BEIRUT: Lebanon’s politicians have spent 60 years “denying, detouring and deflecting,” the US special envoy Tom Barrack said in an interview broadcast on Tuesday.
Barrack has been in Lebanon to talk with political leaders over Washington’s proposals to disarm the powerful militant group Hezbollah.
Asked whether the Lebanese politicians he has been dealing with were actually engaging with him or just buying time, the diplomat responded “both.”
“The Lebanese political culture is deny, detour and deflect,” Barrack said. “This is the way that it's been for 60 years, and this is the task we have in front of us. It has to change.”
After meeting President Joseph Aoun on Monday, he reacted positively to the Lebanese government’s response to a US plan to remove Hezbollah’s weapons.
In an interview with Lebanese broadcaster LBCI, Barrack said he believed the president, prime minister and the speaker of the house were being “candid, honest, and forthright” with him.
But he warned Lebanon’s politicians that the region is changing and if the politicians didn’t want to change as well “just tell us, and we'll not interfere.”
While he did not disclose the details of the US proposals, or the Lebanese response, Barrack said Lebanon’s leadership had to be willing to take a risk.
“We need results from these leaders,” he said.
Lebanon’s politicians have long been accused of corruption and putting self-interest first ahead of the good of the nation and the Lebanese people.
Public anger came to a head in 2019 with mass public protests against corruption and financial hardship.
The Lebanese economy spiraled into a financial crisis with the country defaulting on its debt and the currency collapsing.
Barrack, who is also Washington’s ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy for Syria, said the US was offering Lebanon a helping hand rather than trying to interfere in its politics.
“We’ve only said one thing, if you want us to help you, we're here to usher, we’re here to help. We’re here to protect to the extent that we can,” he said.
“But we’re not going to intervene in regime change. We’re not going to intervene in politics. And if you don’t want us, no problem, we’ll go home. That’s it.”
Barrack said Hezbollah, which is viewed as a terrorist organization by the US and is also a political party with 13 MPs in Lebanon “is a Lebanese problem, not a world problem.”
“We’ve already, from a political point of view, said it’s a terrorist organization. They mess with us anywhere, just as the president (Trump) has established on a military basis, they’re going to have a problem with us. How that gets solved within Lebanon is another issue … It’s up to the Lebanese people.”
Barrack said the disarmament of Hezbollah had always been based on a simple fact for President Donald Trump: “One nation, one people, one army.”
“If that's the case, if that’s what this political body chooses, then we will usher, will help, will influence, and will be that intermediary with all of the potential combatants or adversaries who are on your borders,” Barrack said.
The diplomat dismissed media speculation that the US had set timelines for its proposals, but said while Trump had been extremely proactive on Lebanon, he would not wait long for progress.
“Nobody is going to stick around doing this until next May,” he said. “I don’t think there’s ever been a president since Dwight Eisenhower who came out with such ferocity for Lebanon. On his own, he (Trump) has the courage, he has the dedication, he has the ability. What he doesn’t have is patience.
“If Lebanon wants to just keep kicking this can down the road, they can keep kicking the can down the road, but we’re not going to be here in May having this discussion.”
During the near hour-long, wide-ranging interview, Barrack, whose grandparents emigrated from Lebanon to the US, everybody across Lebanon’s many religions and sects was tired of war and discontent.
“If we have 19 different religions and 19 different communities and 19 different confessionals, there's one thing that’s above that, and that’s being Lebanese,” he said.
The Trump administration is keen to support Lebanon and Aoun, who became president in January, as the country struggles to emerge from years of economic hardship, political turmoil and regional unrest.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, had become the most powerful military force in the country and a major political power, but was significantly weakened by an Israeli campaign against the group last year.
Its weapons arsenal has remained an ongoing thorn in the side of US-Lebanon relations.
Along with disarming Hezbollah, the US proposals presented to Lebanese officials by Barrack last month are thought to include economic reforms to help the country move forward.
