Efforts aimed at resuming direct dialogue between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Hezbollah are halfway through, and will not reach their conclusion unless the party takes the initiative to approach the points of disagreement in a way that opens the door to its readiness to converge on commonalities that take into account not linking it to preconditions that do not receive a response from Aoun, especially with everything related to the decisions issued by the Council of Ministers that are directly related to the government’s adherence to the “Framework Agreement” and the exclusivity of weapons in the hands of the state.
Although Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri is the one who is at the forefront of the efforts aimed at resuming the dialogue between the two parties, and is encouraging the party to engage in it in a way that will reduce the level of tension in order to maintain civil peace, the fiery stances issued successively by its Secretary General Naim Qassem do not, as a ministerial source tells Asharq Al-Awsat, call for relief, despite the fact that Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s handling of the explosives shipment that was seized in Dahr Al-Baydar prevented the situation from exploding. And resorting to the street, and the prosecution of those responsible was entrusted before the military judiciary, while waiting to refer it to the Judicial Council, which was met with satisfaction among the party. Because the prosecution was limited to those involved, and the terrorism charge was not attached to them.
Adhering to the “Memorandum of Understanding” and dropping the “Framework Agreement”
The ministerial source pointed out that Qassem’s positions do not call for comfort insofar as they raise legitimate questions about the feasibility of his adherence to the American-Iranian “memorandum of understanding” and his failure to give up his weapons, in exchange for his insistence on dropping the “framework agreement,” even though the United States, through its Secretary of State Marco Rubio, refuses to link Lebanon to the memorandum, and therefore: where is the interest in keeping the country’s fate hanging on it, in light of the impossibility of implementing it in light of the exchange of threats between the two parties? Signatories?
He stressed that Qasim's positions remain under the umbrella of raising the morale of his partisans and his fans and strengthening their nerves. He asked: Where is his statement that the resistance prevented the Israeli army from advancing to Sidon? And that the “Memorandum of Understanding” was behind the reduction in Israeli attacks? The source said that his statements in this regard provided pretexts, not only for his opponents, but also for his popular support to ask him about the reasons behind not preventing the Israeli army from entering the cities of Bint Jbeil and Al-Khiam, and later to control the “Ali Al-Taher” hills, instead of leaving them to the Lebanese army and holding it responsible for defending them?
He saw that Qassem's populist stances backfired on him, and were not taken seriously, even by his fans and partisans. He asked: Where is the "Memorandum of Understanding" to reduce Israeli attacks spent, even though its signing between Tehran and Washington did not stop the expansion of the Israeli army to Beaufort Castle and a number of towns surrounding it, in addition to its control by fire over the largest part of the area north of the Litani River?
He refused to link Lebanon to Iranian positions
The source called on Hezbollah to stand up to the transformations in the region and stop being arrogant and denying that Lebanon is entering a new political phase other than the one that existed before its support to Gaza and Iran. He said we are ready to extend a hand to him; Because the country cannot afford to involve it in the game of buying time and keeping it suspended, captive to Qassem’s bet that the defeat of US President Donald Trump in the midterm elections, as Qassem said, will reflect positively on the anti-Americans in the region, nor in his bet on Benjamin Netanyahu’s defeat in the Knesset elections in Israel.
Searching for an alternative force to UNIFIL
The source asked Qasim: Where are the countries that stand by you except Iran? What do you say to the consensus of the seven countries at the Paris meeting on the exclusive control of weapons in the hands of the state and filling the void resulting from the end of the mission of the International Emergency Forces (UNIFIL) in the south at the end of this year? He stressed that Rubio's meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and his Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot opened the door again to searching for the nature of the force that is supposed to replace UNIFIL. He hopes for progress in the search for an alternative force, which calls for anticipation to find out what the United States representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Michael Waltz, has up his sleeve during his visit to Beirut, next Monday, and his meeting with Aoun. He said that Hezbollah had no choice but to engage in the state project and support the “Framework Agreement,” even though its implementation was still in a vicious circle, and that the bet remained on Washington’s intervention to pressure Israel to facilitate its implementation in stages.
Truce observers and the “Mechanisms” Committee
The source expected that the formation of the alternative force would have the cover of the United Nations, and that it would be closer to the role assigned to the observers of the Armistice Agreement signed between Lebanon and Israel in 1949. He said that there are no obstacles preventing their assistance after increasing their numbers and activating their role, as long as they are spread on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border and have two headquarters: the first in the Bir Hassan locality in the southern suburb of Beirut, and the second in occupied Jerusalem, ruling out the establishment of a civilian monitoring force tasked with verifying the situation. Deployment of the army in places from which Israel withdraws to prevent Hezbollah militants from being present there. He expected that supervision of the implementation of the army’s deployment would be entrusted to the “mechanism” committee, but in a new, distinctly American form.
