Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt struck a defiant tone on Tuesday amid an ongoing Israeli assault on Lebanon. "Today, we are heading toward the unknown but we have no choice but to resist and to support our brothers in the South," Jumblatt said. The head of the Democratic Gathering parliamentary bloc praised the struggle being made by Southern residents and Hizbullah against "the Israeli murder and destruction machine," but warned the fight would be a long one."Unfortunately, the Syrian regime has achieved its promise," he added. "[Syrian President] Bashar Assad told [late former Prime Minister] Rafik Hariri in August 2004: 'If [French President Jacques] Chirac wants to oust me from Lebanon, I will destroy your country," Jumblatt said. "What is happening today makes us more determined to build a democratic and independent country, establish diplomatic relations with Syria, demarcate the borders in the Shebaa Farms and discuss Hizbullah's arms," the PSP leader said. "And when [Hizbullah leader] Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah tells us that his weapons are efficient and sharp, we will tell him that they would have been more efficient if they were within the government's defense strategy," he added.
Meanwhile, parliamentary majority leader MP Saad Hariri said "radical solutions should be reached [to the escalating violence] because we don't want such a crisis to be repeated."
"We need to empower the government and rebuild all of what the Israelis destroyed in all the Lebanese territories," the Future Movement leader told Al-Arabiyya television station on Tuesday.