Commentaries

Can Be Saved? Only if Citizens Reinvent Their Society and Avoid a New Civil War

Joseph A. Kéchichian

Ugly returned to Lebanon in early June after the wounding of dozens of protesters who were demanding basic rights, meaningful political and economic reforms, and full-scale accountability in a country where successive leaders had failed to tackle any problem, no matter how trivial. For at least three decades, if not longer, Lebanese politicians routinely vandalized the land, tolerated the rise of a militia that threatened citizens, and demanded that those who were not satisfied emigrate on a more or less permanent basis. The future was bleak, with few prospects for meaningful political or socioeconomic reform.

What was the message that Hizballah and Amal, the two leading Shi‘ah parties, wished to telegraph to the rest of Lebanon’s population after the June 6, 2020, protests? Were the Shi‘ah marchers, who flew Hizballah and flags and chanted “Shi‘ah, Shi‘ah, Shi‘ah” in what was a cry of defiance, anxious to topple the constitution? Why were security forces, whose riot units fired teargas at Martyrs Square in downtown and in Ayn al-Rimanih, a troubled section of the capital city where the 1975–1990 war had started, selective in their responses to confront demonstrators? Was Lebanon on the verge of a new civil war, and were there peaceful alternatives to either reinventing Lebanese society or, according to a scenario that was not far-fetched, were Sunni Muslims and Christians being invited to emigrate at their earliest opportunity, as various social media outlets invited them to?

A New Civil War? Lebanon’s current socioeconomic ordeals, which arose from a combination of poor representation, corruption, and economic stagnation, started long before the October 17, 2019, uprisings that shook the

Can Lebanon Be Saved? Commentaries Only if Citizens Reinvent Their Society and Avoid a New Civil War 1 ruling establishment. At the time, activists called on ordinary citizens to take to the streets and express their disapproval of what was described by leading commentators as the emasculation of an entire nation, an effort that only served to bring down the Sa‘ad Hariri government. Winter and the confinement associated with the Covid-19 Coronavirus discouraged many from remaining in the streets, though the June 6, 2020, rallies were supposed to rekindle the opposition’s agenda and, perhaps, complete the mission that started after October 2019. What the Lebanese demanded then—early parliamentary elections, disassociation from regional conflicts, an end to corruption, and full-scale accountability— confronted fresh refusals from entrenched politicians. Whereas citizens wished to see a genuinely motivated government that could usher in solid reforms, Beirut cherished its farm-like behavior. For every call on the establishment—both secular as well as religious—to act conscientiously and with responsibility, politicians and clerics continued to pretend that the country was their private property, which they could rule with impunity.

Even if most Lebanese were preoccupied with economic woes amid a major health crisis, government officials seemed to have used the period between October 17, 2019, and June 6, 2020, to better prepare themselves, with the ultimate goal of crushing future uprisings. On June 6, protesters were faced by Hizballah and its ally, the Amal Movement, both of which were on the defensive because of a real fear that their iron grip on the state was endangered. Naturally, confrontations occurred, some of which resulted in armed clashes, and while the latter died down, what actually occurred on the ground threatened a renewal of the 1975 civil war. This conflict had been left in abeyance despite the 1990 Ta’if Accords, which necessitated Gargantuan efforts under the expert guidance of the late Saudi minister of foreign affairs, Prince Saud al-Faysal.

No longer simply interested in a change of government after having given Prime Minister a hundred-day opportunity to address some of the grave concerns that Beirut faced, protesters were increasingly demanding a total break with the previous system, since most Lebanese have lost trust in parliament, the presidency, the military, and even the judiciary. Today, the chief petition is for early parliamentary elections followed by an economic rescue plan, given the serious challenges being experienced by the overwhelming majority. Equally important was the exigency that the judiciary become independent, a request that was probably impossible to accomplish given how cleverly the executive and legislative bodies entangled their interests with the men and women who served within the third branch. This knot guaranteed that there would be bias—which was just what the establishment wanted. Of course, other claims were expressed too, including the need to restore stolen funds, to arrest and put corrupt politicians on trial, and to adopt a neutral foreign policy that could shield Lebanon from regional entanglements, but all these were impossible as they necessitated internal consensus, which did not exist. In a land that lacked political accountability and where not a single politician was arrested for any mischief in eons, issuing such stipulations was infantile, even though they satisfied incensed protesters.

