The Aberrant Attitude of the Ministers of Health and Labor

During the last Council of Ministers, last Thursday, it was enough for Nawaf Salam to mention the demilitarization of the capital for the Ministers of Health and Labor (representing Hezbollah) to step up and oppose it.

Irony and aberration.

The irony is that the ministerial portfolios granted to Hezbollah are those directly concerned by the dramatic consequences of a war: strikes indeed cause market stagnation and an increase in the number of injured and dead.

The aberration is that ministers of a government refuse to allow the State to have full sovereignty, at a minimum, in its capital, and prefer the rule of chaos and paramilitary groups to that of public institutions.

There is nothing surprising in this attitude, from the moment these ministers belong to a politico-militia movement that denies the very idea of a Lebanese nation.

The most striking example is that of this 'teacher' who explains the symbols of the Hezbollah flag to young children who have fled the South, right on the sidewalk of Beirut, while their houses are still burning.

The absence of civic-mindedness, cultural division, adherence to a religious doctrine... all these elements today push a part of the Lebanese to align themselves with the precepts of a foreign country, in this case the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The worst is that this attitude, which consists of wanting to deconstruct legal institutions and eradicate the notion of a sovereign State, is not exclusive to one religious community: while it is true that a majority of Shiites are still affiliated with Hezbollah, there are also Sunnis, Christians, and Druze who think similarly, out of cowardice or self-interest, or even conviction. And that is precisely where the shoe pinches.

And due to the inability of the highest hierarchy of the State to truly implement the promised and promulgated decisions, whether out of complacency (or even fear) for the president, complicity for the speaker of parliament, or lack of means concerning the prime minister, the schism among Lebanese is widening.

Thus, the sad truth emerges: our country is not a message of living together but at best a mosaic, where all the pieces insult and monitor each other, supported by a cracked veneer. Therefore, today, discussing a possible peace with Israel is utopian, because beyond the internal fractures, we must clearly name the forces that perpetuate them. Hezbollah and its political allies, by clinging to a militia logic and regional alignment, impose on Lebanon an agenda that transcends national interest and prevents any consolidation of a sovereign State.

By maintaining a duality of power, between official institutions and a parallel force, as well as by sustaining schizophrenia in the exercise of power, due to the competition among its summits, they render any lasting stability, and by extension any credible peace, illusory.

No agreement with the outside can hold when internally certain actors continue to prioritize confrontation, not as a right to opposition, but an armed confrontation that is the very foundation of their political existence....