Lebanese Surrender Is Patriotism…

Lebanon has now been left to its fate, in the absence of a unified position from the country’s senior officials — the President of the Republic, the President of Parliament, and the President of the Council of Ministers — both in the search for a way out and in the face of Israel’s determination to establish a buffer zone in the south. The Israeli threat, however, extends well beyond the creation of this buffer zone; it is becoming increasingly clear that the Hebrew state is bent on destroying Lebanese villages along what is considered the border between the two countries, lines that have never been officially demarcated.

The need for a unified and courageous position is more urgent than ever, for the simple reason that the country’s fate and future hang by a thread ever since the Iranian Revolutionary Guards dragged it into a war of devastating character. How will Lebanon cope with the presence of more than one million displaced persons in the months ahead? The responsibility for this massive displacement — the overwhelming majority of whom are Shia — falls simultaneously on Iran and Hezbollah. These displaced persons are the direct consequence of the decision to engage in a new war against Israel, triggered by the six missiles that the Revolutionary Guards fired from southern Lebanon under the pretext of avenging the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

What is distressing is that the Islamic Republic, entirely dominated by the Revolutionary Guards, knows perfectly well what it wants from Lebanon and to what end it intends to use it, particularly since the Guards have taken complete control of Hezbollah. It appears willing to sacrifice all Lebanese, Shia included, in order to assert that it holds cards in the region and that it is capable of turning the conflict into a regional war — one capable of affecting the global economy.

To put it plainly, the Iranian regime seeks to demonstrate that its investment in Hezbollah and its relentless efforts to reshape the nature of the Shia community in Lebanon were a sound investment, and that there are men in Lebanon willing to die in order to earn their rank as “soldiers” in the army of the wali al-faqih, in the words that the late Hassan Nasrallah was fond of using.

The American administration knows perfectly well what is expected of Lebanon. From the perspective of the Donald Trump administration, determined to bring Iran to heel, Israel enjoys full freedom of action in Lebanon. Within Israel itself, an attempt had been made to entrust the Lebanese file to Ron Dermer, a man of genuine political acumen; but the file quickly returned to the hands of Defense Minister Israel Katz, who has little faith in diplomacy and believes there is no solution in Lebanon other than a military one — meaning the elimination of Hezbollah and its arsenal. The difficulty on the Israeli side lies in Benjamin Netanyahu’s need to keep Dermer in Washington, or in constant contact with the American capital, given that this man maintains a privileged relationship with the Trump administration, whose positions on the war with Iran shift from one day to the next.

There is an American position and there is an Israeli position. Lebanon is Israel’s share of the equation. Yet one link is missing, and that link is the Lebanese position. What does Lebanon want? What are its priorities? Does it have any option other than entering into direct negotiations with Israel to determine what that state demands before allowing the displaced to return to their villages — or what remains of them?

The displaced persons crisis is a time bomb that Lebanon has no choice but to confront, sooner or later. Doing so requires overcoming all of Lebanon’s mental blocks, including the one that holds that Israel harbours territorial ambitions over Lebanon. Had that been the case, Israel would not have refrained from going to war with the country in 1967, simply because Lebanon had refused to take part in the Six-Day War — a war that ended with Israel’s occupation of Sinai, the West Bank including Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Moreover, had Israel truly had designs on Lebanon, it would not have implemented, in May 2000, the provisions of United Nations Security Council Resolution 425. Israel ultimately executed that resolution, adopted in 1978, and withdrew from Lebanese territory, as certified by the Security Council itself.

Lebanon has a duty to define its priorities and to engage in direct negotiations with Israel, free from any form of illusion. Such negotiations cannot begin as long as Hezbollah remains armed, since it has now been established that this arsenal served only to bring back the occupation, entrench it, and stoke internal strife in response to Iran’s will.

In the circumstances Lebanon is currently living through, the situation on the ground no longer permits any distinction between peace and surrender. Where would the dishonour lie in surrender if it represents the only path to peace? Everything else is mere detail, a waste of time, and a permanent flight from truth and reality — when everyone knows perfectly well what Israel demands and when it is manifestly clear that no American position exists independently of the Israeli one.

Lebanon’s tragedy comes down to a single question: how to recover the territory, and at what price. A price is unavoidable, one from which there is no escape, if only to prevent the explosion of the time bomb that the million displaced persons represent. In light of what Iran has inflicted upon Lebanon, surrender appears to be the true patriotism, and patriotism the true surrender.

The time has come for Lebanon to state what it wants, now that it is known what Israel demands and that no American position can break free from the Israeli one. Surrender carries no shame. The shame lies in the absence of a unified Lebanese position to provide cover for direct negotiations — without which the occupation cannot be lifted, and the majority of the displaced cannot hope to return to their villages…