In the early 60′s, during the cold war and the apex of Pan Arabism, a group of students and researchers enters the race to space and create the Lebanese Rocket Society. Sometimes, and specially nowadays, dreams can overtake a tormented history…
You can check more about the film on its Facebook Page and official website.
Believe it or not, I just found out that Haigazian university and the Lebanese army have cooperated back in the 1960’s to produce a series of surface-to-surface missiles called “Arz-1”, “Arz-2”, and “Arz-3”.
It all started with a project led by Professor Manoug Manuogian at Haigazian university in 1960 resulting in a single-stage rocket that reached an altitude of 2 kilometers. The Lebanese president at that time, Fouad Chehab, decided to finance the project with 25,000 L.L, which allowed the group to build tw0-stage rockets in summer 1962, and a three-stage rocket later in November 1962. By the end of this year rockets were able to reach an altitude of 20Km!
However, the project was halted shortly after the French President Charles de Gaulle told President Chehab that the Lebanese abilities were proven in the scientific field, but the project might put Lebanon at risk if further researches are done! (WTF!!!) i.e. These missiles are a threat to Israel, and it will not remain silent towards the advancement of the Lebanese army in missile technology!
That’s actually a summary of the article I found on Wikipedia.
If we have worked on this technology back in the 1960’s, and if resistance movements in Palestine are currently using water pipes to produce the Qassam rockets, then we can definitely resume working on the project and come up with much more enhanced versions of Arz to arm the Lebanese army and make it capable of defending our land when necessary. But then again will Israel remain silent about it? This definitely leads us to the defense strategy issue that our buttheads have been discussing since 2006, Israel simply doesn’t accept Lebanon having any means of self defense, so how can we disarm Hezbollah and still be able to protect ourselves against any possible invasion..? Oh wait this isn’t a political blog! END OF POST!
