BEIRUT: A senior Lebanese security official has offered to mediate in the dispute between Hezbollah and Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, whose ties have been strained by sharp differences over the 4-year-old war in Syria, sources in Jamaa said Wednesday.
According to the sources, Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, widely viewed as the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, has accepted to enter into dialogue with Hezbollah, though no final date has been set for launching this dialogue.
“A high-ranking Lebanese security official has offered to act as a mediator to open a serious dialogue with Hezbollah in order to break the ice between us. We have agreed to this issue, without giving a deadline for the beginning of the dialogue,” a source in Jamaa told The Daily Star.
Hezbollah officials were not immediately available to comment on the proposed dialogue with Jamaa.
The Jamaa source said the two militant Palestinian groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, had previously tried to mediate in the rift between Hezbollah and Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya which has its roots in the Shiite party’s intervention in Syria to help President Bashar Assad’s forces. Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya supports the Syrian uprising to overthrow the Assad regime.
Jamaa officials have said that the group’s relations with Hezbollah have been frozen as a result of the party’s involvement in the war in Syria.
“Everyone knows that the major bone of contention between us is Hezbollah’s intervention in the ongoing war in Syria,” the source said.
“We have clear ideas in the dialogue [with Hezbollah], including reaching the election of a president and the formation of an effective, rather than crippled Cabinet, in addition to agreeing on a joint political activity,” he added.
The source reiterated Jamaa’s support for Hezbollah’s armed resistance against Israel. “Hezbollah’s recent military operation in the Shebaa Farms was successful, painful and important. We encourage such painful strikes against the Zionist enemy,” the source said.
Hezbollah fighters attacked an Israeli military convoy in the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms on Jan. 28, killing two soldiers and wounding eight others. The attack was in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike on a Hezbollah convoy in the Syrian town of Qunaitra on Jan. 18 that killed six party members and an Iranian general.
The source recalled the strong ties between Jamaa and Hezbollah dating back to the 1980s and 1990s when the two parties maintained military cooperation to carry out attacks against Israeli occupation forces in south Lebanon.
At that time, a Jamaa military commander said the group opened its training camps east of Sidon to Hezbollah members to run military training courses.
Noting that his group maintained strong political ties and cooperation with Hezbollah in the 1980s, the Jamaa source expressed regret that relations have almost been broken now, “especially after Hezbollah intervened in the war in Syria and stood on the side of the Syrian regime in killing its people.’
Asked to comment on the ongoing dialogue between the Future Movement and Hezbollah, the source said: “Jamaa supports dialogue. This is not a folkloric remark. We hope that this contagion will hit all the Lebanese parties.”
However, the source criticized the Future Movement for unilaterally deciding to enter into dialogue with Hezbollah and for keeping some of its members in the dark about its results.
“Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah briefs his allies on every step in the dialogue with the Future Movement,” the source said.
On Jamaa’s future outlook, the source said: “Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya is seeking now to unify visions in the Islamic arena so that Islamists will not be accused of being takfiris.”
He added that Jamaa upheld civil peace in Lebanon and understanding with all the parties in order to ward off the threat of war in Lebanon.
“The current stage prompts us to be in contact with all Lebanese [Muslim and Christian] parties to convey our viewpoint,” the source said.
Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya was first licensed in 1964. Jamaa is seen as one of the strongest Sunni organizations in Lebanon.
During the 1992 elections, three Jamaa officials were elected members of Parliament.
Now, Jamaa has only one MP, Imad Hout.
In addition to its strong presence in Beirut, the southern city of Sidon and the Bekaa region, the northern city of Tripoli is considered to be Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya’s main stronghold.
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