Hezbollah ‘must change to heal Lebanon Gulf rift’
Lebanon must prove that Hezbollah can change its ways if it is to repair a deep rift with the Gulf, Bahrain’s foreign minister said yesterday.
Speaking on the final day of the 2021 Manama Dialogue, an annual security summit in the Bahraini capital, Abdullatif Al Zayani said the Gulf would resume supporting Lebanon only when the Iran-backed movement changed its behaviour.
Gulf states have expressed concern over Hezbollah influence in Lebanese politics, many of them scaling back economic support for a country mired in economic and political crises.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait expelled Lebanese diplomats and recalled their envoys after Information Minister George Kordahi criticised Saudi Arabia’s support for Yemen’s internationally recognised government in the civil war. The UAE called back its ambassador from Beirut.
Earlier yesterday, Yemeni Foreign Minister Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak said the Houthi assault on Marib threatened to create a severe humanitarian disaster. The city is sheltering two million internally displaced people.
Meanwhile, White House Middle East co-ordinator Brett McGurk said his country remained committed to maintaining a presence in the Middle East to counter threats from Iran.
“Let me be clear, the US is not going anywhere,” he said.
The Amal movement is preparing to run a US-designated terrorism financier as a candidate in Lebanon’s parliamentary elections.
The deal, brokered by Amal leader Nabih Berri’s wife, Randa Berri, means Kassem Hejeij will run on the party’s list, in exchange for him funding Amal’s election campaign, party sources said.
The US Treasury imposed sanctions on Mr Hejeij in 2015 for helping Hezbollah to move money.
Last year, he unsuccessfully challenged the designation in the US courts.
The candidacy move has angered parts of the Amal movement, especially Abdallah Berri, a son from Parliament Speaker Mr Berri’s first marriage.
He was tipped as a successor to his father.
Amal sources said there is little love lost between Abdallah and his stepmother, and that Mr Hejeij’s candidacy was at least in part an effort to sideline Abdallah.
He is still trying to convince his father to allow him to stand in elections scheduled for March, The National understands.
Mr Hejeij is likely to run in Bint Jbeil, in southern Lebanon, an Amal heartland.
The sanctions imposed on Mr Hejeij by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control in 2015 were based on accusations he “helped open bank accounts for Hezbollah in Lebanon and provided credit to Hezbollah procurement companies”.
He was also accused of having “invested in infrastructure that Hezbollah uses, in both Lebanon and Iraq”.
Mr Hejeij had been chairman of Middle East and Africa Bank, but stood down after the US move.
His son, Ali, took over and still runs the bank. His father has an office there, an Amal source said.
More recently, Mr Hejeij has served as mayor of Deir Antar, a village in the south of Lebanon.
Lina Khatib, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the Chatham House think tank in London, said US leniency was probably encouraging parties to run candidates hit by sanctions without fear of rebuke.
“Being on the US sanctions list has not halted the political careers of designated figures like Gebran Bassil,” she said, referring to the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement and son-in-law of President Michel Aoun.
“This paves the way for Amal or another party to feel confident in fielding designated individuals as electoral candidates, especially at a time when American behaviour indicates a degree of pragmatic leniency regarding the interpretation and implementation of sanctions in the Levant context.”
Amal was founded in 1978 by Shiite cleric Musa Sadr. The party has 10 seats in the Lebanese Parliament.