Lebanese businesses pay steep price for standoff with Saudis

Lebanese have been losing business opportunities and contracts in recent weeks as a result of a diplomatic crisis between their government and Saudi Arabia

BEIRUT -- A Lebanese DJ was days away from moving to Riyadh to play for a month in one of the newest entertainment centers in Saudi Arabia's capital when a brief, polite Whatsapp message informed her that the contract won’t go through.

The head of a Beirut-based communications agency had been negotiating to revive a two-year-old contract derailed by the pandemic for hundreds of thousands of dollars. After two days of silence her Saudi client, in an apologetic call, said now is not the time.

A business owner who for years exported stationary to the kingdom had to return 20 containers of notebooks and paper ready for shipping to his warehouse outside of Beirut. “Please freeze everything,” Ziad Bekdache recalled the handlers telling him.

These are some of the victims of Saudi Arabia’s furious backlash against Lebanon in October after a Lebanese minister criticized its war against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen.