Head of the Kataeb Party MP Sami Gemayel said that Lebanon was paying the price for Hezbollah’s policy.
“No one has the right to drag us into the place they want, and no one has the right to impose on us a lifestyle that we don’t want,” he said.
His comments came in response to a recent speech by the movement’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah.
Gemayel emphasized that Hezbollah “cannot absolve itself from the economic reality that we have reached,” adding that the movement was preventing the army from closing the illegal crossings.
“We don’t want to live in isolation and be cut off from the West, Arabs and the entire world,” Gemayel remarked.
Addressing Nasrallah, he said: “We are not agents; rather, we are Lebanese. We consider you a Lebanese like us, and we ask you to join us under the constitution in order to build a new Lebanon.”
Nasrallah’s words were met with rejection, especially his call to resort to the East and deal with China instead of the US.
Lebanese Forces MP Pierre Bou Assi said on his Twitter account: “Well done, sir. Just like that, camels are driven; but we are not camels.”
He continued: “No; We will not sacrifice our last hard currencies to save the Syrian regime... Our dollars belong to our citizens, the depositors, and they alone have the right to benefit from them.”
For his part, former MP Fares Soueid replied to Nasrallah saying: “You give us nothing but sedition and backwardness.”
Soueid emphasized adherence to the Constitution, the Taif Agreement, saying that Lebanon cannot be ruled by an authoritarian group.
