WE ARE HEADING FOR REGIONAL WAR
January 4, 2024I’m afraid that we are really approaching a regional war,” Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib tells Christiane Amanpour in an interview with her on CNN today, after senior Hamas leader, Saleh al-Arouri, was assassinated in Beirut on Tuesday. “I hope and pray that there wouldn’t be any response [by Hezbollah]… Regional war is bad for everybody.”
Lebanon does NOT want War but this escalation in the hostilities by Israel, the first such attack on Beirut since 2006, may have crossed the threshhold after Israel violated Lebanon’s sovereignty on a massive scale by hitting the target in the country’s capital.
Lebanese across the country and the world wait tenously to see what if any action Hezbollah might take. Last night Hezbollah leader warned Israel ”this will not go unpunished”.
Watch the interview
Credit: @amanpour
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English Script:
Christiane Amanpour: Foreign Minister, welcome to the program. So first, can I ask you the big picture, as your prime minister said, that he fears that you are being dragged into a wider war. Do you feel that?
Abdallah Bou Habib: We feel it and we’re afraid of it because the government of Lebanon, the Lebanese don’t want any war and we’d like to have peace in our southern borders. But the issue is, you know, what’s happening in Gaza definitely affects what’s happening in Lebanon, because there are issues that have not been settled for the last 75 years. And so, we have problems. Yesterday what happened in Lebanon, it is an Israeli attack in Lebanon, in Beirut. Would there be a response? I don’t know whether it is this, but the government of Lebanon would not make any response. We’ll go to the United Nations, and we’ll have a complaint at the United Nations.
Christiane Amanpour: Okay, can I ask you this? You know, the Israelis have not publicly confirmed it, but the US has told CNN that they believe that this is what happened. And, you know, the Israeli government spokesperson, the adviser to the prime minister, has indicated that this was an attack on Hamas, not an attack on Lebanon and not an attack on Hezbollah. So the question is, will Lebanon or Hezbollah, do you think, respond? And the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has been having a long speech this afternoon in which basically he said that it was blatant Israeli aggression and, quote, “If the enemy decides to wage war against Lebanon, our combat will have no limits.” What do you think is going to happen?
Abdallah Bou Habib: I hope and pray that there wouldn’t be any response and that Israel would not do it again, because whether they said it or not, it came first on their news items, you know, from different TVs, Israeli TVs that they did it. And then there was a statement that they did that. So anyway, what we want is that we don’t want any escalation in the war. We don’t want what’s happening in the South to be spread to over Lebanon. We don’t like a regional war because it’s dangerous for everybody, dangerous to Lebanon, dangerous to Israel and to the countries surrounding Israel. Whether it is Syria, which kept itself a little bit as a government outside of the war and also Jordan. You know, because you have Palestinians all over and you have people that they ideologically differ with Israel that will join the Palestinians in this battle. So, a regional war is bad for everybody. And if Israel is going to continue that and if it is Israel like what happened today in Iran is Israel, is made in Israel because there are in the Arab mind, there are two countries that can do it, either the United States or Israel. And of course, it is Israel in this case. So, if it’s going to continue like that, I’m afraid that we are really approaching a regional war which everybody in the region would regret having it.
