BEIRUT — Asked about the possibility of Lebanon being drawn into the war between Israel and Hamas, Walid Jumblatt, a former militia leader and one of the country’s most iconic political veterans, strikes a pessimistic note.
“I don’t think we can escape,” the 74-year-old said ruefully as he chased his frisky four-year-old dog, Tweggy, away from the assorted nuts on a table filled with books, including a volume on Thomas. Mann that he doesn’t have time to read. “I try to read it, but I keep calling to follow the news,” he added.
It’s no wonder Jumblatt’s phone continues to ring. As leader of the country’s 300,000-strong Druze minority and a former commander in Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, everyone important in Lebanon consults him as an oracle on how the country can escape yet another conflict devoured. After all, this is a man who knows how a minority can survive and even thrive when surrounded by adversaries.
This time, however, he fears the odds are stacked against Lebanon. The country is closely watched as a potential second front in Israel’s war against Hamas, amid intense fears that Hezbollah, a powerful Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite militia, could launch an all-out attack on Israel from the north .
In a wide-ranging interview with POLITICO at his home in Beirut’s Msaytbeh neighborhood, Jumblatt denounced the lack of high-caliber global leadership and placed responsibility for the latest crisis on Washington, which neglected Palestinian aspirations for a State, and called on America to withdraw. support aircraft carriers that are widely seen as ready to strike targets in Lebanon. This was a crisis that only Israel, the United States and Iran had the power to resolve.
Supporting his grim prognosis, Jumblatt said he and his eldest son Taymour were preparing in the Chouf Mountains, the ancestral homeland of Lebanon’s Druze, 40 kilometers from Beirut, to welcome refugees. He stressed that this shelter would be open to all – whether Shia, Sunni or Christian – if they had to flee the fighting in case the country returned to war.
So far, since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, skirmishes between Hezbollah and Israel have been limited to tit-for-tat strikes on military targets, remaining within the framework of what Lebanese politicians describe as the “rules of the game”, established informally. reduce Israel and Hezbollah’s miscalculations over the years since they fought a 34-day war in 2006.
“The Palestinians have been abandoned”
Speaking just as US President Joe Biden finished his seven-and-a-half-hour visit to Israel, Jumblatt appeared depressed and worried. He was frustrated by the US leader’s remarks in Tel Aviv, which he said only worsened America’s abandonment of its role as an honest broker.
He identified US electoral politics as partly to blame, but also lamented the absence of leaders of the stature of former US Secretary of State James Baker, former French President Jacques Chirac and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying the international community was not engaging with the dangers of what could happen to Lebanon.
“There is no one, we are alone,” he said, acknowledging that the Lebanese were reduced to becoming spectators in a catastrophe that could engulf them, with Arabs seen as terrorists rather than partners. negotiation.
“I was just with the Prime Minister and the other day with (Lebanese Parliament Speaker) Nabih Berri. We try but what can we do? If you have anyone to talk to, the Americans, the French or anyone in the West, tell me. They all see terrorists everywhere. They think it’s a terrorist problem when it’s a Palestinian problem. The Palestinians have been abandoned by the international community,” he said.
When asked what he would say if the Americans called him for advice, he gave three quick and immediate answers. “We need a ceasefire, humanitarian corridors established – let’s forget that 20 aid trucks (because that’s enough) – then the release of civilian prisoners.”
“So let’s look at the bigger picture,” he added. And by a broader view, he meant Palestinian frustration with statehood, which he highlighted as the “root cause” of the regional explosion.
His main criticism was that Washington failed to see how what happened in Gaza or among the Palestinians had a broader impact on the region as a whole. He accused Americans of thinking the two might be disconnected. “But they cannot be separated,” he said.
Without a comprehensive political solution, the situation was hopeless.
“Trying to destroy Hamas will lead nowhere. »
“We don’t choose our destiny”
Jumblatt himself often had to take a broader view to survive personally and to protect the Druze, a sect founded in Cairo in the 11th century, which mixes Shiism, Christian Gnosticism and Greek philosophy.
He did so – displaying remarkable self-control for a young man – when he sat across from Hafez al-Assad in 1977, shortly after the Syrian autocrat had his father assassinated, Kamal Jumblatt. He played with the fiction that the ambush on a hairpin road in the Shouf Mountains was the work of Israel and not the man across the way. The previous year, his aunt, his father’s sister, had been murdered. Black and white photographs of his parents are prominently displayed in his house.
Jumblatt waited to settle those scores – supporting rebels in Syria when they rose up to try to overthrow Assad’s son Bashar.
Violence and confrontation permeated his life. At the age of 10, he saw U.S. Marines land in Beirut in 1958, sent by President Dwight Eisenhower to contain growing sectarian tensions at the request of Lebanese President Camille Chamoun, a Christian. As a young boy, he was kidnapped and nearly executed by Maronite Christian militiamen. In 1982, he survived a car bomb explosion near his home in Beirut.
Jumblatt inherited the ancestral home of the Chouf, built slowly over two centuries on the foundations left by the Crusaders, and was thrust into the spotlight as a Druze leader, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, founded primarily by his father. A longtime supporter of the Palestinians, he bade farewell to his friend, PLO leader Yasser Arafat, when he and his fighters were expelled from Lebanon in 1982, firing an AK-47 in salute.
He had never really aspired to such prestigious roles and had never wanted to be the heir to a feudal and political dynasty, preferring his life as a journalist, riding motorcycles and enjoying the nightlife of Beirut. “You don’t choose your destiny in life,” he thought.
Over the decades, he has been a major figure at the center of Lebanon’s dizzying and convoluted sectarian politics, maneuvering one way or another, shifting allegiance according to changing circumstances – and often criticized for it, but having no other choice to navigate different configurations of Lebanese sects and groups and outside powers to protect the Druze.
Two-state solution
From now on, his attention is focused as much on Lebanon as on the Druze. He argued that the United States was only increasing tensions in the region by sending aircraft carriers to the region, failing to see the big picture, and failing to establish an independent Palestinian state alongside of Israel, the outlines of which had been agreed upon16. a few years ago, during the Annapolis Conference called by former President Bill Clinton. “All they have done since is talk and talk and allow more Israeli settlements in the West Bank,” he protested.
“Crushing Hamas will not solve the problem. We need to get back to the fundamental problem, the two-state solution. You have to look at the bigger picture, and the Americans are not doing that, and they are escalating the situation with their rhetoric and moving aircraft carriers here. Why do you have to bring two large aircraft carriers to the region? Is it for a peaceful purpose? Is it to preserve peace, or what?
He has little hope that disaster will be averted thanks to a summit of regional leaders, including Turkey and Qatar, planned for Saturday by Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. “They’re not players,” he said. “They have no influence. The three actors are Israel, Iran and America. »
“The Americans could restrict Israel if they chose to do so, but the only time the Americans ordered the Israelis to withdraw was in 1956, when the Israelis invaded with the French and the British,” he said. he continued.
Jumblatt believes that Israel has every intention of invading Gaza and then annexing the northern half.
“A bunch of crazy people in Israel will do it because the plan is to take over half of Gaza,” he said.
What if Israel invaded? “Then Hezbollah and Iran will decide what to do. »