Bassil to Hezbollah: Your Weapons vs. Our Existence

Ghada Halawi
Nida Al-Watan
December 07, 2022
(Translated excerpts from Arabic)

The relationship between the head of the Free patriotic Movement (FPM) Gebran Bassil and Hezbollah has sunk to its lowest ever since the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at Mar Mikhail Church in February 2006. Along several milestones of its existence, the MOU faltered but did not fall. It overcame the challenges of elections several times, it survived the tensions over relations with Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, and occasionally disagreements over corruption. Every time such tensions emerged, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah was keen to remind everyone that any such disagreements are discussed directly with our ally in order to avoid that they’d be exploited by others.

But the disagreement this time is profound, and the relationship is at its worst, and the reason is that Hezbollah had given a guarantee and pledge to his FPM ally that it – Hezbollah – would not agree with convening a meeting of the caretaker government in the absence of a president at the helm of the Republic. But Hezbollah has broken its promises.

[The president is by custom and constitution a Christian. With Michel Aoun’s term ending last October, Parliament has been unable to elect a new president because the FPM and Hezbollah have been blocking the quorum in Parliament. The country has been without a president since October 31, and Bassil claims he is protecting the rights of Christians by denying the Sunni caretaker Prime Minister any authority to substitute himself for the absent president, including by convening a Cabinet meeting with a full agenda].

Prior to the problematic Cabinet meeting, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati had sent a message to Hezbollah notifying it of the agenda of the scheduled meeting: The agenda had three parts, including nominations and other matters, which Hezbollah rejected demanding that the meeting be limited to urgent matters pertaining to the Lebanese people's daily lives. Miqati complied by reducing the number of agenda items to 28. Hezbollah informed Bassil that Miqati was going forward with the meeting, but Bassil still refused. Hezbollah insists that its only motive for joining the meeting is to see that the affairs of the people be attended to, and Hezbollah’s ministers have clearly stated inside the meeting that their attendance is not directed against anyone.

Hezbollah appears annoyed by Bassil’s efforts to drag it into adopting his positions. In certain instances, Bassil would corner Hezbollah and coerce it to join him, without taking into account the “particulars” of Hezbollah’s grassroots and its allies. Yet, every time, Hezbollah was keen to declare that the MOU with Bassil was still alive and well.

Bassil’s harsh response in his press conference was no surprise to his entourage and they saw the crisis coming at the moment the Cabinet meeting was convened. Some even went so far as advise Hezbollah to avoid a crisis because Bassil won’t let go of the issue. And so, Hezbollah found itself cornered between being blamed for not attending to the affairs of the Lebanese people on one hand, and Bassil’s refusal on the other. Hezbollah could have handled Bassil with the flexibility it demonstrated in the past.

If Hezbollah insists on preserving its “special” circumstances by not appearing to be always following Bassil, so does the latter warn of being dragged into Hezbollah’s internal matters, something which would impact his own political standing and the size of his parliamentary bloc. The fact of the matter is that Bassil cannot fathom why Hezbollah is backing a candidate for the presidency whose parliamentary base consists of only two MPs. That he, Bassil, is not a candidate does not mean he should acquiesce to the candidacy of Sleiman Frangiyeh, the head of the Marada Movement, whom Hezbollah has endorsed. In a “blessing in disguise” sort of way, Hezbollah has granted its closest ally an opportunity to walk away and not be forced into accepting this candidacy and stop negotiating about it.

After his press conference, Bassil refused to answer questions from the press, trying to avoid making statements that would deepen the growing chasm. His message was exclusively addressed to Hezbollah, and did not mention the caretaker Prime Minister who would not have called for the meeting without Hezbollah’s agreement. The most important message of his conference is to lay down a new equation with Hezbollah, namely: “ If the FPM stood with you in a matter you consider fundamental, i.e. the weapons of the Resistance, then our political existence in government and our partnership are our weapons. Just as you consider your weapons to be critical to your existence, then our free and balanced existence in the national partnership is our weapon”.

“Things are not going well”, said Bassil repeatedly. He clearly addressed himself to Hezbollah by saying that endorsing Sleiman Frangiyeh is not possible and shouldn’t be considered, and if the FPM has remained committed to dropping a blank vote at the request of Hezbollah, it will no longer do so. On the matter of the Cabinet meeting, Bassil alluded to the need to annul the decisions adopted in the meeting. Bassil further estimated that all of what happened is a scenario cooked up between Speaker Berri and Geageas’s Lebanese Forces Party. “There is no going back to pre-2016 and to pre-2005”, Bassil said, warning against reviving a Christian component that does not reflect the current reality on the ground".

The honeymoon between the FPM and Hezbollah is over. It seems that we will soon see a re-positioning by the head of the FPM. The next thing to watch for is Hezbollah’s response.