Why Walid Jumblat Has Embraced Samir Kuntar

The erstwhile defender of freedom and liberalism sees in the freed prisoner a great political opportunity.

To listen to Mr. Walid Jumblat speak to the international media about how happy he is with the release of Mr. Kuntar, one would be excused to doublecheck who the speaker is. In his interview today with a clearly baffled Owen Benett Jones of the BBC, Mr. Jumblat refused to concede even one bit that Mr. Kuntar might have ever made a mistake. He replied to all questions relating to Mr. Kuntar’s killing of an Israeli family by changing the subject and defiantly denouncing Israel’s crimes against humanity and illegal occupation of Arab lands.

So why is Mr. Jumblat, the darling of Washington — and the only major Lebanese politician who publicly denounced Hezbollah’s “militia” as terrorists — risking his and Lebanon’s international reputations by so effusively embracing Mr. Kuntar and by instructing his loyalists to celebrate his release?

The answer lies in the Druze community which he leads and to which Mr. Kuntar belongs. (To all those of you who though he was a Shiaa, correct your notes)

Mr. Jumblat realized back when Hezbollah invaded Beirut and attempted to invade the mountains, that the small Druze community could be facing an existential threat from the Shiaas, who in taking their cue from Mr. Nassrallah’s very public and harsh denouncement of Mr. Jumblat, have come to look to the Druze as a Judeo-American fifth column. In Samir Kuntar, Mr. Jumblat saw a powerful symbol to remind everyone of the “Druze’s history in Arab resistance”, as he told the BBC’s Bennett Jones. 

By this posturing, Mr. Jumblat can strike two birds in one stone: He can undermines the perception of Shiaa monopoly on resistance and reduce the heat on his community, and he can open the door for a potential electoral alliance with Hezbollah in the upcoming elections (a far fetched wish, but can’t stop a politician from dreaming)

Still, it remains to be seen whether Mr. Jumblatt’s fabled elasticity will work for him this time…