"Lebanese Forces" to "Who Caused the War and Brought Israel into Lebanon": Shut Up

Issued by the media department of the "Lebanese Forces" party, the following statement:

"Hezbollah" continues to release positions that have no relation to reality, texts, or truth, which forces us to clarify matters regarding these misleading positions aimed at attempting to justify the status of its illegal weapons and prolonging Lebanon's sick reality.

First, this party claims that the President of the Republic does not have the right to bypass, in any negotiations, "a fundamental pillar of the state" which is the Speaker of Parliament. With all respect to Speaker Nabih Berri, the Lebanese Constitution is clear regarding the separation of powers and the determination of competencies. The constitutional articles explicitly state that the President of the Republic is the one who undertakes negotiations for concluding international treaties and agreements in agreement with the Prime Minister, and thus the Head of State exercises his full constitutional powers. However, "Hezbollah" has never been accustomed to respecting the exercise of institutions' powers, after it practically overturned the constitution and the logic of the state in Lebanon.

Second, in a repeated position, one of the party's deputies called for "an actual return to the texts of the Taif Agreement," claiming that the agreement stipulates "using all means to liberate the land," and that "resistance" is one of the most important of these means.

This statement is completely incorrect, because the Taif Agreement fundamentally does not include any mention of the term "resistance," neither directly nor indirectly. The liberation of the land, according to the constitution, is the exclusive task of the Lebanese state, and the state alone decides the adopted means, whether diplomatic, military, or otherwise. No organization has the right to claim that resistance is its prerogative, to monopolize the decision of war and peace, and to impose itself by force of fait accompli on the Lebanese, as "Hezbollah" did, benefiting from the reality of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon starting from 1991.

Third, one of the party's deputies also said that "no direct or indirect negotiation can lead Lebanon to a result, and the only result is in resistance." In fact, were it not for "Hezbollah," Israel would not have entered Lebanon again. The party is the one that brought Lebanon into the war, and it is the one that caused the current catastrophic situation, and therefore the ongoing negotiation today aims to remove Israel from Lebanese territory as a result of the war that the party itself caused.

Fourth, the party exaggerates by talking about "national unity," and accuses the President of the Republic of bypassing this unity, while the truth is that what violates national unity, the constitution, and 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 an actual embodiment of national unity, because they are applying the constitution and affirming the exclusivity of sovereign decision 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 national unity and undermines the foundations of the state and the law.

Fifth, one of them said that "the resistance will continue until complete liberation." The truth is that the required liberation is the liberation of Lebanon from the party that attached it to Iran and prevented it from being a normal state. The time has come to exit the same cycle of death and the same boring record whose truth has been exposed. Yesterday the rhetoric was that "the resistance is the only one capable of confronting Israel and preventing it from entering Lebanon," and when Israel entered Lebanon because of the war that the party itself declared, the rhetoric became that "the resistance is the only one capable of expelling it." This is the height of farce.

Those who caused the war, brought Israel into Lebanon, paralyzed the Lebanese state for forty years, and displaced and impoverished the Lebanese, must at least now be silent, and leave wide room for the legitimate Lebanese authority, represented by the President of the Republic and the government, to try to salvage what can be salvaged.