Le Drian Meets Lebanese Leaders, Tries Break Govt Deadlock

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian walks after a meeting with Lebanon's President Michel Aoun at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon May 6, 2021. (Reuters)
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian walks after a meeting with Lebanon's President Michel Aoun at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon May 6, 2021. (Reuters)
TT
20

Le Drian Meets Lebanese Leaders, Tries Break Govt Deadlock

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian walks after a meeting with Lebanon's President Michel Aoun at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon May 6, 2021. (Reuters)
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian walks after a meeting with Lebanon's President Michel Aoun at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon May 6, 2021. (Reuters)

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian met Lebanese leaders on Thursday to try to break the deadlock in months of talks on forming a government to pull Lebanon out of economic crisis.

Le Drian met President Michel Aoun and influential Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Both are allies of Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and is a close ally of Syria.

He has also asked to meet Gebran Bassil, the head of Lebanon’s biggest Christian parliamentary bloc and Aoun’s son-in-law, who was hit with US sanctions last year for alleged corruption and his ties to Hezbollah.

Officials had declined to confirm a meeting with Saad al-Hariri, a three-time premier who was designated to form a new government in October but has been locked in a stand-off with Aoun over the line-up, according to Reuters.

Two diplomats said Le Drian wanted to send a clear message that Paris supports the Lebanese people, but that it had had enough of the political class that had failed to meet its commitments.

"He came to Beirut to give Lebanese officials a strongly worded message, to tell them 'Lebanon is sinking and you are the ones sinking it even more...And if you don't help yourselves, nobody can help you'," a senior Lebanese political source said.

Paris said last month it was taking measures to restrict entry to France for Lebanese officials accused of blocking efforts to resolve the crisis, which has crashed the currency, paralyzed the banking sector and increased poverty.

Before flying to Beirut, Le Drian warned of punitive measures against those who were hindering progress.

“It is only the beginning,” he tweeted.



Anxiety Clouds Easter for West Bank Christians

Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP
Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP
TT
20

Anxiety Clouds Easter for West Bank Christians

Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP
Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP

In the mainly Christian Palestinian town of Zababdeh, the runup to Easter has been overshadowed by nearby Israeli military operations, which have proliferated in the occupied West Bank alongside the Gaza war.

This year unusually Easter falls on the same weekend for all of the town's main Christian communities -- Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican --- and residents have attempted to busy themselves with holiday traditions like making date cakes or getting ready for the scout parade.

But their minds have been elsewhere.

Dozens of families from nearby Jenin have found refuge in Zababdeh from the continual Israeli military operations that have devastated the city and its adjacent refugee camp this year.

"The other day, the (Israeli) army entered Jenin, people were panicking, families were running to pick up their children," said Zababdeh resident Janet Ghanam.

"There is a constant fear, you go to bed with it, you wake up with it," the 57-year-old Anglican added, before rushing off to one of the last Lenten prayers before Easter.

Ghanam said her son had told her he would not be able to visit her for Easter this year, for fear of being stuck at the Israeli military roadblocks that have mushroomed across the territory.

Zabadeh's Anglican church was busy in the runup to Easter but across the West Bank Christian communities have been in sharp decline as people emigrate in search of a better life abroad.

Zabadeh looks idyllic, nestled in the hills of the northern West Bank, but the roar of Israeli air force jets sometimes drowns out the sound of its church bells.

"It led to a lot of people to think: 'Okay, am I going to stay in my home for the next five years?'" said Saleem Kasabreh, an Anglican deacon in the town.

"Would my home be taken away? Would they bomb my home?"

- 'Existential threat' -

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and in recent months far-right ministers in its coalition government have called for the annexation of swathes of the territory.

Kasabreh said this "existential threat" was compounded by constant "depression" at the news from Gaza, where the death toll from the Israel's response to Hamas's October 2023 attack now tops 51,000, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Work has been hard to find for Zababdeh's mainly Christian residents since Israel rescinded Palestinian work permits following the October 2023 attack by Hamas that sparked the Gaza war.

Zababdeh has been spared the devastation wreaked on Gaza, but the mayor's office says nearly 450 townspeople lost their jobs in Israel when Palestinian work permits were rescinded after the Hamas attack.

"Israel had never completely closed us in the West Bank before this war," said 73-year-old farmer Ibrahim Daoud. "Nobody knows what will happen".

Many say they are stalked by the spectre of exile, with departures abroad fuelling fears that Christians may disappear from the Holy Land.

"People can't stay without work and life isn't easy," said 60-year-old maths teacher Tareq Ibrahim.

Mayor Ghassan Daibes echoed his point.

"For a Christian community to survive, there must be stability, security and decent living conditions. It's a reality, not a call for emigration," he said.

"But I´m speaking from lived experience: Christians used to make up 30 percent of the population in Palestine; today, they are less than one percent.

"And this number keeps decreasing. In my own family, I have three brothers abroad -- one in Germany, the other two in the United States."

Catholic priest Father Elias Tabban insists the hard times his congregation has been going though have deepened their faith.

Catholic priest Elias Tabban adopted a more stoical attitude, insisting his congregation's spirituality had never been so vibrant.

"Whenever the Church is in hard times... (that's when) you see the faith is growing," Tabban said.