Sheikh Naim, the State's Monopoly on Violence Begins at Ali al-Taher

Before anything else, Sheikh Naim, you must understand that all Lebanese are paying today for your political recklessness, your blind submission to Iran, and your unilateral decisions that dragged Lebanon into wars neither its people nor its State chose or approved.

Those who brought the country to this tragic reality and allowed the Israeli occupation to return to parts of Southern Lebanon are not those striving today to save the country. They are those who submitted to Iran’s orders and unilaterally declared war, outside the framework of the State, its institutions, and its sovereign decision-making.

Those who threw the South into an open confrontation and exposed the Lebanese people to destruction and displacement are the ones who dragged Lebanon into a war serving the Iranian project, not those who are now working to pull the country out of its crisis and restore its institutions.

Those striving to save what remains of the homeland are President General Joseph Aoun and the Prime Minister, who are working to restore the State’s sovereign authority over national decision-making and to pull Lebanon out of the cycle of wars.

A clear example is the President’s proposal to place the Ali al-Taher hill under the control of the Lebanese Army, a proposal that you rejected even though it had been accepted by the Israeli side.

The question today is not about the strategic importance of the hill, as that is beyond dispute. The real question is why you refuse to hand it over to the Lebanese Army.

• Is it because it constitutes the highest observation point overlooking vast areas of Southern Lebanon, giving whoever controls it a decisive advantage in surveillance and the direction of fire?

• Is it because its military infrastructure, fortifications, and tunnel network represent years of strategic investment, making its transfer to the Lebanese Army the loss of one of your most important assets on the battlefield?

• Or is the real reason that handing it over to the Lebanese Army would, in practice, amount to acknowledging the principle that the State alone should possess arms, and that military decision-making belongs exclusively to the legitimate authorities?

Whatever the answer, the paradox remains striking. If the choice is between handing the site over to the Lebanese Army or seeing it destroyed by Israel, how can the Israeli option be regarded as the lesser evil? And how can the destruction of a Lebanese position by the enemy be preferable to placing it under the authority of the Lebanese Army?

You should not lose sight of one fundamental fact, Sheikh Naim: you lead an armed militia operating outside the framework of the Lebanese State’s legitimacy. No speech and no campaign of accusations of treason can alter that reality. The State’s exclusive right to bear arms is not merely a political slogan. It is a sovereign and constitutional principle from which there can be no turning back, and it will ultimately be implemented, however long it takes.

Finally, the direct negotiations undertaken by the Lebanese State, in accordance with its sovereignty and national interest, are not a concession. They are an instrument for restoring rights and the least costly path toward liberating territory, securing the release of prisoners, and rebuilding what the wars imposed on Lebanon in the service of projects unrelated to the national interest have destroyed.