Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): The manner in which the Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati is dealing with how his country and people are being treated by some Gulf states is unhonorable, to say the least. The man is almost kissing the feet of the Sheikhs openly.

The regime in Bahrain has been an expert in tensioning and straining the region's atmosphere for a very long time. Bahrain was used in multiple problems with Iran, and was the starting point of the Qatari siege when it accused Doha of interfering with its internal affairs. Besides, Bahrain has publicly supported the Israeli attacks against an Arab country, Lebanon, its land and people. 

It is remarkable that what Bahrain deems offensive actions committed by Lebanon are only political stances issued by parties, politicians (who have no official titles), journalists or Bahraini dissidents. On the other hand, all the hostile discourse against Lebanon is issued by Bahraini officials, mainly the Bahraini Minister of Foreign Affairs, who heads the diplomacy of his country and officially represents it.

Bahrain has openly accused the opposition of being affiliated with Hezbollah, linking any act in the country to training allegedly received by the opposition in Lebanon. It is also remarkable that Bahrain has gone beyond these usual statements since the 1990s to directing hate speech towards Lebanon in general, and a loving and friendly speech towards Israel, Lebanon's first enemy that occupies part of its territory (according to the United Nations) and has killed thousands of its citizens since the 1940s to present day.

Even though Hezbollah is the largest Lebanese party in terms of numbers, leads an alliance with the largest parliamentary bloc, is represented in the government by a number of ministers, and represents the most important party in the Lebanese state, it all did not prevent Bahrain from attacking and accusing it, without considering what and who it represents.

As protests broke out in Bahrain, the government returned to rehashing its stances and accused Hezbollah of supporting the opposition. It was also remarkable that the Bahraini government deported, in March 2016, 10 Lebanese families residing in Bahrain on charges of supporting Hezbollah. This came at the time when Hezbollah was added to the Gulf and Bahraini terrorist list. The Bahraini Minister of Foriegn Affairs sought to convince other states to add Hezbollah to terrorist blacklists. 

It is noteworthy how Bahrain welcomes adding Hezbollah to terrorist lists, whether this decision is issued by an influential state such as Britian, or a state with limited influence in the region and world, like Argentina. 

However, Bahrain moved from attacking Hezbollah to attacking Lebanon as a state, under the pretext that Lebanon has become under Hezbollah's full control, according to the Bahraini Foreign Affairs Minister's statement in late 2017.

In 2018, Bahraini Foriegn Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa expressed his support for an Israeli operation to uncover and destroy the tunnels of the Lebanese resistance on the border with occupied Palestine.

"Is Terrorist Hezbollah's digging of the tunnels under Lebanon's border not a flagrant threat to Lebanon's stability, which it shares responsibility for? Who bears responsibility when neighboring countries take it upon themselves to eliminate the threat they face?" Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa wrote.

In 2019, the Lebanese resistance announced the destruction of an Israeli military vehicle in the Avivim area near Lebanon's southern border. The same Bahraini  minister wrote: "the aggression of one state against another is prohibited by international law. [For a state] to stand by as a spectator as a battle escalates along its borders and endangers its people is major complacency in the responsibility of that state."

It is ridiculous that Bahrain accuses Lebanon of offending it, at a time its Foreign Minister described Secretary-General of the Lebanese Hezbollah as a "criminal", indifferent to what he or his party represents, and praised criminal Shimon Peres, dubbing him a "Man of Peace", despite the fact that he led the 1996 war against Lebanon (Grapes of Wrath) and supervised the Qana Massacre which left at least 250 victims killed or injured, mostly women and children.

Arabic Version