Lebanese PM Decries Hezbollah's Involvement in Region's Wars

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by voanews.com BEIRUT — Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said in remarks published Thursday that he fears Hezbollah's military role in regional conflicts will end up costing his country dearly. But Hariri also stressed he was optimistic that a way to end the political paralysis gripping Lebanon following his Nov. 4 resignation is being worked out. It is unclear what, if any, concessions Hezbollah would offer to ensure that Hariri remain in office, though Hezbollah officials have said they are keen on finding a political solution to the crisis. Hariri said his resignation was meant to let the world know that Lebanon cannot tolerate the militant Hezbollah group's meddling in the affairs of Gulf countries — a reference to Yemen, where the kingdom is fighting Shiite rebels. Hezbollah, an Iran ally, denies having a military role in warn-torn Yemen though it openly fights on the side of Syrian President Bashar Assad in Syria's civil war. Saudi Arabia backs the opposition trying to unseat Assad.

Hariri spoke to the French magazine Paris Match. He is currently on a private visit to Paris and expected back in Beirut next week, according to his office. "I wanted the world to understand that Lebanon can no longer tolerate the interferences of a party like Hezbollah in the affairs of the Gulf countries, where 300,000 Lebanese live," Hariri said. "We must not pay for the actions of Hezbollah." He hinted that there were no plans to discuss the disarming of Hezbollah, saying the militant group has not used its weapons on Lebanese soil. Hariri's resignation, announced while he was in Riyadh, stunned the Lebanese and raised suspicions that it was orchestrated by Saudi Arabia, his main backer. He later returned to Lebanon on Nov. 21 and put the resignation on hold to allow for consultations. In a tweet late Wednesday, Hariri said matters are moving "positively" and predicted that he may formally rescind his resignation next week. Saudi Arabia and Iran are fighting proxy wars in the Mideast. Hariri has demanded that Hezbollah remove itself from the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Days before Hariri's return to Beirut, Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah said his fighters are returning from Iraq now that the Islamic State group has been defeated there. On a visit to Italy, Lebanese President Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally, told the Italian newspaper La Stampa that Hezbollah's fighters would return to Lebanon once the fight against IS is over. In Syria, Hariri said the victory went to Russia and Iran, who had backed Assad. But to truly end the conflict in Syria, Assad "has to leave," Hariri said. "The problem in Syria is Bashar Assad."

U.S. PALESTINIAN SOLUTION THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, BUT NEVER WAS, REVEALED IN SECRET DOCUMENTS FROM 1980S

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BY TOM O'CONNOR  - NEWSWEEK - The U.S. had planned to resettle Palestinians from war-torn Lebanon into Egypt in the 1980s, but the North African state's former leader demanded the West first find a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, according to secret British documents seen by BBC News. The documents were reportedly obtained via the U.K.'s Freedom of Information Act and revealed a quiet attempt by world leaders to find solutions to both the ongoing Lebanese civil war, which was fought between various political, religious and ethnic factions from 1975 to 1990, and the decades-long struggle for Palestinian independence that followed the 1948 creation of Israel. They contain notes from a meeting between former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a U.S. ally who came to power after the assassination of his predecessor in 1981 until his overthrow following a 2011 revolution, and former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who left office in 1990 and died in 2013.

After meeting with President Ronald Reagan in Washington, Mubarak went to the U.K. to visit Thatcher. The Egyptian leader told her he would accept a U.S. request to welcome Palestinians fleeing Israel's 1982 invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon, but "said he could only do so as part of a comprehensive framework for a solution" to their national aspirations that pitted them against U.S. ally Israel, according to a BBC News report that coincided with Wednesday's U.N.-observed International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Without such a state, Mubarak said he told U.S. ambassador to Egypt Philip Habib "that by making the Palestinians leave Lebanon the United States risked a dozen difficult problems in various countries."

