by Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English — The US is considering sanctions on top Lebanese officials for their continued obstruction of electing a new president in the country, a top State Department official said Wednesday. Meanwhile, the top two US House Foreign Affairs Committee lawmakers urged the Biden administration to sanction Lebanese individuals for corruption and to “make clear to Lebanon’s political class that the status quo is not acceptable.” Since last October, Lebanon has had no president and a fully functioning government. Pro-Syria parties, including Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, are backing Sleiman Frangieh, who has long boasted of his close ties with Bashar al-Assad. Opposition groups and the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement, have reportedly agreed to endorse Jihad Azour, a former finance minister and current International Monetary Fund (IMF) employee.

During a Senate committee hearing on the Middle East, the top US diplomat for the region said the US was considering the possibility of sanctions. Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf said Washington was working with regional and European partners to push the Lebanese parliament to do its job. “It’s a collective effort,” Leaf said.

Separately, the members of Congress slammed Lebanon’s central bank governor, Riad Salameh, as well as those responsible for the catastrophic Beirut Port blast in 2020. Salameh has an Interpol arrest warrant out for him, and there are charges against him from Germany and France over alleged corruption.

by middleeastmonitor.com — The US is working on building a new regional hub for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Lebanon, within a huge embassy complex with an area of 93,000 square meters on a 27-hectares (about 64 acres) site in the capital, Beirut, intelligence sources reported yesterday. The complex, which is estimated to cost […]

DUBAI/BEIRUT, (Reuters) – Lebanon’s army intelligence freed a Saudi national who was abducted on Sunday in Beirut and also arrested some of those involved, the army announced on Tuesday. An online army statement said that Saudi citizen Mashari al-Mutairi had been freed in an operation along the Lebanese border with Syria. Saudi’s state-run Al Ekhbariya television station reported late on Monday that a man working for Saudi Arabian Airlines had been kidnapped in the Lebanese capital on Sunday, and that those responsible had demanded a $400,000 ransom.

In a press conference at the Saudi embassy after Mutairi’s release, Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said that no ransom was paid, and that Lebanese security forces had taken nine people into custody over the kidnapping. Mawlawi said the incident would not impact diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. Ties between the two countries withered in 2021, when the kingdom and other Gulf states withdrew their envoys following years of frustration at the growing influence of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement over Lebanon’s state. They sent ambassadors back to Beirut in April 2022.

For many in Lebanon, the events constituted a blatant disregard for state authority and international law.

by Adnan Nasser Follow @Adnansoutlook29 on Twitter — In the days leading up to May 25, the twenty-third anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon, Hezbollah engaged in a series of highly-visible wargames. The demonstration of force included hundreds of fighters with live ammunition and sophisticated weaponry typically used by national armies. Except it was not the Lebanese Armed Forces that carried out the drills but a mere political party with an armed wing. For many in Lebanon, the events constituted a blatant disregard for state authority and international law. The question of what to do about Hezbollah’s weapons is consistently being put on the back burner out of fear of internal unrest. Hezbollah claims it needs its weapons to defend Lebanon from Israel. Yet others say this is nonsense and that the group wants to keep its arms to maintain its impunity from state rule.

History Strategy Game

This debate has gone on for decades and, indeed, it is nowhere near being resolved. Supporters of Hezbollah cite Israel’s eviction in 2000 as a sign of the Shia group’s justification to keep its guns. One person from the south told The National Interest, “I don’t remember the Lebanese army fighting Israel. Only Hezbollah.” Others remember Hezbollah’s action on May 7, 2008, when the group seized half of Beirut in defiance of the government’s attempt to subdue its telecommunication network, and point to it as an example of why the group cannot be trusted.

Domestic response to Hezbollah’s actions

The politicians and members of various political parties that oppose Hezbollah and advocate for state sovereignty have denounced the military drills. The caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, acknowledged that these maneuvers challenge the government’s role in defending Lebanon, but followed up by stating that the situation is too complicated for the state to act alone. The Lebanese government “rejects any act that infringes on the state’s authority and sovereignty, but the issue of Hezbollah’s arms requires a comprehensive national consensus,” Mikati said.

By Saundra Latham, Editor at LinkedIn News — HBO Max is now “Max,” and whether that’s a savvy marketing move or the “rebrand blunder of the year” depends on who you ask. Some say the streamer’s new name reflects its expanded content — exactly what owner Warner Bros. Discovery wants. Others say it erases HBO’s […]

By Najia Houssari — arabnews.com — BEIRUT: Thirty-one reformist, independent, and opposition MPs expressed their concern on Friday about a military maneuver carried out by Hezbollah in the town of Aaramta in southern Lebanon. The MPs said they believe such a maneuver, which they described as typical of the militia’s longstanding practices, “contradicts the concept of the state.” In a statement, the MPs argued that Hezbollah’s maneuver challenged the majority of Lebanese citizens and went against the Arab Summit declaration in Jeddah. They perceived it as an assertion by Hezbollah that its sovereignty surpasses that of the state, implying that no decision in Lebanon can contradict the party’s will or that of the regional axis it aligns with.

