Jumblat Slams 'Foreign Ministry Orientalists' after Bassil Remarks

Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat on Sunday blasted remarks by Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil on the Syrian and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

“We remind the orientalists at the Lebanese foreign ministry that Zionism displaced most of the Palestinian people under the slogan that Palestine is a land without people, and the ‘deal of the century’ might displace the rest,” Jumblat tweeted.

“The Syrian regime has displaced a lot of people, turning a part of Syria into a land nearly without people, and each of them (Israel and Syria), in its own way, considers that it is fighting terrorism,” he added.

“This is a remark for history,” he went on to say.

Bassil had announced Saturday that Lebanon will “defeat the naturalization scheme.”

“The Palestinians and Syrians will return to their land, states and homelands and this is our determination,” he added.