Lebanons silenced voice
Lebanon’s silenced voice
BEIRUT—On September 23, President Masoud Pezeshkian seized the 81st session of the UN General Assembly not as a ceremonial platform, but as a political battlefield, directly confronting the narrative presented by Washington and Israel.
Whatever one’s political position toward Iran, the significance of the scene was unmistakable: Tehran understood that international diplomacy is also a battle over narrative, visibility and political legitimacy.
Iran did not merely submit a diplomatic complaint. It placed symbols, victims and accusations before the international audience and demanded that they be seen.
That raises a far more uncomfortable question for us as Lebanese, especially the Southerners: where is Beirut’s voice?
At a time when Israeli aggression goes unabated in Lebanon, with airspace violations, bombardment, demolitions, troop movements and repeated breaches of Lebanon’s sovereignty documented by the United Nations, the most striking feature of Lebanon’s international presence is not the absence of evidence—it is the weakness of the official voice defending that evidence.
This is where the silence of the Lebanese government, and particularly the performance expected from its Foreign Ministry, becomes a political question rather than a matter of diplomatic style.
Diplomacy is not merely the production of carefully worded statements, nor is the foreign minister’s role limited to attending meetings, exchanging courtesies and repeating familiar formulations.
When a country’s sovereignty is being violated, diplomacy is supposed to turn facts into political pressure, violations into international accountability, and national grievances into an issue that the world cannot conveniently ignore.
Lebanon already possesses the language of international law. United Nations records themselves document continuing Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity.
So what exactly prevents Beirut from turning this documented reality into a sustained diplomatic campaign?
The problem is not a shortage of diplomatic vocabulary. Lebanon knows how to say “condemnation,” “sovereignty,” “territorial integrity,” “international law” and “Resolution 1701.”
The problem is whether these words are being deployed as instruments of political confrontation or merely recited as diplomatic formalities.
A state under attack cannot afford to behave as though its principal concern is avoiding discomfort in international corridors.
It cannot allow the aggressor’s narrative to circulate freely while its own narrative remains buried in technical statements and procedural correspondence. It cannot surrender the visual, political and moral dimensions of its national tragedy to the language of bureaucracy.
The contrast becomes particularly sharp at the United Nations, where political symbolism matters. The international arena is not simply a place where governments read prepared texts. It is also a battlefield of narratives, legitimacy and public memory. A country that has villages under bombardment, displaced civilians, destroyed infrastructure and repeated violations of its territory possesses material with which to confront the international community directly and relentlessly.
Lebanon should therefore be asking uncomfortable questions:
— Where is the sustained diplomatic campaign documenting every violation?
— Where are the maps, images, testimonies and legal files being placed before international audiences?
— Where is the systematic effort to force governments, media organizations and international institutions to confront the consequences of violations against Lebanese territory?
— Where is the political language that names the problem clearly rather than allowing it to disappear beneath the vocabulary of “tensions” and “escalation”?
The United Nations itself has gone further than diplomatic timidity would suggest. The Secretary-General has explicitly called on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanese territory and urged all parties to respect Lebanon’s sovereignty and Resolution 1701.
UN reporting has likewise described the continued Israeli military activities south of the Blue Line as obstructing the extension of Lebanese state authority and the return of residents to their homes.
This raises an uncomfortable contradiction for Beirut: international institutions are documenting violations of Lebanese sovereignty, yet the Lebanese political discourse often appears trapped in the vocabulary of caution.
Caution has its place in diplomacy. Silence does not. Nor is firmness synonymous with abandoning diplomacy.
On the contrary, effective diplomacy is often most powerful when it is precise, documented and relentless.
Lebanon does not need theatrical rhetoric. It needs a coherent diplomatic strategy that treats every violation as evidence, every victim as a human story, every destroyed village as a political fact and every breach of sovereignty as an issue requiring international action.
The Foreign Ministry, above all, should be one of the institutions translating Lebanon’s suffering into international political consequences.
If the ministry merely records violations without turning them into sustained pressure, then diplomacy becomes an archive rather than an instrument of sovereignty.
Lebanon’s problem, therefore, is not that it lacks a voice. It is that its official voice is too often quieter than the evidence before it.
A country whose territory is being violated cannot afford diplomatic silence. A government that claims to defend sovereignty must demonstrate that sovereignty beyond speeches—through documentation, international mobilization, legal action and relentless political advocacy.
The question facing Lebanon is no longer whether the world has been given enough evidence. The question is whether Beirut is willing to make the world hear it!
source: tehrantimes.com