The U.K.'s initial response to Mubarak's plan to create a "framework for the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict" appeared to be negative. First, Thatcher was concerned that a Palestinian state would undermine Israel's security. Mubarak's visits to the U.S. and U.K. came eight months after the Abu Nidal Organization, a Palestinian militant splinter of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, attempted to assassinate Israeli ambassador to the U.K. Shlomo Argov in June 1982. Days later, Israel used the attack as grounds to invade Lebanon, where Palestinian fighters had launched raids against Israel and were involved in a protracted civil war against mostly Lebanese Christian forces. As Israel entered the multifaceted conflict, Iran helped establish the Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah that contributed significantly to Israel's 2000 ceasefire and withdrawal from Lebanon. In the context of 1983, however, Thatcher's primary concern was a rise in Palestinian militant activity along the borders of a theoretical Palestinian state with Israel and she argued that "even the establishment of a Palestinian state could not lead to the absorption of the whole of the Palestinian diaspora," believed to now number about 6 million, according to Al Jazeera. Mubarak's Egyptian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Boutros Ghali countered this notion, saying the new Palestinian state would be limited in size and hardly present a united political force. "The Palestinians will have their own passports, however, and they will take different positions," Ghali said, according to the documents. "We should not only have an Israeli state and Jewish diaspora, but a small Palestinian state and Palestinian diaspora," he added.

In addition to Thatcher's concerns about Israel itself, she held broader grievances about the international alliance of the Palestinian nationalist movement during the latter years of the Cold War. Since the earliest days of the Soviet Union and well before Israel's establishment, Moscow's communist government declared support for Palestinian independence. This support turned into weapons for Arafat throughout the 1970s and, while fighting in Lebanon in 1982, the Palestine Liberation Organization had fought alongside Lebanese Shiite Muslim and leftist forces backed by Syria, a known ally of the Soviet Union. Mubarak's political advisor, Osama al-Baz, tried to ease the prime minister's concerns by stressing that Palestinians would prefer the West-allied, wealthy monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula to Moscow. Baz said Thatcher's fear "was a misconception. A Palestinian state would never be dominated by the Soviet Union. It would be economically dependent on the oil-rich Arabs who were vehemently opposed to a pro-Soviet state. Saudi Arabia for one will never allow it," according to BBC News' documents. "A Palestinian state will never be a threat to Israel. The Palestinians in Kuwait and the rest of the Gulf will never return to a Palestinian state," Mubarak reportedly told Thatcher. The proposed Palestinian state would first exist in a confederation with Jordan, another pro-West kingdom that had expelled the Palestine Liberation Organization after a failed 1970 uprising that ultimately saw the Arafat move to southern Lebanon in the first place. The Palestinians would remain tied to Jordan and "evolve within 10 to 15 years into a demilitarized Palestinian state," according to Baz.

While the 1985 Amman Agreement saw Palestinians join a confederation with Jordan and later declare statehood in 1988, the following years were fraught with conflicts against Israel and a major split between Fatah, the largest political party of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. Even as Palestinians were granted administration over the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, the continuous construction of Israeli settlements and internal infighting among Palestinian parties have threatened the integrity of a two-state solution. Nearly 70 years after the birth of Israel, the Palestinians have not received U.N. membership. Toward the end of his administration last year, former President Barack Obama and his top diplomat, John Kerry, launched rare criticisms of Israel's settlement policy in the occupied territories. President Donald Trump, who took office in January, pledged a greater relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and has promised "the ultimate deal" for Israelis and Palestinians. In trying to do what his predecessors couldn't, Trump appointed his son-in-law and senior political advisor Jared Kushner to mediate between the two factions, but earlier this month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly denied a call from Kushner and the relationship between Palestinian and U.S. officials has deteriorated in past months. Vice President Mike Pence was set to meet with Abbas and Netanyahu next month in an attempt to forge a path to peace.