Still, Hizballah saw in the ultimatums that angry and desperate marchers tossed at the establishment a veiled threat to remove its coveted weapons, allegedly to deprive it of its competitive edge over other parties. That was why its members pledged that no living creature could take away the group’s

Can Lebanon Be Saved? 2 Only if Citizens Reinvent Their Society and Avoid a New Civil War Commentaries arms now, not in one hundred years, and not even if no longer existed, thereby refuting the very justification for the mercenaries to keep their lethal hardware. Militiamen carrying their weapons roamed the streets on Saturday. June 6, in front of units of Internal Security Forces (ISF) and (LAF), to show their determination and send clear messages to one and all. Although unarmed, antagonistic factions—chiefly group in Ayn al-Rimmanih, a Christian area adjacent to the Hizballah stronghold of Shiyyah—took to the streets and denounced Hasan Nasrallah, the stealthy secretary-general who appears so frequently on television that one cannot help but conclude that he is the real ruler of Lebanon.

Notwithstanding various pretexts that the Lebanese coalesced around “mutual coexistence” (al ‘aysh al- mushtarak), Hizballah militiamen chanted “Shi‘ah, Shi‘ah, Shi‘ah” as they rushed ISF and LAF units, in what most Lebanese perceived to be little more than a sectarian display precisely intended to provoke partisan responses on the other side. To be sure, the ISF and LAF units kept the hordes in check, but the gravity of the situation did not escape politicians who scrambled to retain control, even though the effort may only have postponed an inevitable renewal of the civil war. Of course, Lebanon seldom failed to mobilize warriors on all sides, recruiting men and women who were anxious to fight proxy wars that outside backers were more than happy to finance and supply, but activists who wished to reinvent the system of government did not desire such an outcome. Except for die-hard Hizballah militiamen, few believed that Lebanon’s problems could be resolved in a new war, though many were equally resolute in their goal to end Hizballah’s hegemony since the country was literally on its knees.

Remarkably, concerns over the militia’s bold displays on June 6 terrified both the Speaker, , and , the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), who met a day later to discuss various options. Jumblatt received former Prime Minister Sa‘ad Hariri on June 7 as well, after he and three previous premiers (Najib Miqati, , and ) held an emergency meeting, where they presumably weighed their future decisions. President , a paragon of laissez-faire politics even though his 2006 memorandum of understanding with Hizballah blinded him to ongoing developments, expressed his unease and asked all parties to refrain from mutual provocations.

Regrettably, ISF and LAF leaders too proved their inability to lead, notwithstanding the security organizations’ distinctive abilities to unify the country during the past few years. To be sure, the army was respected by a vast majority of the Lebanese, despite the fact that a large segment of the population was aghast that its leadership was no longer an impartial force. Citizens lost their trust in the LAF after its commander, General , declared on May 21, 2020, that Lebanon was duty-bound to recuperate its Israeli-occupied territories, the Shib‘ah farms, the Kfarshubah Hills, and the northern parts of the village of Ghajar. Joseph Aoun called on the LAF to confront the Israeli enemy’s repeated violations of Lebanese sovereignty, which was eminently fair, and he used Hizballah’s “people- army-resistance” triptych, which was rejected by at least half the Lebanese and that a former army commander and head of state, General Michel Sulaiman, had declared null and void in May 2014. At the time, Michel Aoun replied to the man who had preceded him as president, “This is wrong because without people’s support there is no resistance and without the army, resisting becomes difficult.” However, once again, this denigrated the role of the state that Michel Aoun presumably sought to lead

Can Lebanon Be Saved? Commentaries Only if Citizens Reinvent Their Society and Avoid a New Civil War 3 and Joseph Aoun had sworn to defend. After he became president, Michel Aoun continued to denigrate the state, but he was not the only person embarked on such an endeavor, as the entire establishment helped itself to the till.

Yet by adopting Hizballah’s “people-army-resistance” triptych, General Joseph Aoun telegraphed his backing of the corrupt political elite, perhaps because he harbored political aspirations to succeed Michel Aoun three years hence. Amazingly, and notwithstanding the numerous calls on the president to step down and perhaps even let the army take control, few understood that Michel Aoun was not ready to place the interests of the country ahead of the ambitions of his son-in-law, , to become head of state. Though Bassil, who was the former minister of foreign affairs, was recently chosen on social media outlets as the most hated personality in Lebanon, President Aoun was not about to jeopardize any chances Bassil may have to clinch the presidency after him. This was notwithstanding the hurdle of the Nabih Berri incident (Bassil was caught on videotape calling Speaker Berri a baltajih [thug], which was not well received), as the Lebanese elites routinely made peace in order to further loot the country.

