'We Hope That Diplomacy Will Win': Lebanon's Ambassador Dr Rabie Narsh On Israel-Hamas Conflict

Lebanon's ambassador to India Dr Rabie Narsh welcomed India's stance on the ongoing situation, explaining, that India has always been calling for a two-state solution.

Lebanon's ambassador to India Dr Rabie Narsh has termed the ongoing situation in West Asia as 'tense' & 'volatile'. In an exclusive interview with Sidhant Sibal, Dr Rabie Narsh said that the situation in the region is like a race between diplomacy and war. He hoped that diplomacy would win this race. Over 1400 Israelis and 5,000 plus Palestinians have died in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that started earlier this month putting the region on tenterhooks. Diplomatic efforts are on, including those led by the US and Egypt to de-escalate the situation but so far the situation remains concerning. 

Asked about the Lebanon-Israel border situation, the ambassador said, "We are we have always been calling for a peaceful solution to the conflict. We have experienced war and we know what war means. We know the devastating repercussions of any war. It's not a cakewalk, and the Israeli side should know the same because it will impact not only Lebanon but will affect all the regions and would affect Israel badly."  The concerns remain for Lebanon as several countries have asked its nationals to leave the country. 

He welcomed India's stance on the ongoing situation, explaining, that India has always been calling for a two-state solution. He said that since India has a historic friendship with the Arab world and Palestine and a strong relation with Israel, they are uniquely placed to play a greater role in this conflict.

Q. What does Lebanon make of the ongoing situation? We have seen the attack by Hamas and then the retaliation by Israel. So what's your government's position on the development?

Dr Rabie Narsh: The situation is really worrisome and quite tense. But let's put things in the right context. The situation did not start on October the seventh with the Hamas attack. The situation started a long time before that. It started with the occupation of the of Israel to the Palestinian lands and with the putting of 2.5 million Palestinians in the biggest open prison in the world. We are calling for peace. We have always called for a peaceful solution to the problem, but it is the other part, it is Israel who refused and kept on refusing all peace initiatives. Lebanon's position is very well known. We are against escalation,  against war, against attacking civilians, but we have to be firm and we have to see the root cause of the situation, which is the occupation, the Israeli occupation of the Arab lands.

Q. Will you term the attack by Hamas a terror attack? Will you condemn the attack?

Dr Rabie Narsh: It's not about condemning, if you want to condemn, of course, we condemn all civilian casualties, we condemn the killing of civilians. But let's be fair and condemn, I assume, you condemn Israel's attack on civilians as well. Israel's occupation is the cause, and what all Palestinians and every act of resistance is the retaliation, is the reaction. So yes, I condemn the civilian killing, but in this sense, I condemn in the strongest terms, Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. I condemn the carpet bombing, the levelling of whole villages and whole neighbourhoods to the ground, of bombing hospitals. You have seen the bombing of al-Ahli Hospital, and several schools and the targeting of civilian infrastructures. Yes, of course, we do condemn this.

Q. How is Lebanon reaching out to the people of Palestine? Are you sending some kind of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza?

Dr Rabie Narsh: Notwithstanding the dire economic situation that Lebanon currently is going through, we would have sent aid. But how could we do that since we have no direct channel and Israel has completely sealed off the Palestinian territories? So, not to my knowledge that we are sending some humanitarian aid but of course we are contributors to international agencies like UNRWA, who helped the Palestinian refugees. The Arab societies are so interrelated. They have relatives everywhere. When an attack happens on the Palestinians, maybe the Arabs in Algeria, they feel hurt. I mean, like here in India, you know, we are one country, so if something happened to the in South India, here in North India, you feel sorry for that and you feel like you are concerned. So that's what I mean, the attack of Israel, of course, concerned us.

Q. Your country, it looks like will be impacted, we have seen several advisories. How do you see this situation?

Dr Rabie Narsh: This is only normal in times of war, in terms of words, we see all the foreign embassies, they call for nationals to be careful or to leave that country or not to visit that country, which is being attacked or under the threat of being attacked. The foreign ambassadors in Lebanon, they know well that Israel is a real threat and when they say we might attack Lebanon, they can because we have been subjected to Israeli attacks for a long time. Many times they bombed Lebanon. So Israeli aggression is quite a fact. 

Q. Now, Israel has said that Hezbollah is firing into Israeli territory. They have also said that there could be a second Israel-Lebanon War. What do you make out of these comments?

Dr Rabie Narsh:  It's not true that Hezbollah has initiated any attack against Israel. Hezbollah has been in defensive mode. Of course, there are some exchanges of fires. Hezbollah mainly attacks Israeli posts but that too on the occupied territories of Lebanon. I mean, there are talks to keep the situation under control and not to get spread into an all-out war.

Q. Do you think that the situation can escalate very fast?

Dr Rabie Narsh: Given the fact that our neighbour, the occupying force of Israel, is armed to the teeth, they have weapons of mass destruction, they have nuclear weapons, and they have the intention of aggression. Given these facts, we are afraid that the situation might escalate, but no one knows what is the threshold, the trigger point of an all-out war. So we're afraid of the escalation of the situation in Gaza and the number of casualties. It's beyond imagination. So far, more than 6,000 Palestinians have been killed. Half of them are children and women. No one can guarantee that the situation will not escalate. But as I said, the initiatives and the talks are there and hopefully, things will abate and the situation will be controlled.

Q. How big is the ongoing development for the Arab capitals? 

Dr Rabie Narsh:  Everybody is concerned. The Arab world calls for peace. The 22 Arab states in their Beirut meeting, the Arab League summit in 2002, put on the table a peace initiative called the Beirut peace initiative. They collectively said that they are ready to recognize Israel and have a normal relationship with Israel, a diplomatic relationship with Israel, but in return, Israel should return all Palestinian land and keep respecting the right of return of Palestinians to their lands. So, this was unprecedented. This was a historic move, a historic initiative from the Arab world, the Arab states, but unfortunately, it has been refused by Israel. Since then, every year, this initiative has been put on the table again, and Israel refuses again and again. The only solution that the whole world focuses on and agrees on is the two-state solution. There's only one state that refuses this solution, which is Israel. They keep disrupting this initiative. Palestinians have no state and no place, I mean, no sovereign state, that is the problem.