Opposition, Change and independent MPs urge end to Hezbollah arms

The MPs of the Lebanese Forces, the Kataeb Party and the Tajaddod bloc in addition to Change MPs Waddah al-Sadek, Mark Daou and Michel Doueihi on Friday slammed Hezbollah’s latest military drill, saying it “provoked the majority of the Lebanese and the content of the Jeddah Arab Summit declaration.”

“Through this drill, it wanted to tell the Lebanese, Arabs and the world that its sovereignty is above that of the Lebanese state, that the state has no sovereignty over its territory, and that there can be no decision in Lebanon that defies its will and the will of the regional axis it belongs to,” the MPs said in a statement.

“Hezbollah is telling us, through this military exercise, that these arms are protecting corrupts, paralyzing the institutions of the government and parliament, preventing reform and an end to the collapse, and undermining Lebanon’s ties with the Arab and international communities,” the MPs added.

“Hezbollah’s abnormal state no longer has a place in Lebanese political life and it has become detested by the majority of the Lebanese people,” the lawmakers went on to say.

Accordingly, they pointed out that “it has become confirmed that Lebanon the state cannot coexist with Lebanon the statelet.”

“Resolving this dilemma has become an urgent duty, through ending Hezbollah’s armed state and implementing the Taif Accord and the constitution resulting from it, which stipulated dissolving militias and limiting weapons to the hands of the state and its legitimate security institutions,” the legislators added, while also calling for “implementing U.N. Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1701.”

Hezbollah put on a show of force on Sunday, extending a rare media invitation to one of its training sites in southern Lebanon, where its forces staged a simulated military exercise.

Masked fighters jumped through flaming hoops, fired from the backs of motorcycles, and blew up Israeli flags posted in the hills above and a wall simulating the one at the border between Lebanon and Israel.

Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine said in a speech Sunday that the exercise was meant to "confirm our complete readiness to confront any aggression" by Israel.

And on Wednesday, Hezbollah’s top lawmaker Mohammed Raad said that the drill was aimed at telling Israel that Lebanon’s presidential crisis will not divert Hezbollah’s attention from confronting Israel’s “aggression against our sovereignty.”

“Some said that this was addressed to the Lebanese interior, knowing that the Lebanese interior does not need resistance, but rather dialogue, understanding and the rhetoric of tolerance among the sons of the same country,” Raad said.