Salam Government Sells Out Lebanon’s Strength
By Israa Al-Fass
Nawaf Salam’s government has done it — under the presidency of Joseph Aoun, it has steered the country straight into the danger zone.
Last Tuesday, the Lebanese prime minister, backed by foreign patronage and pressure, took to the podium as if to declare, “Bear witness for me before the prince.” In a terse statement, he dodged reporters’ questions and hailed what he called his “historic” achievement: launching a campaign to strip Lebanon of its strength—the Resistance’s arms—under the banner of “exclusive weapons.”
He addressed the Lebanese public even as drones and fighter jets prowled the skies, striking targets and leaving martyrs in their wake. His words were not aimed at the enemy but at his own people. From the podium of the Lebanese presidency, Salam’s government dragged the army into a fight that was never its own, seeking to dismantle the only equation that had allowed Lebanon to stand as a regional force for decades: the unity of the Army, the People, and the Resistance.
For decades, this equation was paid for in blood—yet it was cemented in every ministerial statement issued by successive governments. Even in 2008, under Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, after the Doha Agreement, the official policy openly affirmed Lebanon’s right—through its people, army, and Resistance—to reclaim occupied land and defend the nation by any means necessary.
Those words were never mere political rhetoric or a passing balance of power. They distilled a long history in which the army, the Resistance, and the people shared the same trenches, weathering the same attacks, standing shoulder to shoulder against aggression.
From the 1972 invasion of Al-Arqoub and the heroic resistance of the Lebanese army—which resulted in the martyrdom of 19 soldiers and injuries to nearly fifty others—to 1997, when nine soldiers and Resistance fighters were killed in an “Israeli” airstrike on Arbasali; from the hundreds of martyrs among the army and Resistance during the 2006 July War, to the 2010 incident at the Odaisseh tree, where the Lebanese army confronted enemy forces invading the town’s outskirts—costing soldiers and a journalist their lives—and onward to 2017, when the Lebanese army successfully expelled Jabhat al-Nusra militants from the eastern borderlands, backed by Resistance fighters from across the Syrian frontier—each chapter testifies to a shared sacrifice.
The narrative culminates in the most recent war against Lebanon, which claimed 40 soldiers’ lives, including heroes whose names are etched in the nation’s memory for their valor confronting occupation—like the fallen officer Mohammad Farhat, who died last October along with two comrades when a shell struck them while evacuating the wounded in the town of Yater.
At every pivotal moment, the equation of “Army, People, and Resistance” was reinforced through shared identity, sacrifice, and belonging. In 2018 specifically, the late Secretary General of Hezbollah, His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, famously dubbed this formula the “Golden Equation.”
In a speech commemorating Martyrs’ Day, Sayyed Nasrallah placed the Golden Equation alongside the Resistance’s missile capabilities as the two pillars underpinning Lebanon’s deterrence balance. He has reiterated this point repeatedly since.
Today, after this proud history of struggle with army and Resistance standing shoulder to shoulder, comes Nawaf Salam’s government’s decision—all while “Israel” continues its aggression, refusing to honor ceasefire agreements or withdraw from Lebanese territory. Worse still, amid open talk of expansionist ambitions, nibbling away at South Litani and pushing toward the Awali River.
The crucial question remains: who will stand up to “Israel’s” schemes if Lebanon is stripped of its power equation? The same government that blocks reconstruction efforts—compiling reports naming those who rebuilt their homes in the south, while attempting to choke off funding for the Resistance and halt compensation? Or the very government whose head admits to knowing nothing of Lebanon’s prisoners held in enemy jails—their numbers, their names—leaving their fate shrouded in silence?
At a time when Lebanon more than ever needs to build on its pillars of strength, what has Nawaf Salam’s government done? It has moved to squander whatever remains of the country’s power. What “Israel” failed to achieve in its wars to strip Lebanon of its strength, the government’s decision now makes possible.
Salam and his allies have positioned the army against the Resistance—and the resistance is an entire community, made up of sons and leaders who are either martyrs or daily targets. Its women raise the photos of their fallen every day, because in those images lies the essence of a nation with a clear identity.
Those raised photos are themselves a stance that brooks no compromise—a statement that sacrificing the blood of their loved ones is tantamount to spilling it anew.
The authorities—represented by the government and presidency—have jumped over all of this. When the political decision was made to mobilize the army, it was not directed against the enemy to repel its attacks, but against the Resistance, whose youth’s flesh was shed on the frontline villages. For 66 days, they formed the wall that protected the entire country from invasion. It was also directed against the people from whom the army was drawn, facing the very regions and families that sent their sons to serve.
After forsaking us as citizens, the government chose to squander everything—and that “everything” is embodied by the army as a military institution above political conflicts, and as a symbol of a unified nation.
Immediately after the Lebanese government’s decision, Omri Naveh, the Zionist analyst for Arab affairs on Channel 14, commented: “What is happening in Lebanon with the government’s plans to disarm Hezbollah is a historic event. If there is ever a moment in history and timing to permanently remove Hezbollah’s weapons, it is this moment.”
His words echoed those of certain voices within Lebanon, but the term “historic event” was measured solely by the enemy’s standards and interests. This so-called “historic” moment was handed to “Israel” on a silver platter by Nawaf Salam’s government!
