presidents-of-lebanon

"At the beginning, nobody wanted to mix the brigades that were organized according to religious sects. When I was appointed there was a Maronite brigade, a Sunni brigade, a Druze brigade and so on. There are 18 official sects in Lebanon and there were 12 brigades.From the start, I had problems with those who were politically responsible who said that we just went out of the civil war, and if we make the change they will kill each other. I said that if we treat them right, it would work. And it worked. And that’s how the army became national. As president there were many important moments, but this time they were related more to international politics."

"We are in a state of war with Israel. Inside the army they will know the leaders of the resistance. They will hit them to weaken the resistance. Now they don’t know. They cannot work in known operations. In the army, you give an order – for example, to go through Beirut to Saida, up the mountain…. With Hizballah, nobody knows what holes they are in. They are underground. They have their rockets hidden underground. This is their strength. I can understand why they say that it’s important to have only one commander in chief, but in fact if you have only one of both, we are no stronger than Egypt, Jordan etc. Israel defeated them all in 6 days. Here they stayed 30 days and they had to run away. This means that it worked. I can understand when foreigners like you ask why don’t you make a commander for all, but for a Lebanese to say this it means that they have an outside agenda – one that goes through Europe, America to Israel."

"Do you know how many Syrian soldiers were in Lebanon? 40 000. Do you know how many there were when they officially left? 11 000. It was confidence building between us, and slowly they were leaving. At the time of the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri, Lebanon was according to Interpol the number one country in the world in terms of security and stability. It was all over the Internet. Number two was Austria and number three was Switzerland. They killed him because our enemies did not want Lebanon to stay strong."

"I said it before Hizballah. For as long as we are in a state of war with Israel, we need to be strong. When there will be peace, I will be the first to ask Hizballah to give up its weapons. But from now until that day comes, they want to trick us."

"The trouble with Maronites, and just to be frank about it, is that everyone thinks he is a president. This is the mentality. Because of this it is very difficult for them to agree, and we pay a high price. Lebanon was created because of the Maronites. They wanted one country in the whole Middle East for all sects, and Lebanon, as the Pope said is a message that we can live together, and we must prove we can live, but for that we need to be strong and united. Strong we are, we need to be united. Unless they make us fight each other and then we lose everything again."

"We are going through critical times. On the one hand there are the fundamentalists, and on the other the elections and lots of countries with agendas and interests. If we don’t put aside the private interests, and this is difficult to achieve in Lebanon and I know this from my experience as Commander in Chief of the army for nine years and President for nine years, that inside the system you cannot find more than ten honest politicians, though many are outside, but the rest are concerned about individual gains and that cannot make a state. And because it’s critical, I am afraid something will happen."

"That's why I'm saying you must have a quick ceasefire, because the more the Israelis escalate — the things they're doing now, it's not done in the 21st century, when they use smart bombs against civilian buildings, when they use phosphorus bombs and right now they're investigating about it, when they're throwing three tonne bombs on one building — well all this is not allowed. So what I'm saying, you should have a ceasefire as quickly as possible because force will bring force, and there will be a cycle of violence so nobody knows what will happen; it will be really a catastrophe like it is now in Lebanon. That's why I'm saying that we should think about stopping the fire instead of thinking what will happen next. We must stop it and start to talk."

"In Lebanon, Israel cannot have an influence. Believe me, the best thing now is to stop these ideas about under fire to dictate conditions of Israel. It will not work. Now they're using aircrafts again, and they can, use, kill the people they want, they make I mean threats to everybody, that we can get you everywhere, we know, they can get us everywhere, but they cannot get all Lebanon."

"You see, Israel can destroy Lebanon. But it will never have an influence on the people of Lebanon. That's different. As I was saying yesterday, they can hit us, kill us, but we will never kneel, because we've seen what happened when Lebanese knelt in the past, what happened to Lebanon."

"Despite the hail of bombs, the Israelis have been unable to produce one single photo of a destroyed resistance base, because they don't know where they are. Army bases, on the other hand, are well known and this is why they are invariably destroying our armed forces and, above all, civilian targets."

"The Israeli armed forces are destroying Lebanon, and the international community isn't trying to hold them back, but giving them more time to complete their plan of destruction."

