Lebanon: Divorce between Aoun, Hezbollah Is Final

Hezbollah is accused of stabbing the FPM several times in the back.

Then FPM leader Michel Aoun and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah shake hands as they declare their understanding in February 2006. (Reuters)
Then FPM leader Michel Aoun and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah shake hands as they declare their understanding in February 2006. (Reuters)
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Lebanon: Divorce between Aoun, Hezbollah Is Final

Then FPM leader Michel Aoun and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah shake hands as they declare their understanding in February 2006. (Reuters)
Then FPM leader Michel Aoun and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah shake hands as they declare their understanding in February 2006. (Reuters)

A Lebanese official following the relations between former President Michel Aoun with Hezbollah said the “marriage” between them, which was held at a Maronite church in Beirut’s southern suburbs in 2006, is over.

All that is left is for them to announce the official divorce, marking an end to an alliance between two of the most opposite parties in Lebanon.

Many had believed that the understanding - signed at the Mar Mikhael church in February 2006 between then head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) Michel Aoun and Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah - was doomed to fail.

Even though it brought two parties that could not be any more different, their understanding turned out to be a solid alliance wherein the personal relations between Aoun and Nasrallah played a big role in consolidating it, leading to a major change in Lebanon’s political identity.

However, Aoun’s political successor, his son-in-law and MP Gebran Bassil played a major role in ruining the understanding, leading to its collapse and now, divorce.

The FPM and Hezbollah achieved major gains from the alliance. Hezbollah gained sizeable Christian cover for its arsenal of weapons, while the FPM gained unlimited support in internal files that allowed it at first to control Christian shares in governments and then state institutions. The alliance also allowed Aoun to be elected president after two years of vacuum in the country’s top post.

Ironically, Aoun’s election as president marked the beginning of the end of the alliance. As soon as Aoun became head of state, he found himself at great odds with influential parliament Speaker Nabi Berri, a major ally of Hezbollah.

Aoun believed that Hezbollah’s support to him in domestic affairs must be unlimited, but the party chose to take the middle ground and avoid confronting Berri out of its keenness on the “unity of Shiite ranks.” Aoun was very disappointed, openly informing his guests that Berri was the greatest obstacle to his presidential achievements and Hezbollah did not intervene to rein in its ally.

Aoun believes that Berri was the major obstacle that hindered the success of his term as president – an argument that many agree with. Hezbollah chose to take a “hands off” approach in internal files, prioritizing its regional role.

Berri, however, did not take a “hands off” approach. He confronted Aoun’s ambitions in state institutions. The speaker is a main political player and refused to turn into an “affiliate” to Aoun, said one of the figures close to him. The lack of “political chemistry” between Aoun and Berri was obvious to them and others from the start.

Aoun’s term in office ended with a vacuum in the presidency with political parties failing to elect a successor. The way Hezbollah is approaching the vacuum has dealt a strong blow to the alliance with Aoun.

The party is clear in backing the candidacy of former minister Suleiman Franjieh, but Bassil, now head of the FPM, has strongly rejected this choice. He believes that he has made a great sacrifice by refraining from nominating himself, calling on Hezbollah to reach an understanding with him over a “third choice”.

Nasrallah and Bassil met, with the former frankly telling him that Franjieh was their choice. Bassil strongly opposed the suggestion. Nasrallah told him to think about it, but Bassil was adamant in rejecting Franjieh.

Other points of contention were related to the caretaker government. The FPM argued that the government, in its caretaker capacity, could not hold meetings amid the presidential vacuum. Hezbollah disagreed and granted the needed quorum for the cabinet meetings to be held. Bassil was furious, striking below the belt by speaking of “honest parties who renege on the agreement, vow and guarantee.” The party was forced to respond openly to the accusation, the first time it had done so since the 2006 understanding.

The relationship between Hezbollah and the FPM was based partially on the latter’s support of the party's conflict with Israel. In return, the party would support the FPM in domestic political affairs, leading to a “balanced partnership”, as Bassil has told his visitors. An imbalance in this equation will break the partnership. On whether Hezbollah’s latest positions were viewed as a stab in the back, Bassil’s visitors said: “There are many knives in the back this time.”

Hezbollah and Bassil’s ties were never completely rosy. Bassil never shied away from criticizing the party every now and then. His biggest reservation was that the party prioritized its relations with Shiites over all else. According to Bassil, this “encouraged corruption and prevented the rise of state institutions.” Bassil went so far as to tell his visitors that Hezbollah fought for Aoun to be elected president and when he finally became so, it did not support him in the battle to build the state, abandoning him before his rivals.

Bassil’s visitors said he was clear with Hezbollah over the need to agree on another presidential candidate besides Franjieh. “If they believe he is maneuvering or seeking something else in return, they are wrong and it would be a big problem if the party believes so,” they added.

Bassil has said that the relationship between the FPM and Hezbollah was perfect. “We were capable of reaching understandings with foreign parties, while in return, the resistance [Hezbollah] would perform its duty in protecting the nation,” he was quoted as saying.

In short, Bassil believed that the 2006 understanding with Hezbollah changed Lebanon's identity and if the relations with the party were to collapse, then Lebanon’s identity will again be changed.

Hezbollah’s view

In return, Hezbollah appears unconvinced of Bassil’s justifications. An official close to the party said the divorce has happened with the party and they are now awaiting the official announcement. He stressed, however, that the announcement will not be made by the party, leaving it up to Bassil.

