{"id":819,"date":"2008-07-29T18:45:09","date_gmt":"2008-07-29T18:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=819"},"modified":"2008-07-29T19:00:48","modified_gmt":"2008-07-29T19:00:48","slug":"walid-jumblatt-sets-a-new-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/walid-jumblatt-sets-a-new-course\/","title":{"rendered":"Walid Jumblatt Sets a New Course"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Qifa Nabki<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/jumblatt.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"282\" height=\"191\" align=\"right\" \/> <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">Lebanese political veteran and March 14 stalwart Walid Jumblatt gave an interview on July 27 2008 in which he departed strongly from the trenchant anti-Syrian critiques which have defined his rhetoric for over three years. While Jumblatt did not go so far as to say that he was leaving March 14th, he certainly seemed to be pushing the coalition into a different political direction, vis-a-vis its relationship with Syria and Hizbullah.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">Many will likely interpret this move as the latest moult in a lifetime of shape-shifting by the canny and outspoken Jumblatt. As even his enemies admit, he is a political survivor, one not above surrendering key pieces of ideology in the service of maintaining his own position and influence. Following the showdown with Hizbullah in May of 2008 &#8212; which he lost badly &#8212; it took Jumblatt very little time to repent of his political blunders and wash his hands of any further confrontations with the Shiite militia. Now he appears to be setting a new course, perhaps in anticipation of the 2009 parliamentary elections which may require him to build alliances with certain opponents to remain politically viable.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">Here are selections from the interview (read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nowlebanon.com\/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=52875#\">the entire thing <\/a>at NOW Lebanon): <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>Beirut is wounded, but it seems that my words fall on deaf ears. When I say Beirut is wounded, I am not requesting an apology from Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, but I am demanding a salutation [from him], since Beirut is neither for March 8, nor for March 14. Even when the Israelis occupied Beirut, they were kicked out. Beirut is political diversity, from Saeeb Salam to others. It is cultural diversity, from An-Nahar to As-Safir and Al-Moharrer. Beirut is the left [wing], which produced ideological innovation. Beirut refused sedition. So I am not demanding an apology but a salutation.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>A group of Alawis is being recruited to strike Tripoli or to serve other purposes that do not meet with Arab constants, which is wrong. These constants are Arabism and Palestine, and we are responsible for forgetting Palestine and Arabism and for going too far. <strong>We forgot [Rafik] Hariri and focused on taking revenge under the slogan of justice, and this sequestered the March 14 group in an isolationist position. That was a fatal mistake. We lost great martyrs such as Hariri, who is an Arab man, and [Samir] Kassir and [George] Hawi, who are both Arab men. We fiercely attacked the Syrian regime and forgot our Arab discourse. When we as Sunnis and Shia and Druze relinquish Palestine, we become rival groups&hellip;<\/strong><br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>I do not regret it, but I was blamed for not talking about the Resistance by some allies and the supporters&#8230; The Resistance is continuity from Al-Qassem to Nasrallah and Kamal Jumblatt and a group of Mujahidin throughout history. When Sayyed Nasrallah speaks about his belonging to the Guardianship of the Jurist, if he means the jurisprudence aspect, this is his own business, but if he points to the political aspect, then he intersects with the talk of the Iranian vice president, who linked Lebanon&#39;s status with the Iranian nuclear file. This would be a predicament for him and for us. It is either a Lebanese resistance that would be integrated into Lebanon&#39;s interests, or it is an Iranian resistance, very far from Lebanon.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>When I talked in Aabey [Samir Kantar&#39;s hometown in which he received a welcoming ceremony by the Progressive Socialist Party and Jumblatt], <strong>I heard that the Future Movement considered that I was trying to get closer to Hezbollah. But I want to say that I am carrying out self-criticism because the continuous bloody strikes made us relinquish our constants and led us to isolation.<\/strong> Isolation creates fundamentalist cases in the Sunni sect such as Shaker al-Abssi, and this is dangerous to the Shia&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Aabey was an important occasion to remind of the constants. When Sayyed Nasrallah salutes Beirut, he does not actually salute the March 14 group, but the old heritage and diversity instead. <strong>I am staying within March 14, but I want to remind them of Arabism and Palestine, which is more sacred than sanctity itself, and Kamal Jumblatt and Georges Hawi and Rafik Hariri were martyred for its sake. We will go to the election and we will see our commonalities with the March 8 group through dialogue. <\/strong>It is a victory to Lebanon when it receives the bodies of 200 Arab martyrs. I was blamed by some international socialist circles for receiving Kantar under the pretext that he is a criminal. I told them that the term &quot;violence&quot; applies to the Israelis in Qana 1 and 2 and Kfar Qassem.