Elie Mahfoud during his press conference. (Screenshot from the Lebanondebate website)
Following the complaint filed against Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem — specifically for "incitement to sectarian strife, armed insurrection, rebellion against the state and violation of the constitutional principle reserving the decision of war and peace for the state” — after his remarks in a speech delivered on Aug. 15, one of the plaintiffs, Elie Mahfoud, an ally of the Lebanese Forces, called on the Shiites of Lebanon to “return to the fold of the state.”
The complaint, presented to the head of the Court of Cassation Jamal Hajjar, alongside Georges Adwan and Georges Okais, members of parliament from the Lebanese Forces, and Ashraf Rifi, a longtime Hezbollah opponent and MP for Tripoli, accused Qassem of brandishing the threat of “domestic strife” in response to international pressure and the Lebanese government’s determination to remove Hezbollah’s weapons.
During a press conference held Thursday at the Gabriel Hotel, Mahfoud urged the Shiite to rally to the recommendations of Imam Musa Sadr, who “affirmed that weapons must serve the homeland, and that the army should be the guarantor and protector,” as well as those of Imam Mohammad Mehdi Shamseddine, who “clearly called for the state’s monopoly over arms.”
“Imam Sadr taught us that national unity is our most powerful weapon,” Mahfoud said, stressing that “Imam Shamseddine insisted that the Shiite community must be at the heart of the state, not outside of it.”
“We believe in full partnership with you, particularly since you are a cornerstone of Lebanon’s existence,” Mahfoud added. “Weapons outside the state have disfigured and destroyed the villages of southern Lebanon,” arguing that “surrendering these weapons is not a capitulation or a betrayal ... but an act of loyalty to the martyrs who defended the homeland.”
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.
Humanitarian convoy reaches Rmeish, Ain Ibl, Dibil despite obstacles
