June 9, 2009

Lebanon's Parliament Square

JERUSALEM – The Hezbollah militia gradually should be incorporated into the Lebanese Army and official defense institutions instead of continuing as an independent armed faction, Lebanese Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt argued in an exclusive WND interview today.

Jumblatt is one of the leading forces in the pro-Western camp that won a decisive victory in the country's parliamentary election on Sunday. Jumblatt's camp ran against the Iranian-backed Shiite Hezbollah, which was allied with some smaller factions.

Jumblatt called the ballot results a blow to Iran and Syria. He expressed hope Lebanon "will not be hooked again to a foreign power, mainly the Iranians."

Official results released yesterday showed Jumblatt's pro-Western coalition won 68 seats, with 57 for Hezbollah and its allies and three for independents.

The elections saw the largest voter turnout since the country was rocked by civil war in the 1970s. The pro-Western camp, also known as the March 14th alliance, is made up predominantly of Sunnis, Christians and Druze. It is lead by Sunni politician Saad al-Hariri, whose father, former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, was killed in a massive camp bombing in 2005.

The election results essentially leave in place the current makeup of the Lebanese parliament, but they served as a decisive public blow to Hezbollah, which had projected a victory in the polls.

Hezbollah had characterized the vote as a referendum on their violence against Israel, while Jumblatt's group campaigned on a platform of disarming Hezbollah.

Now that the March 14th alliance was victorious, there is some concern of civil and political strife in Lebanon regarding the issue of disarming Hezbollah.

A U.N. resolution adopted after the 2006 Second Lebanon War with Israel calls for Hezbollah to disarm.

"International resolutions can say whatever they want, but is it my position that this issue can only be dealt with through dialogue," Jumblatt told WND.

"Implementing [the U.N. resolution] can lead to civil war," he said. "The Shiites are one third of the country."

Jumblatt maintained the "only resolution" regarding Hezbollah's weaponry is through dialogue to "slowly but shortly bring the Hezbollah arms inside the Lebanese defenses."

He said, however, now was not the time to disarm Hezbollah or incorporate its militia to the army – a move that could actually tip the demographic scale of the army toward Shiites and Hezbollah.

"We have to wait for regional circumstances to facilitate this initiative because we cannot also accept daily Israeli violations of our airspace," he said.

Israel routinely flies over Lebanese airspace to photograph Hezbollah positions and document the transport of weaponry, particularly rockets

and missiles, from the Syrian border into Lebanon.

According to Israeli defense sources, Israel passes the photographic evidence to international troops stationed inside South Lebanon, but those forces rarely, if ever, intercept the weapons. The forces were deployed for the specific purpose of stopping Hezbollah from rearming.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accepted this week's election results but his militia warned it would retain its weapons.

"The majority must commit not to question our role as a resistance party, the legitimacy of our weapons arsenal and the fact that Israel is an enemy state," Hezbollah member of parliament, Mohamed Raad, told the French news agency AFP.

It was that sentiment that prompted some concern in Jerusalem, where officials worry the election results may serve as a smokescreen for Hezbollah's terrorist activity.

Hezbollah essentially controls South Lebanon, which borders northern Israel. The terrorist group retains thousands of rockets capable of reaching northern and central Israeli population centers.

Speaking to the Jerusalem Post, Itamar Rabinovich, a former ambassador to the U.S. and one-time peace negotiator with Syria, called the result "good news considering the alternative," but he warned the polls didn't reduce the threat Hezbollah poses to Israel.

"This doesn't remove even one rocket or missile from Hezbollah's arsenal," he said. "When the Iranians tell them to do so, Hezbollah can fire missiles and rockets from Lebanese territory into Israel."

In an analysis in Israel's Haaretz newspaper, reporter Avi Issacharoff warns: "Lebanon is likely to remain a deeply divided country, overridden by regional powers, election results aside."

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, congratulated the Lebanese people on for a peaceful national election held with "courage" and a "commitment to democracy."

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