Hariri: Netanyahu doesn't believe in peace

Lebanese premier slams Israeli counterpart in Washington Post interview. 'There is no leadership in Israel,' he says. 'Netanyahu destroyed the Oslo agreement.' Hariri clarifies he won't give in to Hezbollah pressure over tribunal probing his father's murder, saying 'I don't operate under threats'

Yitzhak Benhorin |Published: 11.26.10 , 07:31

WASHINGTON – Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has slammed Benjamin Netanyahu's policy, claiming that the Israeli prime minister "is not willing to talk about real peace."

In an interview to the Washington Post published Thursday, Hariri accused Netanyahu of destroying the Oslo Accords and not really believing in peace.

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"There is no leadership in Israel," the Lebanese premier told interviewer Janine Zacharia. "At one point you had (Prime Minister Yitzhak) Rabin who wanted peace. He's the one who believed in the peace in the region but Netanyahu doesn't believe in peace. He is somebody who destroyed the Oslo agreement. He's somebody who is not willing to talk about real peace in the region.

"He takes the issue of security as the basis of his whole political platform, but you will only have security if you have peace. If you have peace based on a comprehensive peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis, between the Syrians and the Israelis and the Arab world and part of it is Lebanon, yes, then you will have peace.

"The main problem that we have in Lebanon, and in the region, is we don't have a real peace process, and I think this is the main focal problem that we have in the region. A lot of people talk about arms and smuggling and Hezbollah and all of this. But if we have a comprehensive peace, would we be talking about this? Would we be talking about all of the problems that today we have? If we had resolved the issue in 1991 in Madrid when we went there when we didn't have all these problems today, if we had achieved peace in the '90s would we be today here?"

Hariri believes that terrorism increased because peace was not achieved in the Madrid Conference. "In the '90s there wasn't al-Qaeda, there wasn't Hamas, there wasn't all these extremist groups. But today look where we are today 19 years later.

"My question is if we don't move on the peace process, on a comprehensive peace in the Middle East based on the Madrid conference, based on the (2002) Arab initiative, where will be 10 years down the line? Is anybody comprehending how extremism is growing in this region?"

'I don't buckle to pressure'

The Lebanese prime minister was also asked about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent visit to Beirut. "He said what he wanted to say and I said what I wanted to say, what I believe. I told him this axis of what you're saying ('axis of evil'), we don't agree. I said to him very frankly we do not agree on being an axis… I said to him that we believe that we are part of the Arab League. The Arab peace initiative was made in Beirut. We believe in that."

He went on to address the tensions with Hezbollah following the Shiite group's demand that he reject the results of the international tribunal probing the circumstances of the murder of his father, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

"This international tribunal is made by the United Nations under resolution 1757. Nothing I say or do will change anything… I will not say anything if somebody sticks a gun to my head. I'm not like this. I don't function like this. I don't operate under threats. Full stop. I don't. I don't buckle to pressure."

According to a recent report, evidence collected by the UN investigation team links Hezbollah to the Hariri assassination.

"I feel like it's a challenging period," the Lebanese PM admitted in the interview. "It's a difficult period. What I try to focus on is how to keep the country in tact, how to keep the unity of the Lebanese, which is going to be very difficult and is very difficult. But you have to be very absorbent. You have to be like a sponge. You have to absorb all this, all what's happening today. You have to see beyond the smoke that is around you."

But despite reports, Saad Hariri said he would not give up. "Nothing's going to return my father to me. I am seeking stopping the impunity of people committing what they commit and not being responsible for what they commit."

He clarified that he viewed the tribunal as a legitimate vehicle to try his father's murder, but refused to point a finger at Syria and Hezbollah. "All these indictment are going to come out," he explained diplomatically.