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.”
