Geagea and Bassil call for Hezbollah disarmament

The leaders of the two biggest Christian parties have both called for the state's monopoly on weapons after Hezbollah was left badly weakened by more than a year of hostilities with Israel.

"We've been missing a real state for 35 years," Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, a harsh critic of Hezbollah, said Saturday, calling for the state to have monopoly on arms and to be the sole decision maker in the country.

"We cannot build a real state without the state's monopoly on arms," Geagea said, claiming that the occupation is the result of Hezbollah's arms.

Hezbollah was founded in 1982 to end Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon. It achieved that in 2000 following a long war of attrition that eventually forced Israel to withdraw.

Israel re-occupied parts of Lebanon after clashes with Hezbollah - beginning with the group's campaign of rocket fire at its arch-foe in support of Gaza -culminated in a major Israeli bombing campaign and a ground invasion.

Under a truce deal reached in late November, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani River and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south and Israel was to withdraw all of its forces from south Lebanon, but its troops remain today on five south Lebanon hills that they deem "strategic".

Israel has also continued to carry out near-daily strikes against Lebanon, saying it is targeting members of Hezbollah who are breaching the truce agreement.

Hezbollah's chief Sheikh Naim Qassem, Parliament Speaker and ally Nabih Berri, and other Hezbollah officials have said that Hezbollah will not disarm unless Israel withdraws from south Lebanon and halts its violations.

But whether Israel should withdraw first or Hezbollah disarm first has led to a chicken and egg situation, where both Hezbollah and Israel justify keeping arms and occupation respectively claiming that the other party is breaching the truce.

A former ally of Hezbollah, Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has also called for a monopoly on arms. He had many times criticized Hezbollah for starting a war with Israel. "We support the state's monopoly on weapons," Bassil said Friday, accusing Hezbollah of breaking the trust of the Lebanese by using its arsenal in a way that did not serve Lebanon's interests.

"This does not mean that Israel was not the one that attacked Lebanon or that we support Israel," he added. "Hezbollah has made a strategic mistake and Lebanon's interest is in distancing itself from regional conflicts."