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Former Lebanese diplomat Raghid El Chammah said in a December 1, 2021 interview on MTV (Lebanon) that the Lebanese people should engage in civil disobedience, that they should declare northern Lebanon to be a "liberated area," and that the international community should be forced to accept this. In addition, he said that the way things are going now, Lebanon will end up being split between the French, Americans, Syrians, and possibly the Iranians via Hizbullah. El Chammah added that Lebanon’s elites are all binational and are therefore potential traitors.
Raghid El Chammah: "We are heading towards the disintegration of the Lebanese Republic as we know it. It will be divided, from the south to the north, into areas of custodianship. It will be divided between the Americans, the French, the Syrians... The Syrians are coming back. There is still a question mark regarding the outcome of the negotiations in Vienna.
"They might lead to the handing over of a certain area to Hizbullah, where it would represent the interests of Iran. In addition, I do not hesitate to say that Israel still has its eyes set on the waters of the Litani River. This is the scenario that was played out in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Croatia, in Yugoslavia, and in Czechoslovakia. These countries were divided. We will not be considered more important than those countries. I forgot to mention the Soviet Union, which disintegrated following a decision to that effect. Today, there is nothing left to prevent this. The Lebanese citizens were left with no autoimmune system, and they are willing to accept anything just so they can eat, feed their children, and receive medical services.
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"With regard to the scenario that the Lebanese people should engage in, I believe that we should initiate civil disobedience. The state can no longer provide us with protection or the means to lead a dignified life. It cannot provide us with food, medicine, education, and so on. So the Lebanese people should decide to engage in civil disobedience. There is no point in waiting for the elections. The elections will do nothing, if they even take place. So we should declare civil disobedience, and on the 10,452 square kilometers [of Lebanon’s territory], different sectors of Lebanese citizens should declare their territory ‘liberated areas,’ because Western and other foreign countries are using the story of Hizbullah in Lebanon as a pretext to cut the country to pieces, under the assumption that this is the best way to remove Hizbullah from power. We need to act before this happens.
"We need to declare areas from Akkar and Abadeh in the north and all the way to north Beirut as a liberated area... There is no scenario in which we will have sovereignty over Beirut itself. At first, there will be a civil administration and civil disobedience in other areas, and we will force ourselves upon the international community, and make it listen to us under our own terms.
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"If we do not monitor what is happening with the Abraham Accords, the great Lebanese people will wake up one morning to find out that our sister, Syria, has joined [the Accords], at the behest of Russia, and that other Arab countries have joined as well. Then a scenario will be forced upon us – one that we do not accept for ourselves or for our future generations. Let us start by monitoring [the Accords]. We need to put it into our heads that the day will come, as it should, when this despicable truce [with Israel] will be developed into something that is less than a peace process... Perhaps it will be just an outline of a settlement. Why do we need the Americans to mediate between us and Israel?
"We can sit with the Israelis. Why would we want the Americans as mediators?"
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