| Thursday, July 5, 2007 |
| An unholy marriage? |
In the beginning, the FPM signed an agreement paper with another large Lebanese political party, Hizbullah.
This paper, signed in the church of St. Michael, located in what once used to be a No Man's land, on the fringes of the boundaries of the Lebanese civil war, caused many reverberations on various levels. The Future Movement, The Lebanese Forces and the PSP, saw this as an unholy marriage. In certain respects, it was sort of ironic, and mind boggling that the FPM was capable of achieving something like this. A couple of months back, all these political groups were allied in the elections with each other, against the FPM, and everything was fine and dandy. When the FPM signed this agreement with Hizbullah, hell broke loose, especially that this came at the knick of time, where things were not looking well between the 3 parties and Hizbullah. It seemed that the FPM snatched a powerful ally from the other side.
I want to elaborate on the pros and cons of this agreement in this post:
The Pros:
1- Hizbullah is "the" representative of the Shiaa sect in Lebanon. This agreement brought the Lebanese Shiaa back into the fold of the Lebanese political life, instead of their isolation, which could have disastrous effects.
2- Hizbullah signed an agreement to achieve a secular society. (Seemed impossible at first)
3- It eased the fears and tensions of the Lebanese Christian society living in predominately Shiaa areas, such as Tyr and East Saida.
4- A return of the Lebanese in Israel.
5- Spoke against political assassination.
6- Delineate the boarders between Lebanon and Syria, & a return of the Lebanese prisoners in Syrian jails, and Israeli jails.
The Cons:
1- No time table for Hizbullah to surrender its arms to the Lebanese Army. It was connected with the feeing of occuppied Lebanese territories. In my opinion, this is hypocrisy. Not having a timetable was one of Michael Aoun's main takes on the Taef agreement. The Taef agreement validated the Syrian occupation for an extended period of time, and the FPM/Hizbullah agreement validated Hizbullah's keeping of its arms for an extended period of time.
2- Allowed the Palestinians to keep their arms inside the camps. We all have seen how much arms could be stacked in the camps with the unfinished events in Nahr el Bared.
Even though the Pros are more than the Cons, yet, the nature of the Cons work in the opposite direction with much items in the Pros and invalidate their application. For example, the Palestinian arms inside the camps works against the item that deals with political assassinations, as we have seen the connection between these assassinations and these arms. On the other hand, Hizbullah arms have been used as an excuse by the Israeli government to wage a destructive war on Lebanon.
These two items that have been missed by the FPM, have caused the greatest destruction Lebanon have seen in more than 15 years. FPM has scored points on its political rivals, but have taken Lebanon into a dark route. |
posted by Orange Peel @ 1:08 PM  |
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| 1 Comments: |
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The return and liberation of Lebanese prisoners illegally detained in Syria is barely given a mention. It goes without saying that a significant number of these people fought on the side of Aoun.
Surely the FPM would demand equal weighting to the liberation of 'their' people as to Hizbollah's; yet they fail to do so. But why? Is it not an alliance of equals? Has Aoun really sold out to Syria? Are our detainees in Syria not as worthy as the ones in Israel?
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The return and liberation of Lebanese prisoners illegally detained in Syria is barely given a mention. It goes without saying that a significant number of these people fought on the side of Aoun.
Surely the FPM would demand equal weighting to the liberation of 'their' people as to Hizbollah's; yet they fail to do so. But why? Is it not an alliance of equals? Has Aoun really sold out to Syria? Are our detainees in Syria not as worthy as the ones in Israel?