https://arab.news/rumha
A home is meant to protect you and your children. It is meant to protect you from rain, storms and fears. It is meant to harbor dreams and safeguard memories. Homes are meant to be there when children go to school and when they get back. Home is your nation inside the nation.
But you have grown too comfortable. War has come back, as it always does. The roof of the home is fragile, like the nation. Avichay Adraee issues an open warning: leave or be ground into the rubble. Become displaced or a corpse. Adraee is backed by a terrible arsenal. The Israeli killing machine does not take long to arrive with its artificial intelligence and American missiles. You have no choice but to seek a displacement shelter and await Amos Hochstein’s return.
This has been our case for decades. The Israeli jet and American envoy. Where can we go?
Luckily, the wounds of the past two decades have not erased the Lebanese people’s sense of national and humanitarian solidarity, despite the deteriorating relations between various Lebanese “islands.” These islands do not hide their opposition to the “unity of arenas.” They believe that the weapons must be limited to legitimate forces alone, as should the decision of war and peace. They believe that the support front did not save Gaza, but rather led Lebanon to the situation it is in right now. They believe that Israel’s hostile intentions are clear for everyone to see and, so, we must not give it any excuse to act on them. They also believe that the unity of arenas is much greater than Lebanon’s ability to withstand and the same goes for Hezbollah’s regional role.
The regular Lebanese citizen knows what Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Najib Mikati know: the only number they can call now is Hochstein’s. The same Hochstein whose proposals Lebanon rejected months ago. There can be no delusions over this issue. Hochstein is not a representative of a charity or a relief agency. He is the envoy of the American administration that was quick to contain the repercussions of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation and condemned the “support front” from day one. The Lebanese citizen knows that the US is a partner with Israel in dismantling the unity of arenas and in taking southern Lebanon out of the Israeli military conflict. The Lebanese people know this, but they have no choice but to deal with Hochstein.
No Lebanese segment can abandon the other. The fate of the Lebanese people is connected no matter how much they are divided
Ghassan Charbel
Meanwhile, Israel has expanded its destructive war. Its goal is clear: make Hezbollah’s popular support base pay a terrible price for embracing the party, the unity of arenas and the support front. Israel wants the popular base to drown in rubble, displacement and its ensuing tensions.
Drowning one segment of the population means drowning the whole of Lebanon with it. No Lebanese segment can abandon the other. The fate of the Lebanese people is connected no matter how much they are divided. Israel has displaced more than a million Lebanese people. It is as if it wants to destroy the entire popular environment. Some believe that Israel wants to reignite internal strife in Lebanon and lead the Lebanese to fight each other amid the rubble of their country when the war stops.
Lebanon awaits Hochstein as the entire world awaits Donald Trump to officially assume the US presidency in two months. The fate of the American envoy’s mission cannot be separated from the discussions going on about what will happen to Iran during Trump’s second term in office.
Lebanon urgently needs a ceasefire to avert a total collapse. No one can withstand the consequences of the exchange of blows between Iran and Israel, especially as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government threatens to expand its targets in Iran to include highly sensitive locations. So, we must turn to Hochstein, who currently holds the only key, which is implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
The implementation of Resolution 1701 is extremely important, but it would not be enough to save Lebanon. Lebanese officials have repeatedly heard from international parties that rebuilding Lebanon demands the establishment of a normal Lebanese state and that the world will not offer aid if its results will only turn to dust in the next war. This means that the Lebanese people find themselves confronted with the need to take bold and painful decisions.
The first decision should be returning decision-making to the Lebanese state and its institutions. This clearly means returning from the era of arenas to the era of the state. This means the Lebanese must return to the Taif Accord and return normality to state institutions.
Hochstein may be able to stop the war in southern Lebanon, but rebuilding the Lebanese home demands that the Lebanese unite under its institutions and that they overcome the bitter experiences of the past. Hezbollah, which has been dealt devastating blows to its leadership and popular base, is therefore demanded to take painful decisions.
Israel’s barbarity knows no bounds. We need Hochstein and we need to make painful decisions. Taking these decisions today is better than taking them after Lebanon’s total collapse. Hochstein’s return is not enough. We must return to the state. The state alone can tend to the wounds of the targeted segment and the fears of all others.
- Ghassan Charbel is editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. X: @GhasanCharbel
This article first appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat.