Gebran Bassil, the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, delivers a speech during his party's annual fundraising dinner on March 15, 2024. (Credit: Tayyar.org)
BEIRUT — Gebran Bassil, the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, called on Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai “to gather the leaders" of the main Lebanese Christian parties "and raise its voice against the deliberate exclusion faced by the Christian component" of the Lebanese politics, "starting from the presidency of the republic to the lowest customs officer in the state,” during the annual fundraising dinner for the party on Friday night.
In the shadow of the presidential vacuum, the caretaker government is required to limit itself to the management of current affairs; however, Najib Mikati's cabinet has already met several times to adopt a series of measures, including several related to the economic crisis and to the appointment of officials.
Bassil and the FPM have fiercely opposed these cabinet meetings, and the party's affiliated ministers have boycotted them.
In February, Bassil threatened to present a parliamentary petition against the caretaker prime minister before the Supreme Council, the body responsible for judging presidents and ministers, after the cabinet appointed Druze officer Hassan Audi as chief of staff without any green light from caretaker Defense Minister Maurice Slim.
Rai has criticized on several occasions the cabinet's meetings and what Bkirki, along with the FPM and Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces consider an"overstep" of Mikati's prerogatives.
Bassil called on Bkirki to "issue the invitation" to such a meeting, even if some components might "refuse to heed its call."
Bkirki's "responsibility is to issue the invitation, and whoever does not respond bears the responsibility for his absence and exclusion before history and the people,” he said.
Along with Bassil's FPM, the main components of the Christian political stage include the Lebanese Forces and the Marada Movement. The leaders of both these parties, respectively, Samir Geagea and Sleiman Frangieh, are fierce opponents of Bassil.
The FPM leader stressed that an action plan should also be immediately implemented in the country, and this should include a plan “to face the economic and political crises in the country and to confront the series of government crimes against the Christian component,” as well as pressure to implement the Taif Agreement, which ended the Lebanese Civil War.
Several aspects of the Taif Agreement, notably the creation of a senate, to be established after the abolition of confessional politics, administrative decentralization and the disarming of all militias, whether Lebanese or not, have yet to be implemented.
‘We support the resistance but Lebanon can’t support the Palestinians alone’
Bassil also said that his party did not “withdraw from the understanding with Hezbollah" but that the alliance between the two “needs development, which hasn't happened yet."
According to him, Hezbollah "left the agreement when it abandoned the principle of building a state, the partnership with FPM and broke the ceiling of protecting Lebanon."
The alliance between the two parties, initially sealed in 2006 in the Mar Mikhail agreements, has been under strain in recent months. Tensions began after Hezbollah supported Sleiman Frangieh's candidacy for the presidential election. And since Hezbollah entered active conflict with Israel in southern Lebanon on Oct. 8, Bassil has again raised his voice against his former ally, criticizing, among other things, Hezbollah's policy of "uniting the fronts" of the resistance against Israel.
Bassil clarified that the FPM “did not change its position and still supports resistance against Israel and terrorism as long as the Lebanese Army is not capable of carrying out this mission alone,” stressing that “the liberation of Palestine is not solely Lebanon's responsibility but primarily the responsibility of Palestinians.”
He said, "We and the Arabs are helping, each according to their capabilities. Lebanon has paid a lot and still provides the best of its resistant youth. Lebanon's supportive stance, especially among Christians, is essential because” Israeli leaders “are carrying out genocide and ethnic cleansing” and trying to portray it as a “Muslim-Jewish conflict.”
Bassil emphasized that Lebanon “cannot remain neutral in the conflict with Israel, but it can practice neutrality regarding conflicts that harm it.”
Over 200 Hezbollah soldiers have been killed since the fighting erupted between the group and the Israeli army, as well as almost 50 civilians in south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.