WEST BANK (Dispatches) – Former American ambassador to the Israeli-occupied territories, David Friedman, has harshly criticized a maritime agreement with Lebanon.
In an interview with Israel Hayom, Friedman, who accompanied the previous round of talks, said that the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah’s insistence on receiving complete control of the entire territory in question resulted in the Zionist regime caving in to their demands.
“Hezbollah is the party that managed to get others to move from the position we were in a few years ago. Therefore, it seems to me that Hezbollah will be the one to profit from the spoils,” insisted Friedman, adding that, “Hezbollah was not directly part of the talks, but its position is what brought Lebanon the additional 40 percent [of the disputed territory]. This addition, compared to past negotiations, is a direct result of Hezbollah’s actions.”
“By the way, I’m not the only one saying this,” he continued. “The official mediator during Trump’s tenure, David Schenker, a professional diplomat in the State Department is saying the same thing.”
Meanwhile, a top Hezbollah official said on Saturday Beirut achieved its goals in the maritime dispute case with the Zionist regime without resorting to military action.
The head of Hezbollah’s political council, Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed, said that there is a generation in Lebanon that has crushed the power of the arrogant countries and foiled their wars against Lebanon.
“Lebanon, thanks to the resistance and the unified national stance, has won in the case of its marine wealth without needing to go to war to achieve this,” Sayyed said.
In a televised speech on Thursday, President Michel Aoun said Lebanon had approved a U.S.-mediated maritime deal with the occupying regime, saying that the agreement was a “historic achievement.”
Lebanon was “able to recover a disputed area of 860 square kilometers,” said Aoun, adding, “Lebanon did not concede a single square kilometer to Israel.”
He also said that the agreement fully preserves Lebanon’s rights while “no normalization with Israel took place and no direct talks or agreements were held with it.”
Lebanon and the Israeli regime carried out five sessions of indirect talks on the dispute starting 2020, with the latest round held in May 2021. Since the negotiations kicked off, Hezbollah declared that extraction of gas from Karish without guarantees to Lebanon that it will be able to explore and extract its maritime resources is a red line.