Saudi domestic and foreign policy 'missteps' may undermine religious reform, warns Thomas Friedman

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by Tom DiChristopher | @tdichristopher - by cnbc.com - The bold anti-corruption campaign by Saudi Arabia's crown prince and his aggressive foreign policy threaten to undermine his effort to promote a more moderate form of Islam, warns Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and best-selling author Thomas Friedman. The New York Times columnist, who began his career covering the Middle East and Israel, recently interviewed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is widely expected to take the throne in Saudi Arabia. The 32-year-old prince is leading an economic transformation in the world's largest oil exporter and the center of the Sunni Muslim faith. Friedman said Mohammed's campaign to roll back the strict religious atmosphere that has dominated the kingdom since 1979 is the most consequential item on his reform agenda. It would allow the Saudis to overhaul their education system and help rein in a militant strain of Islam that has spread throughout the world, he said. Saudi Arabia recently announced it will lift a long-standing ban on women driving. Under Mohammed, the kingdom can now host concerts and women and men are able to mingle more freely, Friedman said. This marks a dramatic change from the recent past, when Saudi authorities would arrest extremists at the United States' request, but refused to tackle the "war of ideas" in Islam that fueled extremism, Friedman said. "He's taking these guys on at the idea level. What it's doing is it's going to give permission now to everybody else to do that. That is so important.

There is nothing more important than taking this on," Friedman told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. However, Friedman said Mohammed is guilty of "missteps" at home and abroad that could undercut the religious reforms that the Saudi public broadly supports. "I was blown away about how much of this is coming from the bottom up, but ... how he handles these domestic issues and these foreign issues can really undermine him on what is the central project," Friedman said. The prince spearheaded a 2015 invasion of neighboring Yemen that had dragged on and drawn harsh criticism from human rights groups. Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia and its allies sought to force Qatar to change its foreign policy by isolating the tiny Gulf monarchy, but the Qataris have refused to yield. The Saudis appeared to intervene this month in Lebanon's affairs when Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri briefly resigned during a trip to Saudi Arabia. The incident came amid Saudi saber rattling against regional rival Iran, which supports the Lebanese Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah. Around the same time, Saudi authorities began rounding up princes, officials and businessmen as part of an anti-corruption campaign. The detainees were reportedly offered their freedom if they signed over their assets. Middle East watchers, including Friedman, say the arrests are likely aimed atconsolidating Mohammed's power as well as cracking down on Saudi Arabia's well-documented graft problem. Friedman said the process has not been transparent so far and could yet backfire. "This is a pivotal moment, I think, for the crown prince. If this process of arresting these people ... ends with some form of transparency and is done in the context of a rule of law, I think it will strengthen him," he said. "If it doesn't, I think it will weaken him and it will affect both Saudi investors and global investors."

Saudi Prince Released After $1 Billion Settlement, Official Says

Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, one of the most senior Saudi royals detained in a declared crackdown on corruption, has been released after reaching a settlement deal believed to exceed the equivalent of $1 billion, an official said. Prince Miteb, son of the late King Abdullah, was released on Tuesday, the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss matters under the authority of the public prosecutor. At least three other suspects held at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh have also finalized settlement agreements, the official said. The public prosecutor has decided to release several individuals and will proceed with the prosecution of at least five others, the official said.

Lebanese minister hails rapid expansion of Chinese-Lebanese cultural relations

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BEIRUT, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- The Lebanese-Chinese cultural relations are developing "from the Silk Road into the Silk Highway," said Lebanon's Minister of Education Marwan Hamadeh Tuesday. Hamadeh hailed the rapid expansion of cultural ties between the two countries, mentioning 30 scholarships for Lebanese and Arab students to continue studies in the Chinese city of Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi province. The scholarships, offered by the Silk Road Chamber of International Commerce (SRCIC), are seen as the latest proof of the Lebanese-Chinese friendship, he said. Hamadeh said "the burden Lebanon is undertaking in the issue of Syrian refugees, particularly in the field of education, is huge. But with the help of the donors' countries, including China, some of this burden is relieved." He revealed that the number of Syrian refugee students who enrolled in the current academic year in Lebanon has reached 250,000, including 30,000 in the secondary phase and the rest in the basic and elementary phases. Hamadeh also stressed the need to upgrade the existing agreement signed between Lebanon and China in the fields of education and culture. "There is an agreement between Lebanon and China regarding educational and cultural issues," he said, adding that this agreement "needs an upgrading, particularly in the issue of language teaching." He noted that although the Confucius Institute in the Saint Joseph University is in place to teach Chinese, he still hopes Chinese language could be introduced into the college curriculum to save time for the Lebanese students who wish to continue higher education in China, so that they don't need to spend an extra year in language study. The same is to be applied on Chinese students, he added, so they could be able to integrate into the Arab world in various fields like construction, sciences and business. Hamadeh also thanked the Chinese government for the aid it provided early this year in the form of stationery to the Syrian refugees students.

