By Hussein Dakroub

BEIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai came under fire Friday from the opposition March 14 parties but won praise from March 8 politicians for indirectly defending Hezbollah’s arms and linking the party’s arsenal to the termination of Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory.

Both Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan and Fares Soueid, coordinator of the March 14 Secretariat General, rejected Rai’s remarks on the divisive issue of Hezbollah, saying they ran contrary to the concept of state building and contradicted with the Maronite Church’s long-standing position in support of state authority.

In an interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite channel broadcast Thursday night, Rai, who was in Paris on an official visit, said: “Hezbollah’s arms are linked to several issues. We have said this to the authorities in France. Everyone says why is Hezbollah carrying arms? We responded that the international community did not exert pressure on Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory. As long as there is an occupied Lebanese territory, Hezbollah will maintain that it wants to carry arms in defense of its land. What will we say to it then? Isn’t it [Hezbollah] right?”

Soueid said Rai’s comments on Hezbollah’s arms were “surprising” for the majority of the Lebanese people and the Christian community because they “undermined the concept of the state.”

“Patriarch Rai’s statement is coming in contradiction with the [principles] of the Maronite Church which has since 1943 been supporting the project of state building,” Soueid told The Daily Star. “The Maronite Church is condemning the presence of non-legitimate weapons in the hands of any of the communities in Lebanon, Christian or Muslim.”
Soueid reiterated the March 14 parties’ position that rejected the presence of illegitimate arms in Lebanon.
“Since the Israeli withdrawal [from south Lebanon] in 2000, Hezbollah’s project has been extra-national … Hezbollah has a regional project linked to Iran and is supporting the Syrian regime,” he said.

The opposition March 14 parties, including former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Future Movement, have launched blistering campaigns against Hezbollah, calling on the party to hand over its arms to Lebanese authorities. They also accused Hezbollah of running its own mini-state at the expense of state authority.“The state, and not any other Lebanese party, is responsible for defending Lebanon. It is the state that takes charge of forcing Israel to leave Lebanese territory and not any Lebanese party,” Soueid said.
Bsharri MP Adwan criticized Rai’s comments, saying they contradicted the concept of the state and justified the presence of non-state arms.

“We demand that the state defend Lebanon … Patriarch Rai’s remarks give a justification for the presence of non-state [arms] and the establishment of a mini-state within the state,” Adwan told LBCI television. “We have sacrificed a lot to have a strong state … Our respect and appreciation of Bkirki [the Maronite patriarch’s seat] is firm and permanent.”

Rai, whose remarks were published by some Lebanese newspapers Friday, also said that the estimated 350,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have arms and they want to return to their homes in Palestine and that Hezbollah wants to help them return.

Rai emphasized that only when the international community exerts pressure on Israel to vacate a parcel of Lebanese territory – the Shebaa Farms, Kfar Shouba hills and the Lebanese part of the disputed border village of Ghajar – and Israel allows Palestinians in Lebanon to return to their homes, can Hezbollah be asked to disarm.
“The international community must exert pressure on Israel to help them [Palestinians] to return to their lands,” Rai said, adding: “[When this happens], we can then tell Hezbollah, ‘Surrender your arms because they will no longer be needed.’”

Rai’s remarks on the six-month-long popular uprising in Syria against President Bashar Assad have also caused a stir in the Christian heartland, when the patriarch warned that the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria posed a threat to the Christians there.

“If the situation further deteriorated in Syria and we reached a more radical rule than the current rule, like the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, Christians there would pay the price, either in the form of killings or displacement. Here is the picture of Iraq is front of us,” Rai said during a news conference in Paris.

Christians and churches in Iraq have been targeted in the past by militant Muslim groups linked to Al-Qaeda.
Rai also urged the international community to give Assad a chance to carry out political reforms and launch dialogue with opposition parties. He said Assad is an “open-minded person who studied in Europe but he cannot make miracles.”

Criticizing Rai’s comments on Syria, Adwan said: “Seeking protection from any party does not protect the Christians. Portraying the Christians as if they are a party [to the conflict] in Syria does not serve the Christians or Bkirki’s historic line.”

Soueid accused Rai of supporting Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun at the expense of Christian unity.
“The Maronite patriarch should support the idea of unity of Maronite Christian leaders and not be against the point of view of other Maronite leaders,” Soueid said. “He who wants the unity of the Christian community as Beshara Rai pretends should be impartial and not support the point of view of one political camp inside the Christian community,” Soueid said. Asked to elaborate, he said that Rai is supporting Aoun.

Meanwhile, Rai’s remarks on Syria and Hezbollah won praise from the Hezbollah-led March 8 parties.
Aley MP Talal Arslan hailed Rai’s declared position in France as the peak of wisdom and responsibility, saying it was designed to “restrain the Western states’ colonialist ambitions.”

“It is the duty of every wise man and patriot to respond favorably to Patriarch Rai’s move. A national voice should be raised in the face of colonialist forces which are coveting the region’s resources and which seek to solve their economic and social problems at our expense even if this led to the destruction of our countries,” Arslan said in a statement.

Marjayoun-Hasbaya MP Qassem Hashem from Speaker Nabih Berri’s parliamentary Development and Liberation bloc, called on Lebanese factions to adopt Rai’s position.
“The patriarch’s position is the essential way to preserve and protect Lebanon amid what is happening in the region. This is the wise policy that can save the country and confirms the all-embracing national principles and choices,” Hashem said.

However, Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya criticized Rai’s comments on Syria. The group rejected Rai’s comment that a Sunni regime in Syria would escalate Sunni-Shiite tension in Lebanon.
“This has been disputed by history which [has proven] that Lebanese families have lived together for decades without fearing each other,” the statement said. It called for reviving Muslim-Christian dialogue to reassure all the country’s communities.