Jumblat: STL Must Be Funded to Avoid Economic Sanctions
Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat hoped on Monday that the concerned Lebanese forces would approve the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon for the sake of the country’s higher interest and in order to avoid economic sanctions and internal tensions.
He said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa magazine: “All sides are better off revising the current sensitive phase in Lebanon and the region in order for them to avoid becoming captive of their escalatory positions on complex issues of contention.”
“This requires the Lebanese to calmly handle major regional changes in order to prevent these changes from negatively impacting the internal Lebanese scene,” he noted.
He renewed his call to cooperate with the tribunal whereby the accused would be able to head to The Hague and defend themselves.
“It’s true that the STL is a cause of concern to certain sides, but to others, it is an inevitable way to reveal the truth behind political assassinations,” the MP stressed.
Addressing concerns over Hizbullah’s possession of arms, Jumblat said: “This issue cannot be resolved through heated speeches, but only through calm dialogue, which can pave the way for the resumption of discussions over Lebanon’s defense strategy against Israel.”
“All these factors require the Lebanese political powers to support the country’s security and military institutions, which remain a main protector of civil peace,” the PSP leader remarked.
The sane course is for Hezbollah and FPM to abstain from voting and allow the vote to proceed to allow STL funding.
They can retreat to some other trench to voice their disapproval of the STL. But at this stage, failure of the government to post the 49% funding will result in the collapse of the government and the exposure of Hezbollah as not the power behind the throne, but the power in Lebanon. Exposed to whom? to Israel and everyone else.
Rather than risk this, they should simply abstain. Only problem is that sanity rarely rules in Lebanon, particularly when the party that needs to act sanely is Michel Aoun.