The leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil, on June 10, 2024 in Ain al-Tineh. (Photo taken from Gebran Bassil's X account)
BEIRUT — The leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), Gebran Bassil, urged Hezbollah on Tuesday to call for a cease-fire “independently of Gaza” and advocated for the development of a national defense strategy.
“We call on the Resistance to join the Lebanese consensus by calling for a cease-fire and the implementation of Resolution 1701, independently of the events happening in Gaza and the region,” Bassil said. “The party must immediately take part in a national dialogue chaired by the president of the Republic to develop a defense strategy that puts an end to the disputes over its weapons.”
For years, the FPM has been calling for a national defense strategy, an issue that is highly sensitive considering the fact that Hezbollah is armed, the only party to have maintained and developed its arsenal following the Civil War’s end in 1990. This matter constitutes a conflict between various Lebanese political parties. Former President Michel Aoun, founder of the FPM and ally of Hezbollah, had expressed his wish to develop a defense strategy, but eventually, he set it aside after being elected. Lebanon has been without a president since the end of his mandate on Oct. 31, 2021.
Defense strategy and national consensus
Bassil believes the defense strategy should be the result of a national consensus on armament management, not through force, which would “lead to chaos and civil war, in the State’s absence.”
“Any patriot and man of common sense would opt for Resolution 1701 and the defense strategy,” he insisted, adding that there was “no other choice” unless some wanted ”crazy adventures and losing bets.”
Bassil’s proposition toward a cease-fire uses Resolution 1701, drawn up and approved by the U.N. Security Council to end the 2006 war, which stipulates that Hezbollah move north of the Litani River, leaving the southernmost part of the country under the care of the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL peacekeepers.
“Resolution 1701 is adequate to resolve the crisis and does not require any amendment,” the FPM leader said.
Bassil is against Hezbollah’s support front along the southern border, concerned that it could open Lebanon up to “a destructive plot aimed at subjugating the country, imposing a security trusteeship thereon, violating its sovereignty and resources, destroying its infrastructure, monuments and economy, and altering its democratic system and social structure,” he said. Hezbollah announced a support front for Gaza in southern Lebanon on Oct. 8, 2023. According to the Lebanese authorities, more than 3,240 people have been killed since the beginning of the clashes, mostly since September, when Israel launched a massive bombing campaign across southern Lebanon, the Bekaa and Beirut’s southern suburbs.