Lebanon: Hezbollah rejects the government’s decision to disarm it
Opinion (with AFP)
Beirut – Hezbollah said Wednesday that the Lebanese government had committed a “serious sin” by deciding to disarm it by the end of 2025 and that it would like this decision “does not exist”, his opponents greeting a “historical decision”. The Lebanese government did the army on Tuesday to prepare an action plan to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year, an unprecedented measure since the end of the civil war in 1990. The government “committed a serious fault by making a decision that deprives Lebanon of the weapon of resistance against the Israeli enemy”, reacted the Shiite movement supported by Iran, believing that this decision ” of Lebanon “and” gave hands free to Israel “. “This is why we will do as if it did not exist,” he added. Hezbollah considers that this decision is “the fruit of the injunctions of the American emissary Tom Barrack”, in reference to a proposal which he submitted to the authorities and which provides for the disarmament of the movement according to a specific calendar. It “fully serves the interests of Israel and leaves Lebanon exposed to the Israeli enemy, without a means of deterrence”, accuses the party. The government’s decision is part of the ceasefire application concluded under American mediation, which ended on November 27 at more than a year of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. The agreement provides that only six military and security organizations are authorized to bear arms. In its press release, Hezbollah reaffirmed that the judgment of Israeli strikes on Lebanon was a prerequisite for any discussion on “a new national defense strategy”. This decision withdraws from Hezbollah the political legitimacy which has so far benefited from its arsenal, and which the previous governments had devoted. -“American supervision”-The Council of Ministers must meet Thursday afternoon to continue the examination of the “proposal submitted by the American party,” according to Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. The Minister of Health, Rakan Nassereddine, affiliated with Hezbollah, and the Minister of the Environment, Tamara El-Zein, close to the Amal Movement, left the meeting of the Council of Ministers on Tuesday. Hezbollah said it was a means for ministers to express their “rejection” of what it assimilates to a desire to “submit Lebanon to American guardianship and an Israeli occupation”. The Shiite movement has reaffirmed that he would not discuss his arsenal, as part of a national defense strategy, only after a judgment of Israeli strikes on Lebanon. Hezbollah accuses Israel of violating the ceasefire by hitting the Lebanese territory, while Israel claims to target party infrastructure, which he accuses of trying to reconstruct himself, and threatens to extend his military operations in Lebanon if the authorities fail to disarm it. -“Historical Decision”-The government decision has been unprecedented since the Taëf agreement, which ended the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) and under which the parties gave their arms to the State-with the exception of Hezbollah, which preserved them in the name of “resistance” to Israel. Hezbollah opponents welcomed the decision. The Lebanese Forces party, led by Christian chief Samir Geagea, said in a statement on Wednesday that “the historic decision made yesterday by the Council of Ministers should have been 35 years ago”, at the end of the civil war. The Christian Party Kataëb, also opposed to Hezbollah, welcomed a “historic decision which puts Lebanon on the path of sovereignty and the State on that of the return to a free decision”. He warned against “any attempt to approach the decision in a negative way or to persist in a logic of intimidation and abuse of power – a bygone era”. Conversely, the Amal movement, led by the president of the Parliament Nabih Berri, criticized a decision which “precipitates new free concessions to the Israeli enemy”, believing that the government should first “work to consolidate the ceasefire and put an end to the Israeli death machine”. © Agence France-Presse
