US envoy to Syria due in Beirut Wednesday
The U.S. has warned Lebanon against taking part in the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict, a local media report said.
The report published Monday in al-Binaa newspaper said that Israel would respond harshly to any missile launched from Lebanon and that the Lebanese army is working to prevent any attack from Lebanon.
Meanwhile, U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack is due in Beirut Wednesday to meet with Lebanese officials over Hezbollah's weapons and the disputed Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms.
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Oueidat once again absent from interrogation with Judge Bitar over Aug. 4 port explosion
Former public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, Judge Ghassan Oueidat, did not appear at the interrogation session scheduled for Monday before investigating judge at the Court of Justice, Tarek Bitar, who had summoned him as part of his investigation into the explosion that occurred at Beirut Port on Aug. 4, 2020. Judge Bitar decided to 'not summon Judge Oueidat again and to postpone any decision regarding him until the indictment is issued,' in accordance with the approach adopted for 'other people recently questioned,' reported the state-run National News Agency (NNA). On July 11, Oueidat declined to appear. He had not been notified of the hearing by the judicial police and had been summoned via the Public Prosecution, according to a high-ranking judicial source cited by L'Orient-Le Jour. Judge Bitar then set a new hearing for July 21, 10 days later. In January 2023, Oueidat prohibited the Public Prosecution and the judicial police from cooperating with Bitar in the port investigation. This ban was lifted on March 10, 2025, by the new public prosecutor, Jamal Hajjar, after 26 months of deadlock. On July 4, it was Amal MP and former minister Ghazi Zeaiter who did not appear at his hearing, choosing to be represented by his lawyer, Samer al-Hajj. A new summons was set for July 18, which Zeaiter also failed to attend. On Aug. 4, 2020, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history devastated a large part of the Lebanese capital, killing more than 220 people and injuring 6,500. The blast was caused by a fire in a port warehouse where tons of ammonium nitrate had been stored without precaution, despite repeated warnings to the highest authorities, who were accused of negligence. Judge Bitar had to suspend his investigations in January 2023, faced with hostility from much of the political class, notably Hezbollah, as well as a series of legal actions brought against him. He resumed his investigation at the beginning of 2025 and has already questioned several former officials, including former Prime Minister Hassan Diab and former Interior Minister Nohad Mashnouk.
L'Orient-Le Jour
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Hussein Hajj Hassan: Hezbollah 'ready for any discussion on Lebanese internal issues'
Hussein Hajj Hassan, a Hezbollah MP and former minister, said Monday that his party was "ready for any discussion on Lebanese internal issues" with the aim of "defending Lebanon against Israeli and terrorist threats, as well as American attempts to destabilize the region." This statement comes as U.S. envoy Tom Barrack is visiting Beirut for the second time in two weeks, at a time when the issue of the disarmament of the party is heightening political debate both in Lebanon and internationally. Hezbollah insists that the fate of its weapons is strictly a matter for internal dialogue, under the aegis of the president and as part of a national defense strategy, rejecting any timeline or commitment imposed from outside. In a speech delivered in the village of Sariane (Bekaa), Hajj Hassan warned against what he called "American sabotage of regional dynamics," stating that this project required "responsible dialogue, if anyone is willing to listen to the disasters being plotted." The U.S. envoy warned: "If Lebanon does not take action," referring to the possible persistence of Hezbollah's arms and a blockage of reforms, "the country will revert to Bilad al-Sham." This phrase, despite a subsequent correction, was widely perceived as a veiled threat of Lebanon returning to "Greater Syria." 'Lebanon has fully respected the agreement' Returning to the cease-fire agreement that ended the war between Israel and Hezbollah last November, the MP emphasized that "Lebanon has fully respected the agreement, while the Zionist enemy has respected nothing." Coming into force on Nov. 27 under the auspices of the U.S. and France, the agreement called for a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon. However, the Israeli army still occupies five positions on Lebanese territory, regularly conducts ground incursions and carries out almost daily airstrikes. On the Lebanese side, the agreement called for the progressive disarmament of Hezbollah, starting with the area south of the Litani, then across the whole territory, in accordance with U.N. Resolution 1701 — a requirement the party flatly rejects. Israeli attacks on Lebanon over the past eight months have killed more than 270 people. Hajj Hassan also denounced the attitude of "certain" Lebanese political forces, whom he accused of "undermining the official position" of Lebanon in the face of Israel. He called for "joint national action" to "strengthen the state's position, impose a halt to the aggression, and kickstart the reconstruction" of areas devastated by war. The Hezbollah MP also singled out "certain Arab and Islamic capitals," claiming that "their internal conflicts have given the American and Israeli enemies sources of strength," condemning a "normalization [with Israel] tantamount to total submission to the American will on political, security, and economic levels." 10 days ago, President Joseph Aoun ruled out any normalization of ties with Israel, while declaring himself in favor of a peaceful situation with the neighboring country, which still occupies part of its territory. This was the first official Lebanese reaction to comments made by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who said on June 30 that Israel was "interested" in normalization with Syria and Lebanon.
