Professor: Lebanon must fix itself

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00:00OK, so Hezbollah have made it clear that they won't lay down their weapons.

00:07Barack is saying what he's saying, which you're saying doesn't really work at the moment.

00:13So what does the U.S. need to do? What needs to change?

00:19Well, this is a million dollar question.

00:21I think what needs to change is for the Lebanese establishment to realise that Israel cannot do their dirty work.

00:28I think that the Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, has been hesitant to confront Hezbollah.

00:32He has called openly for a kind of dialogue to discuss the issue of a defence strategy.

00:38You cannot do this when the international community, and particularly Donald Trump,

00:42has clearly framed Hezbollah as a terrorist entity, which it is.

00:48More so, I think, the Gulf countries.

00:50And in the last two days, we had the Saudi envoy on Lebanon, Yazid bin Farhan, tour Lebanon.

00:58He was very clear to warn everyone about the potential Israeli retaliation if a kind of initiative is not taken locally.

01:06So I think the problem here lies with the Lebanese, because as Barack has clearly said,

01:13and as the Gulf countries have clearly expressed,

01:15we have been getting the blessing and the support of the international community.

01:19But the problem is that these words that the Lebanese are echoing,

01:23they're not being translated to concrete moves.

01:26And this is where the problem is.

01:27The problem is Lebanese here.

01:28And we cannot bet on anything else.

01:30We cannot bet on the Israelis nor the international community to clean up our own house.