Geagea Slams 'Campaigns' against al-Rahi, Says They 'Harm Coexistence'
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday condemned what he described as the "insolent campaigns" that are targeting Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi over his controversial visit to the Holy Land and Israel, saying he will maintain contacts with Bkirki in a bid to put an end to the ongoing presidential vacuum.
According to a statement issued by his press office, Geagea telephoned al-Rahi, expressing his “strong condemnation of the campaigns that are targeting His Eminence” and describing them as “insolent campaigns that breach all Lebanese norms and traditions.”
“Moreover, they harm the pact of coexistence in one way or another,” Geagea added.
The patriarch's visit was the first by a Lebanese religious leader to the Holy Land since Israel was established in 1948 and was intended to fit in with Pope Francis' three-day pilgrimage to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The Maronite Patriarch was condemned by media close to Hizbullah, which said traveling to arch-enemy Israel would be a "sin." Critics have also said the pilgrimage implies normalization with Israel at a time when the two countries remain formally at war.
However, al-Rahi stressed that his trip was purely religious and not political. But a new wave of controversy arose on Friday, when the patriarch met exiled Lebanese who fled to Israel in 2000 after Israel ended its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon.
Speaking in the Israeli village of Isfiya near the city of Haifa, al-Rahi said the Lebanese state must not deal with the Lebanese in Israel as “criminals.” Many Lebanese regard the former South Lebanon Army members as traitors and want to see them punished.
On Sunday, top Hizbullah official Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek stressed that only the Lebanese state can condemn or acquit the Lebanese who fled to Israel.
"We do not want Israeli agents among us in Lebanon, what we suffered during the occupation was enough, and just like they are not proud of their Lebanese identity, we are too not proud to call them Lebanese,” MP Ali Meqdad, member of Hizbullah's Loyalty to Resistance bloc, announced on Saturday.
Separately, the LF leader “extensively” discussed with the patriarch the issue of the stalled presidential elections, voicing his “extreme dismay and sorrow over the obstruction of this important election by a number of parliamentary blocs.”
The two men “discussed what can be done to put an end to this obstruction, agreeing to maintain contacts between Maarab and the patriarchal seat in a bid to make a breakthrough,” Geagea's press office said.
They also agreed on the need to elect a new president “as soon as possible, because vacuum is categorically rejected in the country's top post.”
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