The Bekaa Valley, straddling the border with Syria, is my last stop before saying a sad goodbye to Lebanon. It’s a curious place, the Bekaa: home to the ancient “Sun City” of the Romans, Baalbek - arguably Lebanon’s top tourist attraction - it’s also the birthplace of Hizbollah - arguably the biggest pain in the Lebanese government’s rump. On your way into town, passing splashy billboards for hotels and local restaurants, you also pass sobering tributes to the martyrs of last year’s war. Their somber young faces, covered in scraggily bears or trim moustaches, stare gravely at the passing cars. There are billboards paying homage to the resistance: elegiac portraits of men carrying automatic rifles or rocket launchers, the flaming carcass of an Israeli tank looming in the background. And Nasrallah, the group’s spiritual leader:
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