Abbas Ibrahim. Photo: LBI Group/Youtube

A leading figure in Lebanese intelligence said Wednesday that the only enemy of his country is Israel. According to the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, Abbas Ibrahim, director-general of the General Security Department, said, “Lebanon’s one and only enemy is Israel.”

Ibrahim also predicted that the crisis in Syria would last a long time, but added, “The humanitarian condition of the refugees arriving in Lebanon from Syria prevents us from closing the border with the neighboring country.”

“We either act in a humane manner or become racist,” he remarked.

But Ibrahim made sure to emphasize who he saw a the real threat to his country. “Whoever has lost the plot should remember to focus his attention south of the border,”  the general security chief declared, in an apparent reference to Israel.

Ibrahim stated that there are some 160,000 registered Syrian refugees and some 13,000 Palestinian refugees, who have also fled Syria.

Fears that the Syrian Civil war could spillover into Lebanon have not been totally unfounded. Reports of the transfer of chemical weapons from Syria to Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon have initiated unconfirmed strikes on weapons depots in the region.

And even the economy has begun to suffer because of the neighboring civil war.