The Lebanese Foreign Ministry has summoned Iran's Ambassador to Beirut Ghazanfar Roknabadi for a dressing down after an Iranian media outlet accused Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai of supporting the normalization of ties with Israel.
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Lebanon's Foreign Minister Charbel Wehbe, himself a Maronite Christian, tried to set a conciliatory tone ahead of the meeting, to be held Monday. "This will be an honest conversation that is based on the friendship between the countries," he said.
According Wehbe, Lebanon's Ambassador to Iran Hassan Abbas updated the Foreign Ministry in Beirut on the report in Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam network.
"He said the Iranian government apologized and condemned the accusations," Wehbe said.
As is customary in the land of cedars, the people responsible for the controversy are none other than the Iranian ayatollahs' emissaries in Lebanon – Hezbollah.
The trouble began on Feb. 27, when at a conference in the suburbs of Beirut, the Maronite patriarch declared, "The state needs to advocate neutrality so as not to become the victim of conflicts in the region."
He said there was a need to hold a UN-hosted conference in Lebanon to discuss the dismal state of the country. The message, which was clearly directed at Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah and his men, provoked the anger of the terrorist group.
"We oppose the Maronite patriarch's call for an international conference," Hezbollah parliamentarian Hassan Fadlallah said, adding that "international interference is a threat to Lebanon."
In an attempt to send the kind of assertive message to the patriarch they wouldn't have been able to send from within the country, Hezbollah apparently took care to publish the particularly forceful report in Al-Alam.
That reported asserted Al-Rai was "planning steps against Hezbollah, and defines them [Hezbollah members] as a militia loyal to Iran. He claims he is smart and objective, and even talks about neutrality in the existential war with global Zionism. We will certainly see him in Israel's arms tomorrow."
The Maronite patriarch fumed at the report, saying, "This is an insulting report put out by a foreign media outlet. This is an attack on internal Lebanese issues as well as church affairs."
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