Joseph Aoun criticized for promises made to Imam Moussa Sadr's family

BEIRUT — President Joseph Aoun, in his second week in office, promised family members of Amal Movement founder and prominent Lebanese Shiite cleric Imam Moussa Sadr that he would continue the work to unearth the truth surrounding his disappearance in 1978 in Libya. News of his conversation with Sadr's family on Tuesday received a vigorous response online, with many people calling on the new president to redefine his priorities as head of state in a country in crisis, where issues and unresolved cases have been accumulating for years.

“The work will continue to shed light on the disappearance” of Imam Sadr, Aoun promised in his meeting with Rabab Sadr, the charismatic scholar's sister, accompanied by her four sons, as well as Maliha and Sadreddine Sadr, two of Moussa Sadr's children, at the Baabda Palace. A statement later released by the palace said that Aoun had expressed to Sadr's family his respect for the disappeared imam, “especially his constant calls ... to keep Lebanon out of conflicts.”

Imam Sadr went missing during an official visit to the Libyan capital in 1978 with his two companions, Sheikh Mohammad Yaacoub and journalist Abbas Badreddine. Lebanon has been pressing Libya for the truth surrounding their fates ever since.

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“Are you kidding or what? Please revise your priorities. The country is bankrupt and collapsed. Stop making such stupid statements,” a one X user wrote on Tuesday in response to Aoun's promises. “You would be better off working to return the stolen deposits,” another wrote, referring to the deposits blocked in Lebanese banks since 2019.

“The port investigation is infinitely more urgent,” the user said, in reference to the double explosion at the Beirut port on Aug. 4, 2020, and the freezing of the investigation under the pressure of Hezbollah.

“President Aoun would do better to work on the country's development, disarm Hezbollah, and the monopoly of weapons in the hands of the army, as he promised during his inauguration,” another post reads.

This is not the first time Joseph Aoun has shown his admiration for Moussa Sadr. A few days after his election, and while receiving a delegation from the Higher Shiite Council at Baabda on Jan. 14, Aoun quoted Moussa Sadr several times, praising the merits of the cleric “who tried to keep Lebanon away from conflicts because the country does not have the capacity to face them.”

'The quagmire'

Tuesday’s meetings at Baabda were also marked by a visit from former President Amine Gemayel, with highly political overtones, made evident in a statement published afterward: “The president will have the role of saving us from the quagmire in which we are drowning," Gemayel said. "Hezbollah and the Amal Movement cannot continue as in the past, the circumstances in the country having changed ... It is in Hezbollah's interest to return to the fold of the state.” Aoun himself did not publish any comments after this meeting.

In response to this particular visit, commenters online noted that Aoun did not address the assassination of Pierre Gemayel, Amine Gemayel's son, shot dead in 2006 while driving his car in Jdeideh. Syria and its allies in Lebanon were accused of being behind this assassination, at a time when the country was experiencing a wave of attacks of this manner.

“The president (...) praises a man killed for siding with the wrong Iranian Islamists," a post on X reads. "[Moussa Sadr] was as Iranian as Nasrallah, but the Islamic branch he supported lost. [Aoun] met with the family of Pierre Gemayel who was assassinated for defending a free and sovereign Lebanon, but he did not mention an investigation into his murder. How to analyze that?”