BEIRUT— On Friday, Hezbollah-aligned Labor Minister Mohammad Haidar told local media before the Lebanese cabinet’s session had concluded that "any decision taken to disarm Hezbollah in the absence of Shia ministers would be null and void, as it would be considered in contravention of Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system."

Minister Fadi Makki also said, "We withdrew to express our refusal to discuss the army's plan to disarm the resistance. The objection of a major sect to the government's decisions necessarily means that they are not in accordance with the national charter."

Makki added, “We are waiting for the final statement of the session.”

The Shiite ministers from Hezbollah and the Amal Movement came only to express their opinion on public issues, but as soon as they knew that Army Commander Rudolf Heikal would present his plan to disarm Hezbollah, they left.

Obviously, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is determined to abide by the American and Saudi dictates to disarm Hezbollah, and President Joseph Aoun will comply.

Hezbollah-Amal Movement alliance has succeeded to thwart Thomas Barack’s proposal.

The unconstitutional session, after Shiite ministers withdrew due to the insistence of President Aoun and Prime Minister Salam on discussing the Lebanese Army’s plan to restrict weapons ended with a welcome for the aforementioned plan, but without its approval.

Thus, the Lebanese government has halted its previous submission to the U.S. dictates, sparing Lebanon chaos and political devastation, due to Israeli intransigence and the lack of guarantees, in addition to the army’s weak logistical capabilities.

However, these positive positions will remain under scrutiny in the coming days.

Hezbollah has pushed back against disarmament, saying it would be a serious misstep to even discuss disarmament while Israel continues its air strikes on Lebanon and occupies swathes of territory in the south. For example, four people were killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Wednesday.

Israeli forces have continued to carry out air attacks across Lebanon in near-daily violations of the November truce, causing deaths and injuries among civilians, including Syrian refugees, and destruction of properties and infrastructure, Al Jazeera reported.

Zionist-imperialist conspiracy

The resistance in Lebanon constitutes a crucial, fundamental link in withstanding the Zionist-imperialist conspiracy.  This conspiracy has been expressed in an unprecedented manner to undermine the resistance under the pretext of “arms exclusivity.”

All the proposals being discussed today in Lebanon, particularly Thomas Barrack’s infamous one, are a manifestation of the new guardianship whose primary concern is to disarm the resistance, which has fought and defeated the Zionist enemy numerous times.

The most dangerous of all, Barrack’s infamous proposal is pushing Lebanon to sign a treaty with the Zionist enemy worse than the May 17 Agreement of the 1980s.

It must be noted that the history of this conspiracy is deep-rooted, predating the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the emergence of Hezbollah. It reached its peak during the 1950s and the expansion of the Nasserist nationalist project. 

The imperialist-Zionist alliance has always tried, through its local tools, to bring the battle to the streets of Lebanon and give it a sectarian dimension.

Hence, the current desperate call to disarm Hezbollah in Lebanon goes beyond the commonly used pretext of the state’s right to monopolize arms.

Lebanon has long failed utterly to build an army capable of deterring the Zionist enemy. The imperialist West does not permit, nor does it want, the presence of any strong Arab army on its borders.

It should also be noted that one of Lebanon’s most prominent dilemmas is its sectarian constitution.

The arms, according to the Zionist-imperialist conspiracy, is for fighting the takfiri extremist groups, which have not fired a single bullet at the Zionist enemy.

Likewise, the arming of any submissive regime controlled by Western intelligence agencies is permitted, in parallel with the dissemination of sectarian projects.

The best evidence of this is the recent events in Syria, where the government led by Hayaat Tahrir al-Sham did not hesitate to declare its objective alliance with the Israeli enemy, even reaching the point of setting up joint checkpoints just 12 kilometers from the capital, Damascus.

This Zionist-imperialist conspiracy aims to eliminate every threat to the Zionist regime’s expansion. It further aims to establish demilitarized cantons, not prosperous, independent cantons

This ensures the realization of the well-known Talmudic homeland extending from the Persian Gulf to Haifa. The path to achieving this required, and continues to require, an end to all resistance movements, especially after the failure of the fabricated color revolutions.

This Zionist-imperialist conspiracy is altering the demographic maps of West Asia to control South Lebanon’s gas and oil reserves, as well as the entire water basin extending from south of the Litani River to the Yarmouk Basin, passing through the Golan Heights.

This conspiracy has repeatedly failed to break the will of the nationalist resistance movement, as occurred in June 1982 and subsequent attacks in 1993, 1996, 2006, and 2024. 

The anti–resistance team knows that there is no force in the world that can help them eliminate or disarm Hezbollah, despite their efforts to embroil the Lebanese army and some Lebanese forces in a civil war, as well as to involve takfiri terrorist groups, transforming the entire region into an arena for sectarian tensions. Nevertheless, the Hezbollah possesses a great deal of patience and wisdom!