To begin with, it takes courage to talk to “war enemies” or to anyone we have been in conflict with for a long time.
In addition to courage, it takes a vision for not just the end of a war, but also for a hopefully lasting peace for generations to come.
Despite the ongoing war with its collective pain and grief, and despite any covert or overt domestic hostility or threat, the President and government of Lebanon dared to choose hope.
Of course, this ray of hope is VERY fragile. It is indeed HIGHLY complex with the raging war, along with the Iranian regime’s refusal to stop funding its proxies in the region (i.e., the “military” Hezbollah being a major one of them).
Indeed, if Bambi understands the current world politics well, the end of the Iranian funding was a request by the USA in its negotiations with Iran. A very clever point and thanks to Pakistan for holding the peace talks.
To come back to Lebanon, many thanks to the seventeen countries—friends of Lebanon and of peace—who supported the initiative of President Joseph Aoun. As per L’Orient Le Jour (https://tinyurl.com/yhknpcxt), their joint statement was as follows: “We welcome President (Joseph) Aoun’s initiative to open direct negotiations with Israel and Israel’s agreement to begin these negotiations under US mediation. We call on both sides to seize this opportunity”. If you are curious dear readers, these countries are: France, the United Kingdom, Australia, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Island, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.
As Mr. Marc Rubio stated in the short video below, the Lebanese-Israeli negotiations are not just today’s event or the next one, but they are rather a process. By definition, a process requires time.
May reason and peace prevail in the Middle East and in the world. It is about time for everyone, especially for Lebanon.
