U.S. Envoy Talks Peace in Lebanon, but Stirs Anger With ‘Act Civilized’ Remark

Middle East|U.S. Envoy Talks Peace in Lebanon, but Stirs Anger With ‘Act Civilized’ Remark

Lebanon’s government will present a plan later this week to try to persuade Hezbollah to disarm, a top U.S. envoy said Tuesday, though his remarks on the day’s developments were overshadowed by his widely criticized admonition to Lebanese journalists to “act civilized” and not be “animalistic.”

“The moment this starts becoming chaotic, like animalistic, we’re gone,” Thomas J. Barrack Jr., one of President Trump’s key envoys to the Middle East, said after arriving at a packed news conference in Beirut.

“Act civilized, act kind, act tolerant — because this is the problem with what’s happening in the region,” Mr. Barrack said.

Mr. Barrack, who spoke with the reporters after meeting with Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, drew sharp condemnation in the small Mediterranean nation for his comments. Lebanese journalists and commentators accused him of reviving colonial-era tropes, while criticism and derisive hashtags quickly spread across social media, from sarcastic riffs about the word “animalistic” to jibes about foreign envoys talking down to the Lebanese.

For many in Lebanon and the wider Arab world, the uneasy remarks by a top U.S. envoy only added to outrage over American support for Israel during the war in the Gaza Strip. Some also saw the comments as the latest symbol of Washington’s increasing stewardship over Lebanon in the wake of Israel’s devastating war last year with the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Amid the furor, the office of Lebanon’s presidency issued a statement saying it “regrets the words” used by “one of our guests.” Lebanon’s Press Editors’ Syndicate, the country’s official professional association for journalists, also condemned the remarks and called on Mr. Barrack and the State Department to issue a public apology.