LEBANON: GEBRAN BASSIL DEFENDS HIZBALLAH, CONDEMNS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BEIRUT 003801

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

NSC FOR ABRAMS/DORAN/MARCHESE/HARDING
STATE FOR NEA/ELA, NEA/FO:ATACHCO

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/09/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER LE
SUBJECT: LEBANON: GEBRAN BASSIL DEFENDS HIZBALLAH, CONDEMNS
MARCH 14 LEADERS

Classified By: Jeffrey D. Feltman, Ambassador. Reason: 1.4 (d)

SUMMARY
--------------


1. (C) In a confrontational lunch discussion, the FPM's
Gebran Bassil -- Michel Aoun's son-in-law and close advisor
-- insisted that his party is transforming Hizballah even as
it uses it to bring about a national unity government and a
slate of needed reforms. He suggested Pierre Gemayel's
assassination was a March 14 inside job, and singled out the
Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, and Walid Jumblatt as the true
"Pro-Syrians" in Lebanon. Asked about disarming Hizballah,
Bassil went back on much of what FPM had claimed in the past,
making it clear that the return of the Shebaa Farms and of
Lebanese prisoners in Israel were no longer Hizballah's sole
conditions for giving up its heavy weapons. Bassil predicted
200,000 FPM supporters would come out for the December 10
rally, and while at the table entertained a proposal from
Hizballah to sponsor a mass in Martyr's Square. Confronted
with the popular view that General Aoun is obsessed with
obtaining the presidency even at the cost of ruining Lebanon,
and that once installed at Baabda he will have no power next
to that of a triumphant Hizballah, Bassil became visibly
angry. He described these views as those of March 14 leaders
only and heaped venom on them, with an anger that was not
just for show. End Summary.


2. (C) Polchief lunched with Free Patriotic Movement (FPM)
official and Michel Aoun son-in-law Gebran Bassil December 8.
In a conversation that occasionally yielded more heat than
light, Polchief warned Bassil of the dangerous path Hizballah
was leading FPM down. Bassil sheltered himself behind his
party's multitude of grievances against March 14 leaders and
USG policy. Bassil traveled with more security than usual
and at one point suggested a last-minute change to the lunch
venue for security purposes. He also announced that he had
been dieting, losing four kilos in a week from his
already-small, Napoleanic frame.

CURBING HIZBALLAH
--------------


3. (C) Pulling out a translation of Hizballah
Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah's December 7 speech,

SIPDIS
Polchief pointed out several instances of Nasrallah's
rhetorical lunacy and asked how Bassil expected FPM's (mostly
Christian) base to react. Calling Siniora and his cabinet
"Zionists," accusing the GOL of being run by the US Embassy,
claiming that the Israel-Hizballah War was started by the
United States at Siniora's behest -- these were never the
beliefs of General Aoun, he added, so how could such language
be accepted by his followers? Are not FPM voters concerned
about the General's alliance? (Polchief used the term
"alliance" deliberately to provoke Bassil -- the General was
as recently as last month angrily denying that Hizballah is
his "ally.") Bassil, in characteristic style, would not
answer the question directly, but insisted that Aoun
continues to enjoy by far the highest popularity among
Lebanese Christians (a claim which a Statistics Lebanon poll
to be published in al-Nahar on Monday will question, since
the newest poll shows Samir Ja'ja' now statistically
neck-to-neck with Aoun regarding popularity among Christians).


4. (C) As for Hizballah's hyperbole, Bassil claimed that he
and the General had consistently rejected the party's rants
against the United States and refused to allow such rhetoric
to be used in their presence. FPM is America's best friend
in Lebanon and always watching out for US interests, he
repeated -- a frequent Aoun-Bassil flourish. Polchief noted
that Nasrallah's use of such vitriolic language against GOL
leaders and the US Embassy could be setting them and us up
for terrorist attacks; Nasrallah's rhetoric is designed to
convince extremists that the only solution for Lebanon's
problems is to eliminate us.


