The Guardians of the Cedars Party issued the following weekly communiqué:
If Mr. Amr Moussa wishes to know the opinion of the Lebanese people regarding his initiative and what they want from it, he should start by stopping his futile visits to the traditional Lebanese leaderships and instead get down to the street and poll the ordinary citizens. He will hear the following answers:
1 – Deep inside, the Lebanese people never made any bets on the Arab initiative’s success. Rather, they expected it will fail from its inception because of their bitter experience with the Arab regimes that have taken turns at tormenting Lebanon, undermining its stability, and inciting strife among its people, ever since the country made the disastrous decision of joining the Arab League and to this date. This means that the Lebanese crisis is in large part the making of the Arabs themselves, and its resolution cannot come at the hands of those who created it in the first place.
2 – If the Arabs are incapable of resolving their own disputes among each other, they are consequently incapable of resolving the Lebanese crisis which is organically coupled to their sharp disputes and eternal conflicts. Particularly since they have transferred those conflicts into Lebanon and turned it in the process into the stage on which they settle their political and personal differences.
3 – The absolute silence of the Arab League over Syria’s negative role in Lebanon, for either cowardice or prejudice, its lack of courage to condemn it and publicly denounce it, and its reluctance to blame Syria for the failure of a political settlement and for the explosive security situation in the country, will not lead to a solution. Rather, they all lead to further complicating the crisis and encouraging the Syrian regime to further terrorize the Lebanese and convert their country into a political and security arena in its war against the United States and Israel.
4 – A radical and practical solution begins and ends, first of all, with shutting down the gate of the South which summarizes the Arab-Israeli conflict. Second, with deterring the adventurers against launching destructive wars across the borders by divine mandate. Third, with the active and pressing action towards implementing the international resolutions pertaining to Lebanon on the ground. Then, a solution to the Lebanese question will become possible, easy and certain. If not, all Arab and Western initiatives will remain akin to plowing the ocean.
The Lebanese people believe that the Arab initiative is a mere gesture to wash their hands of the responsibility or out of fear that the Lebanese fires might catch spread around to the Arab countries. The Lebanese people are convinced that the best gesture that the Arabs can do to Lebanon is to stop intervening in its affairs and leave it alone, as President Anwar Sadat said, to allow the Lebanese to solve their problems in their own way.
Lebanon, at your service
Abu Arz