How to best avoid a civil war then, when Hizballah was cavalier in brandishing its sword on the home front (oblivious to Israeli jets that overflew Beirut on June 6, 2020, as they attacked Syrian targets) and as the duo of Aoun and Bassil was preoccupied with the 2022 presidential elections? Could Prime Minister Hassan Diab, as some wished, “take a patriotic position and bow to the protesters’ pressure, . . . declare a in which the army takes control, and then resign”? This was, of course, wishful thinking because Diab was not an independent leader. On the contrary, he was prime minister in Hizballah’s government and it was highly unlikely that the LAF would, or even could, swiftly control the country. It was possible for the army to prevail, but chances were excellent that the LAF would prevail as well and then quickly split along sectarian lines as the country tumbled into the full-scale chaos of a new civil war.

Political Realignments? Lebanese protesters rightly asked for the removal of the Hizballah’s illegitimate weapons, calling on the militia to turn them over to the army. For months on end, the former minister of justice (and former commander of the ISF) General Ashraf Riffi appeared on several news outlets asking for the enforcement of UN Security Council Resolution 1559. The September 2, 2004, UN resolution, which called for the disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias operating within Lebanon and whose passage probably determined the fate of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, remained a sore issue. While the international community concentrated on the equally important August 11, 2006, UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ushered in a cease-fire after a 30-day war between Hizballah and Israel, what preoccupied the Lebanese was the 2004 ruling. Hizballah pretended that it was not a mere militia and that Resolution 1559 was illegal as it interfered in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. It took offense and rejected all calls for disarmament, oblivious to the hatred that its cavalier attitude generated in the country, irrespective of religious communities. The radical demand to demilitarize terrorized Hizballah cadres, most of whom were battle-hardened in after 2011, having fought fellow Arabs—but predominantly Sunni Arabs—in that hapless country’s ongoing civil war. Amazingly, Hizballah’s allies,

Can Lebanon Be Saved? 4 Only if Citizens Reinvent Their Society and Avoid a New Civil War Commentaries chiefly Michel Aoun’s , and now Army Commander General Joseph Aoun, stood with the militia on the pretext that whatever weapons existed were used to defend the country from Israel.

Few people accepted the premise that Hizballah’s determination to keep its weapons might lead to a full-scale confrontation and perhaps even restart the dormant civil war. Even fewer weighed in on the dilemmas that the army confronted, first after Hizballah’s machinations that sabotaged the $3 billion pledge made by the late Saudi king, ‘Abdallah bin ‘Abdul ‘Aziz, in 2013 and then, repeatedly, disparaging American assistance to the same army. Between 2006 and 2019, the United States provided over $1.7 billion to the LAF and equipped it with light but armed aircraft, artillery pieces, and critical ammunition. In fact, Washington backed the LAF when no other international actor committed the same level of support, something that was inconsiderately ignored by the top-brass. Still, thoughtful commentators wondered whether it was irresponsible for protesters in 2020 to even ask for the full enforcement of Resolution 1559 to disarm the militia at a time when so many more pressing challenges confronted the Lebanese. In any event, political leaders maneuvered to avoid a new civil war, though neither the government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab nor Army Commander Joseph Aoun were in a position to influence the direction that Lebanon might take.

The prime minister wasted three valuable months that fate had bestowed on him, courtesy of harsh winter weather as well as the Covid-19 confinement, without addressing any of the core demands made by desperate Lebanese citizens in early 2020. Nearly a million Lebanese lost their jobs on his watch over a period of a mere one hundred days, a huge figure that probably topped 50 percent of the labor force, which created the perception that Lebanon had emulated Cuba—though the Caribbean island-state could at least feed all its people. Without the assistance of various charitable organizations, over 300,000 Lebanese families would literally starve this year, a reality that few grasped. The Diab government allocated LL400,000 (US$100) to assist the neediest 150,000 families in May 2020, though the exchange rate, which was officially pegged at LL1,507.50 to the US dollar, was worth over 6,000 Lebanese Pounds in late-June 2020. What such devaluations did to the average worker’s earning power, at a time when increasingly scarce consumer goods had reached astronomical prices, were devastating. Instead of addressing these core survival questions, the politicians who were being challenged, along with their acolytes, embarked on what could have clearly sparked a Sunni-Shi‘ah confrontation. That was why commentators referred to June 6, 2020, as a new “Black Saturday,” a color that the Lebanese had become used to, since many anticipated dark nights in the coming fall when cash to import the fuel used to generate electricity was no longer available, given that what were left of the greenbacks had evaporated into Swiss bank accounts or been smuggled into Syria.