5. (C) FPM's "Gradual Process" policy, Bassil explained, was
showing results and reforming Hizballah's behavior. The
party no longer spoke of liberating Palestine, Bassil pointed
out (though Nasrallah's latest speech was full of venom for
Israel). Furthermore, Hizballah has begun displaying the
Lebanese flag at demonstrations. Polchief countered that if

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Hizballah is tempering its rhetoric it is all for show, to
avoid alienating Lebanon's Christians at a time when it needs
them for cover as it assails the GOL. (Comment: The
Hizballah-FPM decision to fly the Lebanese flag exclusively
at its current sit-in may be a way to obscure what many
suspect: that most of the demonstrators are Hizballahis, not
middle-class Aounists whose professional lives might prevent
them from spending days or weeks in the Square. End Comment.)


6. (C) Hizballah is an honest interlocutor, Bassil insisted;
they mean what they say. And Hizballah's July attack on
Israel, Polchief asked? Had they not given assurances that
Lebanon would have a quiet summer? Bassil said to look at
what Hizballah had told the Lebanese people rather than what
they said at the National Dialogue table. Hizballah
announced its intention to kidnap Israeli soldiers and even
launched a failed attempt, he pointed out, in January 2006.
It was a mistake for them to start a war with Israel in July,
but at least they proved their honesty.

FPM AT DECEMBER 10 RALLY
--------------


7. (C) At one point during the lunch, Bassil received a call,
presumably from a Hizballah operative. After hanging up, he
told Polchief "they want us to hold a mass in St. George's
Cathedral in Martyr's Square on Sunday" to accompany the mass
rally that Hizballah and Aoun had called for that day.
Bassil pointed out that Hizballah-affiliated al-Manar
television had broken precedent and broadcast live a mass
sponsored by Aoun the previous Sunday, and had estimated that
70,000 had attended the mass and the General's speech
following it. When asked how many FPM supporters would come
to the Square for the December 10 rally, Bassil said the
party was expecting 200,000 supporters. Polchief needled
Bassil: "You don't have that many." Bassil responded "how
then did we get 400,000 votes in the last election?"

GEMAYEL ASSASSINATION
--------------


8. (C) When asked about Pierre Gemayel's November 21
assassination, Bassil pretended to ponder for a moment and
then gave the standard conspiracy line -- that those who
stood most to gain from his killing were March 14 leaders,
and that we should therefore look to them as the top
suspects. He pointed out that the assassination had brought
international suspicion on Damascus and had forestalled the
demonstrations the opposition had planned for that week.
Bassil also claimed that FPM headquarters had been attacked
within an hour after the killing, timing which he called
suspicious, and he believed the pulling-down and torching of
the Aoun-for-President posters in central Beirut had been
coordinated beforehand also.

BISHOPS' STATEMENT
--------------


9. (C) Polchief asked Bassil why Aoun was so quick to respond
positively to the Maronite Bishops' statement of December 6,
which appeared to call for the current March 14-dominated
Chamber of Deputies to replace President Lahoud, virtually
guaranteeing that Michel Aoun would never be elected
president. Bassil advised Polchief to check the wording and
sequence of the Statement carefully. He claimed that the
Bishops meant that following the replacement of the cabinet
with a technocratic caretaker government, which would be
entrusted to reform Lebanon's parliamentary electoral system,
parliamentary elections should immediately follow. The
Bishops' Statement text calling for Lahoud's replacement
falls after that dealing with electoral reform, he claimed,
and that order implies that the new president should be
chosen by a new, and presumably more pro-Syrian, parliament.

HIZBALLAH -- NEVER TO DISARM?
--------------


10. (C) FPM officials, including Bassil, have long maintained
that one of the major achievements of Michel Aoun's February
2006 Memorandum of Understanding with Hizballah was to obtain
Hizballah's commitment to disarm upon the fulfillment of two
conditions only: return of the Shebaa Farms and of Lebanese

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prisoners in Israel. Polchief asked whether Hizballah's
conditions for disarmament remained the same now. Bassil
dodged the question: "We haven't talked to them about that
lately."