"We have today around half a million Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, their birth rate is three times higher than the Lebanese. That is a time bomb. It is the basic problem of our country, it led to the outbreak of civil war in 1975 and still remains unsolved today. Everybody today is talking about UN resolution 1559, but nobody mentions resolution 194, which recognizes the Palestinians' right of return (to Israel). Lebanon is small and can't integrate the Palestinians."

"Lebanon respects international laws and acts accordingly and it has never transgressed the rights of others. Lebanon is waiting in return to be treated in the same way and that all its rights, including its waters, are recovered. The fact that Lebanon is securing living requirements for its citizens does not deserve all this brouhaha."

"Lebanon has resisted the Israeli war machine and forced the Israeli occupying forces to back out and withdraw. The threats made by Sharon and others will not prevent Lebanon from holding onto their land and their legitimate rights. As far as the U.S. position is concerned, we are waiting for them to implement what they have been calling for -- supporting human rights and respecting international laws. Based on this, we have extended our hand to everybody, but we will only refer to the authority able to solve such issues -- the United Nations."

"Lebanon may not possess a large military force similar to the U.S. and Israel. Its military arsenal may be modest compared to theirs. However, its solid will, the steadfastness of its people, and its continued cooperation with Syria, as well as coordination with friendly countries are sufficient to achieve what all weapons, however sophisticated and violent may be, cannot achieve. This is not a philosophical theory, but a tangible reality that Lebanon has lived, and that the Palestinian people are living everyday."

"No country can raise itself and continue without building a strong national army. This is a general understanding and a simple condition for establishing a state. I should point out the big role Syria played in helping rebuild the strong Lebanese army. Syria was generous in providing moral and logistic support and remains supportive of the Lebanese army. If not for Syrian support, this country could not have recovered. The help to rebuild the army is one of many steps adopted by the Syrian command in support of Lebanon. Reality proves that Syria always stood by Lebanon, especially when it faced problems and difficult days in its efforts to liberate its land from Israeli occupation that lasted more than 25 years."

""There is no doubt that the primary targets of the latest Israeli war in Lebanon was also to destroy the awakening and prosperity of our country. The Israelis themselves said that they want to take Lebanon 20 years back. Lebanon is Israel's chief rival in the field of finance, culture and tourism. And that is why we can see that whenever Lebanon bounces back and begins to make progress, Israel attacks it."

"We should not forget that in a world without boundaries, where a digital reality have changed the rules of the game due to the technological advances of our age, resources cannot be seen as of the realm of wealthy countries, as its problems cannot be seen as distinct from those of developing countries. The problems of illegal immigration which Lebanon suffers from and is hence joining the fight against- and what Europe currently faces in currents against this immigration, are evidence of the urgency with which we should tackle the root causes of such a problem."

"Our States, which are trying through this convention to strengthen their cooperation and economic ties, in order to create further chances for their development, and getting out of the circle of negative consumerism, are hence stronger and more able to correct the economic and political imbalances. For the resources of our countries, be they human, industrial, commercial, productive, are manifold and voluminous. And these resources need modern and global plans in order to be implemented, and changed into development and modernity."

"The aim of our mutual economic cooperation is to break the economic and commercial isolation and correct the imbalance in world economies, in order to prevent the problems of poverty and dependence of becoming worldwide crises, feeding the gene pools of fanaticism, isolationism and terrorism."

"Recent days have brought a notably offensive example. In the face of intense opposition across the Lebanese political and religious spectrum, Syria pressured the country's cabinet last weekend into endorsing a constitutional change designed to let President Émile Lahoud extend his expiring six-year term for three more years. Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has for years been a fierce foe of Mr. Lahoud and had strongly opposed amending the Constitution. But he suddenly changed his mind after a Friday night meeting with the Syrian chief of military intelligence. Now, barring a brave last-minute revolt by Lebanon's parliament, Syria will get its way and Mr. Lahoud, who long ago lost his support among the Lebanese but remains a willing tool of Damascus, will stay on. It is not easy for any Lebanese politician to stand up to the ruthless Syrian dictatorship and the 20,000 troops it keeps on hand to enforce its will. This is the third time in a decade that Syria has forced Lebanon to change its Constitution to ensure that there is a pro-Syrian president."