Did Kushner Keep Tillerson in the Dark on Saudi-Lebanon Move? US stands on Hariri resignation

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by By MARK PERRY theamericanconservative.com - Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has accomplished the impossible: he’s actually united Lebanon, though perhaps only briefly.   The tale of how the 32-year-old bin Salman (or MbS, as he’s called), accomplished this is a tad complex, but it’s worth the telling. Earlier this month, on November 2, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the scion of the wealthy Hariri family (and the son of the much-admired Rafiq Hariri, who was assassinated in a car bombing in Beirut in 2005), received a telephone call in Beirut from a senior Saudi official directing him to fly immediately to Riyadh to meet with the Saudi Crown Prince. Hariri could hardly refuse: a dual Lebanese-Saudi citizen, Hariri’s family fortune (and funding for his Lebanese political party, the Future Movement) depended on Saudi largesse—so off he went.

The next day, Hariri cooled his heels for four hours waiting for MbS to meet with him, before being ushered into His Presence, where he was peremptorily directed to read a television statement announcing his resignation as Lebanon’s prime minister and blaming Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, for plotting to destabilize his country and murder him. This was high drama, but lousy theatre: Hariri’s eyes shifted uncomfortably during his address, as if seeking approval from off-camera handlers that he was performing as expected. Hariri then popped up in Abu Dhabi, where he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, before returning to Riyadh, where he reassured the Lebanese public that he was sincere about resigning, hadn’t been detained against his will by the Saudis, and would soon return to Beirut.

Unfortunately for the Saudis, no one in Lebanon was buying it.

Within hours of Hariri’s address, officials of his Sunni-dominated Future Movement speculated that the prime minister was being held against his will, expressed doubts that his resignation was voluntary and pushed for his return. Several days later, Lebanese President Michel Aoun (a Maronite Christian), said that he believed the Saudis had “kidnapped” Hariri while Hassan Nasrallah, the Shiite leader of the Iranian-aligned Party of God (Hezbollah), publicly described Hariri’s resignation as a “Saudi-imposed decision.” Banners began appearing in Beirut (“We Want Our PM Back”), and festooned the jerseys of runners participating in a Beirut marathon: “Running For Hariri.”

Hariri was suddenly Lebanon’s poster boy, a martyr-in-the-making. Which is to say that, within days of his resignation, it was clear that Saudi Arabia’s attempt to paint Hezbollah as “destabilizing Lebanon” had backfired: Mohammad bin Salman’s insistence that Hariri take a tougher stance against Iran and Hezbollah had made unlikely allies of Lebanon’s squabbling factions. Those plotting against Lebanon weren’t in Tehran, the Lebanese public decided, they were in Riyadh. But the Lebanese weren’t the only ones who weren’t buying the Saudi line. Neither was the U.S. State Department.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was accompanying the president during his Asia tour at the time of the Saudi-engineered initiative, was “completely blindsided” by the move, as several senior Middle East diplomats confirmed to TAC. While Tillerson would later be accused of being “totally disengaged” from the crisis, several former and current U.S. diplomats have told us that just precisely the opposite was the case. Tillerson, they say, had a “long and pointed discussion” on the Hariri situation with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on November 7, after having directed Acting Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs, David Satterfield, to “walk point” on the issue. Satterfield talked with Hariri’s aides in Beirut and told Christopher Henzel, the U.S. charge d’affaires in Saudi Arabia, to meet with Hariri in Riyadh. In Beirut, meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador Elizabeth Richard was gathering information on the crisis from Lebanese officials and passing it back to Washington.

