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Beirut renames seaside avenue after Saudi benefactor

Will King Salman Avenue bring Lebanon more Saudi tourists, or does it just represent the failures of the Lebanese political system?
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Haphazardly changing street names in any city distorts history and is an attempt to reshape its collective memory. On April 3, a nearly mile-long avenue that runs from Zaitunay Bay to Minet el-Hosn along Beirut’s spectacular Mediterranean seafront was officially renamed after Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud.

Lebanese politicians take great pleasure in renaming streets around the country after themselves and their benefactors, and this trend has only increased with the convoluted nature of the country's confessional system after the end of the civil war. Adjacent streets in downtown Beirut were named in the past two decades after the late Saudi King Fahd, former French President Jacques Chirac and former Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.

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