by National News Agency — Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rahi urged officials to stop torturing and manipulating citizens’ feelings and put an end to the approach of obstruction and stalling in regards to the government formation. “Stop tampering with the fate of the homeland and the state, dropping one cabinet line-up after the other, and creating new conditions whenever old ones become dissolved…Put an end to the negativity and obstruction approach and the suicide path,” he said. “We condemn your commitment to liquidate the Lebanese state with its system, charter, historical role and humanitarian and civilized mission,” al-Rahi went on. He added: “It has become clear that you are part of the coup against legitimacy and the state, and that you do not want Lebanon, which was built by fathers and grandfathers, as a land of meeting and dialogue, and that you do not want a central government, but rather you mean to force the people against their will to manage their affairs by themselves, and to make choices that have been avoided for fifty years.”

Al-Rahi renewed the demand for holding an international conference on Lebanon under the auspices of the United Nations in order to salvage the nation by executing the Security Council resolutions that have not yet been put into effect, and fully implementing the Taif Agreement in both spirit and content; declaring Lebanon’s neutrality according to its basic identity, and organizing the return of the displaced Syrians to their country and solving the Palestinian refugee issue. “The only thing that is required of you, political officials, in addition to listening to God’s words, is that you cherish Lebanon and its people, and keep allegiance to it, only to it, and sacrifice your own interests for its sake,” the Patriarch underlined. His words came in his religious sermon this morning, as he presided over Sunday Mass at the summer patriarchal seat in Diman.