In light of the confrontation with Israel... where has the Hezbollah-Free Patriotic Movement alliance reached?

Hassan Nasrallah (right) and Gebran Bassil (agencies)

With the escalation of confrontations between Hezbollah and the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon, the Free Patriotic Movement expressed a clear disagreement with the party’s decision in the confrontation, adding to the accumulated differences between the two sides.

Since the end of General Michel Aoun's term as President of the Lebanese Republic on October 31, 2022, points of disagreement between the party and the movement have come to the surface more and more.

The dispute began after Hezbollah ministers attended emergency sessions of the caretaker government, headed by Prime Minister Najib Mikati, from which the Free Patriotic Movement ministers are absent because it is illegitimate, according to their description.

This dispute was considered the first of its kind since the “Mar Mikhael” understanding in 2006, which established a strong alliance between the two sides. These disputes then accumulated to include the position on the legislative sessions of the House of Representatives, the extension of the Lebanese Army Commander General Joseph Aoun, and then the file of the Presidency of the Republic.

But Hezbollah's involvement in an open clash with the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon, since October 7, 2023, has fueled the dispute between the movement and the party until it reaches its peak.

The positions of the officials of the Free Patriotic Movement, led by the head of the movement, MP Gebran Bassil, have continued to reject the escalation in the south and the principle of “unity of the squares.”

Then came President Michel Aoun’s statement, in an interview on OTV on February 19, culminating these positions, where he stated that Lebanon “is not bound by a defense treaty with Gaza,” and that “Hezbollah’s statement that it is waging a pre-emptive war "It's just an opinion."

Nasrallah (left) during a previous meeting with Aoun (Reuters - archive)

Mar Mikhael is at stake

On February 6, 2006, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and the head of the Free Patriotic Movement at the time, Michel Aoun, signed a memorandum of understanding in the “Mar Mikhael” Church in Beirut.

The understanding was based on mutual interests between the two sides. The party seized the opportunity of the renewed dispute between the two poles of Christians in Lebanon, Michel Aoun and Samir Geagea, to give national legitimacy to its project, and stressed that it does not want to dominate and abolish the role of Christians in Lebanon, but rather give them guarantees.

The understanding also strengthened the party’s positions in the House of Representatives and the government, through its alliance with the largest Christian bloc in the House at the time, and invested in it in the July 2006 war and to a greater extent in its fighting alongside the Assad regime in the Syrian war.

On the other hand, the “Mar Mikhael” understanding enabled the Free Patriotic Movement to obtain many important sovereign ministries over the past years, leading to General Aoun’s victory in the presidency of the republic in 2016.

In reality, the understanding was based on mutual interests between the two sides, but the National Movement, in light of the recent undermining of its interests, is demanding a review of its terms and wording, especially since it has lost much of its popularity within the Christian street and has cost it a lot on the external level.

When the National Movement signed its agreement with Hezbollah, it represented the largest Christian bloc in the House of Representatives, but in the last elections in 2022, it obtained only 18 deputies, or 28% of the Christian representatives, and this is a significant decline in the movement’s popularity among Lebanese Christians.

In November 2020, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced in a tweet on the X platform the imposition of sanctions on Gebran Bassil on charges of “corruption,” which Bassil attributed to his alliance with Hezbollah.

The party also shows a refusal to support Bassil in his candidacy for the presidency of the republic, clinging to former Minister Suleiman Franjieh as a presidential candidate, especially since the latter is linked to the party by common convictions, not just interests, as is the case with Bassil.

a critical stage

Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement tried to address the differences between them before the Al-Aqsa Flood operation and the Israeli aggression on Gaza, by forming a dialogue committee to discuss the outstanding points between the two sides, but the outbreak of the Southern Front fueled the differences between the two sides again, bringing the relationship between them to a critical stage.

In a statement he made on the Lebanese channel LBC on the 10th of March, a member of the political body of the Free Patriotic Movement, Representative Jimmy Jabour, accused Hezbollah of deviating from the “Mar Mikhael” understanding, noting that the party’s behavior inside Lebanon “strikes Foundations of partnership and constitution.

Jabour said, "We consider that we were at one time allies with the party, and today we ask it to stop its operations in the south," and called for the start of a dialogue on Lebanon's defense strategy.

In turn, the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, MP Alain Aoun, confirmed in a statement to the Lebanese MTV channel on March 10, 2024, that previous experiences are pushing the movement to shuffle its cards again, “which will affect the position of the movement and reformulate many of the relationships that it has.” It is a thing of the past,” in a clear reference to Hezbollah and the “Mar Mikhael” understanding.

As for the head of the movement, Representative Gebran Bassil, he stated after the movement’s political body meeting, on February 20, that the movement is against the concept of “unity of the squares” and against turning Lebanon into a platform for attacking Israel, stating that “the danger is represented by the process of gradually excluding Christians from power.”

On March 3, 2024, Bassil criticized Hezbollah in a speech he delivered during the annual dinner of the movement’s educational office, and said that it was trying to exploit the war to pass internal policies.

On the other hand, Hezbollah representatives and officials did not engage in any similar media debate, while a delegation from the party that included MP Muhammad Raad visited former President Michel Aoun on March 7, to explain Hezbollah’s point of view regarding the escalation with the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon. And his position on the pending internal files between the two sides.

Strengthening the political nerve of Maronism

The Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces Party draw inspiration from “political Maronism,” which ruled Lebanon in the 1980s.

This concept is based on dealing with Lebanese politics from the standpoint of differentiation from the Arab and Islamic environment, and viewing it with the eyes of imagined fears. The Lebanese civil war fueled this concept, before it retreated after the Taif Agreement in 1989.

But since the beginning of the dispute between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement, the concept of “political Maronism” has revived again, as the movement’s statements centered around protecting the rights of Christians, their role in the government system and national partnership in Lebanon, and fears of the Islamic demographic surrounding them.

No divorce yet

It seems clear that the relationship between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement is no longer what it was before, and that the new phase will put the “Mar Mikhael” understanding to the test in light of calls within the movement to review its provisions and formulate it according to new visions and policies.

Gebran Bassil tweeted on his account on the “X Platform” on March 15, stressing that “the understanding document will not be dropped and its ideas will remain valid, but it needs development, and this has not happened yet.”

But he came back to confirm the sensitivity of the situation that what broke the understanding was Hezbollah by abandoning “state building, and then abandoning partnership, and finally exceeding the ceiling of protecting Lebanon.”

Therefore, there is no irrevocable divorce between the two sides yet, given their dire need for the other in light of their many opponents on the Lebanese political scene, but the relationship between them has reached a sensitive stage that will have a significant impact on the Lebanese political scene, which will strengthen the sectarian alignment and increase the complexities of the scene. .

All of this comes in light of threats of an Israeli war on Lebanon, and accumulated crises afflicting the Lebanese at all levels: political, security, economic, and social.

Source: Al Jazeera