00:00Minister, thank you so much for joining us on Uranus at this very critical time.
00:04I want to start by asking you about the statement that the Israeli Prime Minister made yesterday,
00:10saying that he will order an expansion of the military operation in northern Israel,
00:15so the southern border of Lebanon, and extend the buffer zone.
00:18What do you think that means, and how do you react?
00:22No, we condemn, obviously, all the attacks, and in particular also all the ground attacks
00:30and the occupation of our territory.
00:33And one has to understand that occupying a territory will never solve the problems.
00:39The only way to solve the problems when two countries are in a situation of conflict is
00:46to go into negotiation.
00:47The occupation of territory is obviously condemned, and we cannot accept this statement.
00:55And, Minister, on that note, going back to the Israeli Prime Minister,
00:59yesterday he said that Israel had managed to almost eradicate Hezbollah,
01:03but residues of it still exist, and the situation in the north of Israel has to fundamentally change.
01:10You talk about occupation. What do you think Israel has in mind?
01:15I cannot speculate on what Israel has in mind.
01:19It's obvious that Israel had a past of attacks against Lebanon,
01:25and Lebanon is suffering from such attacks, and there was huge destructions,
01:32a lot of killed persons, injured and displaced persons.
01:37Now we are facing a displacement of more than one million inhabitants.
01:42So the situation is dramatic in terms of human rights, in terms of humanitarian situation,
01:49and the government with little resources, very limited resources, is facing a dramatic situation.
01:57This being said, this being said, we are also fully aware that we have an internal problem,
02:05and we don't like and we refuse to make it as a problem that is being raised by Israel,
02:11but it is a problem that we are raising ourselves, which is the fact that Hezbollah is keeping a military
02:18infrastructure,
02:18and this is against the Lebanese government's will, it is against the law,
02:23and the position of the government is to take all the steps required to put an end to this military,
02:33let's say, infrastructure that is being used.
02:36If we make a small analysis, one will see that this is being used as if Lebanon was a military
02:45base in favor of Iran,
02:46and we refuse this also.
02:49And to that extent, I spoke with your prime minister two months ago,
02:52who said that he would not allow Hezbollah to drag Lebanon into a war directly with Israel.
02:58Nonetheless, you talk about occupation.
03:00Obviously, you also know there's now concerns that this is heading for an invasion of Lebanon.
03:06So how do you get out of this?
03:07What can you do internally, but also externally?
03:11We are fully aware that our position is very difficult,
03:15because in one hand, there are the Israeli attacks,
03:18and on the other hand, there is Hezbollah undermining the state.
03:23We are aware that practically, in order to be able to conduct efficient negotiations,
03:31we have to hold the decision of war and peace,
03:37and not to have a parallel organization undermining the state.
03:43On the other hand, it is also obvious that we cannot accept that our territory be used as a target
03:51by Israel,
03:52the way Lebanon is being targeted.
03:55So we understand that we have these two difficult issues on the table.
04:00Iran is making a direct interference in Lebanon's internal policy,
04:07and is contributing to undermine the state.
04:10We have taken clear decisions in this respect in the government, irrevocable decisions.
04:17The first one concerns the monopoly of the force.
04:25The second is to declare the weapons of Hezbollah as being against the law.
04:31And courts are starting to apply this to any person holding weapons,
04:36including fighters from Hezbollah.
04:39So this is on the internal aspect.
04:42On the external aspect, the President of the Republic has launched the idea of negotiations,
04:51to have negotiations being conducted and a format to be agreed upon in order to stop the war that Israel
05:01launched against Lebanon.
05:02And on that note, how do you get to that stage?
05:06Because it seems to me, certainly from the outside,
05:09that Israel believes your government will not have the capacity to deal with the internal issues,
05:14very serious problems with Hezbollah,
05:16and they believe they will have to handle this directly militarily.
05:19So is there a way that you can still establish the diplomatic route with Israelis?
05:25What I would like to clarify, that at the end of the day,
05:30we were facing the problem of Hezbollah's weapons since 2000 until today.
05:36And this is, first, an internal problem.
05:39We do not agree to consider it as the implementation of requests coming from the outside.
05:47Okay.
05:47And you have to understand the second thing, that during a long period of time,
05:53the international community was dealing with the issue of the weapons of Hezbollah differently
06:01from a big part of the Lebanese population and political parties.
06:06And we have to face the invasion of Beirut in 2008.
06:11Nobody cared.
06:12We have to face attacks against political figures.
06:17Nobody cared.
06:18So in reality, we have this struggle regarding the weapons of Hezbollah
06:25that is older than what is being said today by the international community and by other countries.
06:34We are committed to put an end to a parallel force within Lebanon.
06:40And we know that it is very difficult because Iran is, let's say, a regional power
06:47and supporting in full Hezbollah and its military infrastructure.
06:54So Lebanon started to face really this problem with this government.
07:01And from the right beginning, this government took the decision by unanimity to have the monopoly
07:08of force in the hand of the state, which means to stop having Hezbollah holding weapons
07:16and conducting parallel activities and abiding by Iran instructions.
07:23And you've said multiple times that you don't want to see a case of a parallel state, a parallel authority.
07:27But I have to ask you two final questions, Minister.
07:30One is, you've seen increasingly there is this idea that a part of Lebanon could turn into something that looks
07:36like Gaza.
07:37We've seen the pictures in Gaza.
07:38You talk about the one million people displaced.
07:40The pictures coming out of Gaza is a complete nightmare.
07:44How concerned are you?
07:45Ultimately, this is your country.
07:46This is your land.
07:47No, it is obviously clear that what Israel is imposing on Lebanon is dramatic in all terms.
07:57And we have to deploy all efforts to stop the attacks of Israel against the Lebanese territory.
08:07We know that we have this huge danger towards the population, towards the country as such, on one hand.
08:17And we know that, on the other hand, we are facing also a political party through its military infrastructure,
08:28undermining the capacity of the state to face, in the diplomatical manner, the attacks from Israel.
08:38So, on both sides, we have to deploy all the efforts and to take irrevocable decisions in order to save
08:46Lebanon.
08:46And just as a final question, Minister Nassar, do you worry that in this context, which is incredibly challenging,
08:52of course, there's concerns that another big crisis for Lebanon could really fully destabilize this crisis in this country,
08:59do you worry about tensions also dragging into the religious aspect, that this could flame up religious tensions?
09:06Let me be clear.
09:08There are always these kinds of dangers because Lebanon, after all, is a pluralist country.
09:14And we are always afraid that things go the wrong direction.
09:20But I want to say it very clearly.
09:23The problem is not whatsoever with a community in Lebanon.
09:28The problem is between the states and a political party who is undermining the states.
09:36The problem is not about religion, not about communities.
09:41And a party is not the owner of a community.
09:46And today you have supporters from a specific community.
09:50Tomorrow you will have less supporters.
09:53This is the lack of parties.
09:54But no party in Lebanon.
09:57And in particular, Hezbollah cannot pretend to be the owner of a community.
10:02So, let us make it very clearly.
10:05Today, the problem is not between political groups in Lebanon.
10:10It is between the state and a political party who is trying to undermine the state
10:17and preventing the state to defend Lebanon in the international and diplomatical forum.
10:23Well, on that note, Minister Nassar, thank you so much.
10:25Justice Minister of Lebanon, thank you for joining us on Euronews.
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