Druze leader in favor of normalization with Israel

Ready to “deal with the devil” to protect the Druze, Wahhab says he is in favor of normalization with Israel.

The Druze leader has justified his relationship with the Syrian regime in recent years by the interest of protecting his community.

Former Lebanese minister and leader of the Tawhid party, Wi'am Wahhab, known for his controversial outings during television shows, called on Sunday evening for normalization with Israel, saying he was ready to “deal with the devil” to ensure peace. protection of its Druze community: “The Lebanese have sacrificed more than 75 years of their lives to the Palestinian cause. We must put an end to this,” Mr. Wahhab said Sunday evening in an interview with local channel al-Jadeed, adding that “the nation does not want war and no longer wishes to fight the Jewish state. […] We must get out of this mentality of war with Israel for good,” said Wi'am Wahhab, normally considered close to the Iranian axis, calling for a “realistic” look at the current situation.

Faced with the assertion of host Georges Salibi, according to which such remarks contradict the entire political history of Lebanon for more than 70 years, the former minister responded that “we must get out of these illusions. We want to live in comfort.” In his eyes, “the only victor in the region is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has not finished shaping the Middle East”: “Lebanon has paid a heavy price since the opening of the support front in Gaza by Hezbollah, on October 8, 2023, the day after the surprise attack by Hamas against Israel, on October 7, 2023. […] A 60-day ceasefire that came into effect on November 27 in Lebanon put an end to more than a year of cross-border hostilities and two months of open war between the Israeli army and the pro-Iranian formation.

Fall of the Assad regime

In a context of major upheavals in Syria, marked by the overthrow of the Assad regime after a dazzling offensive launched on November 27 which allowed the rebel coalition led by Syrian Islamists to seize the country, for Wi'am Wahhab, ” it doesn't matter who the Syrian leader is, as long as Syria is at peace. The situation in the neighboring country has a direct impact on us.”

He assured that “the Lebanese army is capable of protecting Lebanon and its borders, and the Syrian political crisis should not be imported to Lebanon.”

Long known for his closeness to the deposed Syrian president, Bashar el-Assad, Wi'am Wahhab justified his relationship with the regime which presented itself as “the protector of minorities, in particular the Druze community” from which he himself comes, in a predominantly Sunni Muslim country. While “the Syrian Druze are estimated at 800,000 people”, he said he was ready to “talk with the devil” to preserve “his tribe” which represents around 3% of the Syrian population.

The politician further accused Bashar al-Assad of being a “traitor and a coward, following his flight from Syria and the transfer of a colossal sum of 130 billion dollars to Moscow, thus abandoning his people and their supporters.”

What is the fate of Assad? “Spending his days at his residence in Russia with his wife and mother-in-law. He should have died as a martyr, resisted to the end. At least, in the eyes of the world, he would have had a different figure, like the children of Saddam Hussein (two of whom were killed by the American army in 2003 in Mosul, editor's note), launched Wi'am Wahhab.

SOURCE: The Orient – ​​The Day