Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri coupled his opposition to the Lebanese-Israeli framework agreement with a call for calm in the streets, even as he sharply escalated his political objection to it. Sources in the "Shiite duo," made up from Hezbollah and the Berri-led Amal Movement, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Lebanese speaker was taken by surprise by the agreement’s content and had not seen it in advance. They said he learned of the deal from media reports, and had not been consulted beforehand or officially briefed afterward. Asked by Asharq Al-Awsat whether he had reviewed the agreement, Berri said: “I read it ... and I saw civil strife in it.” “O people of Lebanon, all of Lebanon, this is sedition,” Berri later said in a statement, quoting a well-known saying attributed to Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib: “In times of sedition, be like the young camel — neither strong enough to be ridden nor able to give milk.” Lebanese politicians read Berri’s words as a call for restraint. Several AI-generated interpretations of his meaning also circulated, including one saying that Berri’s use of the phrase “carries a message urging the Lebanese not to be dragged into internal strife or any escalation that could lead to clashes among the country’s people, while stressing the need to preserve civil peace and avoid becoming tools in the conflict.” Sources in the Shiite duo said the authority that signed the agreement must contain its fallout and correct the “grave error.” They said the agreement’s content was intended, among other things, “to let Israel blow up the US-Iranian agreement by blowing up the Lebanese battlefield.”
