Bassil: True peace leads to normalization with Israel

The head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM, Aounist), Gebran Bassil, said that “true peace leads to normalization with Israel,” as Lebanon continues negotiations with the Hebrew state with the participation of a civil party in order to put an end to cease-fire violations established in November 2024.

“Peace based on rights and justice is the one that leads to lasting normalization and defines how peoples can coexist. True peace leads to normalization with Israel under the heading of protecting the rights of peoples,” the Maronite leader said in an interview Saturday with LBCI. He also noted that Ambassador Simon Karam, Lebanon’s negotiator in the cease-fire committee known as the “mechanism,” is a “respectable person who does not act on his own initiative.”

Bassil also said he “supports what President Aoun is doing in the current circumstances, because he has no other options.” But he did not hesitate to take a jab at the head of state, judging that he “is trying to buy time while caught between internal problems and external pressures.” “I do not accept the logic of capitulation, whatever the cost. This logic makes us lose our freedom, and we did not resist Syrian tutelage for 15 years only to accept another tutelage today,” he warned.

Gebran Bassil further criticized the Lebanese government’s approval of the Hezbollah disarmament plan. “What happened on August 5 and 7 was not the elaboration of a plan, but rather an American document negotiated between the American envoy and some authorities in power, which was approved by the government despite the objections of part of the Lebanese,” he stressed.

The FPM leader also said that “Hezbollah must today choose whether it is Lebanese or Iranian,” highlighting that “the first problem with the Shiite party is the question of arms.” The former Hezbollah leader “Hassan Nasrallah said that arms are a burden for us and that, when we can get rid of them, we will, and the decision belongs to Iran and the party,” Bassil recalled. He expressed support for the state’s monopoly over weapons and “the handover of these weapons to the Lebanese army so it can use them, or the United States providing arms to Lebanon,” but warned that “if a deal were to take place between weapons and political gains, we would be facing a major betrayal of Lebanon.”

On the regional front, Gebran Bassil stated that “we cannot see what happened last December 8 and the images of Syrians in the streets without being afraid,” saying that the fall of the Assad regime was “orchestrated.” And if that is not the case, it is a sign, a message, or a warning of what could happen,” he added.