US Sanctions on Syria Leave Hezbollah More Isolated in Lebanon

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By Nisan Ahmado -- voanews.com -- WASHINGTON - New U.S. sanctions targeting the Syrian government appear to also undermine Hezbollah in Lebanon. Experts say the measures are alienating Hezbollah from its political allies in Lebanon and weakening its usage of state institutions to assist the Syrian regime. The sanctions, introduced on June 17 and known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, have been described by the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah as an “economic war” that aims at “starving both Syria and Lebanon." He has called on the Lebanese government to ignore them. While the sanctions may not be devastating for Hezbollah, they could deter other parties in Lebanon’s governing coalition from following the Iran-sponsored group’s wish to improve ties to Bashar al-Assad’s administration, according to Hanin Ghaddar, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute. “Hezbollah has been calling the Lebanese government to normalize Lebanon’s relations with the Assad regime,” Ghaddar told VOA. But, he said, none of Hezbollah’s allies “wants to challenge Caesar Act, especially when there are negotiations going on with the international community to salvage the country from its devastating economic crisis.” Hezbollah has been classified by the U.S. as a terrorist organization since 1997. The group is sanctioned under the 2014 Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act, which prevents entities associated with Hezbollah from gaining access to international financial and logistics networks and blocks its ability to fund global terrorist activities. The U.S. Treasury earlier this year announced further sanctions, blacklisting 15 Hezbollah-affiliated entities in Lebanon.

Political control

 Lokman Slim, a Beirut-based analyst, told VOA that Hezbollah has been working for years to strengthen its infiltration of the Lebanese state and army by weaving a network of alliances across the Lebanese multi-sectarian spectrum. The group’s control over the political scene in Lebanon reached its peak in 2016, when it successfully backed Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian and head of the Free Patriotic Movement party, to become president. However, the group’s allies are now starting to distance themselves from Hezbollah to guarantee their political survival, said Slim. “When Hezbollah’s main ally (Shia) speaker Nabih Berri champions the defense of the banking sector, and when voices from within the Free Patriotic Movement, the party of President General Michel Aoun, start calling into question the feasibility of blindly following Hezbollah, and when Patriarch Rahi, the highest Christian authority in Lebanon, calls on the U.N. to help Lebanon assert its neutrality, we can’t say that Hezbollah is in its glory days,” he said.

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Top Lebanese cleric Al-Rahi renews attack on Hezbollah

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khazen.org offers all its support to our Patriarch Cardinal Al-Rahi and stands completely with the initiative of our Patriarch the only step that can save Lebanon from complete collapse. 

By NAJIA HOUSSARI -- arabnews.com -- BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab was fighting to save his job on Saturday after Maronite Patriarch Bechara Al-Rahi repeated his attack on Hezbollah’s role in the government. The row began when Al-Rahi said the US, the EU and the Gulf states were reluctant to help Lebanon out of its economic crisis because they did not want to assist an administration controlled by the Iran-backed group. After meeting the prime minister on Saturday, the patriarch said: “Our country is a democratic country and everyone expresses their opinion, but we cannot live in a country where some people pull horses backward and some pull them forward. “We said nothing new when we demanded Lebanon’s neutrality from regional conflicts. Lebanon was open to all countries, East and West, except Israel, which occupied our land. Our identity is positive and constructive neutrality.”

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Dialogue Needed over Issue of Lebanon's 'Neutrality' in Region, Says PM Diab

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by english.aawsat.com -- Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab said on Saturday dialogue was needed over the country’s stance on regional conflicts, after meeting with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai who has urged Lebanon to remain neutral to help it out of its crisis. The country is in the grip of a financial meltdown, raising concerns for its stability, and is badly in need of foreign aid. Hopes of salvation through an IMF deal have retreated with the government hamstrung by the conflicting agendas of sectarian leaders. Rai has made several comments this month that were widely interpreted as criticism of both the Iran-backed Hezbollah party and its ally President Michel Aoun, both backers of Diab’s cabinet. “The issue of neutrality is a political one ... and it needs deep dialogue between all the political sides in Lebanon,” Diab said after meeting with Rai on Saturday. “We are fundamentally a neutral country...and in the end, our salvation is in our neutrality,” Rai told local broadcaster LBCI later on Saturday.

Major Beirut medical centre AUH lays off hundreds as crisis bites

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by middleeastmonitor.com -- Zawqan Abdelkhalek, a nurse at the American University of Beirut’s (AUB) medical centre since 2012, was laid off on Friday along with hundreds of colleagues as even hospitals buckle under the weight of Lebanon’s economic collapse. “I have a baby daughter, I need to get her food and water and pay for her vaccines,” the 29-year-old said. A currency crash means his pension in Lebanese pounds is now worth just around $500, he said. He blamed the ruling elite for daily power cuts, skyrocketing prices and pushing the country to the brink. "You can’t do anything anymore … who’s hiring today? This is where they got us, and now they tell you ‘go plant crops and buy candles, you’ll be fine’, while we just move backwards" he said.