Tillerson’s initial reaction to the Hariri resignation was in keeping with his low-key approach. He gathered the facts, solicited advice, advised calm and held his temper. In private, however, Tillerson was seething. This was the second time in six months that the Saudis had taken a major diplomatic initiative without issuing a heads-up to the U.S.—a violation of the unwritten “no surprises” rule that is standard courtesy among close allies. The first surprise had come in June, when the Saudis broke off relations with Qatar and placed it under an economic embargo. The anti-Qatar move embarrassed the U.S., split the Gulf Cooperation Council and shattered U.S. efforts to forge a united anti-Iran Sunni bloc. And, as was the case with the Saudi-engineered Hariri resignation, the Qatar crisis had come with nary a warning from the Saudis to their most important ally.

But according to a senior Middle East diplomat with whom TAC spoke, Tillerson wasn’t only angered by Saudi Arabia’s failure to give the U.S. a heads-up on their Lebanon plans, he suspected that the White House knew of the plan for Hariri ahead of time, but failed to tell him. The culprit, as had been the case of the Qatar crisis, was Jared Kushner, the president’s 36-year-old son-in-law, whose official role in the White House is described by an avalanche of titles that rivals anything given a Saudi royal: Senior Advisor to the President, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy, and Special Representative for International Negotiations. More crucially, Kushner is close to MbS, who Kushner had met with (ostensibly about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process), during an under-the-radar trip to the region at the end of October.

“Kushner and MbS aren’t just close, they’re very, very close,” the senior Middle East diplomat told TAC. “I suppose there’s an outside possibility that Kushner was as surprised about the Hariri move as Tillerson, but I really doubt it. It’s unimaginable that bin Salman didn’t tell Kushner what he was planning.” But this same diplomat dismissed the notion that bin Salman asked for Kushner’s approval of the Saudi initiative—that Kushner “green lighted” it. “That’s not the way this works,” he said. “I doubt that the Saudis needed a green light. They don’t think they need anyone’s permission to do what they want, they take it for granted that Kushner supports them. Their calculation is that he has more influence with the president than Rex Tillerson.”

In truth, this diplomat says, neither the U.S. nor Tillerson should have been surprised by the Saudi move—or MbS distaste for Saad Hariri. Tensions between the Lebanese prime minister and the Saudis had been festering since mid-May, when a Hariri-backed delegation of bankers arrived in Washington to lobby the Congress against imposing tough new sanctions on Lebanese financial institutions suspected of being affiliated with Hezbollah. Lebanese officials told members of Congress that increased regulatory pressure would damage Lebanon’s fragile banking sector and endanger its financial stability. Hariri himself appeared in Washington in July to buttress these efforts. As a result, Congress carefully dampened the impact of the proposed sanctions, fearing that any attempt to target Hezbollah would undermine the fragile Lebanese economy.  

“That was a final straw for the Saudis,” this diplomat says. “They were absolutely disgusted. As far as they were concerned, Hariri was caving in to the Iranians.” By the end of the summer, the Saudis were determined to get rid of the prime minister and replace him with his older brother, Bahaa, a Saudi resident and Saad competitor who has long wanted to replace his brother as head of the Future Movement. “This was a plot and months in the making,” a senior aide to Lebanese President Michel Aoun told The American Conservative in an email. “Saad refused to fall in line with Saudi Arabia’s plan to confront the Iranians. So MbS decided to make him pay.”

But Hariri had not only run afoul of Mohammed bin Salman, he’d also crossed Thamer Al Sabhan, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Gulf State Affairs, a fervid, and MbS partisan. At key points in the crisis, and even as Mohammed bin Salman remained silent, Al Sabhan had issued threats against Iran, Hezbollah—and Saad Hariri. His most outspoken public statement came in the midst of the Hariri crisis, on November 7—and was aimed at the Lebanese prime minister.

“We will treat the government in Lebanon as a government declaring war on Saudi Arabia due to the aggression of Hizbollah,” Al Sabhan told Al Arabiya, the Saudi owned news channel. It was an astonishing statement, and read in Washington as an “or else” threat against Hariri—he would resign his position and tow the Saudi line, “or else.” The problem for Al Sabhan, and for the Saudis, is that the more reckless their rhetoric became, the more the Lebanese dug in their heels. “The Saudi mistake was in thinking that we’d roll over,” this officials says. “We didn’t.”

