President Joseph Aoun did not surprise Hezbollah when, in his latest appearance marking the first anniversary of assuming the presidency, he addressed three points directly related to the future of its weapons north of the Litani River.

This was especially clear when he affirmed that "the functional role of these weapons ceased once the ceasefire agreement took effect, turning them into a burden on those who carry and hold onto them, and on Lebanon as a whole," noting that diplomacy is the only available option to secure rights and ensure future protection for the country.

The party had expected that the presidency, in the phase following the government’s announcement that the mission of exclusive weapons south of the Litani had ended, would adopt rhetoric similar to what was said, based on its reading of the presidency’s performance in recent weeks. Even so, Al-Manar TV (Hezbollah's affiliated channel) still broadcast the interview. The party also avoided issuing any direct response to the president’s remarks, which it considered provocative to its base and unprecedentedly blunt, especially when he called on the party to "act with reason."

And since the party had already decided to avoid "confrontation and rupture" with the presidency and to deal with it "on a case-by-case basis," it followed two methods for an indirect response:

The first was leaving it to experts and elite figures in its circle to dismantle the president’s statements and reply indirectly.

In this context, researcher Houssam Matar from the Advisory Studies Center posted the following on his page: "My initial impression is that the president did not prepare himself for the interview. He is the president of a country engaged in negotiations with a hostile, aggressive, and occupying entity, yet he appears in the middle of negotiations with a surrender-like approach, as if we are simply relying on the mercy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The first condition for a state to defend its citizens is that it must be able to manage the conflict according to a strategy formulated within a security-political framework, and that state officials speak according to this strategy. Whoever hears you (Mr. President) would think that Lebanon has been attacking Israel since 1948. While you say the state protects us, you then say in the next sentence that we have no option except diplomacy. A state that wants to protect me does not speak so openly about its own incapacity and about having no options."

The second method was for party figures and spokesmen to stress that "it no longer has room to offer further concessions in the area between the rivers (the Litani and Zahrani rivers in southern Lebanon) without obtaining guarantees that would halt the aggression, ensure the withdrawal of the occupying forces from the five hills, and allow displaced residents to return to the frontline border towns."

Sources connected to the party note that during the first year of the current term, differences between Aoun and the party surfaced, particularly when the president made statements about the future of the weapons that the party viewed as negative at the time. However, according to those sources, these earlier positions "did not reach this current level of negativity, which was evident in his latest appearance, especially when he spoke of the need to disavow these weapons in the past, present, and future, as quickly as possible, because they have become a heavy burden on one hand, and because keeping them now prevents safely proceeding on the path of diplomacy."

It is no secret that the party bases its response to these remarks on another argument, saying that if its weapons failed to provide protection for those who carry them and for the country in general, then did the weapon of diplomacy, which the presidency brandished from its earliest days, succeed in stopping the daily Israeli aggression against Lebanon, its people, and its land, and in ensuring the return of the displaced to their homes in the 16 border villages, despite everyone acknowledging that the party fully adhered the terms of the ceasefire agreement and did not fire a single shot?

Accordingly, those sources recall the party’s position that "such repeated internal attacks on the party’s weapons serve as an incentive for Israel to continue its aggressions on Lebanese territory."

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Annahar