Forces of Change MP Halimé El Kaakour. (Reuters/Emilie Madi)
BEIRUT — Forces of Change MP Halimé El Kaakour criticized MPs’ decision in Parliament Tuesday not to approve an expedited law proposal that would consider Line 29, rather than Line 23, as delimiting Lebanon’s maritime border with Israel, asking via her Twitter account, “where is the sovereignty and the resistance?”
Here’s what we know:
• An expedited status law proposal is a suggested law that the parliament discusses whether or not it should be worked on at the given point in time. If the expedited status law is approved, it is sent to the parliamentary committees for discussion and voting, and then, if it is approved at committee level, it is passed to the general assembly to be voted on. If the expedited status law does not pass in Parliament, the law is dropped — as happened Tuesday with the proposed law under which line 29 would be considered the limit of Lebanon’s maritime border. Under the decree presently in force, Lebanon claims as its exclusive maritime economic zone a smaller geographic area demarcated by Line 23.
• “When the vote was put in order to pass the law demarcating the borders of the regional and southern waters and the exclusive economic zone in the south in order to defend Line 29, only 13 opposition MPs voted on it along with Osama Saad, Abdul Rahman Al-Bizri and Hassan Murad,” Kaakour said in a tweet.
• Tensions have risen between Israel and Lebanon since 5 June when a vessel operated by London-based Energean arrived off the coast to develop a gas field which Israel says is part of its exclusive economic zone but which Lebanon says falls within the waters contested by the two states.
• MP Melhem Khalaf, speaking on behalf of the 13 opposition MPs, had called on the executive authority to “instantaneously and without any stalling — we are talking within hours, not days or weeks — amend the Decree No. 6433 of 2011 and affirm Line 29 instead of 23, which was decided on without referring to any legal provisions,” adding that not doing so would be “questionable.”
• Line 29, adds 1,430 square kilometers to the country’s maritime borders which would partially encompass the Karish field.