Nor did Rex Tillerson. On November 10, the State Department issued a press statement under Tillerson’s name (“On The Situation In Lebanon”), supporting Hariri (“We respect Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri as a strong partner of the United States.”), at the same time that it took a swipe at Iran—and the Saudis. “The United States cautions against any party, within or outside Lebanon,” the statement read, “using Lebanon as a venue for proxy conflicts or in any manner contributing to instability in that country.”

November 10, as it turns out, marked the most significant moment in the Hariri crisis. On the day the Tillerson statement was issued, Tillerson’s point man on the issue, David Satterfield, had a meeting with Thamer Al Sabhan at the State Department. Al Sabhan was in Washington for meetings, which included one at the White House. The Satterfield-Al Sabhan meeting did not go well, according to the senior diplomat with whom we spoke. In fact, the description is an understatement.

“The meeting was ugly, confrontational,” a former ambassador who received a “read out of the meeting” explained to us. “Satterfield laid down the law—the U.S. did not support the Saudi initiative, thought that what the Saudis were doing was destabilizing, wanted Saad to remain as prime minister and would not support Bahaa as his replacement.” This senior diplomat says that Satterfield was “dismissive” of the Saudi attempt to shift the mantle of the Future Movement onto Bahaa’s shoulders. “Satterfield made it clear that the U.S. didn’t think that Bahaa was up to the job,” then added his own judgment: “He’s unpredictable, lazy.”

In the days following the Satterfield-Al Sabhan meeting, the Hariri crisis has subsided.Denying that he was detained against his will by the Saudis, Hariri arrived in Paris on Saturday, where met with French President Emmanuel Macron, then made his way to Beirut via Cairo on Wednesday. His return was triumphant. He appeared at a military parade marking his country’s independence, spoke to cheering crowds outside of his home – and all but renounced his Riyahd decision to resign as Lebanon’s prime minister. “I offered my resignation to President Aoun and he asked me to delay presenting it, to allow for more consultations and deliberations, and I agreed to his request,” Hariri said.

The unlikely hero in all of this might well be Rex Tillerson, who quietly engineered a U.S. policy at odds with the views of Donald Trump—and his son-in-law. The exact details of how Tillerson pulled this off remain unknown (“I think Tillerson just told Trump what he was going to do,” the senior diplomat with whom we spoke speculates, “and then just did it.”), even as the odds against him mount: he remains the target of former and current State Department officials for failing to fill empty Foggy Bottom offices, remains the object of rumors that he will be replaced, is widely disliked by reporters covering the State Department for his detachment (and for refusing to approve reporters’ requests to travel with him), and is regularly dismissed in the diplomatic community for his style—for what is described as his “vanishing act” on foreign policy issues.  

More crucially, Tillerson’s views are sharply at odds with a White House that has shown a willingness to take Saudi claims at face value. Which means that what was obvious in June, when the Saudis purposely shattered the Arab world’s united Sunni front against Iran, is even more obvious now—in the midst of the Hariri crisis. “The U.S. is running two foreign policies in the Middle East,” the senior diplomat with whom we spoke says. “There’s a White House foreign policy that’s in the hands of Jared Kushner and another that is being engineered by Rex Tillerson.” And which foreign policy will prevail? The question brought a laugh from the senior diplomat. It’s not really that hard to figure out,” he said. “Rex Tillerson will be secretary of state until he decides not to be—or gets fired. But Jared Kushner will probably be the president’s son-in-law forever.”

