Thread by @HalaJaber

🔴IMPORTANT🔴 Nabih Berri just dropped the hammer:
The latest US proposal to disarm Hezbollah is worse than the May 17 agreement, the same one Lebanon tore up in 1984 as a mark of national betrayal.
Hezbollah isn’t the threat. Capitulation is.

2/ Lebanon has fulfilled every part of UN Resolution 1701.
Israel has not.
Instead, it’s expanded its occupation, bombed civilians, and barred 30+ villages from returning.
But Washington wants us to disarm first?

3/ Berri warns: Don’t throw the fireball of this crisis into the Army’s lap.
The Lebanese Army is a national shield, not a tool for foreign agendas.

4/ Berri’s message is clear: We’re open to a national defense dialogue, but only through constitutional channels, not under American pressure or Israeli threats.
Resistance is not negotiable while sovereignty is under assault.
In this context, Lebanon’s President & Prime Minister continuing to entertain this “working paper” is not just naïve, it borders on complicity.

5/ He also made clear that the August 6–7 American working paper, backed by the Prime Minister, President & members of the Quintet, isn’t just controversial, it crosses red lines. In his view, it violates the National Pact, undermines the Constitution, bypasses the ministerial statement, & disregards the presidential oath.

It also discards the 1701 ceasefire framework that Lebanon has fully implemented, replacing it with foreign-imposed terms that threaten, rather than protect, national sovereignty.

6/ Netanyahu is waving maps of “Greater Israel” that include all of Lebanon & Washington sends envoys demanding we hand over our last line of defense.
Berri asks: Do you not see what’s happening? Israel’s intent is clear. To disarm before securing liberation, sovereignty, & guarantees is not reform its surrender.
And Lebanon won’t walk that road again.

7/ Speaker Nabih Berri’s speech is more than political positioning, it’s a calibrated & consequential message at a defining moment. His rejection of the U.S.-Israeli-backed disarmament push, comparing it to the infamous May 17 agreement, signals deep alarm about Lebanon being strong-armed into surrender under the guise of diplomacy.

Crucially, Berri warns against dragging the Lebanese army into a confrontation not of its own making, framing such a move as both reckless & illegitimate. He affirms support for a national defense dialogue, but only under sovereign terms, within Lebanon’s constitutional & institutional framework, not under the dictates of foreign envoys, economic threats, or military blackmail.

In doing so, Berri aligns himself clearly with Hezbollah’s stance. Just last week, Sheikh Naim Qassem laid out a blunt roadmap: end the occupation, stop the aggression, free prisoners, rebuild the South, only then can talks about defense and arms begin.

Despite some claims that the “Shiite duo” (Amal & Hezbollah) are out of step, the reality is they’re operating in absolute strategic coordination. Their language may differ, Berri’s institutional, Qassem’s ideological, but the red lines are the same: no disarmament under occupation, no concessions under coercion, & no dialogue absent sovereignty.

Together, their unified front suggests that any attempt to fracture Lebanon’s internal alignment on this issue is, for now, wishful thinking. And any plan, foreign or local, that disregards this reality risks backfiring in ways far more destabilizing than anticipated.

This isn’t just frustration. It’s a final warning. When the man who helped tear up the May 17 Agreement sounds the alarm again, we should listen. 🔚

⚡️ It was fitting that Berri’s fiery statement came on the 47th anniversary of Imam Musa al-Sadr’s disappearance, in the name of a legacy that first awakened Lebanon’s Shiites, & ultimately birthed the resistance.

Israel understood his power. In 1984 it declared: “We do not fear Arab armies or their tanks, we fear the ideology Musa al-Sadr left behind.”