Linguistic Creativity Saves Lebanese Government from Collapse

Beirut-The linguistic creativity again saved the Lebanese government from collapsing due to the internal conflict among its members regarding the foreign policy, especially after the latest Saudi and Gulf stances to review relations with Lebanon following its recent official stances conflicting with pan-Arab consensus and falling out of line with the Lebanese deep relations with the GCC and the great support extended by Saudi Arabia and other GCC members.

Lebanese ministers discussed this matter on Monday for around seven hours to reach a format that satisfies all parties. A minister, who asked to remain anonymous, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the main problem was in harmonizing the national interest with the Arab consensus as, during the meeting, Hezbollah’s ministers asked about the solution if the Arab consensus was inconsistent with the national interest.

Moreover, a ministerial source told Asharq Al-Awsat that a dispute erupted between ministers from Hezbollah on one hand and ministers from the Future party, led by former PM Saad Hariri, and Walid Jumblatt’s bloc on the other hand regarding the Lebanese stance in the Arab-Iranian discord.

The source added that Hezbollah’s ministers refused to accept the term, “Arab consensus”, or a positive stance from KSA without a positive stance from Iran. The source also indicated that Hezbollah’s ministers requested the inclusion of a paragraph that condemns killing Iranian pilgrims in exchange for denouncing the attack on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and its Consulate in Mashhad.

The source quoted Hezbollah’s Minister, Mohammed Fneish, saying: “We didn’t do anything wrong to apologize”. Wael Abu Faour replied by saying that “Lebanon’s Arabism is undebatable and Arabs are in a defensive position against Iran, which is meddling in Arab affairs.”

More than one minister said that ministers from the Future Party and the Democratic Gathering threatened to suspend the government if the other party stayed on its stance. When the other party backed off, Parliament Speaker, Nabih Berri joined the ministers in finding a linguistic way out with the help of his

assistant, Minister of Finance Ali Hassan Khalil. After reaching a linguistic format, Prime Minister Tammam Salam announced that the cabinet emphasized on the necessity of emending the relation between Lebanon and its friend countries and removing any recently-emerged flaws.