Word: lebanonize
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...Lebanon may be on the brink of another ruinous civil war, but for the country's basketball fans, there are more important things to worry about. Forget the office pools and the social networking for big-game tickets so common in the U.S., particularly during "March Madness"; such is the passion of the Lebanese fans that at their games, riot police and the occasional armored personnel carrier are as common a sight as cheerleaders...
...Basketball is Lebanon's most popular sport, and for of a small Middle Eastern country with a population of a mere 4 million, the Lebanese have a surprisingly good game. Lebanon often ranks near the top of the Asian championships, lagging just behind the likes of China (population 1.3 billion). But even on court, the country's toxic brew of sectarianism and politics causes as much excitement as the athletes. All 12 of Lebanon's semi-professional basketball teams have some sort of religious or political affiliation. And despite the fact that fans from rival teams are segregated into stands...
...that's a problem, because in Lebanon, politics have a way of turning ugly. The country fought a devastating civil war from 1975 to 1990, mostly along religious lines: Christian vs. Muslim. Today the battle lines are forming once again between, on the one side, Christian and Sunni Muslim groups allied with the U.S.-backed government, and ranged against them, Shi'ite Muslim and Christian groups that form an opposition movement supported by Syria and Iran...
...These tensions - heightened by concern over the possibility of another war with Israel - often spill onto the court. Because Lebanon's Shi'ites generally prefer soccer (perhaps reflecting their status as a traditionally disenfranchised minority), the main hoops action tends to be Christian vs. Christian, and Christian vs. Sunni. In fact, basketball is an extension of politics to such a degree that when General Michel Aoun, a Christian leader, turned against the country's mainline pro-government Christians, one of the first things he did was start a new basketball team, the Blue Stars...
...every time Israel has used a heavy hand in Lebanon in the past, it resulted in increased support for Hizballah. Even as Hizballah girds for another confrontation with Israel, however, its leaders will have to factor in the limits of endurance among its war-weary Shi'ite supporters...