Foreign Minister Abdullah Abu Habib was the country's ambassador to
the United States, also worked once as the economist at
the World Bank, and he is now joining us from
Beirut.
Welcome to the program, Foreign Minister.
What do you think is going on?
What do you know is going on?
What's happening right now in your country?
Well, you described it a little bit and it is
worse than one can say.
There are a lot of people who will be killed
and a lot of people injured and a lot of
them named for good, you know.
So it's a very hard situation and I don't know
what's Israel intention.
I don't think they can return their the those who
refugees who went from their villages in the north in
this way because Israel was in Lebanon and had to
run away in Lebanon.
Of of course they stayed 22 years, but there were
too too many killings of Israelis there.
So I don't think Israel would want to occupy S
Cameroon again because the this time the resistance is stronger
than it was in the past.
So I really don't understand the Israelis because they if
they want to go to get back their people to
the north, those who were displaced to the north, to
their villages and settlements, they have to negotiate and they
have to negotiate with the Lebanese government through mediators like
like the Americans as well.
So have there been any negotiations before I get to
the nitty gritty of the of the exploding walkie talkies,
has there been any kind of diplomatic attempt?
Because Hezbollah obviously also got into this war after October
7th in support of Hamas.
So there's been an ongoing exchange of fire between the
two sides for nearly a year now.
That's true.
Till October 8th it will be a year.
So yes, there the Americans got involved, the French get
involved, UN tries it's best as well.
And but we depend on the Americans now to to
really take them in.
Mr.
Amos Hoekstein is our, I don't know if he still
is in Israel.
And I think he was supposed to come here if
he has any message.
It seems he doesn't have any message.
He has been negotiating, he has been talking to people
here and it is real.
But so far nothing came out.
So, Foreign Minister, the Americans say they were not told
of these details.
Now the Israelis are saying they did warn the Americans,
but apparently by consensus there is there was no details
given to the Americans, neither to meets, to Hochstein nor
to the State Department.
And the Secretary of State is in the region right
now.
This is what he's saying about the general situation.
We've been very clear, and we remain very clear about
the importance of all parties avoiding any steps that could
further escalate the conflict that we're trying to resolve in
Gaza to see it spread to other fronts.
It's clearly not in the interest of anyone involved to
see that happen.
And that's why, again, it's imperative that all parties refrain
from any actions that could escalate the conflict.
Foreign Minister, he's talking about trying to get a ceasefire
in Gaza in order to calm the whole area.
Hey, do you think that's what it's going to take
to stop Hezbollah from its activities?
Look, Hezbollah is a resistance movement and that's deal government
to government.
We are willing to to to talk to Hezbollah at
the right time and we communicate with them all the
time.
And I think if Israel wants peace, we are ready
for peace, for a ceasefire, not a peace treaty, but
for a ceasefire on the border and an agreement on
what are the conditions for these ceasefire.
Granted that 17 O1, which is United Nations Security Council
resolution seventeen O 1 is a very important resolution for
us.
And if we implemented for us and the Israelis and
we both said that that's implemented.
But Israel violates Lebanon, the sovereignty of Lebanon every day.
Every day there is a violation.
So I'm not defending Hezbollah because yes, they are also,
you know, retaliating.
Escalation has been all the time.
Israelis like what happened yesterday, what happened today is escalation.
You know, we cannot talk to Hezbollah anymore now in
in the way we were talking to them in the
past, because they are, of course, they were hit very
badly and therefore retaliation is a must to them.
We'll try to do something, but I don't know how
much we have power to, to stop them.
It all sounds resistance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It all sounds the occupation of land, foreign minister.
It all sounds really hopeless.
On the one hand, you say, you know, the US
has to do something.
the US didn't even know what was about to happen.
Israel is its main ally.
Israel takes its weapons from the United States.
Nobody knew, according to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
How is it going to fix this?
Then you say you can't talk to Hezbollah because they
are, you know, now without their pages or their walkie
talkies.
Are you afraid that this is going to escalate in
a into a regional war, not just Israel going to
war with, with Hezbollah, but a regional war with Iran,
etcetera.
We, we have warned about this for a long time,
that this will end, will end up with a regional
war.
And this is not in the interest of any side,
any country in the region.
We really want peace as a government.
And we are really going to New York to the
Security Council.
Friday afternoon we'll have a meeting of Security Council.
We want peace, I don't mean to say peace with
Israel and have like a peace treaty.
We want peace in the borders between US and Israel.
And we want to go back to the truth line,
which was approved by Israel and by Lebanon in 1949.
So, you know, we really want peace and we're really
working for peace.
But we did not receive any good sign from the
Israelis in this, OK, the sense.
So let me ask you, has this weakened Hezbollah?
Because first of all, you know, it's quite a stunning
coordinated attack.
We don't know what the strategy of this was and
what's the next step by Israel.
But those who get off on this kind of daring
do are calling it brilliant.
My question to you is, does this weaken Hezbollah in
terms of its intelligence has been penetrated, its hardware has
been penetrated?
I mean, what's your, what's your view on that?
Well, well, so far, of course.
Now Hezbollah for a few days through or a week
or so, there would be trouble.
It's not easy for them to to receive such kind
of a blow in two days.
You know, I don't know what's expected more if there
is anything else is expected tomorrow.
I mean they penetrated their intelligence, they penetrated their communication.
There's no doubt there would be in little bit in
disarray.
But I think this is an organization that can come
back quickly.
That's what happened in 2006 and they can come back
quickly.
Also Israel for a year almost has been, you know,
we're going to finish from Hamas, Yes, Hamas has been
weakened, but it's still there.
So, you know, ideas, you cannot kill ideas by war.
This is if you have an army against an army,
one would win.
But this case, it is not the case.
It's not the same case as a war.
You know, you have an idea.
An idea does not die.
In the contrary, there would be more people really rallying
towards this idea.
And finally, Foreign Minister, you know, CNN has learned that
it was a joint Mossad IDF operation.
How do you know?
What do you know?
Why do you say it was Israel and and how
do you assess the ability to do what they did?
How do I know that it was Israel?
And how do you just just how did you feel
when, when all these exploding pages started going off?
And today more walkie talkies.
There's no there's no doubt.
It's a scary moment and we are afraid from coming
to war because we don't want the war.
There were skirmishes on the borders, sometimes escalated.
Well, OK, accepted.
But now you're talking about the war.
It's an introduction to a war.
That's why we're going to the Security Council, UN Security
Council to stop such kind of things.
We are against war in Lebanon.
The government of Lebanon does not want war and does
not want even the skirmishes in the South of Lebanon.
So we need the help of the United Nations.
We need the help of the United States also in
order to really re establish some kind of peace in
South Lebanon and just very briefly happened to be in
north Israel as well.
How do you know it was Israel?
How do I know?
I didn't get the question.
Yeah.
How do you know Israel did it?
What can you?
Well, I don't know, but the perception with a strong
perception that they did it, even Americans are saying nobody
could do it except the Israelis.
And finally, finally can put a lot of pressure on
the Israelis as you.
Is war is war inevitable now a bigger war, You
know, if, if United States, United States is the only
country that can stop the war.
United States supplies Israel with weapons, with ammunition, with money,
whatever, and they can stop it.
And this happened before Kissinger stopped the war and and
Bush also got got Israelis to the peace, peace conference
in Madrid.
So United States has the means to stop the war.
If it was to stop the war.
We we're going back more than 30 years now.
Mr.
Foreign Minister, thank you so much indeed for being with
us at this really tense time.