Last Wednesday, during the mass service on Saint Maroun's Day attended by most Lebanese leaders, Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rahi looked into the eyes of President Michel Aoun and said, with an assuaging tone, that, “We are struggling together so that Lebanon does not continue to be a battleground for regional conflicts, a platform for missiles, and a front for fighting.”
The Lebanese would then hear the response to this statement from Hassan Nasrallah speaking to Iranian television Al-Alam that same evening. Al-Rahi added that the state of Lebanon was not founded to be an enemy to its sister nations and friends, so let’s not make Lebanon an enemy to itself.
From this, there are five priorities which al-Rahi used to appeal to the leaders sitting with him. These represent the true will and aspiration for Lebanon and its sister and friendly nations. The first is holding elections, both parliamentary and presidential, on their constitutionally assigned dates.
Secondly, the truth behind the Beirut Port blast must be uncovered, as it is untenable for the investigation to remain obstructed and a victim of conflicts and interpretations, as if there are those who fear the truth. Thirdly, the process of reform and agreement with the IMF must be accelerated. Fourth, the implementation of the Taif Agreement must be sustained along with UN Security Council resolutions. This was already stipulated in the Kuwaiti, Arab, international paper to which the Lebanese government responded with platitudes and emotional rhetoric, claiming to uphold relations with “Arab brothers” while Hezbollah renders Lebanon a platform for aggression, verbal and actual, against Gulf Arab brother nations. Moreover, this includes hosting opposition conferences in Hezbollah’s strongholds in Beirut, as well as assisting the Houthis with training and enabling their attacks against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
It was a humorous, albeit embarrassing, coincidence that Nasrallah, speaking to Iranian Al-Alam Wednesday evening, accused the US embassy of funding NGOs. He also claimed that when the embassy invited 20 such organizations to protest and demand the implementation of Resolution 1559, only 20 people participated. This caused some to point to a negative development on that same Wednesday, as only a very small group of people were brought to chant for Aoun as he entered the church, promoting much mockery and derision.
It was clear, and fully understood, to whom Al-Rahi was directing this speech, even before Nasrallah responded and claimed the opposite of what the Patriarch said. However, Al-Rahi was clear in emphasizing his demands first of the Lebanese in the unfortunate alliance with Hezbollah, and to President Michel Aoun who ascended to Baabda Palace after two and a half years of presidential vacuum. The Republican Palace was once destroyed by the Syrian air force, and again corroded by the vacuum engineered by Hezbollah, and a third time by the Security Council which issued a statement early this month regarding the resolution emphasizing the binding clause of holding free, fair and transparent elections as scheduled on May 15.
Hezbollah is on a quest to sabotage any attempt at calm that could restore confidence in Lebanon, from the Kuwaiti initiative to the Security Council statement, to the Saudi-American accord on the importance of elections as an entry point for change in Lebanon which was the subject of profound discussion between Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and the Acting Assistant Secretary of Near Eastern Affairs Yael Lempert. However, in light of the current ruling majority led by Hezbollah, it is difficult to cooperate with Lebanon to save it economically, financially, or in terms of its security.
As part of this endeavor, Hezbollah is preparing to hold a political conference for the Bahraini opposition Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society in Dahieh, the southern suburb of Beirut, on January 14. This was revealed mere hours after Nasrallah’s televised speech in which he described international efforts to restore confidence in Lebanon as mere “foreign dictations.” He did not hesitate to say, in contradiction to the Patriarch’s words, that he will respond if Iran is attacked by Israel, stressing that Lebanon is just an Iranian missile platform. He considered that those who demand the surrender of their weapons are “using the enemy's terminology” while forgetting that the enemy is bombing Hezbollah and Iran on a daily basis in Syria, and that he failed to respond with a single shot fired!
Returning to the elections, it was suspicious when Nasrallah said that the majority and minority introduced by the ballot box will have no say over Hezbollah’s weapons. In this context, bishop Samir Mazloum says that Patriarch Al-Rahi’s warning against postponing the elections is based on information he has of an intention to postpone elections and undermine the Lebanese people’s right to change, especially at a time when Hezbollah feels that its ally in the Free Patriotic movement is bleeding amid divisions within its internal house, when Aoun’s nephew claimed that he intends to run against Aoun. This is at a time when the Aounist movement is being disintegrated, after they enabled Hezbollah to put Lebanon in its chokehold, instead of the “Lebanonization of Hezbollah” as Aoun had promised to the US Congress before the issuance of Resolution 1559.
