Al-Rahi: Hezbollah must draw lessons from this destructive war

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi has called on Hezbollah to “draw lessons” from its current war with Israel.

“Hezbollah must draw lessons from this destructive war in which Israel has displaced 1.5 million Lebanese, killed thousands of innocents and wounded tens of thousands of people. This pattern is continuing every day, amid Arab and international silence, while Lebanon has repeatedly paid the price of the conflict with Israel,” al-Rahi said in an interview with the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper published Monday.

Asked whether U.N. Secrurity Council Resolution 1701 can be implemented without the simulatneous implementation of resolutions 1559 and 1680, al-Rahi said “the talk today is limited to the implementation of Resolution 1701.”

As for his stance on those who say that “political Shiism has turned Lebanon into a failed state, during whose era citizens lost their bank deposits and all state institutions were paralyzed,” al-Rahi said: “We do not blame political Shiism alone for all these things, but rather general corruption, the successive governments, presidential vacuum, mismanagement and many other things.”