| Qatari leader in Lebanon to calm political tensions |
BINT JBEIL Qatar’s emir on Saturday made a visit to south Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold destroyed in a 2006 war with Israel and whose rebuilding the emirate is helping finance.
“Lebanon is still facing many challenges, primarily the choice of its citizens to maintain the nationalism and Arabism of Lebanon,” said the emir, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani.
Lebanon is “a nation that is home to people of all confessions, both Muslim and Christian,” the emir noted at the town of Bint Jbeil, which witnessed some of the fiercest fighting in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Accompanied by President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the emir was greeted by Hezbollah officials in southern Lebanon.
Sheikh Hamad arrived in Lebanon for a three-day visit on Friday, the same day that Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia made an unprecedented joint visit aimed at defusing political tensions.
According to analysts, the landmark joint visit may have helped to ease tensions, but did little to address the crux of the problem in the long-run.
“This is essentially a Saudi blessing for a return to Syrian domination of Lebanon,” said Beirut-based journalist Michael Young.
“I think it will calm domestic tensions for a time,” Young said. “But I also think that the Syrian objective is to build on this so that they can return to a situation that more or less existed before their withdrawal in 2005.”
The visit came with tensions rising after reports of an impending indictment by the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) against Hezbollah members for the assassination of Hariri, father of current Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
“The main message of the joint visit is that the Saudis are legitimising a new role for Syria in Lebanon because there are certain problems that do not lend themselves to peaceful resolution,” said Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut.
“The Saudis made it clear that they may talk to the Americans and postpone the tribunal indictments, but they cannot do away with it because it is in the hands of the international community,” Khashan said.
Hezbollah MP Ali Fayyad on Saturday said the party maintained the hope the Lebanese would “act responsibly” in the decisive weeks to come.
But Young, who is skeptical that the STL will find and try the masterminds behind the Hariri murder, downplayed the likelihood of violence.
Agencies
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