Lebanon s national currency has collapsed further on Monday, worsening inflation and people s desperation (photo: AP)
The diplomatic crisis between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon is far from over. On Tuesday, Lebanon’s Minister of Agriculture Abbas Hassan added salt to injury when he said that the war in Yemen must end regardless of who the winner is. Former lebanese information minister George Kurdahi had tackled the same issue, which prompted Riyadh to ban Lebanese imports and induced his resignation earlier this month.
In an attempt to reconcile relations, French President Emmanuel Macron embarked on a tour to the Gulf. In Saudi Arabia he held talks with Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman and called Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
Macron said on Saturday that France and Saudi Arabia were committed to Lebanon, despite Saudi Arabia’s uneasiness with Iran’s sway over the small Mediterranean country. Crown Prince Bin Salman relayed “a clear message that Saudi Arabia and France want to be fully committed,” he said. “We want to commit ourselves to supporting the Lebanese people and therefore do everything possible to ensure that trade and economic reopening can take place,” Macron told reporters in remarks before departing the Kingdom. “We also want the [Lebanese] government to be able to work in a normal way and therefore to meet as soon as possible, and to carry out useful reforms.”
This “important step” didn’t have any positive impact on Lebanon. Toni Nissi, the president of the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, a pro-democracy NGO, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the press release of the meeting held between Bin Salman and Macron expressed positive feelings towards this small country. This concurs with the international opinion regarding resolving Lebanon’s crisis and how they are searching for ways for the Lebanese government to comply with international agreements, laws and decisions in Resolutions 1559 and 1701. These were taken by the UN Security Council and they should be applying them totally for the credibility of Lebanon in the international community. According to Nissi, the resignation of Kurdahi isn’t enough for them, what is needed is the application of the whole Lebanese government’s commitment towards the GCC countries in terms of not exporting drugs to them; the army alone should be handling weapons and the security of Lebanon and not use the country as a platform for any armed conflict in any Arab countries, nor be involved in the Yemen War against them. Nissi says that all that was mentioned in the press release of the meeting between Bin Salman and Macron isn’t feasible in terms of reforms to obtain loans from the IMF, since the Shiite group Hizbullah and its ally Amal are imposing their control on political life and blocking any steps forward.
The result of the meeting between Bin Salman and Macron has not had any impact on Hizbullah’s vision for Lebanon or the Middle East, according to the Lebanese writer Kassem Kassir, since for this Shiite group their arms are sacred and related to the solution of the conflict with Israel. For Kassem, discussing Hizbullah’s arms implies discussions related to the defensive strategy. He assured that this Shiite group doesn’t want any clash between Lebanon and the Arab world and should not be victimising it.
Chadi Nachabe, a political researcher and consultant, feels that the Mikati government is able to manage the Lebanese border and control drug exportation, which are recommendations of the GCC. This positive point, which is feasible, is nonetheless followed by a list of negative and unrealisable ones, like fighting corruption. This doesn’t mean that Lebanon is not part of the common interests of the USA, France, KSA and other countries from the EU, and they do not want any security issues in Lebanon, as he said, because Hizbullah will be the only winner in that situation. Some foreign countries have fears relating to the migration flow should any security problems occur as well.
At the moment Lebanon keeps sending negative signals to the Arab world, the Kingdom of Bahrain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed in a statement, its “regret that the Lebanese capital, Beirut, is hosting a press conference of hostile members for the purpose of broadcasting and promoting abusive and malicious allegations against the Kingdom of Bahrain.” The ministry added that “an official protest memorandum has been sent to the General Secretariat of the Arab League in this regard, which includes the Kingdom of Bahrain’s denunciation of this unfriendly step by the Lebanese side.” They called on the Lebanese government to “prevent such reprehensible practices that aim at offending the Kingdom of Bahrain, contradicting the most basic diplomatic norms and are inconsistent with the brotherly relations that bind the two brotherly peoples.”
Meanwhile, the dollar rate is still rising and humanitarian conditions are growing worse with no political or economic solutions in sight.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 16 December, 2021 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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