Hariri says Hezbollah resistance against Israel outdated

[Solomon2]

Hariri says Hezbollah resistance against Israel outdated

Former Lebanese prime minister calls on Shiite terror group to disarm, slams it for fighting in Syria

By Times of Israel staff August 4, 2013, 8:53 am

Saad Hariri (photo credit: US State Department)

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Former prime minister of Lebanon Saad Hariri joined a growing chorus against terror group Hezbollah over the weekend, calling on the organization to disarm and saying it was no longer needed.

Hariri’s statement came after a rare public speech by Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah Friday in which he called for the elimination of Israel.

“The idea … that Lebanon needs the weapons of the resistance [Hezbollah] in order to face the Israeli threat… is an idea that has expired, Hariri said in a television address later Friday, reported by AFP on Sunday.

Popular support for Hezbollah, which fought a three-week war with Israel in 2006, has waned in the face of the group’s continued backing of Syria’s President Bashar Assad in that country’s civil war. The group was also partially blacklisted by the European Union last month after being blamed for a bombing in Bulgaria that killed six people last year.

On Thursday, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman called for Hezbollah to fold into Lebanon’s national army, remarks that promptly drew rocket fire on the residential compound.

Hariri, who led Lebanon from 2009 to 2011 before fleeing to self-imposed exile in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after citing security concerns, complained that Hezbollah was using its weapons “to instill fear into Lebanon’s political life.”

The son of slain Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005 in a bombing thought to have been carried out by Hezbollah, Saad Hariri criticized the group for its involvement in the Syrian civil war, which has bled into Lebanon.

The focus of the organizations activities “have been shifted from fighting the Israeli enemy to fighting the Syrian people,” Hariri said.

On Thursday, Suleiman gave a speech criticizing the involvement of Hezbollah in Syria’s conflict in supporting forces loyal to Assad.

Suleiman suggested Hezbollah’s weapons be folded into that of the national Lebanese army. The president said that “resistance weapons have trespassed the Lebanese border,” in a reference to Hezbollah. The Iranian-backed group has a formidable weapons arsenal that rivals that of the army.

That night, two rockets struck near the presidential compound in Baabda, southeast of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. It was the second time in two months that rockets have been fired in the area amid tensions related to the civil war in neighboring Syria.

Suleiman said Friday that the attack would not intimidate or make him change his convictions regardless of the party behind it.

“Repeated rocket messages, regardless of the sender or the target … cannot alter national principles or convictions that are expressed freely and sincerely,” the president said in the statement issued by his office. The statement did not say whom officials believed were behind Thursday night’s attack.

The rare criticism by Suleiman, a Maronite Catholic, angered Hezbollah and its allies. A pro-Hezbollah newspaper put a picture of Suleiman on its front page Friday with a bold-headlined single word: “Irhal,” Arabic for leave.

Nasrallah declared on Friday that “The elimination of Israel is not only a Palestinian interest… It is the interest of the entire Muslim world and the entire Arab world.”

Speaking days after the Arab League-backed resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Nasrallah said no Arab leader had the right to legitimize Israel, and that all of Palestine — “from the river to the sea” — belonged to the Palestinians, according to a report on Israel’s Army Radio. “No sheikh, prince, king, president or government has the right to relinquish a single grain of Palestinian sand,” he said.

Hezbollah’s open participation in the Syrian civil war is highly divisive in Lebanon, and has enraged Sunni Muslims there who sympathize with the overwhelmingly Sunni rebels fighting to topple Assad. Hezbollah fighters were instrumental in helping Assad’s forces achieve victory over the rebels in the strategic Syrian town of Qusair near the border with Lebanon in June.

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

Hezbollah must leave Lebanon for good just tell them to stop selling the idea of resisting the Zionists, it doesn't work with anyone anymore

 

[HAIDER]

Sometime really fail to understand Arab regional politics. Hug and kiss, wrath of destruction.

 

[JUBA]

Resistance my a$$, unless they mean the resistance against the innocent Syrian people.

 

[JUBA]

Sometime really fail to understand Arab regional politics. Hug and kiss, wrath of destruction.

