Parliamentary committee gives green light to draft military conscription bill

BEIRUT — The parliamentary Defense Committee, chaired by MP Jihad al-Samad, approved a draft law on Tuesday seeking to count military service as part of public sector employees' years of service.

In comments to L'Orient Today, Samad called for the reinstatement of military conscription, which was abolished in 2007 under public pressure, with critics citing lost income for conscriptees and the high cost on public institutions of running the program.

In a statement cited by the state-run National News Agency, the committee also said it had examined a draft law concerning the "legalization of military training," which it forwarded to the Ministry of Defense for feedback within three months.

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Samad, MP for Dennieh, in northern Lebanon, said that he is waiting for approval from the army's commander in chief, General Rodolph Haykal, and the Ministry of Defense. “They have been given three months to respond,” Samad explained.

Introduced in 1992, two years after the Civil War officially ended, one-year military service aimed to “unite the children of the Republic, who were, in this way, supposed to learn to know each other,” Samad said. He sees the committee's recent move as part of a broader need to “support the army, whose responsibilities are increasing every day.”

The issue of reinstating conscription resurfaced last March, when the Lebanese Army was prompted to increase its numbers amid security challenges with neighboring countries, whether to ease tensions at the border with Syria or to massively deploy south of the Litani, in accordance with the November cease-fire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel.

In spring 2024, Tripoli MP Haidar Nasser notably submitted a draft law calling for the return of conscription, in the name of the necessity of “national cohesion” and “the formation of national consciousness.”

Last March, General Elie Mezher, spokesperson for the Lebanese Army, claimed that it was “not a question of reinstating compulsory military service today,” citing a lack of funds as the primary reason.

Retired General Khalil Helou explained that the number of soldiers brought by military service would actually be counterproductive, as a young person trained for six months could not perform a delicate defense mission at the border.