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Rajeh El-Khoury wrote in Asharq Al-Awsat:
When French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Beirut, hours after the catastrophic explosion, which destroyed the port and half of the capital, killing nearly 200 martyrs, wounding more than 6,000 and displacing more than 300,000 citizens, he knew well and with much emotion and pain that had come. Inspect two remains: the remains of the port and the city, and the remains of responsibility in a corrupt country responsible for the disaster, whatever its causes.
When Macron returns to Beirut, next Monday, to participate in the celebration of the first centenary of the declaration of “Greater Lebanon”, and to hold talks that focus on rebuilding what was destroyed by the explosion, and repeating the push towards a government rescue, which he asked on his last visit, his disappointment will multiply. When he discovers that Lebanon is mired in two breaches; The port gap, the destroyed city and the state gap of rubble, absent of its responsibilities among the rubble of the corrupt system, which was the cause of the disaster of the time, and is the reason for the collapse of the country, which has become the “centennial of captive Lebanon”.
It is not an exaggeration when Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister of Foreign Affairs, repeated, last Thursday, France’s call for the formation of a quick government and the beginning of urgent reforms, warning that if this is not done, the country runs the risk of disappearing: “The danger today is the disappearance of Lebanon, Therefore, these measures must be taken.”
Macron, who will deliver an important speech at the aforementioned celebration, was on his first historical visit immediately after the explosion occurred, went to the port, walked the streets of the destroyed city, tearful and sad, and comforted and hugged people heartbroken, distraught and displaced, while no Lebanese official dared to accompany him, not even to go down. To the streets and neighborhoods shattered to this day, making the Lebanese state and officials a mere political rubble that the people demand to remove!
Not because they are responsible for the disaster and for bringing the country into bankruptcy, nor because they did not go to the living and inspect the injured as Macron did, but because they are in a state of denial and blindness, to the point that while the Lebanon sinks in a great funeral, where some bury a child, and who is looking for a missing person who was swallowed by the explosion, and who cries for a time that was destroyed on the rubble of his house, was and continues in a market of political servitude, fighting for the formation of a new government, but according to criteria of political quotas, conditions and the dispute for ministerial seats, so that the superficial political system resembles someone holding a government wedding. The Lebanese, who, if they had not been killed by the explosion, would have destroyed hope and plunged them into the depths of despair and pain.
Le Drian said last Tuesday that Macron will demand the change he focused on in his first meeting with officials and with representatives of all political parties, and that the port disaster is not an excuse to keep Lebanon on the brink of abyss, but there is no indication that officials in the afflicted country have internalized it. Rather, it seems that they swallow what constitutes any insult directed at them, as well as at the countries of the world that have come to provide medical assistance, food, medicine and hospitals, always in accordance with a condition that humiliates the State, that is, , the insistence on providing aid directly to the people, and not to any part of the State, which constitutes an explicit accusation against them. With looting and dishonesty, those who bankrupted the country and continued to loot it, states cannot trust them to deliver a pill to an injured widow under the rubble of her home!
What a scandal indeed, it seemed like an international withdrawal of legitimacy from this political group that ignored the call of Macron and the countries of the world before him to change and reform, as a necessary and inevitable condition to provide assistance and support, but this was not nor will it be accepted by them, and Macron will arrive on Monday, to feel Consequently, he did not come to celebrate the centenary of Greater Lebanon, but the centenary of poor Lebanon, blind Lebanon, captive Lebanon and the misery of destiny.
Last Wednesday, Macron sent a roadmap to Lebanese politicians outlining the political and financial reforms needed to open the door to foreign aid and save Lebanon from fateful crises and economic collapse. It included two pages, and the French ambassador handed them to the officials, with the detailed procedures required by foreign donors, calling for the appointment of an interim government capable of implementing urgent reforms, holding early legislative elections within a year, and talking about the A priority must be to accelerate the formation of the government, to avoid the power vacuum that leaves Lebanon deeper in crisis, and emphasizes the need for an immediate and comprehensive audit of looted funds and state reform. Electric sector.
Asharq Al-Awsat has seen Western reports claiming that Macron made a series of relentless contacts with world leaders upon his return from Beirut, in preparation for the creation of an international workshop that would cooperate to bring out Lebanon and prevent it from collapsing into a state. failed. He spoke with President Donald Trump and European leaders, and with President Vladimir Putin he urged him to curb any Syrian negativity in this direction, and he did not spare even Hassan Rouhani; He called it out in the context of negative and disapproving statements made by Muhammad Javad Zarif, who had arrived in Beirut almost simultaneously with Macron’s visit, only to criticize his call to form a neutral and reformist government, considering that it was Hezbollah that was the one! the only one who formed the resigned government!
All these hasty efforts by France to try to save Lebanon did not change the ways of the Lebanese authority at all. On the one hand, he was quick to adhere to a local investigation, as President Michel Aoun said that the international investigation was a waste of time, making it clear that behind the port explosion there were huge complications and big questions they extended from Ukraine to Mozambique via Turkey, and who brought the “ammonia nitrate” steamboat (2750 tons) to Beirut? How was it allowed to unload its dangerous cargo? Why did it sink? And why was the dangerous topic removed from the agenda of the Supreme Defense Council, headed by Aoun, which was held on June 20, 14 days before the explosion? And why did Hassan Diab postpone his visit to inspect the port after talking about the presence of explosive and dangerous materials? So why did Hezbollah and the state exclude any reference to Israel from the get-go, even though Netanyahu used to present a map during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, which he said was about weapons and warehouses? of Hezbollah missiles, including the port and airport perimeter?
On the political front, Macron’s advice and the call to the countries of the world to form a neutral, reformist government, go to the inclusion of quota accounts, and adhere to a government of the same corrupt political system, and thus the prime minister Saad Hariri surprised those who were trying to install a government according to his wish by announcing last Wednesday that he did not want to run. To form a government, but his statement came as an accusation directed at Aoun’s son-in-law, Gebran Bassil, although he did not name him, when he said that “ they are still in a state of denial, because they see in the disaster a new opportunity for blackmail based on his authoritarian and delusional goals, and even the illusion of realizing so-called personal dreams in later Authority, ‘and this is a clear indication of Basil’s reluctant efforts to inherit Aoun after the end of his term!
In parallel, Aoun’s reluctance to set a date for binding parliamentary consultations to assign a Sunni figure to form a new government appeared to be just a repeat of the heresy that completely contradicts the constitution, on the pretext that the consultations he slows down before The consultations are aimed at facilitating the formation of the government, but led to the establishment of Hezbollah. With the formation of the failed and resigned government of Hassan Diab, as is known!
In this regard, anger grows in the Sunni political street, where Islamic circles say that “President Aoun does not believe in the constitution or the laws, and his experiences in the government confirm that he applies his own laws without going through the institutions and the constitution, hence he and his son-in-law Gebran Bassil in a permanent struggle with all political components. And it is difficult to deal with the fasting mentality of governing »!
Thus, Macron will arrive, on Monday, in Beirut, where he had informed everyone on his last visit that this is the solution, and I bear witness that I have arrived, to find that the consultations to form a rescue government have not started, and he is stuck with the alliance of Aoun and the bilateral Shiite, which insists on A political government that belongs to the party system, and for that reason he will come out crying: “Yes, God, I bear witness that I have arrived!”
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