French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon that local leaders had could easily be overruled by French officials. The French did everything in their power to prevent people in the Levant from developing self-sufficient governing bodies. In 1930, France extended their constitution on to Syria. On August 3, 1920, 299 of the "Haut-commissariat de la République française en Syrie et au Liban" linked the cazas of Hasbaya, Rachaya, Maallaka and Baalbeck to what was then known as the Autonomous Territory of Lebanon. Then on 31 August 1920, General Gouraud signed Arrêté 318 delimiting the State of Greater Lebanon, with explanatory notes stating that Lebanon would be treated
Christianity in Lebanon genocide. Even today refugees continue to flee from northern Iraq and northeastern Syria into Lebanon or Jordan due to continuous unrest in Iraq and Syria. The Syriac Catholic Eparchy of Beirut is the proper (arch)eparchy (Eastern Catholic (arch)diocese) of the Syriac Catholic Church's (Antiochian Rite in Syriac language) Patriarch of Antioch in his actual seat, Beirut, Lebanon. The members of the Syriac Orthodox Church are also refugees who had fled southeastern Turkey (present day Mardin region) during and after World War I and the Assyrian/Syriac genocide. Even today refugees continue to flee from northern Iraq and northeastern Syria into Lebanon