BEIRUT - Lebanese prime minister-designate Saad Hariri said on Thursday Hezbollah will be part of the next cabinet "whether Israel likes it or not," as his bid to form a government entered its eight week.
"The national unity government will include the (ruling) March 14 alliance, and I also want to assure the Israeli enemy that Hezbollah will be in this government whether it likes it or not because Lebanon's interests require all parties be involved in this cabinet," Hariri said at an Iftar feast to break the Ramadan fast on Thursday night.
There has been an escalating war of words in recent days between Israel and Hezbollah.
Earlier this month, Israel warned that the Lebanese government as a whole would be blamed for any attack from its territory if Hezbollah were part of the new government.
"If Hezbollah joins the government it will be clear that the Lebanese government will be held responsible for any attack coming from its territory against Israel," hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
But Netanyahu, contradicting himself, later downplayed prospects of a new conflict with Lebanon.
Israel waged a bloody 34-day war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 after Hezbollah fighters seized two Israeli soldiers in a deadly cross-border raid that aimed to free Lebanese soldiers from Israeli prisons. The bodies of the soldiers were returned in a prisoner swap.
The war claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.
Hezbollah, originally a resistance group formed to counter an Israeli occupation of south Lebanon, had forced the Israeli military out of Lebanon in 2000. Israel, however, continues to occupy the Lebanese Shabaa Farms.
Israeli flights over Lebanon occur on an almost daily basis and are in breach of UN Security Council resolution 1710, which in August 2006 ended the war.
The winning alliance headed by Saad Hariri won 71 seats in the 128-member parliament in the election against 57 for the opposition led by Hezbollah.
The Hezbollah opposition had actually secured the majority (52%) of the votes in Lebanon, but could not secure a majority of Parliamentary seats (it won 45%) because of the nature of the sectarian government system in the country.
Tough negotiations have led to a deal on the number of ministers each political camp will have in Lebanon's 30-seat cabinet, with 15 going to Hariri's ruling alliance, 10 to the Hezbollah-led opposition and the president appointing five.
But the cabinet has yet to see the light of day as feuding political camps squabble over portfolios, particularly such key jobs as foreign affairs, finance, interior and telecommunications.
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