Lebanonization (Hebrew: לבנוניזציה; Arabic: اللًَبْنَنَة) is a negative political term referring to the process of a prosperous, developed, politically stable country descending into a civil war or becoming a failed state, as is the case with Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War. The term, mainly used in Israel to refer to the country's foreign policy in neighbouring Levantine states, was first used by Israeli President Shimon Peres in 1983, referring to the minimization of Israeli military presence in Lebanon following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, occurring amidst the Lebanese Civil War. It is comparable to Balkanization, but occurs without secession, within the borders of one country.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]
"Beijing threatens to 'Lebanonize' Taiwan EJINSIGHT - ejinsight.com". EJINSIGHT. Archived from the original on 28 March 2021. Retrieved 18 December 2020. However, the Israeli withdrawal was followed by a permanent state of civil war among the religious, ethnic and political factions in Lebanon. As a result, Lebanonization took on a more negative meaning and became a phrase to describe a failed state that keeps struggling with religious and other disputes.
Gold, David L. (2002). "Offspring of the English Verb Babelize (With Remarks on French, Hebrew, and Spanish)". Neophilologus. 86 (3): 455–466. doi:10.1023/A:1015680313631. S2CID 160700371. In allusion to the protracted and bitter civil war in Lebanon, fear of Lebanisation on the northwest border of Pakistan is mentioned in the Manchester Guardian Weekly of 5 January 1986, p. 6; Norman Podhoretz warned of a Lebanization of Palestine, if such a state came into existence, in The New York Times of 3 September 1993, p. A9; the Lebanonization of Yugoslavia is mentioned in The New York Times of 1 November 1987, p. 14; Mapam, an Israeli political party, has warned of the possible Lebanonization of Israel; "'Lebanonization' is the term both Israelis and Palestinians are using for what seems to be a shift toward low-level guerrilla warfare [. . .]" (John Kifner, "Tale of Two Uprisings: This Time, the Palestinians Have Territory, and Guns," The New York Times, 18 November 2000, p. A6).
Rezaei, Farhad (2018). "Iran and Iraq: The Lebanonization Project in the Balance". Iran's Foreign Policy After the Nuclear Agreement: Politics of Normalizers and Traditionalists. Springer International Publishing. pp. 113–140. ISBN 978-3-319-76789-5. Rabil, Robert G. (2011). "The Islamists and the Political System: Al-Infitah and Lebanonization". Religion, National Identity, and Confessional Politics in Lebanon: The Challenge of Islamism. Palgrave Macmillan US. pp. 59–81. ISBN 978-0-230-33925-5. Ranstorp, Magnus (1998). "The strategy and tactics of Hizballah's current 'Lebanonization process'". Mediterranean Politics. 3 (1): 103–134. doi:10.1080/13629399808414643. Barber, Benjamin R. (2000). "Jihad vs. McWorld". Globalization and the Challenges of a New Century: A Reader. Indiana University Press. pp. 23–24. ISBN 978-0-253-02818-1. The first is a retribalization of large swaths of humankind by war and bloodshed: a threatened Lebanonization of national states in which culture is pitted against culture, people against people, tribe against tribe —a Jihad in the name of a hundred narrowly conceived faiths …