Angry protesters wanted drastic changes, demanded political rights, called for medical care, insisted on quality education (with unpaid educators joining the ranks of the poor), and argued for well-paying jobs instead of the exporting of human capital, along with the basic rights needed to stay alive. Ironically, security troops that enforced the government’s diktats remained oblivious to their own pauperization, unaware that the general impoverishment could not be addressed by Hizballah, even if the militia excelled at money laundering and price manipulations that, over the years, drew the attention of the

Can Lebanon Be Saved? Commentaries Only if Citizens Reinvent Their Society and Avoid a New Civil War 5 U.S. Department of the Treasury and selected international bodies. As one of the world’s most indebted countries (US$90 billion), with a debt equivalent to more than 170% of its gross domestic product (GDP), Lebanon defaulted on one of its Eurobond debt payments in March 2020, which left it at the mercy of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Strangely, Hizballah prevented the Diab government from adopting an economic recovery plan after April 2020 and even stopped Beirut from beginning negotiations with the IMF until late May. In what was little more than unmitigated audacity, militia leaders recanted, but only insofar as their interests dictated the terms. In other words, Lebanon would henceforth negotiate with the IMF and take merely what it wanted, as if the global institution were a smorgasbord. The need to unlock the billions of dollars in aid that were necessary to save Lebanon thus hung in the balance, but it remained to be determined whether a failed state could be saved. Did the Lebanese still have the wherewithal to reinvent their societies, usher in political changes at the highest levels, end organized corruption by arresting four or five hundred “leaders/thieves” who absconded with nearly US$50 billion in less than three decades, stop sophisticated money-laundering operations and close the border with Syria effectively to halt the smuggling, which only enriched corrupt officials?

Forced or Voluntary Emigrations? Given the myriad crises that now confronted the Lebanese, how were citizens supposed to endure and, once they survived most challenges, what did their future promise? Beyond rekindled ugly sectarian pronouncements, a wave of social media videos warned Lebanon’s Christians and Sunni Muslims, at least those who did not approve of Hizballah’s actions, to prepare their departures from their homeland. Increasingly vociferous, some of these calls were made by Shi‘ah clerics, though more thoughtful religious figures—such as Shaykh Subhi al-Tufayli and Shaykh ‘Ali al-Amin—rejected claims that the country belonged to the Shi‘ah alone. Still, neither Hizballah secretary-general nor his deputy, Shaykh Na‘im Qasim, criticized their own community campaigners’ calls on Christians and Sunni Muslims to leave. Under the circumstances, was the time right for these communities to make appropriate preparations?

Of course, and to be entirely fair, Hizballah operatives were not the first, nor the only ones, to call on those who were discontented to leave, as President Michel Aoun preceded them. Answering a question during one of his rare media presentations, a month after the October 17, 2019, uprisings, Aoun asserted that if those who were demonstrating saw “no decent people in this state, let them emigrate. They won’t get into power.” Sami Kleib, the television interviewer who was news editor at the Iranian-funded al- Mayadeen station (from which he resigned on November 22, 2019) appeared stunned, and he repeated his question both to be clear and, perhaps, to give the president an opportunity to correct himself. Aoun did not budge, apparently unaware at how offensive and insulting his remarks were, though the vast majority of the population was horrified. At the time, one activist commented that Aoun spoke to the nation “as if he [was] the Godfather and he saved us, and if we don’t like what he’s offering we should leave the country. . . . Who is he to tell us to leave our own country? If anyone should leave this country, it should be him and his cronies.”

