The most lovely Easter, the most meaningful Easter I've ever spent was in a city of many faiths, the city of Beirut.

Exquisite, pleat-folded foiled chocolate eggs were sold in jewel box-like shops near Christian churches, while Muslim mosques down the street broadcast the daily call to prayers, and those of the Druze faith went peacefully to and from their khilwat — their places of prayer.

Bells rang, processions moved through streets, beautiful young things hung out at clubs until dawn; Armenian sujuk, Turkish kunafa, Palestinian mezze and 35 different kinds of delicious hummus were sold in restaurants that didn't start seating people until 10pm.

And the Easter services were solemn and moving.

This is a beautiful city, a fascinating and historic city, the capital of a country with a deep tradition of coexistence and interfaith tolerance. But it is also one that sits amid a fragile sectarian system that has repeatedly been strained by politics, militia power and outside interference.

Israel is bombarding southern Lebanon and displacing more than one million people because, it says, it is trying to push Hezbollah away from its northern border and destroy weapons, launch sites and tunnels. In reality that has meant heavy bombardment, evacuations and a ground push that has forced large numbers of civilians from their homes. More than 1100 people have been killed, more than 3000 since October 2023.

The reports are awful. Lebanese families have been told to flee homes that they might never be able to return to, and families are setting up tents for an uncertain and dangerous life on the streets of Beirut all because of a conflict not of their making, brought about by another state.

This has happened too many times. Lebanon's modern history is, in large part, a story of being pulled into other people's wars: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict over Israeli occupation; Syrian regional power struggles; Iranian rivalry with Israel, and repeated interventions by Israel, Syria, and others on Lebanese soil.

Hezbollah, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by Australia, has also been one of the most powerful forces in Lebanon, and has kept the country tied to Iran's regional agenda and the conflict with Israel.

From the Lebanese point of view, it is also a long story of ordinary people trying to live normally while outside powers and local armed groups keep turning the country into a battleground.

From 1975 to 1990, Lebanon's civil war was no ordinary domestic breakdown. Sectarian tensions at home collided with armed Palestinian factions, then drew in Syria in 1976 and Israel in 1978 and again in 1982, until Lebanon was no longer merely fighting its own crisis — it had become the stage on which regional and international power struggles played out.

The scars of these unwanted interventions are everywhere. The pock-marked, bullet-ridden walls from Lebanon's brutal civil war still stand in some parts of the city, and the part of downtown that assassinated prime minister, Rafik Harriri, rebuilt after the civil war was then blown up again by Israeli bombardment in 2024. The city can never find peace.

Lebanon has long had a fatal vulnerability to these power struggles, because its political system was built around sectarian power-sharing, which often encouraged leaders to look outward for protection and backing rather than building a strong shared national state. That made the country unusually easy to fragment, and foreign powers repeatedly worked through local militias and factions instead of dealing with Lebanon as one sovereign actor.

Many Lebanese people would probably bristle at the idea that their lives are defined mainly by sectarian conflict, because it overlooks the ordinary cooperation and shared city life that was so evident in the lively and peaceful city that I saw in the early 2000s. But they would also probably say that being left alone to show how well they can live in this way has rarely been allowed to happen, and never for very long.

I wish Lebanon was left alone.

This weekend we have a great selection of reads to fill what I hope is a leisurely and relaxed Easter weekend for you, including the men who marry "up", and the women who don't partner at all.

Have a safe and happy long weekend and use your fuel wisely over this holiday period. I hesitate to share a driving song, so here is one to fill your lounge room. Raye's new album will be, I suspect, one of the greats of the year. Go well.