US envoy calls for change in Lebanese political culture in interview with LBCI Lebanon
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US envoy calls for change in Lebanese political culture in interview with LBCI Lebanon
- Thomas Barrack says Hezbollah is a Lebanese problem, up to Lebanese people to solve it
‘No one to back us’: Arab bus drivers in Israel grapple with racist attacks
- “People began running toward me and shouting at me, ‘Arab, Arab!’” recalled Khatib, a Palestinian from east Jerusalem
JERUSALEM: What began as an ordinary shift for Jerusalem bus driver Fakhri Khatib ended hours later in tragedy.
A chaotic spiral of events, symptomatic of a surge in racist violence targeting Arab bus drivers in Israel, led to the death of a teenager, Khatib’s arrest and calls for him to be charged with aggravated murder.
His case is an extreme one, but it sheds light on a trend bus drivers have been grappling with for years, with a union counting scores of assaults in Jerusalem alone and advocates lamenting what they describe as an anaemic police response.
One evening in early January, Khatib found his bus surrounded as he drove near the route of a protest by Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.
“People began running toward me and shouting at me, ‘Arab, Arab!’” recalled Khatib, a Palestinian from east Jerusalem.
“They were cursing at me and spitting on me, I became very afraid,” he told AFP.
Khatib said he called the police, fearing for his life after seeing soaring numbers of attacks against bus drivers in recent months.
But when no police arrived after a few minutes, Khatib decided to drive off to escape the crowd, unaware that 14-year-old Yosef Eisenthal was holding onto his front bumper.
The Jewish teenager was killed in the incident and Khatib arrested.
Police initially sought charges of aggravated murder but later downgraded them to negligent homicide.
Khatib was released from house arrest in mid-January and is awaiting the final charge.
Breaking windows
Drivers say the violence has spiralled since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023 and continued despite the ceasefire, accusing the state of not doing enough to stamp it out or hold perpetrators to account.
The issue predominantly affects Palestinians from annexed east Jerusalem and the country’s Arab minority, Palestinians who remained in what is now Israel after its creation in 1948 and who make up about a fifth of the population.
Many bus drivers in cities such as Jerusalem and Haifa are Palestinian.
There are no official figures tracking racist attacks against bus drivers in Israel.
But according to the union Koach LaOvdim, or Power to the Workers, which represents around 5,000 of Israel’s roughly 20,000 bus drivers, last year saw a 30 percent increase in attacks.
In Jerusalem alone, Koach LaOvdim recorded 100 cases of physical assault in which a driver had to be evacuated for medical care.
Verbal incidents, the union said, were too numerous to count.
Drivers told AFP that football matches were often flashpoints for attacks — the most notorious being those of the Beitar Jerusalem club, some of whose fans have a reputation for anti-Arab violence.
The situation got so bad at the end of last year that the Israeli-Palestinian grassroots group Standing Together organized a “protective presence” on buses, a tactic normally used to deter settler violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
One evening in early February, a handful of progressive activists boarded buses outside Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium to document instances of violence and defuse the situation if necessary.
“We can see that it escalates sometimes toward breaking windows or hurting the bus drivers,” activist Elyashiv Newman told AFP.
Outside the stadium, an AFP journalist saw young football fans kicking, hitting and shouting at a bus.
One driver, speaking on condition of anonymity, blamed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir for whipping up the violence.
“We have no one to back us, only God.”
‘Crossing a red line’
“What hurts us is not only the racism, but the police handling of this matter,” said Mohamed Hresh, a 39-year-old Arab-Israeli bus driver who is also a leader within Koach LaOvdim.
He condemned a lack of arrests despite video evidence of assaults, and the fact that authorities dropped the vast majority of cases without charging anyone.
Israeli police did not respond to AFP requests for comment on the matter.
In early February, the transport ministry launched a pilot bus security unit in several cities including Jerusalem, where rapid-response motorcycle teams will work in coordination with police.
Transport Minister Miri Regev said the move came as violence on public transport was “crossing a red line” in the country.
Micha Vaknin, 50, a Jewish bus driver and also a leader within Koach LaOvdim, welcomed the move as a first step.
For him and his colleague Hresh, solidarity among Jewish and Arab drivers in the face of rising division was crucial for change.
“We will have to stay together,” Vaknin said, “not be torn apart.”
