There is no doubt that the political crisis has today reached a level that has not been observed for quite a while in Lebanon, and to a position that does not show signs of reconciliation on the horizon, and after the statements made by the parliamentary members belonging to the head of Parliament Nabih Berri and particularly the heinous actions perpetrated by his followers in the Amal movement in the streets and the plazas as well as their threats on all social media outlets whether true or not.
There is no doubt that the Lebanese citizen is the first to be affected by these actions, making him lose faith in the government that has had a few months ago started to show signs of improvement, making him lose faith in the ruling parties and individuals who themselves are not above the use of violence in the streets and the threatening of the safety of the nation for personal reasons and Lebanon has witnessed these events before and is seeing them daily.
Now all the parties are reevaluating their positions in the shadow of this crisis and on the eve of the parliamentary, but one political party in particular, Hezbollah, seems to be the one suffering the most as this crisis could present dangers far worse than the parliamentary elections, for it seems that it could be itself a target in this crisis.
The orchestration of this disruptive action by the men of Amal, the main ally of Hezbollah, whether they want to or not, has put them in a three pronged trap.
On the one side, the disrupters have turned this battle into a sectarian one and have mobilized the streets and their people, which has forced Hezbollah to side with them fearing that the fight may become an inter-Shiite confrontation. Those who have heard the journalist Habib Fayad says the men of Amal knew that they would not shy away from fighting with Hezbollah, as they have done in the past, with no concerns for the sanctities if Hezbollah does not side with them.
On the other hand, siding with Amal and the need for them to ignore the assaults in the streets and in the media against the president of the republic, the founder of the Free Patriotic Movement FPM and the architect pf their accord, President General Michel Aoun, will take Hezbollah to where they will alienate their greatest Christian ally and their governmental cover, The Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), and furthermore jeopardize the existing agreement, something the men of Hezbollah as well as their leader Hassan Nasrallah, have valued in the past, the present and especially in the near future. We have also seen the Aounist foundations shaken by the heinous acts and insults toward the President and the accusations of conspiracy as well as the tearing down of the pictures and mostly the silence of Hezbollah towards these actions and events.
As for the third part, it seems that the confrontation was premeditated with the Sunni partner, and Berri paved the way for it by boycotting Prime Minister Harriri and blaming him for what had transpired. So if Hezbollah sides with Berri in this event, they become confrontational with the Future Party who is originally at odds with Hezbollah and their ways, especially when the future party head Harriri has had not had time to work on reconciliations.
At the heart of this three sided trap, Hezbollah is deeply struck in the internal Lebanese swamp while trying to remove themselves at every occasion from internal strife in order to focus on regional issues. With this scenario, Hezbollah is prisoner of the tight internal political game. Damned if they are drawn into a battle within the Shiite clan and damned if they lose their strong Christian ally and cover and even more if they enter into a Shiite Sunni confrontation something they have been fighting tooth and nail to avoid.
Parliament Head Nabih Berri and the leaders of Amal have made the resolution of this situation so unattainable and have made the conditions for it so demeaning, something that the FPM will not accept and Amal knows that, and the longer these conditions persist, the deeper Hezbollah is drawn into this quagmire and forced into confrontations they could do without, as was the case on Wednesday night in Hadath, thus achieving Amal’s goal of 2006 which was to exhaust Hezbollah internally and break their Christian support as well as enhance their confrontation with the Sunnis.
We are not accusing anyone of actively and premeditatedly working to achieve these goals, but we can clearly see the results of this open crisis that is targeting Lebanon in general and Hezbollah in particular and the great benefits that their enemies may reap particularly Israel and the Unites States and assures them with ease and far lesser cost everything they were unable to achieve during the July 2006 War, or vis their open wars and their Arab Springs especially in Syria out of which Hezbollah has emerged victorious and stronger than ever.
Dr. Elie Haddad
Translated by Dr. Rami Najjar & Hala Hayek Najjar
