Nawaf Salam is failing to rebuild Lebanon - while bending to US-Israeli interests

Middle East Eye

2 days ago

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam assumed office this January with a lot of fanfare. The former leading judge at the International Court of Justice was lauded for presiding over the court's ruling that Israel was plausibly committing genocide in Gaza. As prime minister, he pledged to 'rescue, reform and rebuild' Lebanon.
But after more than four months in office, Salam has failed to deliver on domestic reforms, while increasingly advocating for a US-friendly agenda in line with Israel's interests.
In a series of highly publicised speeches and high-profile media interviews, Salam has repeated worn-out cliches about resuscitating Lebanon's economy, while dismissing armed resistance - both Palestinian and Lebanese - and suing for 'peace' followed by normalisation with Israel. His posturing has reached the point of irking football fans, who chanted 'Zionist, Zionist' upon his attendance at a match last week.
On the economic front, Salam has not initiated a single developmental project of worth, nor has he implemented monetary or financial policies aimed at addressing the root cause of Lebanon's financial collapse or alleviating high inflation and unemployment rates.
Salam's plan for banking reform is coming in instalments. The first such law lifted banking secrecy, often blamed for entrenching corruption among the political elite, who hide their wealth and shady transactions from public scrutiny.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
Lifting secrecy is in principle a positive step. But granting international organisations blanket access to bank accounts under the pretext of fighting money laundering and terrorism has also raised suspicion of invoking the law for the state or foreign powers to target expatriate communities associated with Hezbollah.
In addition, secrecy was historically the main incentive for attracting foreign capital to a country heavily dependent on the services sector. In the absence of a serious economic plan, the end of secrecy will spell the end of capital inflows, other than family remittances.
Mediocre vision
There is no sign of such a serious plan. Salam's vision is a mediocre replay of the age-old call for Lebanese expatriate and Arab Gulf capital to spill over through summer tourism, in addition to hopes for Lebanese capital to play an intermediary role in the rebuilding of Syria.
By contrast, reconstruction in Lebanon following Israel's destructive war is on hold. Salam has paid lip service to postwar reconstruction, whose estimated cost stands at $11bn. In practice, he has not held a single donor conference or invited aid from countries willing to provide it without strings attached.
Worse still, coupling reconstruction with disarming Hezbollah - without seeking guarantees against Israel's ongoing violations of Lebanese sovereignty, and prior to laying out concrete steps to strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces in order to restore deterrence - is tantamount to blackmailing the war-torn Lebanese communities.
The judge who was celebrated for condemning the Gaza genocide may be remembered as the prime minister who sought to normalise with its perpetrators
To add fuel to the fire, Lebanese authorities seem to be adopting security measures that reinforce Israel's sectarian logic.
During the war, Israel intentionally targeted the Shia population to suggest this was a war on Shias only, not on the Lebanese people in general.
After the war, the Lebanese government implemented a wholesale practice of stopping and searching ordinary Lebanese Shia returning from Iraq or Iran at the airport on suspicion of importing funds for Hezbollah, in a clear case of sectarian profiling.
The stalling of reconstruction also plays in favour of Israel's expansionist designs to clear out border villages of their inhabitants, in hopes of either annexing them when conditions permit or turning them into a dead 'buffer' zone.
Salam's disregard for the violation of the country's southern borders, and his wilful neglect of its displaced population, stand in stark contrast to his overt enthusiasm to tighten control along the borders with Syria and hasten the delineation of these borders. On his recent visit to the major crossing between the two countries, Salam declared that 'border crossings are the mirror of Lebanese sovereignty'.
This selective application of sovereignty fits the historic colonial logic of securitising borders between Arab states, while downplaying the violations of territorial integrity at the borders with the Zionist state.
In the footsteps of Abbas
Salam's reactionary politics, which transcend sectarianism, become more evident in his treatment of Palestinian armed resistance and the path for liberating Palestine. Not content with calling for the disarming of Hezbollah, Salam has dismissed the effectiveness of Palestinian armed struggle as a bygone relic.
He also seconded efforts by Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas to disarm Palestinian camps in Lebanon, despite the fact that any weapons left are light, inactive and pale in comparison to Israel's arsenal and daily dose of firepower.
In a telling gesture, Salam handed an honorary award to Abbas during the latter's recent visit to Lebanon. He praised his Palestinian counterpart as a 'warrior for peace' and the 'architect of Oslo' who had the apparent insight to transition from 'the path of revolution to the concept of the state' to avoid squandering the political gains of the Palestinian struggle.
The dissonance between Salam's appraisal of the 'political gains' of the 'peace process' and the disastrous aftermath of Oslo further underscore his precarious logic of performative sovereignty and empty rhetoric of state-building.
Can the US push Lebanon to normalise with Israel? Read More »
Salam seems to be advocating a similar path in Lebanon. His archaic remarks about the end of the era of 'exporting the Iranian revolution' are a clear side jab at Iran-backed armed resistance against Israel, rather than non-existent Iranian efforts to set up Islamic governments in Arab countries.
These remarks were followed by media statements welcoming normalisation with Israel in line with the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002. The initiative endorses the now dead-and-buried two-state solution.
Repeating calls for implementing this initiative after a quarter-century of Israeli intransigence, and before ending the Gaza genocide and securing the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from newly occupied Lebanese territory, is placing the peace horse before the justice wagon. It is also contrary to the basic principle of international relations that ties effective diplomacy to reliance on force or the threat of force.
Salam's own effectiveness in translating his words into action is suspect. He hails from a prominent political family, but unlike his predecessors, he does not have the social base or political clout in Lebanon to force such a path, especially since his tenure after 2026 is dependent on the outcome of parliamentary elections.
But he is not alone. His inflammatory rhetoric aside, the prime minister's defeatist politics and geopolitical alignment with pro-US forces is in sync with those of the more measured president, Joseph Aoun. The pro-Israel overtures of the new ruler of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, are likely to further embolden Salam and his camp.
Should Salam and other regional leaders persist in pulling Lebanon closer towards the US orbit, while tightening the noose on Lebanese communities that stood in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and resisted Israeli occupation, the future of the last active frontier of resistance outside of Palestine will be in jeopardy.
The matter is no longer about Hezbollah or Hamas, but the fate of armed struggle against Israeli occupation and settler-colonialism. Amid these shifting sands, the judge who was celebrated for condemning the Gaza genocide may be remembered as the prime minister who sought to normalise with its perpetrators.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.