Syrian refugees might tip the war in Lebanon

 The woke are so busy condemning Israel they didn't notice those 14 million Syrian refugees, 

From the UNHCR

March 2024 report... Since 2011, more than 14 million Syrians have been forced to flee their homes in search of safety. More than 7.2 million Syrians remain internally displaced in their own country where 70 percent of the population is need of humanitarian assistance and 90 percent live below the poverty line. 

Approximately 5.5 million Syrian refugees live in the five countries neighboring Syria—Türkiye, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. Germany is the largest non-neighboring host country with more than 850,000 Syrian refugees.

the complicated war with different factions who often change sides will make your head spin. (Iran is there, but so are the Russians, and the Turks, ISIS, and the Kurds).

nothing new here: The locals have been fighting since at least 1400 BCE when Egypt fought the Cananites and Hurrians, and possibly as far back as a local battle of Siddom mentioned in the Bible was 1800 BCE.

StrategyPage has an update on how the war in Syria is changing. Syria is now starting to make nice with the (Sunni) Arab league.

Hezbollah and Iran might be slowly losing their influence, not just in Syria but in Lebanon, where the influx of Sunni refugees mean that the Shiite Hezbollah is now outnumbered....

The recent Israeli attacks on Hezbollah personnel with exploding pagers and portable radios, in addition to airstrikes, have killed or wounded thousands of Hezbollah members and left them unable to communicate effectively. The Iran-backed Shia Hezbollah is no longer a threat to Israel or the Lebanese government and people.

and of course, a lot of these Syrians are part of the Muslim refugee influx into Europe, which has inflamed xenophobia and nationalism there because unlike the USA, where immigrants tend to become Americans by embracing the culture within three generations, in Europe their nationalism is based on tribal identity.

The Hamas/Hezbollah/Iran propaganda machine vs the Israeli/CIA propaganda machines make it hard to evaluate what is going on in Lebanon since you can't believe the news.

this video discusses the background of what is going on:  it is one month old so it predates the present day  actions

However one clue that so far people feel safe is that, although the Philippine Government has urged our OFW to leave (an old estimate says there are 33 000 there), only 15 have left.so far,