Lebanese politicians affiliated with Hezbollah continue to insist that they will resist any effort to move the country into a new chapter free from the group’s armed presence within Lebanon.
For instance, Hezbollah Parliament Member Hassan Ezzedine recently asked why the Lebanese government has not used the Lebanese army to fight Israel, saying, “take the necessary measures to repel Israeli aggressions.”
Ezzedine is a member of the “Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc,” which is the Hezbollah group in government. Al-Akhbar media, which is generally pro-Hezbollah, noted that the MP announced that the United States and Israel are seeking to dominate and control the region.
During a Hezbollah ceremony honoring the two martyrs on the road to Jerusalem, Hassan Ibrahim Suleiman and Hussein Ibrahim Suleiman, in the southern town of Al-Bayyad, Ezzedine said, “All that America is doing today in terms of pressure and political deception…aims to dominate and control the region, sometimes through negotiation, and sometimes for the sake of normalization. We find them embellishing their efforts by using terms of technical, ordinary, indirect negotiation and the like.”
Hezbollah positions itself as a 'defender of Lebanon'
Hezbollah is continuing to try to position itself, therefore, as a defender of Lebanon as a “free, sovereign, independent Arab nation in its identity.” The organization is positioning itself for a resurgence in this tone.
The MP called on the government to “return to studying the Lebanese national priorities accurately, which it adopted in the ministerial statement, and placed at the forefront the handling of Israeli attacks and the file of construction and reconstruction, but it went back and forgot that.”
He added, “regarding the reconstruction and rebuilding file, which the government had announced was among its priorities, it must return and give it priority and practically begin the compensation and reconstruction and rebuilding workshops.”
Meanwhile, US Envoy Tom Barrack, speaking at the IISS Manama Dialogue confab in Bahrain, was quoted by Clash Report as saying, “Lebanon is a failed state. There’s no central bank. The banking system is bust. There’s no electricity – people rely on private generators. For water and education, you need private providers. So what’s the state? The state is Hezbollah.”
He continued, “In the south, Hezbollah provides water, education. It has 40,000 soldiers; the LAF has 60,000. But Hezbollah soldiers make $2,200 a month, while LAF soldiers make $275. Hezbollah has 15,000 to 20,000 rockets and missiles; LAF soldiers have old jeeps and AK-47s. What’s happening here?”
Al-Akhbar noted that he had said Israel was ready to reach an agreement with Lebanon.
Meanwhile, a second MP for Hezbollah, Mohammad Raad, also “stressed that the resistance remains committed to the ceasefire agreement, calling on the state to adhere to the need to exert pressure to compel the enemy to abide by the agreement,” Al-Akhbar noted.”
Raad said, “We hear from some voices within that incite surrender to the enemy and compromise sovereignty, imagining that they are preserving their interests and strengthening their positions of power when they accept subservience to the occupiers and make peace with them at the expense of the nation’s interests, dignity, and the future of its children.”
He also accused people of “racing against time to invest in the Zionist enemy in order to change or alter the laws, especially the election law.”
Hezbollah is showing that it will continue to try to control Lebanon. Any hint that it will disarm appears to be more talk than action.