There is a lot of speculation that this means that the Arab League no longer views Hezbollah as a terrorist group. However, there is still lack of clarity on whether this implies a trend in the region among the Arab League members or whether it is merely designed to brief the Arab League due to concerns about a possible war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
According to Al-Akhbar in Lebanon, which is considered sympathetic to Hezbollah, Zaki was visiting Lebanon and held several important meetings. For instance he spoke with the commander of the Lebanese army and several other factions. “The most prominent meeting was with the head of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc, MP Mohammad Raad. This was the first contact between the two sides in more than ten years, especially since the Arab League had accepted the Saudi-Emirati request and approved in 2016 the classification of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.”
According to this report, “as for the content, the sources revealed that ‘Zaki informed Hezbollah that the university decided to remove the terrorist designation against him, and it believes that he has a major role in the future of Lebanon.’ He also called for accelerating the presidential elections, pointing out the difficulty of electing any of the known candidates, and considering that ‘the solution is to agree on the third solution.’ While Representative Raad did not comment on the issue of party classification, he repeated in the presidential file the position in support of [presidential candidate] Franjieh while emphasizing openness to any discussion, but the other party refuses dialogue.”
This section of the report appears to illustrate that the wider context is not the possible conflict with Israel, but actually Lebanese politics. Meanwhile Anadolu media in Turkey also reported on the meetings. “In a televised statement on the Egyptian Al-Qahera News Channel the day after he concluded his visit to Beirut, Hossam Zaki said: ‘In previous Arab League decisions, Hezbollah was designated as a terrorist organization, and this designation was reflected in the resolutions, leading to the severing of communication based on these decisions.’” This report leaves some confusion. READ MORE
