Israel violating UNSCR 1701, Aoun’s visit to South Lebanon dubious
The head of Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party on Monday said Israel’s inability to learn from its previous military failure and posed a direct threat to UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1701.
The Lebanese people would not surrender if Israel decided to invade Lebanon, MP Walid Jumblatt wrote in his weekly column for the PSP-run Al-Anbaa newspaper.
Any such invasion would be a violation of UNSCR 1701, which was passed unanimously by the Security Council in August, 2006 to resolve a 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel sparked by the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.
Jumblatt noted the presence of “information on the desire of certain security institutions to purchase aircrafts, helicopters and naval vessels.”
“What is the purpose of this institution’s purchase of these planes, helicopters and warships? Will we reach a stage in which we have an official and unofficial army and are indecisive as to which to preserve?” he asked.
Jumblatt added that all political parties should work to implement the Doha Agreement, particularly the clause pertaining to Lebanon’s defense strategy, which is to be discussed around the national dialogue table.
The PSP leader then implicitly commented on Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun’s visit to the South, which he described as “historical,” adding that he believed Aoun wished he owned arms “similar to the Resistance’s weapons in order to face Israeli violations.”
Jumblatt encouraged Aoun to tell the Lebanese people who had occupied the southern town of Jezzine four times and who had established an independent armed group to defend the village during the Israeli occupation.