Abu Arz renews call for peace with Israel, Hezbollah disarmament

In an interview with « Ici Beyrouth », Étienne Sakr - founder and leader of the Guardians of the Cedars, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Arz ("Father of the Cedars") - reaffirmed positions he says he has held for decades: peace with Israel, full normalization, and the disarmament of Hezbollah.

Sakr dismissed the security negotiations currently underway between the Lebanese state and other parties as an "illusion," arguing that disarming Hezbollah must be the absolute priority for Lebanon's future.

Now in his late 80s, Sakr joined Lebanon's General Security service in 1954 and took part in the fighting during the 1958 Lebanon crisis. He left the security services in 1969 to go into business and became increasingly involved in politics, notably opposing the 1969 Cairo Agreement, which regulated the armed presence of Palestinian factions in Lebanon.

In 1975, at the outset of the Lebanese Civil War, Sakr founded the Guardians of the Cedars, a militia and political movement built around an assertive vision of Lebanese identity distinct from pan-Arabism. 

The group fought Palestinian organizations and, depending on the period, Syrian forces and their allies. It joined the Lebanese Front, a coalition of mainly Christian factions, before Sakr broke away over his opposition to the Syrian intervention in Lebanon.

The Guardians of the Cedars were formally outlawed in 1990 at the end of the civil war. 

Sakr, convicted in absentia of collaborating with Israel, went into exile in Israel after the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the South Lebanon Army from southern Lebanon in 2000, and has remained a vocal advocate for normalization with Israel and against what he views as Iranian and Syrian influence over Lebanese affairs ever since. 

He now lives in Cyprus.