Bassil to CNN: Peace Cannot Be Achieved Through Israeli War Crimes, and Hezbollah Must Become Part of the Lebanese National Consensus

President of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), MP Gebran Bassil, said in an interview with CNN that the Lebanese government must adopt a fair and balanced position between the reality imposed on the ground and its desire to reach peace.
He said that this position must take into account the Israeli government’s willingness to reach a just solution. Such a solution, he explained, would require ensuring Israel’s security and legitimate rights, while at the same time allowing Lebanon to fully recover its rights, liberating Lebanese territory from Israeli occupation forces, ending Israeli attacks, and enabling displaced people to return to their villages.
Bassil added that if Israel were to demonstrate genuine good faith, it should fully withdraw from Lebanese territory in accordance with the 2024 ceasefire agreement. He said this step was essential, and that only afterward could discussions begin on how to lay the foundations for a just and lasting peace.
Regarding Hezbollah’s weapons, Bassil said the issue was linked to two main factors.
He explained that Hezbollah was not merely a military militia, but also a community and a social base, and that it had acquired its strength and capabilities through the legitimacy granted to it by the state over a long period of time. Disarming such a group, he said, could not be done “at the push of a button,” especially when it is deeply embedded within its own community and social environment.
Bassil stressed that the goal was to restore the state’s exclusive monopoly over arms, but without dragging the country into a civil war.
He said that if Israel was serious about achieving peace with Lebanon, then Lebanon could not remain a weak and fragmented state. Instead, it must become a strong state capable of building real peace not only between Lebanon and Israel, but also between the peoples of the two countries.
According to Bassil, this cannot be achieved through the war crimes Israel commits every day, nor through any form of cooperation between Israel and Lebanon against one component of Lebanese society.
He added that Hezbollah must be pushed to engage in a political process in which all military, security, financial, and economic issues are put on the table.
He further said that Hezbollah must be pressured in a way that makes it part of the Lebanese state and its decision-making process not a force controlling the country or dictating its decisions, but rather a component within the institutions of the state.
When asked about what could motivate Hezbollah to lay down its weapons, Bassil said that, at present, this is not something they are considering. However, he added that efforts must be made to bring this issue into their thinking and to make them understand that they have no choice but to become part of the Lebanese national consensus on building a strong state.
Bassil said this could be achieved by convincing Hezbollah that Lebanon could be protected without its weapons through international guarantees and United Nations resolutions, through defense agreements with international powers such as the United States, and through internal consensus on a national security strategy to defend Lebanon.
Most importantly, he said, Lebanon would be protected through a policy of neutrality, meaning non-involvement in any external conflict in the region, whether Israeli or Iranian.
Bassil added that all Lebanese must be convinced not to align themselves with any external power, because Lebanon is an independent state capable of remaining neutral and fostering peace, prosperity, and stability instead of war and conflict.
Asked about the US sanctions imposed on him, Bassil said they were political and stem from a position he took in order to preserve national unity in Lebanon.
He added that they had paid a heavy price to avoid civil war in Lebanon and did not want to witness another conflict between Lebanese regions or among the components of Lebanese society. He said they only wanted to preserve their country and society across the whole of Lebanon’s 10,452 square kilometers.
Bassil concluded by saying that every effort must be made to ensure that Lebanon remains a free state not subordinate to any external power, not subject to the control of any internal force such as Hezbollah, and not forced to follow external agendas that could threaten its unity and security.