By Najia Houssari — arabnews.com — BEIRUT: Patriarch Bechara Al-Rai has praised Christian politicians as they united around a presidential candidate, in a move that could end a nearly eight-month power vacuum in Lebanon. His blessings during Sunday sermon came after opposition parliamentary blocs agreed to support the nomination of Jihad Azour, a former minister who is the director of the International Monetary Fund’s Middle East and Central Asia department. He is expected to contest the presidency against Suleiman Frangieh, the preferred candidate of Hezbollah, the Amal Movement and their allies. Al-Rahi also sent Bishop Paul Abdel Sater on Sunday to meet Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah as part of “dialogue with non-Christian forces, especially Hezbollah, to elect a president for all of Lebanon.” The bishop is expected to continue visiting all political forces this week.

Sunday’s move by the opposition parliamentary blocs follows an announcement by the Free Patriotic Movement on Saturday. There is now agreement between Christian MPs, Change MPs and some independent MPs to nominate Azour after Michel Moawad, an MP, withdrew from the election on Sunday. Some had previously supported Moawad, whom Hezbollah saw as a provocative candidate. The Progressive Socialist Party bloc is due to announce its position on Azour on Tuesday. The decision to back Azour by the FPM, the largest Christian party in parliament, came after its leader Gebran Bassil fell out with Hezbollah after the group’s nomination of Frangieh. “In the event of a call to a presidential election session, the FPM will vote for the agreed-upon name instead of submitting a blank ballot,” he said. Waddah Sadek, an MP, told Arab News that estimates of the opposition indicate that Azour will receive more than 65 votes, which means he would win if a vote went to a second round. “The ball will then be in the court of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who has been delaying the call for an election session since January unless he and his allies secure the election of Frangieh,” he said.

The Associated Press BEIRUT — A son of Libya’s late leader Moammar Gadhafi, who has been held in Lebanon for more than seven years, began a hunger strike Saturday to protest his detention without trial, his lawyer said. Hannibal Gadhafi has been held in Lebanon since 2015 after he was kidnapped from neighboring Syria where he had been living as a political refugee. He was abducted by Lebanese militants demanding information about the fate of a Shiite cleric who went missing in Libya 45 years ago. Gadhafi was later taken by Lebanese authorities and has been held in a Beirut jail without trial.

Attorney Paul Romanos told The Associated Press that his client started the hunger strike Saturday morning and “he is serious and will continue with it until the end.” Romanos did not go into details of the case as he was not authorized to speak about it to the media. Gadhafi issued a statement describing his conditions. “How can a political prisoner be held without a fair trial all these years?” Gadhafi, who is married to a Lebanese woman, wrote in his statement. The Libyan citizen added that now that he is on hunger strike, “those who are treating me unjustly” will be responsible for the results. He added that “the time has come to liberate the law from the hands of politicians.” Romanos said his client suffers from back pain due to being held in a small cell for years without being able to move or exercise.

By The New Arab Staff — Lebanon’s ambassador to France, Rami Adwan, has been investigated for rape and intentional violence following complaints by two former embassy employees, informed sources said Friday confirming an earlier media report. Due to his position, Adwan enjoys diplomatic immunity from prosecution, but the French government urged the Lebanese authorities to lift this and allow him to go on trial. “In view of the seriousness of the facts mentioned, we consider it necessary for the Lebanese authorities to lift the immunity of the Lebanese ambassador in Paris in order to facilitate the work of the French judicial authorities”, the French foreign ministry told AFP late Friday. The first woman, aged 31, filed her complaint in June 2022 for a rape she says was committed in May 2020 in the ambassador’s private apartment, according to sources close to the investigation confirming a Mediapart report.

According to her deposition seen by AFP, she made clear her lack of interest in having sex and that she screamed and burst into tears. The woman, who was working as an editor, had already reported to police in 2020 that Adwan, in his post since 2017, had struck her during an argument in his office. She said she had not filed a complaint because she did not want to “break the life” of the ambassador. According to the complaint, she had a relationship with the ambassador, who carried out “psychological and physical violence with daily humiliations”.

by arabnews.com — LONDON: Their country’s economy may be collapsing around them, but the Lebanese are still the people most likely to treat themselves to a cigar or two, according to recently released statistics. A report from Statista Consumer Insights on 2022 spending habits found that Lebanese spent the most on cigars per capita in […]

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.”