Lebanese Member of Parliament Fouad Makhzoumi emerged from a meeting with the President of the Republic this week with a pointed seven-point declaration — one that broke from the usual ambiguity of Lebanese political speech to chart an explicitly sovereignty-first course, backing direct negotiations with Israel and demanding a state monopoly on armed force.

The statement, published by the Lebanese Presidency (@LBpresidency), comes against a backdrop of lingering Israeli presence in Lebanese territory, ongoing debates about Hezbollah’s arsenal, and a fresh incident of political violence that underscored the fragility of Lebanon’s domestic security environment.

The statement’s call for direct negotiations with Israel represents a significant posture in Lebanon’s fractured political landscape, where any hint of engagement with Tel Aviv has historically been weaponized by Hezbollah and its allies as a mark of betrayal. Makhzoumi’s framing — “realistic approach away from slogans” — is a pointed rebuke of the resistance axis narrative that has dominated Lebanese politics for decades.

Makhzoumi also demanded that Israel “fully commit to any understandings reached and withdraw gradually from Lebanese territories” — signaling that his support for negotiation does not imply acquiescence to Israeli military presence. The call for graduated Israeli withdrawal was paired with a demand for reciprocal Lebanese state sovereignty, placing the burden of legitimacy squarely on both parties.

The same week that Makhzoumi delivered his presidential statement, a sobering incident underscored the stakes of Lebanon’s struggle for internal order: fellow MP Hadi Aboul Hassan (@HadiAboulHosn) was subjected to an armed assault while performing social duties in the town of Qabai.

The assault on a sitting parliamentarian while carrying out community work — a function central to Lebanese political culture — was widely condemned. Makhzoumi called on both the security apparatus and the judiciary to act swiftly, and framed the incident as emblematic of a broader pathology: the persistence of “rogue weapons” outside state control that continue to menace Lebanese civil life.

In a separate and powerful statement, Makhzoumi invoked the anniversary of May 7, 2008 — the day Hezbollah turned its weapons on Beirut and Lebanese citizens — as a still-living wound on the Lebanese political body.

The indictment is unsparing. Makhzoumi does not simply criticize Hezbollah’s strategy — he identifies its weapons as the direct cause of Lebanon’s cascading collapse: institutional paralysis, economic strangulation of Beirut, and the abandonment of southern Lebanese to both occupation and the devastation wrought by a war prosecuted without state mandate.

Makhzoumi’s posture drew support from across Lebanon’s sovereignty camp. MP Ziad El Khalil endorsed the stance directly, framing it as representing not just one politician but the aspirations of the Lebanese majority.

The alignment of multiple parliamentary voices around a single coherent message — state monopoly on force, realistic diplomacy, no tolerance for extralegal violence — suggests that the sovereignty bloc in Lebanon is finding both language and momentum at a moment of unusual political opening. Whether that opening translates into durable institutional change remains Lebanon’s defining challenge.

As Lebanon navigates negotiations over Israeli withdrawal, the future of Hezbollah’s arms, economic reconstruction, and the restoration of Beirut’s standing as a regional capital, the voices gathered this week around the Lebanese Presidency represent a vision that Faith & Freedom News will continue to follow closely: a Lebanon governed by law, not by militia, and anchored in the sovereignty of its state.