00:00And for more on the current situation in Lebanon, I can welcome Salah Hijazi, who is the deputy head of
00:05the politics desk at the francophone Lebanese daily L'Orient Le Jour.
00:09Good morning, Salah, and thank you very much for joining us.
00:12Can I start by asking you, is there any feasible way out of the current situation for Lebanon right now?
00:20Good morning, and thank you for having me.
00:23I mean, the general mood here in Beirut amongst politicians, diplomats, and analysts is that the time of diplomacy has
00:30not come yet.
00:31The general mood is that both the Israelis have in their rationale a rare opportunity to inflict a huge blow
00:42to Hezbollah and to Iran at the same time.
00:47So they're not in the process of, they're not willing to engage in the diplomatic process.
00:56On the other hand, even Hezbollah seems to be linking all its military activities and the way it conducts this
01:03war with Iran.
01:05And it's unlikely to accept any ceasefire as of now.
01:08So, is the conflict inextricably linked then to the U.S. and Israeli bombing of Iran?
01:15And if that were to be resolved in the coming weeks, could a ceasefire in Lebanon follow?
01:23I mean, during the first week of the conflict here in Lebanon, people were hoping that they could get a
01:29ceasefire before the end of the war against Iran.
01:32But now the general impression is that the Lebanese would be lucky if they get a ceasefire at the same
01:38time of Iran and that Israel is likely to continue strikes even if a ceasefire is reached between the Americans,
01:44the Israelis, and the Iranians on the other side.
01:47Because it really seems that the Israelis are waiting for the end of the war in Iran to allocate all
01:56their military resources, their military hardware to the front with Hezbollah and to keep inflicting heavy damage on the group.
02:04Now, Israel, in these current strikes, has widened its targets beyond traditional Hezbollah strongholds with attacks, particularly last week in
02:16northern Beirut.
02:18Is this something that might actually become more common from now on?
02:26I think that these strikes actually are meant to serve two purposes.
02:32The first one is to harass, in a way, the state populations that have left Hezbollah strongholds.
02:40If you look, for example, at the strike that happened yesterday night, it targeted the Beirut-Corniche where hundreds of
02:47people have tents.
02:53Obviously, it's likely to target Hezbollah operated by Hezbollah, but it feels like it's a way also to send a
03:02general message nowhere is safe.
03:04Which ultimately meant also to detach the popular base of Hezbollah from Hezbollah itself.
03:10And the second purpose is also to widen the areas under attack from areas that are strictly Shia majority to
03:19areas that include Christian, Druze or Sunni majorities in a way that increases the already very tense political situation in
03:28Lebanon and the already very polarized political environment that we have here right now.
03:32Yeah, you mentioned polarized environment there and we've heard in the report earlier where certain Lebanese citizens are criticizing Hezbollah
03:42for basically drawing Lebanon into the war.
03:48And the Lebanese government has previously said that as well.
03:52Does this leave the Lebanese government in an impossible situation right now as the Israeli bombs rain down on Lebanon?
04:03It feels like the Americans and the Israelis are telling the Lebanese government that the only way forward for you
04:10is to take things into your own hand and disarm Hezbollah yourself as you pledged to do several times.
04:17But the issue here is that the Council of Ministers did meet and did decree that all Hezbollah's military activities
04:26are illegal and called on the army to disarm the militia as soon as possible and through all means possible.
04:33However, the Lebanese army has been arguing that any use of force would have terrible consequences.
04:42For example, it could lead to dismemberment of the army because many soldiers of the army are members of the
04:52Shia community.
04:53They also argue that the use of force could lead to a civil war inside Lebanon because Hezbollah is unlikely
04:59to accept, to give up its weapons, especially in the current situation where it's more than ever operating as an
05:05Iranian proxy.
05:07So it seems like we in Lebanon here are in a stalemate and that any way forward would require some
05:20sort of force from one of these sides involved, be it the army, Hezbollah or the Israelis.
05:26Now, does the current, the events of the last nine, sorry, 11 days, do they actually make the likelihood of
05:35Hezbollah ever disarming even more remote?
05:41I mean, this would depend on the issue of the conflict, if the conflict keeps escalating, for example, in Iran
05:47and the Iranian government is significantly weakened,
05:51it would make it fairly easier for the Lebanese to disarm Hezbollah because Hezbollah without Iran's backing is naked, in
06:00a sense.
06:02If the conflict ends in favorable terms to Iran, then the mission becomes even more difficult.
06:10Here in Lebanon, it does feel that more and more Lebanese are fed up with Hezbollah, including among the Shia
06:18community.
06:19And Hezbollah appears to be on more or less bad terms with its historic ally, Nabi Abir, the president of
06:29parliament.
06:32Now, yes.
06:34Yep. And just on the humanitarian issue, as many as one fifth of the population of Lebanon have been forced
06:41to flee their homes from the airstrikes.
06:45And Lebanon is a country that over the past 15 years has absorbed a massive number of refugees from Syria.
06:51How capable is the country of handling such a large movement of people right now, however temporary it might be?
07:00I mean, you can already see that there's pressure on resources, especially in hosting areas like Beirut, for example.
07:08Rent is going up at a crazy pace.
07:13There's a lot of traffic.
07:14There's a lot of even gas prices have increased.
07:18And this is likely to create a lot of tensions between hosting communities and the state communities,
07:25who also are often from different political backgrounds and different sectarian backgrounds.
07:29And my intuition is that this is one of the things that Israel is betting on, maybe increased political polarization,
07:37which could lead Hezbollah to make concessions or even could lead the Lebanese to a civil war.
07:46And you also mentioned Syrian refugees.
07:49Many of them have left the country since the fall of the Assad regime, but also the beginning of this
07:55conflict.
07:57But actually, the very quick influx of the state communities into hosting communities has created a significant challenge for all
08:08hosting communities,
08:08especially that many of them are also trying to make sure that no operators from Hezbollah have infiltrated the state
08:16communities.
08:16Thank you very much for that, Saleh Hijazi, deputy head of the politics desk at Lorient Le Jour.
Comments