On the 14th of August 2013, Hizbullah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a televised interview talked about confrontation with the Israeli army during the 33-day July war in 2006.
In an interview on Beirut-based satellite television station al-Maydeen, Sayyed Nasrallah stated that foreign powers, meaning the US and the West, have offered to accept that Hizbullah keeps its weaponry in a deal in which it agrees to abandon the Palestinian cause.
“The real problem to the US, the West, and a majority of Arab countries is that we are a resistance and we insist on staying a resistance. [Former US vice-president] Dick Cheney had offered us international acknowledgement, and lifting our name off the terror blacklist if we keep our arms but give verbal guarantee behind the scenes to let go the Palestinian cause but we refused. What is the value of our weapons if we do so?!”
Sayyed Nasrallah assured that the West had offered huge proposals if the Hizbullah pledges not to confront Israel, but he accentuated that Palestine is a central cause to defend; it is a matter of belief and principle.
The Hizbullah leader said that the Hizbullah will not allow any Israeli land breaches against Lebanon, iterating that the Hizbullah is always ready to confront the Israelis with the appropriate means. “We will not be lenient with land violations against our land. Whenever we feel that the Israelis have entered Lebanese soil, we will act appropriately. We will cut the feet that violate Lebanese territory.”
Hizbullah SG wondered how some sides in Lebanon consider Syria as enemy, at the time they do not consider Israel as such. “For instance, if 8 or 10 Syrian soldiers enter Lebanese territories Syria is an enemy, but in the case of Israel it isn’t.”
Hizbullah Received Support from Syria
Praising the Syrian role in its support to the Hizbullah resistance, Sayyed Nasrallah went on to say “We owe Syria and we have to admit that we did receive weapons from Syria. The Syrian regime received our people, supported us and opened its weapon stocks to the resistance. The regime was even ready to fight with us.”
“The source of the Kornet anti-missiles was Syria. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad contacted us and voiced his country’s willingness to send troops to Lebanon’s Hasbaya in prevention of any attack against Syria. But I told [al-Assad] that we are not willing to head to a regional war, and that the Resistance is capable of winning this battle on its own,” Sayyed Nasrallah recalled. He accentuated the Hizbullah did not need weapons from Iran during the war because it already had weapons.
About Lebanese government
“Since the beginning of the war, the Lebanese government adopted the Israeli point of view and wanted us to hand over the resistance’s weapons, accept the deployment of international troops and hand over the two Israeli hostages,” Nasrallah further added. Also, he emphasized that many Arab countries involved in this war wanted to crush the resistance, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt under the rule of Hosni Mubarak.
The Resistance leader recalled that Saudi Prince Nayef [bin Abdulaziz Al Saud] told one Lebanese politician that there is an international decision to crush Hezbollah. Also, Sayyed Nasrallah highlighted Israel’s delegate to the UN suddenly asked Hamad Bin Jassem to stop the war, and during the last days of war, some Israeli officials said if the war went on Israel would have collapsed.”
“Had the government been national and in harmony, we could have ended the war with conditions imposed by Lebanon, we could have retrieved the Shebaa farms, the Kafarshouba hills and freed our captives. Unfortunately the political battle was inside Lebanon rather than in the UN Security Council,” Sayyed Nasrallah elaborated.
Asked about the government, Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that Lebanon needs a national unity government, with Tammam Salam as Prime Minister, noting that MP Saad Hariri’s request that the Future party and Hizbullah withdraw from the government is an American demand.
Concerning Egypt, Sayyed Nasrallah advised the Egyptians to head to dialogue, as it is the sole solution to the situation.
At the end of the interview, Sayyed Nasrallah, thanked the people of the resistance for their tolerance and sacrifices. He accentuated the Hizbullah is much stronger than it was during the 33-day aggression, reiterating “the era of defeats has gone and the era of victories has arrived.”