&nbsp;During our political clash, each of us had his own terms that rendered a consensus unfeasible, but a divorce is impossible, and we met in Doha&#8230;<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>I demand an explanation from Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah about his position toward the Taif Accord. A group of the Shia are Arabs and Lebanese and are repressed, and the circumstances were adequate to allow us to appoint Minister [Ibrahim] Shamseddine. I am not challenging Nabih Berri. <strong>We should have adopted the electoral law formulated by the Fouad Boutros Committee in Doha&hellip;<\/strong><br \/>&nbsp;<br \/><strong>When I went to the United States, I asked them to issue sanctions against the Syrian regime and to change the regime, but Rice&#39;s answer was very diplomatic, as she said the behavior of the regime should be changed and not the regime itself. Thus, I understood that it is to no avail to keep insisting on the same demands. So, Lebanon should maintain a neutral stance. [USS] Cole is a big disaster which did not give Siniora any push.<\/strong><br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>We saw how much we benefited from the American advice and, yesterday, Cole. <strong>We begged Rice to translate her words about Shebaa into actions. If we find the adequate political formula that gives each group its rights away from threats, and if we were able to build a strong and capable state, President Sleiman could go to Syria tomorrow morning. <\/strong>There should be a formula that pleases all rivals and takes into account that the state should embrace everyone. The absence of the state allows for further chaos and what happens in Tripoli is an example. We should add the word resistance to the ministerial statement, but in a formula that ensures the role of the state&#8230;<br \/>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>We can balance between the Resistance and the state, as long as the final decision remains in the hands of the state. <\/strong>The other camp [the opposition] wants to maintain the previous ministerial statements [regarding the Resistance] and add UNSCR 1701 and the seven-point plan. There is a linguistic dispute, which I hope will remain in the framework of language. After the assassination of Gebran Tueni in 2005 and the Jerusalem ceremony [held by Hezbollah], Hezbollah affirmed its solidarity with the Syrian regime, and from that time we engaged in a verbal conflict with Hezbollah.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>I negotiated with Talal Arslan, but the Shia sect is a partner in the country, and I should communicate with Berri alongside my friendship with him. Together, we both toppled the May 17 agreement, and I am proud of this. I maintained my contact with Berri because he represents a large portion of the Shia, and he is the speaker of the parliament, regardless of what is being said about the immobilization of the parliament. <strong>I understand that Berri did not want to ratify the international court so it does not target the Syrian regime, and Berri does not want to be accounted for weakening the Syrian regime. This forced him to shut down the parliament under many pretexts&hellip;<\/strong><br \/>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The purpose of my recent visit to Washington was the international court. France supported the international court despite the delay by the Security Council, but theoretically, the US supported us in the court&hellip; I was very critical of Washington&#39;s policy in Palestine and not in Iraq. I told Rice during my first meeting with her that they should recognize Hamas&hellip; <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Qifa Nabki&nbsp; Lebanese political veteran and March 14 stalwart Walid Jumblatt gave an interview on July 27 2008 in which he departed strongly from the trenchant anti-Syrian critiques which have defined his rhetoric for over three years. While Jumblatt did not go so far as to say that he was leaving March 14th, he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,20,22,28,7,53,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hariri","category-hizbullah","category-lebanon","category-neocons","category-politics","category-qifa-nabki","category-us"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.8.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Walid Jumblatt Sets a New Course - Syria Comment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/walid-jumblatt-sets-a-new-course\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Walid Jumblatt Sets a New Course - Syria Comment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Qifa Nabki&nbsp; Lebanese political veteran and March 14 stalwart Walid Jumblatt gave an interview on July 27 2008 in which he departed strongly from the trenchant anti-Syrian critiques which have defined his rhetoric for over three years. 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