00:00Israel has warned it'll bomb two more bridges in Lebanon, citing Hezbollah's use of them
00:06to transfer weapons. Israel has already struck five bridges on the Latani River, as well
00:12as more than 3,500 Lebanese targets as the conflict enters the second month. The Israeli
00:19military says about 1,000 militants were killed in Lebanon over the past month. Hezbollah,
00:25which is linked to Iran, has so far not announced its losses. Yassin Yassin is an
00:32independent member of Lebanon's parliament. Lebanon today is not merely a battlefield,
00:40but it's victims of the war machines, whether it's internal or external, that do not respect
00:48any sovereignty of the states. We are witnessing a result of long standing. It's not of a
00:55governance failure. It was not born today. Lebanon has not been operating under full democracy.
01:01It's what we call a consensational system where major religions in this country come together to agree.
01:10And this has been taken advantage of by regional and major powers that have their own agendas.
01:19This weakness of the system led to a civil war and financial corruption and
01:25basically governance paralysis. Today, where we are today, we are in a critical issue of consolidating
01:35the state. Either the logic and the international rule of law will prevail or we are going into a chaos.
01:44At the same time, we need to recognize the current leadership. The current leadership led by Joseph
01:49Aoun and Nawaf Salam are not part of the sectarian system that led to civil war and thereafter.
01:59They don't belong to this traditional system. They have not been given a chance to govern.
02:06They inherited this corruption. They inherited this major powers using Lebanon as a battlefield.
02:13Therefore, we have a real opportunity right now to give this government a chance to really have full
02:21sovereignty and support through its institutions. Israel has justified its actions, saying Lebanon has failed
02:29to control Hezbollah. That's fair, isn't it?
02:34Actually, this is a claim that Israel uses to legitimize its aggression. While we fight to achieve
02:43sovereignty, we cannot build sovereignty. We cannot build this under bombs, under the threat of occupation.
02:51We cannot undermine the current system that's never been given a chance. Our position is clear as an official
02:57state. The arms and weapons in the decision of war and peace must be in the hands of the official
03:04government of the Lebanese authority. Any undermining of the current system basically does not achieve
03:14the goal. This is basically a claim that they want to legitimize their aggressions.
03:19How strong is the operational link between Tehran and Hezbollah?
03:27In my opinion, as I said earlier, the conflict in Lebanon has always been a battlefield for agendas of
03:36other countries in Lebanon. Hezbollah has very strong ties to Iran. As a matter of fact, I can even say
03:45it
03:46even more. It could be the arms of Iran, the revolutionary security guards of Iran could be involved,
04:02embedded with the Hezbollah. So it's a very strong. Unfortunately, this has been taking advantage of
04:08the weak governance in Lebanon in which this current government trying to build its sovereignty and
04:17this war is preventing that.
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