Hizbullah is preparing for a meeting between its Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, reported MTV on Tuesday.

It said that the visit would be aimed at repaying the patriarch for his recent stands and tour of southern Lebanon.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi revealed on Tuesday that he had requested from France that the excuses for Hizbullah to maintain its possession of arms be eliminated.

He said during the Dar al-Fatwa spiritual summit: “We requested French assistance in eliminating its excuses to keep its weapons and help in strengthening the Lebanese army because only then can we say that the party no longer needs its arms.”

The army was on Tuesday questioning an Israeli Arab who turned up on a beach in south Lebanon after swimming from Israel, a Lebanese security official said.

The National News Agency identified the man on Monday as Ahmed Jamal Daaif.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has unveiled that he met with Syrian President Bashar Assad twice in the past few days advising him to resort to a political solution to his country’s crisis.

Jumblat told al-Haqiqa talk show on Egypt’s Dream One TV aired Monday that he advised Assad to resolve the crisis in all ways except for “blood” because a bloody crackdown on protestors would lead to a regime collapse.

The visit of Syria’s Grand Mufti Ahmed Badreddine Hassoun to Beirut has been postponed indefinitely, al-Liwaa daily quoted an informed source as saying.

The source said Hassoun, who was planning to visit Bkirki to congratulate Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on his stances from Syria, postponed his trip.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi will skip Washington in his U.S. tour after he was informed that “the time was not appropriate to arrange a meeting with the U.S. president,” informed sources told An Nahar daily on Tuesday.

Al-Rahi will begin his pastoral trip on Oct. 4. His first stop will be the city of Saint Louis in Missouri. The patriarch’s visit until Oct. 23 will include stops in Maronite parishes in the states of Illinois, Ohio, Texas, California, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and others.

The luncheon banquet that was hosted by Speaker Nabih Berri in honor of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in the southern town of Msayleh on Monday was shunned by former Premier Fouad Saniora and MP Bahia Hariri, thus raising speculation about the consequences of al-Rahi’s visit to the south.

Sources close to Saniora told An Nahar newspaper on Tuesday that the reason behind the MP’s boycott to the banquet was because al-Rahi refused to accept an invitation over lunch at the Hariri’s house in Majdelyoun but accepted Berri’s invitation.

The U.S. has sent a stern warning to Lebanon that “it will be hurt” if it doesn’t commit itself to a new U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Syria over its violent crackdown on protestors, Beirut dailies said.

Al-Liwaa newspaper on Tuesday quoted U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman as saying that if the Council imposes sanctions against Syria, “then Lebanon should commit to them and if it doesn’t it will be hurt.”

The Dar al-Fatwa spiritual summit stressed on Tuesday the importance of historic and current cooperation between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon.

The closing statement, read by Secretary General of the Christian-Muslim Committee for Dialogue Mohammed al-Sammak, stressed: “All sides should adhere to the civil state, frank dialogue, and reject foreign meddling in Lebanon.”

The Phalange Party on Monday lauded President Michel Suleiman’s recent speech at the U.N. General Assembly, saying the president “stressed Lebanon’s commitment to international legitimacy and the Security Council resolutions.”

The party, however, criticized what it called “the multiplicity of Lebanon’s representation at the U.N. institutions during the current session, as it will be represented by the president, the premier (Najib Miqati), the foreign minister (Adnan Mansour) and Lebanon’s (permanent) envoy to the international organization” Nawwaf Salam.