Massive Media Campaign Expresses Opposition to Another War in Lebanon

A billboard in Beirut reads: “So that the past doesn’t repeat itself, Lebanon does not want war.” (X platform)
A billboard in Beirut reads: “So that the past doesn’t repeat itself, Lebanon does not want war.” (X platform)
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Massive Media Campaign Expresses Opposition to Another War in Lebanon

A billboard in Beirut reads: “So that the past doesn’t repeat itself, Lebanon does not want war.” (X platform)
A billboard in Beirut reads: “So that the past doesn’t repeat itself, Lebanon does not want war.” (X platform)

The toned-down speeches of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah did not reassure the Lebanese people that the Gaza war would not spread to their country.

In fact, repeated Iranian statements about the possibility of the spread of the fighting beyond the southern border regions have raised the people’s fears that the war would spread to Lebanon.

Since the eruption of the conflict in Gaza, Hezbollah, Lebanese and Palestinian groups have been engaged in fighting with Israeli troops on the border. The fighting has so far been limited to those regions.

The fear of the spillover of the Gaza war led politicians and civil society groups to launch a massive campaign, under the slogan, “Lebanon does not want war.”

The campaign was first limited to social media, with the participation of politicians, artists, and media figures, but it has now been moved to billboards, especially those located in Beirut.

Billboards read: “So that the past doesn’t repeat itself, Lebanon does not want war.” Short phone text messages were also received by a large number of people, calling for sparing the country another war.

Ghina Al-Khazen, director of an advertising company in the Gulf, and one of the organizers of the project, revealed that it was funded by a group of young Lebanese and businessmen who want political, military and security stability, and who represent “all Lebanese regions.”

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Khazen said: "Yes, the Lebanese prime minister declared that he and his government do not control the decision of war and peace, but the Lebanese people are greater and stronger than the government, and the decision is in their hands.”

She continued: “[This decision] is not and will not be in the hands of the political system that is subject to the policies of parties and armed groups.”

Prior to the campaign, caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati toured a number of countries to urge their help in preventing Lebanon from sliding towards the war.

The country’s opposition forces had sent an appeal to the Arab Summit held in Saudi Arabia, asking Arab leaders “to help Lebanon confront the attempt to drag it into war, in light of its hijacked sovereignty and usurped decision-making.”

“When the state is robbed of the decision to make war and peace, it becomes necessary for the political components... to carry out their duty. Therefore, as opposition representatives, we conveyed a call to the Arab Summit, to say that Lebanese society in general and the opposition representatives refuse to let Lebanon be part of the arenas of the existing conflict. We want the country to be a space for dialogue and diplomacy, which would serve the Palestinian cause,” MP Razi al-Hajj, member of the Strong Republic bloc, told Asharq Al-Awsat.

A few days ago, a number of political activists organized a protest in front of the National Museum in Beirut to demand that Lebanon be protected from war.

Political activist Princess Hayat Arslan participated in the demonstration, stressing in a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat the importance of “raising our voice so that the international community is aware that the majority of the Lebanese do not want war and do not support [Hezbollah] in what it is doing, given that the party represent no more than 15 or 20 percent of the Lebanese people.”



Trump Comeback Restarts Israeli Public Debate on West Bank Annexation

(FILES) US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a remembrance event to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel - AFP
(FILES) US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a remembrance event to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel - AFP
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Trump Comeback Restarts Israeli Public Debate on West Bank Annexation

(FILES) US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a remembrance event to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel - AFP
(FILES) US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a remembrance event to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel - AFP

When Donald Trump presented his 2020 plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it included the Israeli annexation of swathes of the occupied West Bank, a controversial aspiration that has been revived by his reelection.

In his previous stint as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu pushed for partial annexation of the West Bank, but he relented in 2020 under international pressure and following a deal to normalize relations with the UAE.

With Trump returning to the White House, pro-annexation Israelis are hoping to rekindle the idea.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler in the Palestinian territory, said recently that 2025 would be "the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria", referring to the biblical name that Israel uses for the West Bank, AFP reported.
The territory was part of the British colony of Mandatory Palestine, from which Israel was carved during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Israel conquered the territory fin the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and has occupied it ever since.

Today, many Jews in Israel consider the West Bank part of their historical homeland and reject the idea of a Palestinian state in the territory, with hundreds of thousands having settled in the territory.

Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and its 200,000 Jewish residents, the West Bank is home to around 490,000 Israelis in settlements considered illegal under international law.

Around three million Palestinians live in the West Bank.

- 'Make a decision' -

Israel Ganz, head of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization for the municipal councils of West Bank settlements, insisted the status quo could not continue.

"The State of Israel must make a decision," he said.

Without sovereignty, he added, "no one is responsible for infrastructure, roads, water and electricity."

"We will do everything in our power to apply Israeli sovereignty, at least over Area C," he said, referring to territory under sole Israeli administration that covers 60 percent of the West Bank, including the vast majority of Israeli settlements.

Even before taking office, Trump and his incoming administration have made a number of moves that have raised the hopes of pro-annexation Israelis.

The president-elect nominated the pro-settlement Baptist minister Mike Huckabee to be his ambassador to Israel. His nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said this would be "the most pro-Israel administration in American history" and that it would lift US sanctions on settlers.

Eugene Kontorovich of the conservative think thank Misgav Institute pointed out that the Middle East was a very different place to what it was during Trump's first term.

The war against Hamas in Gaza, Israel's hammering of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, all allies of Israel's arch-foe Iran, have transformed the region.

The two-state solution, which would create an independent Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, has been the basis of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations going back decades.

- 'Nightmare scenario' -

Even before Trump won November's US presidential election, NGOs were denouncing what they called a de facto annexation, pointing to a spike in land grabs and an overhaul of the bureaucratic and administrative structures Israel uses to manage the West Bank.

An outright, de jure annexation would be another matter, however.

Israel cannot expropriate private West Bank land at the moment, but "once annexed, Israeli law would allow it. That's a major change", said Aviv Tatarsky, from the Israeli anti-settlement organisation Ir Amim.

He said that in the event that Israel annexes Area C, Palestinians there would likely not be granted residence permits and the accompanying rights.

The permits, which Palestinians in east Jerusalem received, allow people freedom of movement within Israel and the right to use Israeli courts. West Bank Palestinians can resort to the supreme court, but not lower ones.

Tatarsky said that for Palestinians across the West Bank, annexation would constitute "a nightmare scenario".

Over 90 percent of them live in areas A and B, under full or partial control of the Palestinian Authority.

But, Tatarsky pointed out, "their daily needs and routine are indissociable from Area C," the only contiguous portion of the West Bank, where most agricultural lands are and which breaks up areas A and B into hundreds of territorial islets.