Homelands are protected
Through resistance, not through surrender.
The forty-third anniversary of the May 17 Agreement, the agreement of humiliation, disgrace and betrayal, comes as the Zionist enemy continues, with open U.S. and Western support, its brutal aggression against Palestine, Lebanon, and the peoples of the region through killing, destruction, siege, occupation and assassination, as well as through its daily attacks on southern Lebanon and its ongoing violations of national sovereignty by land, sea and air.
The May 17 Agreement constituted an attempt to subordinate Lebanon to the U.S.-Zionist project, to strike at the will of its resistant people, and to transform the country into an arena subjected to the conditions of occupation and domination. However, this agreement collapsed through the unity of the Lebanese National Resistance with the popular, national and progressive forces, and thanks to the immense sacrifices made by the resistance fighters and the Lebanese people in defense of freedom, sovereignty and national dignity.
Today, the very same forces of domination are attempting once again to reproduce projects of surrender and normalization in new forms, under the banners of “peace,” “stability,” and “political realism,” while the Zionist enemy continues its occupation, aggression, and crimes against the peoples of the region. These calls express nothing but the desire to subordinate Lebanon and the region to U.S. and Zionist interests and to impose political defeat upon the peoples after the occupation failed to break the will of the resistance.
The Zionist entity is not a partner for peace, but a racist settler-colonial entity founded upon occupation, displacement and aggression, and it can only be confronted through resistance, popular unity, and adherence to the path of national and Arab liberation.
Experience has proven, time and again, that reliance on American mediation and political concessions has brought Lebanon nothing but more pressure, aggression and violation. U.S. imperialism is not a mediator between Lebanon and the Zionist enemy, but rather the direct partner and commanding force behind the continuing aggression against Lebanon, Palestine and the region. It is the true sponsor of the projects of domination, normalization and subjugation. In contrast, the national and popular resistance, in all its forms, has proven itself to be the force capable of protecting the land and defending the rights and dignity of the people.
We, in the Joint Leadership of the Popular Democratic Party and the Arab Socialist Action Party – Lebanon, reaffirm our commitment to the path of resistance and liberation, and our complete rejection of all forms of normalization, settlement and surrender. We further affirm that confronting the Zionist project is part of a broader struggle against imperialist domination, exploitation and dependency.
We call for strengthening the unity of the national, popular and progressive forces; for upholding the right of peoples to resistance, liberation, return and self-determination; and for supporting the steadfastness of our people in the South and in Palestine in the face of aggression and occupation.
Lebanon, thanks to its resistance fighters, its free people and its workers, will remain beyond the reach of projects of subjugation and normalization. Palestine will remain the central cause of the Arab nation and the compass of the liberation struggle, until the liberation of the land and the people and the complete victory over occupation, colonialism and American-Zionist imperialist domination.
Beirut: 17 May 2026
Joint Leadership
Popular Democratic Party
Arab Socialist Action Party – Lebanon
Source: Masar Badil