Can Lebanon survive internal clashes?

No one has a definitive answer to this question, given the major contradiction between the authority’s choices on one side and Hezbollah’s decision on the other.

The executive authority has chosen the option of direct negotiation with Israel under the sponsorship of the United States, and President Joseph Aoun, as the primary person responsible, has launched a national mobilization campaign to defend this choice.

An intensive advertising campaign has spread across Lebanon's main roads, carrying slogans promoting the solution that Aoun sees as the only way out for Lebanon, namely the diplomacy of negotiation!

In contrast, Hezbollah has raised the level of political confrontations internally and militarily in the south to high levels, announcing its rejection of direct negotiations and diplomatic solutions, and attacking Lebanon's ambassador in Washington, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, for praising President Donald Trump, considering that the ceasefire conditions in Lebanon, as announced by the U.S. State Department, were imposed on Lebanon and accepted by no one!

Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Sheikh Naim Qassem, in a written statement, went further in reinforcing confrontational rhetoric, accusing the Lebanese authorities of “working side by side with the Israeli enemy against its own people.”

Practically, and to date, the ceasefire has not completely collapsed. The Israeli army remains restricted in its movements outside the southern borders, despite political and public pressure to lift the restrictions and return to the “Dahiya Doctrine,” which was frozen by Donald Trump earlier.

However, the challenges Hezbollah poses to the authority and its insistence on portraying it as incapable of committing to any promise it might make in direct negotiations could, at any moment, break the prohibitions and return the situation to what it was before the Trump intervention in the Lebanese-Israeli path!

In proving the authority’s incapacity, Qassem said in his written statement, imitating the style of the new Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who is out of sight: “Let the authority figures know that their performance will not benefit Lebanon nor themselves, for what the Israeli-American enemy wants from them is not in their hands.”

The party does not stand alone in this battle, as the “Quds Force,” according to its commander Ismail Qaani, is focusing its efforts at this stage on supporting it.

The state's options

In light of that, what options are available to the Lebanese authority, amid Hezbollah’s declared confrontation with it and its insistence that it retract all steps it has taken, whether regarding its weapons or its push for a ceasefire and efforts to reduce the intensity of Israeli strikes?

The traditional, simple, and obvious answer is that the authority must respond firmly to the “coup” by the party, declare it rebellious against legitimacy, and begin taking all necessary measures to implement “even its most modest decisions,” meaning making the governorate of Beirut a demilitarized city free of militants!

However, the authority hesitates to take deterrent steps, fearing a confrontation with Hezbollah and its allies and supporters, and this extends to all other Lebanese regions.

The complex answer is for the authority to let Hezbollah declare whatever it wants and engage in a war lacking legitimate cover with Israel, while it continues, vigorously, direct negotiations with Israel under American sponsorship.

This appears to render Hezbollah unable to impose its will on the state and enter into a tough political conflict with it, so that popular unity with it is questioned on the grounds that it subjects them to exorbitant costs for a war that only the state will end using the diplomatic means available to it.

Especially since many returnees to their homes have had to relocate again, not due to Israeli warnings, but because of the terror Hezbollah is causing by setting up its missile platforms near their homes!

It is clear that the authority, which refuses war with Israel, avoids confrontation with Hezbollah and adopts a third option, but everyone is asking: what can it do if Hezbollah shifts from political opposition to the use of force?

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