Representative Michel Moawad stated after his meeting with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, saying: “He whose hands are not stained with either blood or corruption. We have come to tell him, We are with you, Mr. President. We are with you because you represent sovereignty and the state project that unites and does not divide, and you represent the authority of the constitution and the law that builds a nation.”
Moawad added: “We are with you because we support the government’s decisions to confine weapons to the Lebanese state, given that Hezbollah’s security and military activities are outside the law. We are with you because you took a bold decision to conduct direct negotiations, to protect Lebanon and the Lebanese, so that we do not remain victims of other people’s wars on our land, and that Lebanon does not bear more destruction, blood, humiliation, migration and poverty.”
Then he continued his speech, saying: “Yes, we are with you, Mr. President, and we say to the insulters, the traitors, and the resisters: There is a difference between force and insults. Force is effective, but insults are powerless. And after Lebanon and the Lebanese were dragged into a war that the Iranian regime honored, and into an absurd war that led to more killing, destruction, and impoverishment, at least be ashamed, because insults and parades will not change anything.”
Moawad stressed that he would not allow an insulting and reluctant minority to limit his determination to build a homeland called Lebanon, with one state, with one decision, and with one army. He added: “And if you are confident in yourselves, there is no need for insults. Come and meet at the polls to see the decision of the Lebanese. Are they with the state or with the militia? Are they with the army or with illegal weapons? Are they with peace or with war? Are they with stability or with strife? And we know “The answer.”
Moawad addressed those threatened by civil peace, saying: “Our answer is that there is no fear for civil peace as long as the state exists and as long as the state implements its decisions, because the battle today is not between components, parties, or sects, but rather between an outlaw militia and a legitimate state, and between a people who want the state.”
Moawad continued, saying: “In all militias there is an incubating environment, but the battle is clear between the Lebanese state and the Lebanese on the one hand, and an outlaw militia on the other hand, and today, after the decision of the government and the state, they cling to the constitution considering that the direct negotiations with Israel are in violation of it and the principle of coexistence, so let them explain to us how they are in violation of the constitution, while the direct negotiations that took place in Lebanon within the Madrid Agreement with Israel were not like that, and did not need a constitutional amendment.”
He stressed that Lebanon has negotiated and will negotiate, and added: “Because Lebanon does not accept that anyone negotiate on its behalf, we are the ones negotiating our future, and we do not accept to be a card in anyone’s hand, nor for anyone to negotiate over us, and to those who raise the slogan of coexistence as a shield, we say that we are the sons of true coexistence, we are the ones who paid its price in blood, and we are adhering to it, because Lebanon must remain one land, one people, one state, one army, and one decision.”
Moawad concluded his speech by stressing that “coexistence in Lebanon is between Christians and Muslims under the roof of the constitution and the law, and not between the state and the state, nor between the army and the militia, nor between the Lebanese state and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. We are with President Nawaf Salam, and we say: Our hand is in your hand, and we are going with you despite all the challenges, because our goal is Lebanon and the Lebanese far from the wars of others on our land, and from more blood, destruction, strife, immigration and poverty. We are going until this war is the last.” Wars, and the page of wars is closed, and we open the page of peace, prosperity, and stability, and we can say for the last time, on the anniversary of April 13, it will be remembered and not repeated.”
