Beirut ? Mohammed Saleh is convinced: If he builds it, Lebanese expatriates will come.

The Beirut-based developer envisions a 3.3-square-kilometer, artificial island shaped like a cedar tree as a major attraction off Lebanon’s coast.

The massive chunk of dredged seabed or transported earth — converted into an $8 billion paradise with luxury villas, apartments, shops, restaurants, white-sand beaches, parks, schools and hospitals — would nurture national pride, says Saleh, chairman of Noor International Holding.

It’s the kind of splashy megaproject that gave Arab boomtown Dubai its outsized profile but left it drowning in debt. And in Lebanon, a tiny country known more for war than tourism, critics see the project as folly.

But Saleh says Cedar Island is the kind of self-financed gamble the nation needs to lure back wealthy Lebanese who moved abroad as they grew weary of conflict.

“I am not worried about the global crisis, because my main target is Lebanese expatriates who have nostalgia for their country and would like to invest in it,” said Saleh. “Unlike foreign investors, these people are used to Lebanon’s system, its ups and downs.”

Saleh — many of whose projects boast outsized stature, like the Rose Tower in Dubai, which calls itself the world’s tallest hotel — points in particular to a $2 billion memorandum of understanding he’s signed regarding Cedar Island with Turkey’s Ihlas Holding. The rest of the money will come from other developers and investors, Saleh said.