11. (C) However later in the conversation Bassil linked
Hizballah disarmament to the establishment of "a real state,
a real government, and a real parliament" and to a "national
defense strategy in which Hizballah will be integrated into
the Lebanese military." Polchief commented that Hizballah
had appeared in public speeches to set out even more
conditions which would have to be fulfilled in order for it
to disarm, such as an end to corruption in Lebanon, and
speculated that Hizballah would always find a reason to keep
its weapons. Bassil responded, absurdly, that every militia
in history that has agreed to give up its weapons has been
attacked and wiped out militarily. Polchief countered that
several Lebanese militias disarmed following the Ta'if
Agreement and that they continued on as political
organizations. As he usually does when facing a logical dead
end, Bassil fell back to arguing over history, insisting that
"your friends" Hariri and Jumblatt protected Hizballah's
possession of heavy weapons for years.


12. (C) Bassil then changed the subject, asking whether if
Hizballah disarmed the USG would engage with them. Polchief
responded that it would be hard to imagine the United States
sitting down across the table from the people who bombed the
Marine barracks in 1983 and the US Embassy in 1983 and 1984,
and who kidnapped and killed Americans in subsequent years.
"You're right," Bassil allowed.

PRO- OR ANTI-SYRIAN?
--------------


13. (C) Polchief asked Bassil whether FPM still stood for a
pro-independence, anti-Syrian line. Bassil responded
positively and swore that the party is receiving no support
from any outside source nor do any of its operatives visit
Syria. How do its supporters view Bassil, then, when he
appears at a podium in the Square with such avowed
pro-Syrians as Druze opposition leader Talal Arslan? In
typical fashion, Bassil would not answer this directly but
asked, "Who was close to and practically part of Syria for 15
years? Rafiq Hariri and the people who are now running the
country." Polchief responded that Hariri's assassination had
indeed resulted in some drastic role reversals among
Lebanon's political parties.


14. (C) On Hizballah's support from the outside, and whether
that should be considered a corrupting Syrian influence,
Bassil shrugged and said that Hizballah had never taken
anything from Lebanese. So what if they take Iranian money
and distribute it to Lebanese affected by the war? Besides,
he added, Hariri and Siniora receive money from Saudi Arabia;
why do we not condemn them by the same standard?

AND IF AOUN BECOMES PRESIDENT...
--------------


15. (C) Polchief told Bassil that even if Aoun makes it to
Baabda, he will be powerless; Hizballah will run the country.
(Losing his usual affability, Bassil got visibly angry and
stayed that way for the rest of the encounter.) The Shia are
supporting Aoun because of shared goals, Polchief said,
whereas Aoun enjoys the support of some, but not all
Christians and very few Sunnis. But when Aoun, if he becomes
President, begins to pressure Hizballah to disarm, Hizballah
could drop FPM. Bassil responded, "Let them drop us. We
don't need them."


16. (C) Everyone has been telling us that Aoun is obsessed
with the presidency and seeks it even at the cost of
destroying the country, Polchief said. "Who says that?"
asked Bassil with an incredulous look. When Polchief replied
that the vast majority of our interlocutors held that
opinion, Bassil responded "that's because you only talk to
March 14 supporters." (Comment: It is indeed almost every
interlocutor, pro-government, pro-opposition and in between,
who describe Aoun as having an obsession with becoming
president. Bassil's prevarication is unsurprising, however,
as he and other FPM leaders try to maintain the fiction that

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Aoun is still overwhelmingly popular among Christians. End
Comment.)

HATRED FOR SINIORA, JUMBLATT AND HARIRI
--------------


17. (C) The one thing about Bassil's performance at lunch
that seemed to be completely honest was the visceral hatred
he displayed for the March 14 leaders. At one point,
Bassil's eyes narrowed and his lips curled as he uttered the
name "Hariri" -- this was not theatrics. The current GOL has
done nothing to carry out economic or political reform, he
pointed out. Polchief responded that the government and its
leaders may not be perfect, but that much of its record could
be attributed to its being saddled with President Lahoud and
a perpetual political crisis. "They cancelled the
Constitutional Court -- would you accept that someone
abolishes the US Supreme Court?" Bassil countered. "This is
a government that you tried to join last year," Polchief
pointed out. "And we are still," Bassil said, via an
expanded cabinet. He did not reply, though, when Polchief
suggested the expanded cabinet might be no more than a
mechanism for bringing the cabinet down.
FELTMAN