The coming tension will be an Israeli aggression on Lebanon. The ruling party always reiterates that Iran is the main threat, but I think Iran is not worrisome even though we may agree or disagree with its policies. But Israel may renew its aggression on Lebanon to divert the US attention away from the Palestinian cause, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt said in his dialogue with prominent media man Abdel Latif al-Menawi last Tuesday. Some people create an excuse to accuse Lebanon of refusing to host the Palestinian refugees. Anyway, such accusations will never cause a crisis because the Palestinians themselves want to return to their homeland and this will happen today or tomorrow, Jumblatt added. The only way to protect resistance, the Shiite community, and Hezbollah Party is the gradual involvement in the Lebanese State. These parties should not make individual decisions on war and peace. Discussions with Hezbollah should continue, he said, comparing the current situation to a 'vicious circle', as no one talks or listens. Hezbollah had earlier said if Lebanon had a well-equipped army, Hezbollah would abandon its weapons. The question now is: how could Lebanon build up a strong army? When we went to Russia and the United States, they gave us only scraps of weapons. The US refuses to give us weapons under the pretext that Hezbollah may use them against it. Therefore, we reached such a state of imbalance.
Jumblatt has called on the Arabs and Iran to agree on legitimate interests to serve the Islamic efforts or what could be called the expansionist efforts to avoid a Sunni-Shiite conflict in the Arab region. This is not applied to Iraq due to its unstable status.
With regard to the recent development in the US political discourse with the Middle East countries, he said the US discourse has completely changed, especially after the US President Obama's speech to the Islamic world from Cairo. The Obama administration will be engaged in the US internal elections after less than a year. Therefore, Obama has to devote his efforts to the Middle East. He focuses on freezing the Jewish settlements and this is good. But the most important question is: Can he do that? The answer to this question is really very difficult, because a Palestinian state cannot be established without reducing the number of the Israeli settlements.
Jumblatt stressed the importance of entering into a discussion with Hezbollah as a main player in the region. It would be a grave mistake if we held a discussion without Hezbollah. We have to reiterate and emphasize that conversation is very important. It is right that a government of national unity will be formed, but there should be a discussion. Javier Solana was right when he met with a Hezbollah delegate. This meeting is the beginning. If we isolated Hezbollah, we would repeat what happened with Hamas. The United States was foolish when it isolated Hamas because this cost the Palestinians too much.
Commenting on the recent Lebanese elections, Jumblatt said the Israeli and Western praise was an economic support, but it should not be used by Israel as a negotiating card with Iran to destroy Lebanon. It is wrong to say that this praise helped March 14 Alliance win elections because it was the Lebanese who voted.
