions. Lebanon hopes to raise $16bn from a donor conference in Paris next month to help it tame its public debt. Mr Ghobril cautioned against over-expectation, noting that Total and Eni carried out exploration on one block offshore Cyprus but did not discover sufficient commercial quantities. "That is a scenario that is very plausible. We just do not know and that’s why exploration exists," he said. Lebanese hopes of energy independence were revived last year after the formation of a new government in 2016, following the election of Michel Aoun as president and Mr Hariri as premier. The country was without a president for about two years due to political bickering. A compromise brought an end to the vacuum. In January, the energy ministry passed two decrees to start a stalled tender process for nine offshore blocks. The cabinet passed the much-awaited petroleum tax law in September, just ahead of the October deadline for companies to form consortia of three to submit bids.

Facebook Vigilantism Is a Scary Thing

by KAVEH WADDELL theatlantic.com-- In early December, a shocking video recorded in the lobby of an apartment building on the outskirts of Beirut surfaced on the internet. The video, posted to an unusual Facebook page called Weynieh el Dawleh—or “Where is the state?”—showed two young men grabbing another man and leading him away at gunpoint. A caption claimed that the men were involved in a drug-related dispute and requested the public’s help in uncovering their identities. Less than a week after the video appeared, a follow-up video was published to Weynieh el Dawleh. It was the same footage from the lobby, but with some notable modifications, including captions noting the full names and addresses of both the perpetrators and the abductee. For dramatic effect, it had an action-movie-style soundtrack, and opened with a message in Arabic: “We asked you for help identifying them,” referring to the men in the video. “And after 48 hours, they have fallen into our grasp.” The accompanying post called on the police to arrest the attackers. The video of the armed assault demonstrated how Weynieh el Dawleh works. Several times a day, the administrator of the page posts photos or videos privately shared with him by the page’s followers, a number that has been as high as 250,000. The posts often depict a crime or some other alleged wrongdoing: a drug deal, an armed assault, a rollicking brawl. One even showed a shopkeeper tying up and beating the bare feet of a child after he caught him stealing. After watching a video, viewers use Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp to send in tips to the administrator on the identities of those who appear. Once the administrator receives the details and attempts to confirm them, he posts what is essentially a digital wanted poster to the page, complete with subjects’ names, photos, and addresses.

The page has become an unofficial, crowdsourced investigative service for citizens who feel the state has failed to respond to their needs. “I wish our state worked like you do,” one follower posted on the page. “I have more trust in the Weynieh el Dawleh page than in the government,” another wrote. But legal and privacy advocates have told me that some of Weynieh el Dawleh’s posts have violated their subjects’ constitutional rights, and that the page erodes the rule of law in the country. The government, apparently content to benefit from the page’s unofficial investigations, doesn’t intervene. This means that Facebook itself is the only check on the page’s activities. But it interferes with Weynieh el Dawleh only sporadically, leaving it generally free to post what it pleases. Why would the Lebanese state invite the help of a community of Facebook vigilantes? For one thing, it’s because the government is relatively weak, thanks in part to a complex power-sharing agreement designed to keep the peace among Lebanon’s various religious groups and sects. In the absence of a strong state, NGOs, private companies, and sectarian political parties acting outside the government have stepped in to provide basic services, including electricity, water, and education. Lebanon’s residents generally pay at least twice for power and water: one bill for each service to the state, plus one to the private owners of the generators that keep the lights on during the country’s daily power outages, and another to the water-delivery companies that keep taps flowing when government-provided water runs out. Some of the factors that keep Lebanon’s government weak have also contributed to the fracturing of its security sector, which includes government agencies like the army, a police force, and multiple intelligence agencies. Political parties like Hezbollah, influential families and clans, and even loosely organized bands of young men act as informal security agencies. For many of the same reasons, some people just don’t trust the official security sector. In a national survey conducted in 2013 by International Alert, an NGO focused on conflict resolution, a quarter of respondents said they would not choose to first rely on the government if they were a victim of a crime. Instead, they preferred the help of, say, a political party or powerful family. “If [the police] can help solve an issue, that’s great; if there’s another way of doing things, that also works,” Carmen Geha, a professor of public administration at the American University of Beirut who analyzed the survey results in a 2015 report, said.