The AUB, one of the country’s oldest universities and a regional medical hub, did not respond to requests for comment. Local media and employees said the institution laid off more than 500 workers, mainly in administrative and nursing departments. Its president, Fadlo Khuri, had said there would be staff cuts as the financial meltdown and the coronavirus pandemic hit revenues. He told Reuters in May the private institution faced its biggest threat since its foundation in 1866. While Lebanon produces little hard economic data, businesses have shut at a rapid rate. At least 220,000 jobs in the private sector were shed between October and February, a survey by research firm InfoPro showed, with the figures only expected to get worse. Mahmoud Edelbe, a maintenance worker at AUB who also lost his job on Friday, said his monthly income was only around $100 since the Lebanese pound, known as the lira, lost nearly 80% of its value on the parallel market. “Are we the burden on the university?” he said near dozens of ex-employees crowding the hospital entrance. “We get the short end of the stick, we who have nobody to back us or help us.”

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'We're on the road to collapse': Inside Lebanon's crippling economic crisis

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By Abbie Cheeseman -- nbcnews -- BEIRUT — Mohammad Kekhia stares into his nearly empty fridge. His 14-year-old son, Hassan, stands beside him, peering in hopefully. To Hassan’s disappointment, his father closes the door without retrieving any food. There is not enough. Not if they want to have anything left for tomorrow. “We are eating once every two days if we are lucky,” Kekhia says. Lebanon is grappling with its most severe economic crisis in modern history. The lira has lost over 80 percent of its value since October. Unemployment is soaring. Prices are skyrocketing. Hunger is spreading across this tiny Mediterranean country, known worldwide for its cuisine.

The collapse of the Lebanese currency has had knock-on effects in neighboring Syria, which has long used Lebanon as a route around sanctions. And the crisis has left Lebanon, a strategic country regionally, open to intervention from other countries as a bailout from the International Monetary Fund grows more unlikely. Relations have fractured further with the U.S, which is a backer of the army and some parties in Lebanon, as well as the largest donor to the IMF. Hezbollah — an Iranian proxy officially designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., and a political group with unrivaled influence in government — has claimed Lebanon’s crippling dollar shortage results from a U.S conspiracy. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is advocating for Lebanon to “look east” rather than west to get out its economic quagmire, setting its sights on investment from China. Inside Lebanon, the issues involve not East or West but the daily struggle to get by. In the northern city of Tripoli, Kekhia had been living a basic life with his wife and their three children. They have lived for the past seven years in a single room with a tin roof. But now they’re battling hunger and deep poverty. “Yesterday, our neighbors gave us a bag of bread. … We can’t even manage that ourselves,” said Kekhia, who used to work in construction. “Every two days, I go out and try to gather some olives or some labneh [thick yoghurt] so that the children can eat a little.” Three months behind on rent, out of gas, stealing electricity from a neighbor to power their one lightbulb and the fridge, he and his family are desperate. They can no longer afford Hassan’s epilepsy medication.

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Lebanon's Christian patriarch blames Hezbollah for crisis

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by reuters -- Hezbollah should take the blame for Lebanon's economic collapse, the country's top Christian cleric said in an interview with Vatican Radio this week, in his most direct criticism yet of the Iran-backed Shiite movement. Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai's comments marked his strongest intervention in Lebanon's crisis, which is seen as the worst threat to its stability since the 1975-90 civil war. Mr Rai blamed Hezbollah's role in government for closing off a vital source of aid from western and Gulf Arab states. "That's why we're paying the price," the report quoted him as saying. Lebanon's financial meltdown has crashed the currency, leaving many poor and hungry. The crisis is rooted in decades of state corruption and waste by the sectarian elite in power since the civil war. In his last two sermons, Mr Rai made comments widely interpreted as criticism of Hezbollah and its ally President Michel Aoun. Both back the current government. Mr Rai carries weight as head of the Maronite church, the Christian community from which Lebanon's president must be drawn under its sectarian power-sharing system.

On Wednesday, after meeting with Mr Aoun, the patriarch said his sermons had been misunderstood and denied he had been pointing specifically to Hezbollah. But in the comments published by Vatican Radio, he said Hezbollah "sidelines the state, and declares war and peace wherever it chooses" – mentioning Syria and other conflicts in the region. The interview dated July 15 was picked up by major Lebanese broadcasters and newspapers in the past day. Hezbollah's opponents say its links to Iran pushes away the mainly Gulf Arab states that once helped Lebanon. Saad Hariri, the former prime minister, who was a Western ally and traditionally aligned with the Gulf, met with the papal nuncio in Lebanon on Thursday, his office said. Archbishop Joseph Spiteri said they had "a frank conversation" about the "historic role of Lebanon in the region, linked to the idea of neutrality, of disassociation, being equidistant from all regional powers".