Mark Perry is a foreign policy analyst, a regular contributor to The American Conservative and the author of The Pentagon’s Wars, which was released in October. He tweets @markperrydc

Saudis Target Lebanon, the Hope of Middle Eastern Christians

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Peter Jesserer Smith  ncregister.com  BEIRUT — Twenty years ago, when St. John Paul II arrived in Lebanon he proclaimed the country’s important “historical mission” was to show the world how “different faiths can live together in peace, brotherhood and cooperation.” The Holy Father declared that “Lebanon is more than a country — it is a message.” But today, Lebanon is increasingly in the crosshairs of an escalating regional proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The highest levels of leadership in the Catholic Church are acting to save Lebanon from a war that could not only devastate this historic Christian homeland, but also deal a fatal blow to the survival of Christianity in the Middle East, and plunge the region into a longterm sectarian war. During Sunday’s Angelus message, Pope Francis delivered an impassioned appeal for the international community to do everything possible to secure peace in the Middle East, asking the faithful to “pray for the stability of [Lebanon], so that it can continue to be a ‘messenger’ of respect and coexistence for the entire region and for the whole world.” Tensions in Lebanon rose with the sudden and unexpected resignation of Saad Hariri, the country’s Sunni prime minister, who read a televised prepared speech in Saudi Arabia on Nov. 4 saying he feared an assassination plot against him, and blamed Iran and its Lebanese Shiite proxy Hezbollah for Lebanon and the region’s problems. The speech and Hariri’s apparent detention in Saudi Arabia, actually united the various factions in Lebanon, which agreed that Hariri’s resignation was not in Lebanon’s interests. After international pressure on the Saudis from the U.S., France, and other Western governments, Hariri finally returned to Lebanon, and on Nov. 22, announced he had put his resignation on hold, at the request of the president Michel Aoun, in the interests of Lebanon. Philippe Nassif, executive director of In Defense of Christians, a D.C.-based lobby that advocates for the interests of Middle Eastern Christians told the Register that the Saudis were attempting to collapse Hariri’s national unity government, which included Hezbollah’s political wing, in a “reckless” bid to even the regional chess game the Saudis have been losing against Shiite-dominated Iran. Nassif said Lebanon’s survival is critical to the survival of Christianity in the Middle East. Although Egypt has the largest population of Middle East Christians in terms of numbers, Lebanon is the only country where a Christian is the head of state, and both Muslims, Christians, and other religious communities enjoy full religious freedom, and civic equality. Lebanon is a secular state where power is shared by the different major confessional religions: Christians account for 41% of the population, Sunni Muslims (27%), and Shiite Muslims (27%), with the rest being Druze (6%) and other minorities. Under the constitution, Lebanon’s president is Maronite Catholic, the Prime Minister is Sunni, and the Speaker of Parliament is Shiite. Lebanon is a unique country in the Middle East as the majority of Christians are actually Catholic due to the fact that the largest church, the Maronite Catholic Church, never broke from communion with the Bishop of Rome. The country has also provided a refuge to Christians fleeing the annihilation of Syria’s protracted war and genocide in Iraq. But Lebanon’s political and social cohesion is straining badly with the absorption of more than a million Syrian refugees in this country of 4.5 million.

Saudi Setbacks

Nassif explained the Saudis have suffered a string of serious reverses in their regional battle with Iran for power and influence. Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels has only led to catastrophic losses of civilian life due to mass starvation, Iraq’s government has fallen under the political aegis of Iran, and its Sunni militant proxies failed to oust president Bashar Assad from Syria — due again in part to Iran’s military and economic support, and Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. The Shiite party has the only Lebanese militia that did not disarm following the conclusion of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war in 1990, and is assumed to have as many armed fighters as Lebanon’s army. However, as part of a delicate national compromise, Hezbollah forms part of Lebanon’s government. The Saudis, who have been alarmed that Hezbollah’s activities have extended from Syria into Yemen, have succeeded in getting the Arab League to condemn Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. And in comments published Nov. 23 by The New York Times, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is in line to become the kingdom’s next ruler, characterized Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “the new Hitler of the Middle East.” Nassif said that both Saudi Arabia and Iran have played out their rivalry in Lebanon in “a more peaceful way compared to other countries.” Both recognize that if Lebanon ends up in a war again, it could lead to a conflagration that would spin out of their control. “If something happens in Lebanon, everybody loses,” he said, especially the Lebanese who are determined to avoid war because they already “know what happens when they start shooting at each other.” The U.S. government has expressed support for Lebanon’s sovereignty in recent statements from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — a tacit message to its regional allies, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, that the U.S. regards Lebanon’s integrity as a strategic interest. But Nassif said the U.S. government needed to de-escalate the tensions to prevent “one stupid thing” that would make the region explode, led to a massive exodus of refugees, and prove fatal for the long-term endurance of Christianity in the Middle East.

