Fadlallah stresses civil peace and coexistence

Source: Daily Star, 08-12-2007
BEIRUT: Senior Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said Friday that even though a "window of hope has been opened" that a consensus will be reached on the presidency in Lebanon, debates were still taking place over the "image of the future" and the "confidence crisis" among the country's feuding parties.
In his weekly Friday sermon at the Imam Hassanayn Mosque in Haret Hreik, Fadlallah said the Lebanese crisis "was and still is very complicated on the internal and external levels."
"We want the Lebanese, from all sects, not to consider civil peace and coexistence as points of discord," he said. "The two issues are above parties, sects and individuals; therefore, no one should mess around with them."
Fadlallah said religious speeches, "particularly those delivered from official places," should be "wise and objective."
"In this way, those places remain at equal distance from all the Lebanese and play their national role while preserving coexistence," he said.
Meanwhile, Higher Shiite Council vice president Sheikh Abdel-Amir Qabalan urged all of the country's politicians to put national interests above all other interests and resolve problems "all at once" in a bid to bring the country out of its current skirmishes and troubles.
"MPs should go to Parliament and find a solution to all problems, including the presidential crisis and the formation of a national-unity government," Qabalan said in his Friday sermon.
Addressing Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun, he said: "You are the manufacturer of presidencies; we want you to be determined and take a great stand in terms of cooperation with your political brothers in order for you to get the country out of the dark tunnel it is going through."
Qabalan praised Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri's "wisdom and patience."
"We have to be patient too for the sake of Lebanon's stability and security," he said.
Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani said Friday the presidential vacuum "constitutes a great danger." He called on all parties to cooperate "without setting any conditions" in a bid to conduct the presidential elections. "Imposing conditions before amending the Constitution ... opposes all constitutional texts and principles," Qabbani said.