The fruit of opportunity is rotting on the branch in the fertile Bekaa Valley, literally. The Syrian civil war has effectively closed the border to trucks carrying exports of Lebanese fruit and vegetables to markets in neighboring countries and beyond. Now imagine — and this will take some effort — a government responsive to crisis, innovative in plotting solutions and effective in carrying them out. There is the military airport at Rayak in the middle of the Bekaa; why not schedule flights — through the state-owned Middle East Airlines or mobilize Lebanon’s fleet of private jets sitting — to fly shipments of Bekaa-grown produce to Gulf markets for Ramadan? While it would be a form of subsidy and a short-term fix, it would maintain the continuity of supply chains, help farmers and communities over the hump of this current crisis, and generate massive kudos for the Lebanese state —
