Vice President of the Higher Islamic Shiite Council in Lebanon Sheikh Abdul Amir Qabalan said Sunday that Lebanon is in need for the solidarity of all its factions.

Vice President of the Higher Islamic Shiite Council in Lebanon Sheikh Abdul Amir Qabalan said Sunday that Lebanon is in need for the solidarity of all its factions.

“Lebanon is in need for solidarity, love, affection and sincerity in dealing” amongst each other, Qabalan said in his Eid al-Fitr sermon during prayers at the Council’s headquarters.

The Lebanese should distance themselves from strife, he said.

Lebanon's Grand Jaafarite Shiite Mufti Sheikh Ahmed Qabalan expressed a similar view by urging all politicians and religious leaders to form a “patriotic cell” that would mobilize all its efforts to preserve the country and steer it clear of “the ghosts of confessional explosions.”

“President Michel Sleiman and the government should exert efforts to remove the political trenches erected among politicians,” he said in his sermon during prayers at Imam al-Hussein mosque in the Bourj al-Barajneh district of Beirut’s southern suburbs.

“We should end the siege … and abolish the logic of differentiation between a Christian, a Sunni, a Druze and a Shiite,” he said.

“Our loyalty is for Lebanon,” Qabalan said, adding that “we should base ourselves on that so that we become able to build a strong state that would succeed in meeting the people’s hopes in consolidating stability and civil peace.”

For his part, Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani said that neither current nor former officials are to be blamed for the deteriorating situation.

“Each one of you and each Lebanese who consented to injustice in his nation” should be blamed.

“Every citizen who didn’t ask for his rights or didn’t carry out his duties or each citizen who hates other sects” should be held responsible, he said.

The mufti also criticized officials “who incite people against each other and (party and sect) leaders who push people to dig the grave of the nation.”

He said it is “prohibited” to involve Lebanon in the regional problems, calling on officials and all parties to have the same responsibility of the army in preventing any attempt to take political differences to the streets.

“Any such attempt under any slogan is nothing but a plan to (ignite) strife,” Qabbani said.