Lebanon will ask Saudi Arabia to resume a $3 billion aid package to the Lebanese army which was halted in 2016 after Beirut failed to condemn attacks on the Kingdom's diplomatic missions in Tehran, Lebanon's president said on Friday.
Joseph Aoun, Lebanon’s former army chief, will meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday in his first foreign trip as president.
The US and Arab-backed president has expressed a desire for the Lebanese state to have a monopoly on weapons after Iran-back Hezbollah was mauled in a 15-month war with Israel.
A financial endorsement from Riyadh could further solidify Lebanon’s alignment away from Tehran.
Aoun said he would ask Saudi Arabia "if it is possible to reactivate the grant," in an interview with Riyadh-based television Asharq.
"I hope and I await from Saudi Arabia - and especially the Crown Prince - to correct the relationship in the interests of both countries," Aoun added.
Saudi Arabia halted the aid package—originally intended to supply the Lebanese army with French weapons—after pro-Islamic Republic vigilantes stormed and set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad in January 2016.
The attacks came in response to Saudi Arabia’s execution of prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, prompting Riyadh to sever diplomatic ties with Tehran.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called the execution of Nimr "a political mistake and a great sin."
Hezbollah's former Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah also condemned the execution, describing it as a "heinous crime."
In 2021, Iraq initiated a mediatory effort to reconcile Tehran and Riadh which led to an agreement in March 2023 to resume their diplomatic relations.
“The Palestinians become pawns,” said Schwartz, “particularly by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
According to Schwartz, the plight of the Palestinians serves the interests of the clerical rulers of Iran as a geopolitical tool in its broader quest for regional dominance.
"It's a regional problem," said Schwartz.
Since the inception of the Islamic Republic, the leader of the revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, coined the term "little Satan" to refer to Israel and "big Satan" to reference the United States.
Iran’s clerical rulers have pledged to destroy Israel for more than four decades. The country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei often appears in public wearing a black-and-white checkered kaffiyeh to symbolize Palestinians.
Since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Iran-backed Hamas militants, Iran’s fingerprints are seemingly everywhere as the Middle East has descended into turmoil.
Hezbollah in Lebanon, the armed Houthi movement in Yemen and Iraqi militias - all equipped and trained by Tehran - have taken shots at Israel with missiles and drones.
The Wall Street Journal, citing a Hamas source, reported on Oct 8, 2023, that Iran helped plot the attack, with the greenlight being given in Beirut during a meeting.
US intelligence, however, suggests that the attack came as a surprise to Iran.
While it’s not clear if Tehran coordinated the exact timing of the attack, what is certain is Iran has funded, trained and armed Hamas for decades. Iran has provided $100 million annually to Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas, according to the US State Department in 2020.
"That money didn't go to improving the lives of the people of Gaza - the opposite, and went to building their vast tunnel network to building up their rockets and their weapons," said Schwartz.
The Hamas-Iran relationship: a paradox
The Shia-led theocracy in Iran and Sunni-led Hamas in Gaza adhere to diverging creed but have a common enemy in Israel.
Their ardor is fueled by extremism driving both sides of the conflict, Schwartz said.
"There is extremism on both sides. There are extremists on the Jewish side as well. There are Jewish extremists in the West Bank who are attacking Palestinians in the West Bank, and there's no excuse for that," said Schwartz.
"People often forget that the name of Hamas means the Islamic Resistance Movement," she added "this weaponization of Islam is only hurting the Palestinian people and making the prospects for peace ever more distant."
As the conflict drags on, Schwartz observes a shift within Israeli society, particularly in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks.
"Many of the Jews who were killed and kidnapped on Oct. 7 were left wing Israelis. Many of them were peace activists. And as we've seen over the course of the last 16 months, many in Israel have shifted rightward," Schwartz said.
That shift has a historical parallel in the 1929 Hebron Massacre, about which Schwartz has written a book.
She contends the obscure atrocity set in motion a cycle of violence that continues to shape the region today.
In 1929, Arabs set upon the Jewish community of the holy city of Hebron now in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and killed nearly 70 people.
Many those killed or injured were pious Jews opposed to a political Zionist movement, viewing it as a secular movement.
The attack, however, hardened many survivors into advocates of a Jewish state.
While the origins of that cycle of violence are not rooted in Iran, the violence between two peoples with suing conflict has only been exacerbated by Tehran, Schwartz said, creating more obstacles to lasting peace.
Peace in the holy land, which Schwartz believes is destined for both peoples to share, can't happen without both sides having self-determination. But peaceful coexistence is not feasible, argues Shwartz with the long arm of the Iranian establishment reaching the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
"I do think that the only way we will see peace and an end to this never-ending war is when both people have self-determination."
You can watch the full episode of Eye for Iran with award winning author Yarden Schwartz on YouTube, or listen on Spotify, Apple, Castbox, Amazon or any major podcast platform.