The Weynieh el Dawleh Facebook page is one such way. “[The police] wouldn’t move if I didn’t make them uncomfortable,” the page’s administrator, a man who goes by the pseudonym Sami Beiruti, told me. Beiruti said his page exists not just to out suspected criminals; it’s also designed to embarrass Lebanon's security forces into arresting them. “I press the government and say, ‘Come take action,’” Beiruti said. His posts also offer an unflinching critique of the government, focusing on infractions small—like police officers breaking traffic laws—and large. Behind the scenes, however, Beiruti is in regular contact with the Internal Security Forces (ISF), Lebanon’s main police force, which has followed up on some of the leads he has posted to the Facebook page. Beiruti said his investigations have helped the ISF with hundreds of cases over the years, but that the ISF only arrests a fraction of the suspects he identifies. (The ISF said the page helped with “many” cases but declined to supply a specific number.) Beiruti said he speaks to the ISF about once a week, usually when it has a complaint with one of his posts. Otherwise, he said, the authorities don’t want anything to do with him. “I think sometimes that they don't want me to exist,” he said. “They wish that my page is closed. And I feel that I may be considered an embarrassment to them, because I solve crimes that [they can't].”

Joseph Moussallem, an ISF spokesperson, said the force treats information from the page just like a lead from any other media source, and that it conducts independent investigations to confirm the tips. He said that the ISF is not allowed to go about its work the way Beiruti does—posting photos and videos of suspects, crowdsourcing an investigation, and publishing the results, all without a warrant or official permission—but that it has been helped by the page’s results. He characterized the ISF’s cooperation with Beiruti as limited, saying the force generally reaches out to him only to correct misinformation and false accusations against its officers. Beiruti told me that he’s a Lebanese man in his 40s who runs the page in addition to—and often during—his day job as an office worker. Beiruti said he started the first version of Weynieh el Dawleh in 2013 in an effort to fill gaps he perceived in local reporting. He claimed to have only begun publicly identifying suspected criminals about two years later, when he said his followers began sending in videos and photos. (These claims are difficult to confirm: Facebook has taken down older versions of Beiruti’s pages. And while I could not confirm the details on his personal background, which he said he guards to protect himself from retaliation, I am convinced that he is the page’s administrator. Over the course of several months, we corresponded via the phone number included on nearly every post on the Facebook page; when I asked Beiruti over the phone to prove he was also in control of the page, he quickly sent me a Facebook message from Weynieh el Dawleh with a specific phrase I asked him to include, and shared a screenshot of the page’s administration panel. He also gave me the name of his contact at the ISF, who confirmed that he had spoken with the page’s administrator.)

Legal and digital-rights advocates told me that they began having concerns with the page over the past year. They said that the administrator could conceivably misidentify suspects, and that those doxxed on the page could be vulnerable to vigilante violence. Beiruti said he’s only misidentified a suspect once, and that no one he has outed has ever suffered violent retribution. It's unclear how he would be able to make either claim. Another worry is that Beiruti’s page could push the ISF to focus on the types of crimes he highlights. Genwa Samhat, the executive director of helem, a Lebanese LGBT-rights organization, told me that she has seen an uptick in posts over the past year encouraging homophobia and transphobia, and a complementary rise in arrests of LGBT people in Lebanon. A video published on the page last September showed a woman leading a man around on a leash in Jounieh, a city just north of Beirut. The two were in a consensual BDSM relationship—in this case, a relationship between a dominant and a submissive partner—Samhat said. Many Lebanese news outlets reposted the video, which Beiruti had described as a display of “moral decline and sexual deviance.” He soon followed up with a post that identified both people, outing the woman as transgender and publishing her birth name. The pair was soon arrested.