Patriarch and Prophet of Peace

Amid these heightened tensions took place an event of enormous historic importance: Maronite Catholic Patriarch and Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai made an official visit to Riyadh Nov. 14, at the behest of Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Bishop Gregory Mansour, head of the Eparchy of St. Maron in Brooklyn, New York, told the Register that the patriarch’s visit showed his commitment to Pope Francis’s vision of building bridges of peace through personal encounter and dialogue. In Saudi Arabia, public worship of any religion other than the Wahhabi version of Islam — public or private — is forbidden. “For most of us, this visit was surprising, but welcome,” Bishop Mansour said. “They invited the patriarch who is a symbol of two things, one is he’s a symbol of Christians in the Middle East, and two, he was a symbol of the country of Lebanon … which represents Christian-Muslim conviviality.” Catholic News Service reported Church officials in Lebanon said Cardinal Rai would stress with the Saudis the need for Lebanon to remain neutral in the regional conflicts, its independent sovereignty and stability respected, and for the country to remain “the land of cultural and religious pluralism and dialogue between Christianity and Islam.” Bishop Mansour told the Register he hoped the Saudis would not just listen to Cardinal Rai’s message about the Christians of Lebanon, but also about the importance of Christianity to the Middle East, including the “millions of Christians that live in Saudi Arabia.” Saudi Arabia is estimated to have potentially 2 million Christians living and working there, most of whom are Latin-Rite Catholics due to a large number of Filipino migrant workers. Conversion from Islam is punishable by death, although one study estimated that 60,000 Christians in Saudi Arabia may be Muslim converts. Bishop Mansour said Christians in the Middle East are looking to the survival of Lebanon, as hope that the region does have a future of peace and pluralism, guarded by secular states, for its ethno-religious mosaic. When Cardinal Rai left Saudi Arabia, he traveled immediately to Rome, raising the prospect that he would be involving Pope Francis. Although the Holy See does not have diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, the Vatican’s press office reported Pope Francis and Saudi Arabia’s foreign affairs minister, Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, had a personal meeting on Nov. 22, the day Hariri agreed to stay on as prime minister.

Avoiding War and Embargo

Habib Malik, a history and cultural studies professor at the Lebanese American University, based in Beirut and Byblos, told the Register that having Cardinal Rai officially invited to the Saudi kingdom, wearing his robes and Christian symbols, was “unprecedented” for a Catholic leader, and planned before the tension regarding Hariri’s resignation began. “That alone is important,” he said, adding that the Lebanese were hoping that Cardinal Rai’s visit would help soften the situation between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. A Saudi economic blockade, or expulsion of Lebanese working in the kingdom, Malik explained, would have devastated Lebanon’s delicate economy. Malik said the Crown Prince is eager to trumpet his vision that Saudi Arabia will have a centrist Islam, with openness and dialogue, and that is the original context of the visit. At the same time, the Saudis also know that Cardinal Rai is very critical of Hezbollah, but if they thought they could exploit divisions in Lebanon, they failed, because “the Cardinal is squarely within with national unity consensus that has emerged.” Right now, Hariri seems to have received indications that Hezbollah will accommodate his need to distance Lebanon from the regional conflicts and keep the country neutral as much as possible.” Malik said the coming days will show whether Harari can live with this “new tweaked deal” or follow through with his plan to resign. Overall, Malik said, the Saudis have failed to score any major victories and the “Iranian-Hezbollah-Assad axis supported by Russia” has the upper hand in the region. “The scheme to blow up Lebanon that was intended by all these Saudi moves the past 20 days has backfired royally upon the desert royals,” Malik said. Lebanon stayed united and gained wide international support for their stability, Hezbollah toned down the triumphalism for the language of compromise, and Hariri returned to Beirut with a hero’s welcome. “Lebanon, for now, has truly dodged a bullet.”