Names of the Levant homeland proper with the northwest coastal region of the Levant, centered at Phoenician cities such as Ugarit, Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. Today, this place is usually equated with modern Lebanon and the coast of modern Syria. Also there is a modern town in Turkey called "Finike" which is thought to have derived by the Lycians who traded with Phoenicians in ancient times. Israel: Judea: The kingdoms of Israel and Judah were Iron Age Semitic nations spanning from Edom to Assyria. Today the modern State of Israel controls much of the former territory of the ancient Israelite/Judean kingdoms. According to the
Lebanon–Syria relations especially with the 29-year Syrian Occupation of Lebanon, accusations of Syrian intervention within Lebanese politics before and after withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, and suspicions of Syria assassinating Lebanese political figures like former prime minister Rafic Hariri. Syria officially recognized Lebanon's sovereignty in 2008. Ottoman Syria, as termed within the Ottoman Empire, was composed of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. In the 1830s, Europeans could trade with Greater Syria through the thriving port city of Beirut. Under the Ottoman Empire, Mount Lebanon (the region of the Lebanon mountain range) enjoyed political autonomy from the center because of its geographic