Well that was before Asshead start to slaughter his people, his regime is kicked out from the Arab league now, not to mention that no one in the UN recognize his regime except for Iran, Russia, China and North Korea i believe, not sure though.

 

[BLACKEAGLE]

Sometime really fail to understand Arab regional politics. Hug and kiss, wrath of destruction.

You fail to understand because you're simply Haider.

We had no problem with Bashar before the uprising, but as soon as he started his overwhelming slaughter machine against Syrian people, we had to stand by innocent Syrian people over a bloodthirsty child killer. Another thing, if we had good relations with him, it was for Syrian people not to him himself.

 

[Serpentine]

Hariri, the former PM, is outdated himself.
Why should anyone take him serious? He had problems with Hezbollah from day one, no secret. He doesn't give a damn about 'Syrian lives' and his group is funding and organizing smuggling of arms and mercenaries to Syria.

 

[Hack-Hook]

Well , harriri idea is somehow funny if he really think that lebanon army even can stand one hour against any sort of aggression .

And by the way the idea that you can achieve anything against israel is so 1990ish . Its the idea that arafat and abbas tried many times and its outcome was nothing but loosing more land to Israel and giving more way to them and reaching to a place that afghanisyan parliament member says one thing that is not important in arab world is Qods.

By the way harriri didn't said these words because he cared for lebanon he said it just to advance his failed political agenda

 

[T-123456]

Hariri, the former PM, is outdated himself.
Why should anyone take him serious? He had problems with Hezbollah from day one, no secret. He doesn't give a damn about 'Syrian lives' and his group is funding and organizing smuggling of arms and mercenaries to Syria.

And Hezbollah gives a damn about Syrians?

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

Sometime really fail to understand Arab regional politics. Hug and kiss, wrath of destruction.

Please keep failing to understand their logic, the more you fail, the better they are. You just make sure that you stay away as much as possible.

We won't forget the blood (;

 

[HAIDER]

You fail to understand because you're simply Haider.

We had no problem with Bashar before the uprising, but as soon as he started his overwhelming slaughter machine against Syrian people, we had to stand by innocent Syrian people over a bloodthirsty child killer. Another thing, if we had good relations with him, it was for Syrian people not to him himself.

No personal attack ,would be better stick to the topic.

 

[HAIDER]

Please keep failing to understand their logic, the more you fail, the better they are. You just make sure that you stay away as much as possible.

We won't forget the blood (;

lolz and kill thousand more...lol. good luck

 

[BLACKEAGLE]

No personal attack ,would be better stick to the topic.

It wasn't a personal attack, all Shia I have met takes Bashar's side no matter what he did or do, all of you will find excuses for him no matter what. Pls, since when the word Haider is an attack?

 

[HAIDER]

Hariri, the former PM, is outdated himself.
Why should anyone take him serious? He had problems with Hezbollah from day one, no secret. He doesn't give a damn about 'Syrian lives' and his group is funding and organizing smuggling of arms and mercenaries to Syria.

Hariri has any link with Adnan Khashoggi ?

 

[Serpentine]

And Hezbollah gives a damn about Syrians?

Let me explain it in short, and you may not agree with me, but this is the reality, at least a part of it:
As you may know, many Shias of Southern Lebanon have relatives on the other side of the border in Syria which they visit on a regular basis.It's like the same people in 2 countries.

Before Hezbollah entered Syrian conflict, Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah said he wouldn't enter the Syrian conflict, unless the rogue elements in Syrian opposition start targeting the Shias near the villages on Syrian border to defend them (Actually they threatened to wipe those Shias out for allegedly support of Assad, and then even shelling Hezbollah positions itself). Not only they ignored, but they attacked few Shia-majority villages and violently killed civilians and beheaded many of them only for the crime of being a Shia.
That was the time when Hezbollah stood by its words and entered the Qusair and kicked them out of those areas. Hezbollah entered Syria 2 years after it started and 2 years after rebels and Jihadists came from almost all nearby countries, including Lebanon itself.

Now you may not find it justifiable, but it is what it is.And my friend, before Hezbollah entered the conflict, Syrian war was already an international conflict when rebels came there from 22 Arab countries,Chechen, Turkey and even Europe. So I think decrying Hezbollah's involvement here is actually not fair.