Lebanese Forces to Hezbollah: Whoever brought Israel into Lebanon should remain silent and let the state save what can still be saved

The media department of the Lebanese Forces Party issued the following statement:

Hezbollah continues to make statements that bear no relation to reality, to the texts, or to the truth, which compels us to set the record straight regarding these misleading positions aimed at trying to justify the status of its illegal weapons and prolong Lebanon’s unhealthy condition.

First, this party claims that the President of the Republic has no right, in any negotiations, to bypass “a fundamental pillar of the state,” namely the Speaker of Parliament. With full respect to Speaker Nabih Berri, the Lebanese Constitution is clear in terms of the separation of powers and the definition of authorities. The constitutional articles explicitly stipulate that the President of the Republic is the one who undertakes negotiations in concluding treaties and international agreements in coordination with the Prime Minister. Therefore, the head of state is exercising his constitutional powers in full. However, Hezbollah is not accustomed in the first place to respecting institutions’ exercise of their powers, having in practice turned against the Constitution and the logic of the state in Lebanon.

Second, in another repeated position, one of the party’s MPs called for “an actual return to the texts of the Taif Agreement,” claiming that the agreement stipulates “the use of all means to liberate the land,” and that the “resistance” is one of the most important of those means.

This is completely false, because the Taif Agreement does not contain any mention whatsoever of the term “resistance,” neither directly nor indirectly. The liberation of land, under the Constitution, is exclusively the task of the Lebanese state, and the state alone decides the means to be adopted, whether diplomatic, military, or otherwise. No organization has the right to claim that resistance falls within its remit, monopolize the decision of war and peace, and impose itself by force of fait accompli on the Lebanese, as Hezbollah did by taking advantage of the reality of Syrian-Assad occupation of Lebanon beginning in 1991.

Third, one of the party’s MPs also said that “no direct or indirect negotiation can lead Lebanon to a result, and that the only result lies in resistance.” In truth, had it not been for Hezbollah, Israel would not have entered Lebanon again. It was the party that dragged Lebanon into war, and it is the one that caused the current catastrophic situation. Accordingly, the negotiations taking place today aim to remove Israel from Lebanese territory as a result of the war caused by the party itself.

Fourth, the party postures by talking about “national unity” and accuses the President of the Republic of bypassing that unity, while the truth is that what violates national unity, the Constitution, and the laws is the existence of weapons outside the authority of the state. What the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister are doing constitutes a real embodiment of national unity, because they are applying the Constitution and affirming that sovereign decision-making is exclusively in the hands of the Lebanese state. As for Hezbollah, which clings to its illegal weapons and places itself above the state and its institutions, it is the one that strikes at national unity and undermines the foundations of the state and the law.

Fifth, one of them said that “the resistance will continue until full liberation.” The truth is that the liberation required is the liberation of Lebanon from the camp that attached it to Iran and prevented it from being a normal state. The time has come to break out of the same cycle of death and the same tiresome record whose truth has been exposed. Yesterday, the rhetoric was that “the resistance is the only force capable of confronting Israel and preventing it from entering Lebanon,” and when Israel entered Lebanon because of the war declared by the party itself, the rhetoric became that “the resistance is the only force capable of expelling it.” It is the height of absurdity.

Whoever caused the war, brought Israel into Lebanon, paralyzed the Lebanese state for forty years, and drove the Lebanese into displacement and poverty should at the very least remain silent now and leave broad room for the legitimate Lebanese authorities, represented by the President of the Republic and the government, to try to save what can still be saved.