There’s a Lebanese saying: “We brought the bald man to cheer us up, but he revealed his baldness and scared us.” This perfectly illustrates the actions of Nawaf Salam, who once again insists on making divisive statements detached from reality, falsely believing himself to be the legitimate and sole representative of the Lebanese people.
In a statement reeking of authoritarianism and exclusion, Salam declared yesterday: “Normalization with Israel is rejected by all Lebanese.”
The fundamental question here is: who authorized him to speak for all Lebanese? What right does he have to appropriate the voice of the Lebanese people and impose his opinion on them without any legal or popular mandate?
His words are not simply a personal opinion; they are a blatant misrepresentation of the will of the majority of Lebanese. We are weary of wars and unjustified hostility and yearn for peace and reconciliation with the State of Israel and all nations. We want an end to the absurd situation imposed by the Iranian-backed, fundamentalist, and terrorist Hezbollah through force of arms and all forms of criminal oppression.
We ask loudly: who gave him the authority to assert that all of Lebanon rejects peace? Did he conduct a public opinion poll? Has he listened to the voices of the Lebanese people oppressed under the dominance of illegal weapons, those who long to escape the forced isolation imposed upon them by the deceptive and hypocritical doctrine of a hollow resistance? Or does he still believe that Lebanon is captive to the outdated rhetoric of Nasserist and Muslim Brotherhood Arabism, which has brought nothing but defeats and collapses to the region?
Nawaf Salam’s history is evident to anyone familiar with him. He has never truly aligned himself with a genuine Lebanese identity. Instead, he has consistently and publicly been part of Arabist and fundamentalist agendas allied with both Sunni and Shiite political Islam. This individual has never strayed from the ideology of the radical left and pan-Arabist Muslim Brotherhood concepts. He was a follower of the Palestinian Fatah organization, closely associated with Yasser Arafat, and even wrote speeches for him. Furthermore, his wife, a journalist, shares the same destructive ideological leanings.
Today, despite the significant shifts in the region, Salam remains trapped in the mindset, concepts, and culture of the 1960s. He refuses to acknowledge that times have changed and that the Lebanese people desire a future free from the wars and destruction of political Islam. He stubbornly clings to empty slogans that have mired Lebanon in successive crises, despite the clear realities: there is no fundamental issue between Lebanon and Israel, only minor border disputes that can be resolved diplomatically. This is a fact understood by the majority of Lebanese who aspire to peace and stability, not to bombastic rhetoric, blind hostility, and futile wars.
More concerning than Salam’s arrogant pronouncements is the composition of his ineffective government, which includes figures as exclusionary and intellectually barren as he is. His deputy, Tariq Mitri, is merely a reflection of him. Moreover, his cabinet is filled with ministers aligned with Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, making it a government subservient to the very system that has devastated Lebanon for decades. It is crucial to ask how such a government can claim to represent the Lebanese people when it only serves the interests of Hezbollah’s mini-state and its allies.
Ultimately, Nawaf Salam does not represent the Lebanese people. He represents only himself and his ossified Nasserist and Muslim Brotherhood ideology. His condescending and misleading statements are simply a parrot-like repetition of outdated slogans.
It is disheartening that the pan-Arabist, Nasserist Salam suffers from a complete disconnect from reality. He is unable to grasp that the Middle East is moving towards peace and openness, and that outdated hostile and pan-Arabist mentalities no longer have a place in this era.
Therefore, if Salam is incapable of adapting to this new phase – and he clearly is – he should resign and step aside. He must cease imposing his leftist and fundamentalist illusions on the people of Lebanon.
The Lebanese people are no longer willing to pay the price for his blind hatred. Consequently, they will not allow him or anyone else to falsely claim to speak on their behalf. This is an era of peace, and those who fail to understand this belong in the dustbin of history.
Salam: Normalization with Israel rejected by all Lebanese Naharnet/March 26/2025
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam stressed Wednesday that “international and Arab diplomatic pressure on Israel to halt its attacks has not been exhausted,” noting that “no one wants normalization with Israel in Lebanon, which is rejected by all Lebanese.”Salam added, in a meeting with a delegation from the Lebanese Press Editors Syndicate, that “the five points that Israel is clinging to have no military or security value other than maintaining its pressure on Lebanon.”Responding to a question, Salam said “Hezbollah has its supporters, MPs and representation,” explaining that he has recently said that “the army-people-resistance equation has ended, because it was not mentioned in the ministerial statement, which emphasizes on the exclusivity of arms in the hands of the state.”