Ghida Frangieh, a lawyer with the Lebanese NGO Legal Agenda, said the public outcry that erupted around the video may have forced the government’s hand to act against the couple. “If the page had not published this video, maybe nobody would have prosecuted them,” she said. “This kind of influence is particularly worrisome when it comes to prosecuting non-normative behavior, as opposed to more violent crimes.” Beiruti claimed that video was the only post he’s ever published that targeted LGBT people. (In the five months I’ve periodically checked up on his page, I did not find other examples of anti-LGBT posts.) Beiruti’s mentality isn’t that “of a citizen assisting law enforcement in fighting criminality,” Frangieh said. “The page feels that [it is] law enforcement. And that’s a problem.” Some of the other photos and videos Beiruti has posted clearly cross lines. In November, he published a photo of a man whose head was severed in a motorcycle accident. (His face was obscured by the page’s logo.) He included information about the man’s identity. “It was very shocking, so that’s why I posted it. … This page tells the story, even if it’s tough,” Beiruti said when I asked him why he publishes victims’ identities. “It tells the full truth.” In December, Beiruti posted an image of a woman’s body lying on the ground with what appeared to be a black cord wrapped around her neck. The text on the post said that she had been raped and murdered. “Help us identify this victim who was killed in cold blood,” it read. Beiruti said he published the photo to help the ISF, but took it down within 24 hours, after he got a wave of criticism on the page. The details in the photo and the post matched information in press reports about the death of Rebecca Dykes, a British diplomat.

Ali Mourad, a law professor at Beirut Arab University, said that this blasé attitude towards privacy dismissed individuals’ rights to presumed innocence, a right affirmed by the Lebanese constitution. But when Weynieh el Dawleh publicly identifies a suspect, the page effectively skips due process to arrive at what amounts to a conviction, backed up by the authority of collective censure rather than the law. “This is a threat to the judiciary system,” Mohamad Najem, the co-director of SMEX, a Lebanese digital-rights advocacy organization, told me. “They’re turning suspects into criminals in one click.” None of this—the calls for information, the public shaming, the cooperation with the police—would be possible without Facebook. But Facebook is a fickle host. The company has shut down Beiruti’s page five times, most recently in response to a request for comment for this article. Many of the pages’ posts appear to violate Facebook’s community standards, which don’t allow pages to “identify and shame private individuals.” Facebook said it shut down the page in February because it was publishing information about other people without their consent, which also violates the platform’s community standards. But within three days, it was up again, under the same name but a different URL. When his page is taken down, Beiruti loses all his followers, resetting a metric that’s very important to him. Before it was shut down in September, the third iteration of the page had more than 250,000 likes, a significant number for a page that focuses on hyper-local news in a country of about six million. As of today, it has close to 38,000. (By comparison, ISF’s official Facebook page has just over 160,000 likes.)

Since the government leaves Beiruti to his own devices, and lawsuits and threats don’t seem to slow him down, Facebook may be the only mechanism that can actually keep the page in check. But it does so only rarely: Activists say it requires a coordinated flood of reports aimed at a particular post to get the page taken down. “Facebook’s moderation is driven by user complaints, so it’s more likely for a page to be taken down if there’s a particular group that has an interest in having it taken down,” said Danny O’Brien, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s international director. “So minority or controversial pages are going to be more likely to be removed than other pages that still break the rules.” What’s more, O’Brien said, Facebook’s local moderators might make decisions under the influence of their own prejudices and biases, and the checks designed to prevent one-sided moderating are weaker in the developing world than they would be in a place like the United States. (UN human-rights experts said last week that Facebook played a “determining role” in spreading hate speech in Myanmar, where the UN is investigating whether or not a genocide is taking place.) When Facebook does shut down Beiruti’s page, it doesn’t stay offline for long. “We do disable the accounts of repeat infringers in some circumstances,” a Facebook spokesperson told me. This doesn’t appear to have happened in Beiruti’s case, since he has always been able to start a new Weynieh el Dawleh page shortly after the last one is shut down. “It’s good that Facebook has reacted to Lebanese society reporting these kind of pages,” said Najem, the digital-rights advocate. Facebook should do more to defend its Middle Eastern users’ privacy, Najem said, but it’s also the government’s responsibility to step in and protect its citizens from online threats.