The official disagrees with the Aounist camp’s claims that the FPM’s support for Hezbollah gave the former free reign in domestic affairs. “They are giving the party support it doesn’t need. It is already a regional power and recognized as so by the world,” he remarked.

Internally, he said the “weight” of the alliance with the FPM “cost Hezbollah several of its Christian friends and strained its relations with other parties because it was always siding with Bassil.”

Moreover, he added that the formation of governments was obstructed on numerous occasions “just so Bassil could get what he wanted. The parliament was also obstructed just so Aoun could be elected president.”

The party is clear in saying that Bassil takes issues personally. It holds him responsible for the failure to form a new government before Aoun’s term ended. At the time, Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati agreed to Bassil’s conditions, but at the very last minute, the FPM leader said he would not support the new lineup even though he was to be granted shares other than those of the president and the greatest number of seats as he demanded.

Even in rejecting Franjieh’s nomination, Hezbollah believes that Bassil is taking issues personally. The official said the MP constantly tries to undermine Franjieh’s image and influence, even calling him by his first name, without any of his titles.

The official added, however, that he has not ruled out the possibility that Bassil could take advantage of the political upheaval and possibility of the United States lifting sanctions on him to emerge as a leading candidate for the presidency. Hezbollah does not have a Plan B to deal with such a scenario, acknowledged the official.



Defending Migrants Was a Priority for Pope Francis from the Earliest Days of His Papacy 

Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)
Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)
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Defending Migrants Was a Priority for Pope Francis from the Earliest Days of His Papacy 

Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)
Pope Francis poses for selfie photos with migrants at a regional migrant center in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 1, 2017. (AP)

Advocating for migrants was one of Pope Francis' top priorities. His papacy saw a refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, skyrocketing numbers of migrants in the Americas, and declining public empathy that led to increasingly restrictive policies around the world.

Francis repeatedly took up the plight of migrants — from bringing asylum-seekers to the Vatican with him from overcrowded island camps to denouncing border initiatives of US President Donald Trump. On the day before his death, Francis briefly met with Vice President JD Vance, with whom he had tangled long-distance over deportation plans.

Some memorable moments when Francis spoke out to defend migrants:

July 8, 2013, Lampedusa, Italy

For his first pastoral visit outside Rome following his election, Francis traveled to the Italian island of Lampedusa — a speck in the Mediterranean whose proximity to North Africa put it on the front line of many smuggling routes and deadly shipwrecks.

Meeting migrants who had been in Libya, he decried their suffering and denounced the “globalization of indifference” that met those who risked their lives trying to reach Europe.

A decade later, in a September 2023 visit to the multicultural French port of Marseille, Francis again blasted the “fanaticism of indifference” toward migrants as European policymakers doubled down on borders amid the rise of the anti-immigration far-right.

April 16, 2016, Lesbos, Greece

Francis traveled to the Greek island of Lesbos at the height of a refugee crisis in which hundreds of thousands of people arrived after fleeing civil war in Syria and other conflicts in the Middle East and South Asia.

He brought three Muslim families to Italy on the papal plane. Rescuing those 12 Syrians from an overwhelmed island camp was “a drop of water in the sea. But after this drop, the sea will never be the same,” Francis said.

During his hospitalization in early 2025, one of those families that settled in Rome said Francis didn't just change their lives.

“He wanted to begin a global dialogue to let world leaders know that even an undocumented migrant is not something to fear,” said Hasan Zaheda.

His wife, Nour Essa, added: “He fought to broadcast migrant voices, to explain that migrants in the end are just human beings who have suffered in wars.”

The news of Francis' death shocked the family and they mourned “with the whole of humanity,” Zaheda said.

In December 2021, Francis again had a dozen asylum-seekers brought to Italy, this time following his visit to Cyprus.

Feb. 17, 2016, at the US-Mexico border

Celebrating a Mass near the US border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, that was beamed live to neighboring El Paso, Texas, Francis prayed for “open hearts” when faced with the “human tragedy that is forced migration.”

Answering a reporter’s question while flying back to Rome, Francis said a person who advocates building walls is “not Christian.” Trump, at the time a presidential candidate, was campaigning to do just that, and responded that it was “disgraceful” to question a person’s faith. He criticized the pope for not understanding “the danger of the open border that we have with Mexico.”

Oct. 24, 2021, Vatican City

As pressures surged in Italy and elsewhere in Europe to crack down on illegal migration, Francis made an impassioned plea to end the practice of returning those people rescued at sea to Libya and other unsafe countries where they suffer “inhumane violence.”

He called detention facilities in Libya “true concentration camps.” From there, thousands of migrants are taken by traffickers on often unseaworthy vessels. The Mediterranean Sea has become the world’s largest migrant grave with more than 30,000 deaths since 2014, when the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project began counting.

Feb. 12, 2025, Vatican City

After Trump returned to the White House in part by riding a wave of public anger at illegal immigration, Francis assailed US plans for mass deportations, calling them “a disgrace.”

With Trump making a flurry of policy changes cracking down on immigration practices, Francis wrote to US bishops and warned that deportations “will end badly.”

“The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women,” he wrote.

US border czar Tom Homan immediately pushed back, noting the Vatican is a city-state surrounded by walls and that Francis should leave border enforcement to his office.

When Vance visited over Easter weekend, he first met with the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Afterward, the Holy See reaffirmed cordial relations and common interests, but noted “an exchange of opinions” over current international conflicts, migrants and prisoners.