Lebanese sources warned Asharq Al-Awsat of Hezbollah’s insistence, acting alone, on accompanying the start of the U.S.-Iranian negotiations by organizing a heavy-handed accusatory campaign targeting Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, asking: Who stands to benefit from its resort to the street to settle scores with him? Does this serve the preservation of civil peace and the provision of a reassuring, comfortable atmosphere, especially in Beirut, to host those sheltering the displaced? And where does its interest lie in dragging the Sunni street in Beirut—along with parties opposed to the party—into mobilizing in defense of the foremost position of the Sunni sect in the state, represented by the premiership, amid rising voices rejecting the accusation of treason against him and the branding of him as a “Zionist”?
Hezbollah’s resort to unprecedented incitement of its base against Salam and his government, a ministerial source told Asharq Al-Awsat, would lead to a political rupture shrouded in chaos, raising sectarian tensions, as groups operating in its orbit insist on gathering in the streets of the capital, all the way to imposing a siege on the Grand Serail, the seat of the premiership. This is despite the party’s denial, as conveyed by a prominent source in the “Shiite Duo,” that it is behind calls for such groups to join anti-Salam and anti-government gatherings, on the grounds that it has not decided to take to the streets; otherwise, the streets would have filled with thousands, and the capital’s neighborhoods would have struggled to contain the resistance’s supporters.
