Lakhdar Brahimi and Yusuf Qaradawi

The Moor Next Door, who I'm fairly sure is this blog's only reader (are there any others?), has expressed interest in Lakhdar Brahimi, so here's some of what he has to say on the Lebanon crisis:

Lakdar Brahimi to El Khabar: Hezbollah has earned the honor of the resistance to the occupation.

Why, in your opinion, has the UN Security Council delayed meeting on the explosive situation in Lebanon, and remained incapable of reaching a ceasefire? I think the reason has become well-known: the active world powers - specifically, the US and, to a lesser extent, Britain - do not want an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon to be reached.

This means that Israel is waging war with US authorization... I don't think it's precisely like that, but Washington does not hide its bias towards Israel and has expressed that frankly more than once; for this reason, the Americans look at the Middle East's problems in a narrow Israeli perspective.

[...]Do they think that sending international forces into Lebanon is a guarantee for healing the crisis, given that Israel has targeted UN forces before? The US talks of the need to go to the roots of the crisis, not its results or its surface. I think this idea is very reasonable, and right on - but what are the roots of the problem? Yesterday the British PM said, in a joint conference with the American President, that the immediate cause of the current crisis might be the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers, and he also recognised that the root of the problem is Palestine. So if the point of his words was to solve the roots of the problems of the Middle East, or concern for the lost rights of the Palestinian people, then we welcome this development totally. But the international forces that they speak of, the UN secretary general already asked for them in Gaza a while ago, and his request found no echo...

There are those who observe that Israel is currently seeking the implementation of UN Resolution 1559. Israel has no right nor duty to implement resolution 1559, for it is not among the states that respect UN resolutions. Moreover, the resolution has two halves, one demanding that Syria leave Lebanon - which has happened - though I, as a person who had a small role in the Taif Agreement, express my regret that the Syrians did not implement the agreement by their own free will many years ago. But the second half relates to assisting the Lebanese state to spread its sovereignty over all Lebanese land, which plainly says that the militias and in particular Hezbollah cannot continue to bear arms and form a state within a state. This will not compromise its position and role, for it is a respected political party with wide representation, and a member of the Lebanese government. Furthermore, it must be ensured that the state be the only force with the right to use weapons. The Lebanese sides have begun engaging with the issue, and it is to be hoped that they will continue along this road.

[...]If you were the UN Secretary-General, what solutions would you suggest to the two warring sides? First thing would be a ceasefire, which is a widespread idea at the moment, then an exchange of prisoners - there are Lebanese imprisoned by Israel for 25 years, but their plight does not attract the attention of the West, which sheds tears for Israeli captives. Third, that Israel should leave the Shebaa Farms, and fourth, in my view, we must turn to the mother of all these problems, Palestine, for this issue poisons the atmosphere of the region, and if we don't find a solution for it it will lead to worse problems in the future in other countries of the region. And on the occasion of what is currently going on in Iraq, I would like to address a few words to Arabs and Muslims: Can we dream that the popular solidarity we witness in the Lebanese crisis will continue, and shut the door in the face of the sectarian division (fitna) lit between Sunni and Shia in Iraq, for it is division that has become the source of fighting and massacres more than resistance against the occupation, and it is necessary to contain the disaster that we witness in Iraq so that it does not spread beyond its borders and spread throughout areas with Sunnis and Shias.

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In other news, El-Khabar noted that Qaradawi confirms that supporting Hezbollah is the duty of every Muslim", rejecting the fatwa of the Saudi shaykh Bin Jibreen who decided that it was forbidden to support Hezbollah because they were Shia (yes, precisely and only because they were Shia.)