| Oh, be still, my beating heart! 128 speeches... |
The issue of Hizbollah's weapons is one of the biggest challenges that will face Lebanon in the coming months. Siniora said the government would defend Lebanon's right to resistance, the term usually used for Shi'ite Muslim Hizbollah, whose attacks helped end the Jewish state's 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000. "The government considers the resistance a natural and honest expression of the Lebanese people's national rights to liberate their land and defend their honour against Israeli aggression and threats," he told parliament. But Siniora, finance minister under slain former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, did not mention U.N. resolution 1559, which demands that militias disarm. Syria's withdrawal fulfilled its other main requirement. "The government affirms its respect for international law, good ties to international legitimacy and respect for its resolutions within the framework of sovereignty, solidarity and national unity," he said.
Hizbollah was the only Lebanese group to keep its arms after the 1975-1990 civil war. The
United States brands Hizbollah a terrorist group and wants it to give up its weapons. Hizbollah has a ministerial post in the new cabinet for the first time, though its overall make-up reflects elections that last month swept an anti-Syrian majority into parliament for the first time since the end of the civil war. The new government has 15 ministers allied to an anti-Syrian bloc led by the slain Hariri's son, Saad, and five loyal to the pro-Syrian Shi'ite coalition that includes Hizbollah.