The MPs said the lives and future of the Lebanese people were being “held hostage” by Hezbollah’s project. But the MPs also stressed that Hezbollah cannot impose its political, military, security, and economic agendas on the Lebanese state, regardless of how much it undermines the foundations of the state’s existence. They argued that Lebanon, as a state, could not coexist with Hezbollah as a fiefdom. They said it was an “urgent duty” to resolve the issue by ending Hezbollah’s armed status through the implementation of the Taif Agreement and the constitution derived from it, which called for the dissolution of militias. The MPs emphasized the need to adhere to UN resolutions 1559 and 1701 — putting an end to Hezbollah’s military and security interventions abroad — and to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of Arab countries. Doing so would help restore Lebanon’s historical relations with the international and Arab communities, they said. Additionally, the MPs called for the dismantling of Hezbollah’s parallel economy, which they claimed had been built through smuggling via legal and illegal crossings, promoting tax evasion, and facilitating corruption. They demanded that Hezbollah engage in political activities like other Lebanese parties, operating within the framework of the constitution, Lebanese laws, democracy, and respect for public freedoms.

Hezbollah participates in the Lebanese parliament through a bloc consisting of 13 MPs, and it has allies in parliament, most notably the bloc of speaker Nabih Berri, which comprises 15 MPs. In a televised speech, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah reiterated his commitment to the “equation of the army, the people, and the resistance,” stating that he considered it a “crucial source” of strength for Lebanon. Nasrallah responded to threats made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following Hezbollah’s military maneuver, saying: “It is not you who threatens us with a major war, rather we are the ones threatening you.”

By Najia Houssari – arabnews.com –– BEIRUT: Lebanese politician Walid Jumblatt announced his sudden resignation as the head of the Progressive Socialist Party on Thursday. A prominent Druze leader, Jumblatt led a party that has held a pivotal position in Lebanese political life since its establishment in 1949. In his announcement, Jumblatt called for a general election conference on June 25, per the provisions of the party’s constitution and internal regulations. He entrusted the general secretariat with completing the necessary preparations, including issuing relevant notifications regarding nomination requests and withdrawal deadlines, and all conditions related to the electoral process. Additionally, the secretariat will prepare lists of conference members and send out invitations. Jumblatt’s decision is rare as leaders typically do not voluntarily step down from their positions. Most leaders who participated in the Lebanese civil war continued to hold political positions they assumed after the war. Jumblatt inherited the party’s leadership from his father, Kamal Jumblatt, who was assassinated on March 16, 1977. He led the party during the darkest stages of the Lebanese civil war.

Currently, the Progressive Socialist Party is represented in the Lebanese parliament by the Democratic Gathering bloc, headed by Jumblatt’s son, MP Taymour Jumblatt, and consisting of nine MPs. Taymour will likely assume the presidency of the Progressive Socialist Party through elections. In 2017, on the commemoration of Kamal Jumblatt, the founder of the Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt took the symbolic step of handing over the leadership mantle to his son by donning the abaya (traditional garment) for him. This was a social, followed by a political gesture signifying the gradual transfer of the Druze leadership to his son in 2022. In recent weeks, there have been reports of differences of opinion between Walid Jumblatt and his son Taymour regarding the approach to electing the next president.

Beirut (AFP) – A Lebanese judge has banned the country’s central bank governor Riad Salameh from travelling, days after Beirut received an Interpol Red Notice following a French arrest warrant, a judicial official said Wednesday. Salameh has been the target of a series of judicial investigations both at home and abroad on allegations including embezzlement, money laundering, fraud and illicit enrichment, which he denies. French investigators suspect that during his three decades as central bank chief, Salameh misused public funds to accumulate real estate and banking assets concealed through a complex and fraudulent financial network.

On Wednesday, judge Imad Qabalan questioned Salameh and “decided to release him pending investigation, ban him from travelling, and confiscate his Lebanese and French passports”, the official told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media. Activists say the travel ban on the central bank chief helps shield him from being brought to justice abroad — and from potentially bringing down others in Lebanon’s entrenched political class. “The Lebanese judiciary, with the exception of a few judges, has shown that it is not independent. It is biased for politicians who steer it the way they want,” charged lawyer and activist Karim Daher. “The corrupt Lebanese regime… has no interest in Salameh being tried abroad and spilling the beans” about the political class’s financial activities, he told AFP.

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by LBCI news  — Jean Abboud, the President of the Association of Travel and Tourism Agents in Lebanon, confirmed that “2023 is witnessing a significant positive push in terms of the number of visitors to Lebanon, as the indicators suggest that 2023 will be better than 2022 regarding the tourism sector.” “Preliminary estimations indicate the […]