Can Lebanon Be Saved? 6 Only if Citizens Reinvent Their Society and Avoid a New Civil War Commentaries Setting aside the president’s poorly thought-out pronouncements, the more recent Hizballah iterations were equally dangerous, especially as the militia hoped to generate a sequence of outcomes that would further strengthen its stronghold over the country. What Hizballah contemplated was nothing short of a population transfer, the likes of which is all too common around the world. Indeed, and lest one assume that such displacements were rare, one could write up a long list of relocations, from Palestine to India and Hong Kong, to emphasize the reality. In the aftermath of the tragic year-long uprisings in Hong Kong that started in mid-2019, the British government did not blink when it offered to grant 3 million Hong Kong citizens permanent British residency. It was unclear whether China would tolerate such a loss, but chances were good that the departure would be relatively orderly, unlike the tragedy that befell millions of Indians and Pakistanis, of whom at least 200,000 died at the height of the 1947 partition. India experienced another transfer in 1971 with the creation of Eastern Pakistan, which became Bangladesh, and, more recently, one could add to the list the fate that befell the Rohingya from Myanmar, with at least 2 million displaced, including 200,000 who resettled in . Of course, many other cases existed, but the more relevant examples in the Middle East were the forced relocations of Palestinians after 1948 and the massive transfers of Sunni Muslims inside Syria after 2011. All these cases illustrate how frequent such transfers have been even if few believed that they could be repeated.

To be sure, one can never have a clean process in any relocation, but under the current circumstances in Lebanon, should anyone be surprised if a similar fate befell many Lebanese Christians and Sunni Muslims? While most Shi‘ah Lebanese wished to live and raise their families in a peaceful society too, what Christians and Sunni Muslims wanted was to exercise their freedoms outside the wilayit al-faqih (Iran’s jurisprudence of God). If the Lebanese Shi‘ahs no longer wished to live in peace and harmony with Christians and Sunni Muslims and if they insisted that all of Lebanon should be under Hizballah’s— and Iran’s—unabashed domination, as opposed to the current tolerated control via proxies, was the time right to think about which countries might grant permanent residency to those who wished to leave? What would occur, according to the same argument, if Canada, for example, or another leading Western country extended an offer to accept Lebanon’s 2 million Christians? Similarly, what if Saudi Arabia considered making a comparable offer to the 2 million Lebanese Sunnis so that they might relocate to the Kingdom and live in peace?

Such plans were theoretical and did not mean, in any way shape or form, that Christians and Sunni Muslims wished to abandon their homeland. Nevertheless, such arrangements or strategies represent real alternatives to permanent war. If the Shi‘ah Lebanese no longer wanted to live in a democratizing country where the rule of law applied to one and all and if Beirut could not disarm the Hizballah militia, what alternatives existed save a war or an distasteful population transfer? Ironically, Canada denied that it had a proposal in place to extend permanent residency to Lebanese Christians in late 2019, and while Saudi Arabia was home to at least 450,000 Lebanese—many holding highly skilled jobs—there were no plans to resettle them in the Kingdom.

Nevertheless, it behooved Cardinal Mar Bisharah Butros al-Ra‘i, the head of the Maronite Catholic Church—which is the largest Christian denomination in Lebanon—and grand mufti of Lebanon Shaykh ‘Abdul Latif al-Daryan, the head of the Sunni religious community, to carefully reassess their positions.

Can Lebanon Be Saved? Commentaries Only if Citizens Reinvent Their Society and Avoid a New Civil War 7 Beyond what the clergy stood to lose, given that Lebanon’s Christian and Muslim religious bodies owned over 40 percent of all private land in the country, it was critical for both men to reevaluate their ties with the establishment they supported. Could clerics afford a transfer of populations and would they accommodate Shi‘ah partners for the most harmonious relationship possible—that is, to apply the aysh al-mushtaraq that everyone enjoyed—if Hizballah insisted on its inequitable terms?

On June 16, 2020, Hassan Nasrallah spoke yet again, though this marathon presentation revealed how concerned Hizballah was with respect to the latest American sanctions on Syria and Lebanon, which were part of the “Caesar Law” that tightened the noose around the regime. Nasrallah understood that this measure would harm his popular base far more than any previous act, and threatened his ability to defend the Iranian weapons in his possession. Indeed, the bombastic secretary-general revealed his hand when he shouted, “We will kill anyone who tries to force us to choose between dying by arms or starvation; we will not give up our weapons and we will kill you.” Whether the threat that “we will kill you” applied to Americans alone or also included Lebanon’s Sunnis and Christians remained to be determined, although local commentators took umbrage and rejected his clear and pointed accusations. In the end, as the Lebanese moved from demonstrations to a war and, in time, to massacres that threatened to seal the fate of 4 million Christians and Sunnis, it was eminently fair to ask whether the writing was on the wall and the trajectory could not be changed.

Can Lebanon Be Saved? 8 Only if Citizens Reinvent Their Society and Avoid a New Civil War Commentaries