Walid Jumblatt — interview with The National, 3 April 2025 (with a Middle East Eye supplement, 20 May 2025)

(On Hezbollah's weapons and armed resistance, Jumblatt told The National:) "Hezbollah should understand that now, going back to the old methods … armed resistance – it won't work."

(Yet he insisted the party cannot be excluded from Lebanon's confessional order:) "Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese society. They are members of parliament. You cannot say that Hezbollah as a political entity does not exist. They do exist. Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese Shiite society. You cannot exclude Hezbollah; you cannot isolate Hezbollah. It's not democracy."

(On Israel and a peace treaty, he was categorical:) "I'm not favouring and will never favour peace between us and Israel." (But he paired that with a renunciation of rocket warfare:) "we cannot go back to the old situation whereby firing rockets could alter Israeli policy. We have to adopt a new policy based on keeping the state of armistice between us and Israel."

(On the regional threat:) "Israel has a free hand. It's up to the Arabs to understand the dangerous policy of Israel that is planning to dislocate the whole of the Arab world."

(On post-Assad Syria — a striking reversal for a man who blamed the Assad dynasty for his father's 1977 assassination — he urged engagement:) "Give them a chance. Give Ahmad Al Shara a chance. … I think he's an intelligent person, and he's clever." (He insisted:) "Syria should stay united. They have already formed a government, which is good, that represents most of the Syrian people."

(On reconstruction and conditional aid:) "We need foreign help, we don't have enough resources here to cover the terrible damage and destruction done by the Israeli army during the year and a half." … "They pretend it is linked to reforms – I don't understand how helping the people of Lebanon who lost their homes and relatives is linked to reforms?"

(Separately, to Middle East Eye, 20 May 2025:) "Confessionalism is obstructing the unity of the Lebanese." … "The price of that fight was terrible on the Shia in the south and elsewhere."