Special Dispatch | No. 2416 | June 22, 2009
Lebanon
Lebanese Opposition Daily Turns Against Opposition
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Following the Hizbullah-led Lebanese opposition's loss in the Lebanese parliamentary elections, Sati' Nour Al-Din, columnist for the Lebanese daily Al-Safir, which for years has been known to be affiliated with the Lebanese opposition and with Syria, wrote a harsh critique of the opposition and its conduct in recent years. He stated that the Lebanese people were against everything that it represented, and had rejected its plan.
The following is a translation of the main points of the column:(1)
"[The Lebanese election results] are more the product of the past four years than they are an infrastructure for the next four years – and no one really knows what surprises [these four years] may hold...
"[The Lebanese election results] are a crushing defeat for the March 8 Forces [i.e. the Hizbullah-led opposition]... and for all its political and military adventurism... the height of which came on May 7, 2008 when this group brought Lebanon and the Lebanese to the brink of ethnic civil war between Shi'ites and Sunnis...
"The majority of the Lebanese people opposed the opposition's discourse, in all things connected to the resistance, its weapons, its complex relations with Syria, and its links with Iran... [The majority of the people] struck hard at its plan – even though before the polling stations opened, it seemed that the opposition was striding towards a new victory that would be the jewel in the crown of [Hizbullah's] imaginary victories over the U.S. and Israel...
"[Now that the election is over,] the internal settling of accounts [in Lebanon] will be harsh. The fact is that the March 14 Forces are incapable of bearing the responsibility [of governing the country] that this election victory [has handed them] – since this victory does not obviate the decisive military supremacy [of the Hizbullah-led opposition] and its allies. [Also], it is not expected that [the opposition] will accept the results of the elections happily or admit that [the results] are more a defeat for it than for the Shi'ites in Lebanon, who tried without much success to increase their political role by relying on the Christians around them.
"Just as the first moments after the results were declared were tense, due to anticipation of the initial Shi'ite response on the political level and on the ground, so will be the initial weeks and months in the life of the new parliament – with the anticipation of how the [country's] largest ethnic group [i.e. the Shi'ites] is going to act in light of the other ethnic groups' popular opposition to its weapons, its resistance, and [also to] its agenda, which refers to Syria... as Lebanon's strategic depth and to Iran and its current policy as a strategic asset that justifies the abandonment and humiliation of all the Arabs.
"The Shi'ites' [decision regarding what to do in the next stage] is not easy. Clearly, it will in no way include laying down arms and joining the state. [Such a development] is still imaginary. The option of continuing the resistance with the other ethnic groups [exists, but this option] includes a price tag [for the Shi'ites]..."
Endnotes:
(1) Al-Safir (Lebanon), June 9, 2009.
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