Al-Akhbar outraged over letter from a united front of “ex-presidents” on Hezbollah

Translated today by our Mideastwire.com:

On March 28, the Al-Akhbar daily newspaper carried the following report: “Al-Akhbar learned that a new crisis has risen to the surface on the evening of the Arab summit as it turned out that former Presidents Amin Gemayel and Michel Suleiman and former PMs Fouad Siniora, Najib Mikati, and Tamam Salam, held a meeting that resulted in sending a letter to the president of the Arab summit that includes negative positions regarding Hezbollah.

“According to the available information, this is a three page letter that carries the signature of all the meeting participants on each of the three papers. The letter stressed on “Lebanon’s respect of the Arab consensuses reached through the Arab League’s conferences” and that “Lebanon does not approve of Hezbollah’s interventions in Syria, Iraq, or Yemen.”

“The officials went back to using the “wooden language” of the former President, Michel Suleiman, as they brought up the Baabda statement and the self-distancing policy. Interestingly, the statement failed to mention the Israeli offensives or the Israeli greed when it comes to the Lebanese gas and oil or the Israeli violations to the Lebanese sovereignty and the Israeli occupation of some Lebanese lands. The statement merely called for supporting Lebanon’s position regarding Israel. Naturally, the former presidents and PMs failed to mention the terrorist threat to Lebanon and they turned a blind eye to the fact that there are Lebanese lands that are occupied by terrorist groups in the barren areas of Ersal. The “official” letter nearly limited all of Lebanon’s problems to what it deemed the “illegal weapons.”

“Presidential sources wondered how this happened especially as the Arab summit is witnessing, for the first time in years, a unified Lebanese position reflected in the attendance of both President Michel Aoun and PM Sa’d al-Hariri at the summit in Jordan tomorrow. Speaker Nabih Birri expressed his dismay regarding this statement to his visitors yesterday and indicated that this statement targets the unity of the Lebanese position in addition to “harassing” the president of the republic who will be meeting the UN Secretary General in Jordan on the margins of the summit.

“Political sources indicated that this letter matches the Israeli objections to the position of President Michel Aoun regarding the Resistance and the letters sent by the enemy government to the UN. According to the sources, this step was taken following a Saudi pressure as Saudi Arabia is worried about the positions of President Aoun during the summit… The sources added that this step seems very odd since there are former officials like President Emile Lahoud, Speaker Hussein al-Husseiny, and PM Salim al-Hoss who were not consulted on this.

“The position of PM Sa’d al-Hariri regarding this letter is unknown. There were news indicating that he attended the meeting of the “former officials” and supported their position without signing the letter. However, official sources denied that and indicated that Al-Hariri will not take part in disrupting the position of Aoun who will be giving Lebanon’s speech in Jordan tomorrow.”