L'Orient-Le Jour
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Breaking the cycle of hatred in the Middle East
I joined the L'Orient-Le Jour's newsroom a little over 11 years ago. With a few exceptions – brief enchanted interludes we wanted to believe in — I feel that I've written ever since only about crises, wars, massacres and bloody struggles for power and survival, whether on a local, national or regional scale. The actors, contexts and stakes vary, but the dynamics of hatred and violence remain largely the same. The atrocities committed in Sweida echo those carried out by the Assad regime, by the Islamic State (IS), by Syrian Arab proxies against the Kurds, by the Iranian axis, by Saudi Arabia in Yemen, by Israel and by so many others. They are part of a continuum of wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Palestine. From non-state groups to regional powers, each in its own way, for its own reasons, convinces itself that the only solution lies in the expulsion, disappearance or even extermination of the other. If the story I'm trying to understand and tell already feels like a succession of infernal cycles, interrupted only by brief moments of illusion, how must my colleagues feel, those who have been commenting on and enduring the region's torment for decades now? How can one not think of the horrors of the Lebanese 1975-90 Civil War while following the tragedy in Sweida? How can we convince ourselves that we are not doomed to the worst? A simple look back through the archives or history books is enough to grasp the immense paradox that marks the coverage of current events, both Lebanese and regional: Everything can change overnight, owing to the structural fragility of the actors involved; yet, nothing ever truly changes. Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the history of the Middle East has been in constant motion, without ever managing to reinvent itself. The region is indeed grappling with a series of issues it has been unable to resolve. First, it has yet to evolve beyond being a battleground for rival powers — a dynamic that has only been reinforced in recent years by the retreat of the one country that truly dominated the Middle East: the United States. Jordan against Egypt, Egypt against Saudi Arabia, Syria against Iraq, Iraq against Iran, Iran against Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia against Turkey — and Israel, in most cases. The Palestinian question is the second major issue that has long shaped the Middle East. It is unique in that it intersects with all the region's other ailments. While it sometimes seems to push them into the background, it amplifies the effects of each of them. The third element is arguably the question of Islamism. Whether Sunni or Shiite, whether dressed in the garb of Brotherhood ideology, Salafism, jihadism or Khomeinism, political Islam has left its mark on the region's modern history — within the societies themselves, as a political tool in service of a cause or an axis, and in the Middle East's relations with the rest of the world. The fourth and final element is perhaps the most underestimated and yet the most important. It is the absence, since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, of a political, economic and social model capable of ensuring effective governance while offering space for freedom and preserving the political, communal, ethnic and linguistic pluralism that is the lifeblood of this region. Pan-Arabism was authoritarian and rigid. Islamism, in all its forms, is reactionary and intolerant. The supposedly secular Baathist regimes delivered the worst in terms of repression and the manipulation of sectarianism. The Lebanese model, despite its flaws and fragility, its ungovernability and its real or latent wars, remains the only one to have managed to preserve both freedoms and pluralism. But it has become so dysfunctional within the confines of our small country that it would be senseless to try to replicate it on a regional scale. After more than a century of failures, we must absolutely invent a new model, one that can neutralize identity-based issues without denying them. One that allows us, in the words of Samir Frangieh in his timely and remarkable essay 'Voyage au bout de la violence,' to 'leave our communal prisons without necessarily shedding our communal affiliations.' This new form of citizenship should be able to transcend our identities without seeking to erase or replace them. It cannot, however, be imposed by decree. It must be nurtured through state institutions, through political debate, which, unlike the proposed model's structure, must be strictly secular, and through a more equitable distribution of wealth. One could argue that all of this is utopian as long as geopolitical issues remain unresolved. But one could also respond, without denying the absolute necessity of stabilizing the region, that by focusing too much on geopolitical factors, we have largely overlooked the internal dynamics of societies. Yet these dynamics have shaped geopolitics at least as much as they have been shaped by it. The two battles are, in fact, inseparable and must be fought simultaneously. But it seems — though this is open to debate — that we may have more leverage over one than we have over the other.
