Free Patriotic Movement leader General Michel Aoun has moved the goalposts again. Speaking after the Change and Reform bloc's meeting on July 28, the inscrutable former soldier declared that Hezbollah should remain armed until Israel recognizes the Palestinians' right of return, a quixotic deadline if ever there was one. "A solution should be found regarding the [Palestinian] right to return," he said, "before anyone calls on us to disarm Hezbollah." He added that "Lebanon must not lose any sources of strength in face of Israel."
Hezbollah's arsenal has long been justified by the liberation of all Lebanese land and the release of Lebanese prisoners from Israeli jails. In fact, meeting those two requirements and then consolidating a national defense strategy "which the Lebanese agree to and subscribe to by assuming its burdens and benefiting from its outcomes," were the conditions for the party's disarmament set forth in Aoun's controversial 2006 Memorandum of Understanding with Hezbollah.
Hizballah's arms were and continue to be an important topic on everyone's agenda. After what happened in May, I’d say the party is looking for a calmer way to coexist with the others. What other way is there? Of course, there is also Hamas way, but look at what happened afterwards, and in Lebanon, you cannot have one group ruling everyone. Long story short. Hizballah is doing its best, for the time being, anyway, to reintegrate into the Lebanese mood. Given time, and pressure from inside and outside, Hizballah's excuses to keep up the arms might be simply unaceptable for all sects, Shia included.
Update.
Israel has warned it intended to put an end to the arms smuggling into Lebanon amid fears that Hizbullah was obtaining anti-aircraft missiles that would “violate the strategic balance” in the Middle East. “Israel will not acquiesce to the continued smuggling of arms,” Haaretz daily quoted the Israeli security cabinet as saying after meeting behind closed doors on Wednesday. Haaretz said that the officials were updated on alleged Syrian transfers of advanced military hardware to Hizbullah, “including air defense systems, in an effort to limit the freedom of operations of the Israeli air force in Lebanon.” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni were alerted about the possibility of Syrian transfer to Hizbullah of more sophisticated weaponry. [Naharnet]
I wonder if this is the calm [relative calm] before the storm.
