Al-Manar – Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah tackled the latest internal developments in a speech he delivered Friday. Dividing his speech into four parts, his eminence started with the US intervention in the Lebanese situation. Second, he covered the government formation file, third he talked about the security situation and finally he referred to the economic and social responsibility.
US Intervention
Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that the US interferes in every movement that takes place in the world in order to divert the public demands to serve their own interests not the people’s interests. “The Americans take the side of protests worldwide and express their support for their demands but in reality all the aid they offer is that which serves the US interests. This was the US role in the Arab Spring, Latin America, and East Asia, and this the US approach in general,” he said.
His eminence referred to US Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft’s statement saying: “Craft talked about ongoing protests in Lebanon, Yemen, and any place which Iran is present in, not any place which has corruption. She also considered that strikes will continue if pressure did not bring results. The Americans regard the protests as means to put pressure on Iran.”
“The Americans assumed that the Lebanese protests are against Hezbollah and Iran, knowing that they did not propose anything like that. Their slogans were economic and righteous ones while the Americans assumed since the first day that they were public protests against Hezbollah… and Arab and international media tried portray that,” he added, noting that “US Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo called on the Lebanese to get rid of this obstacle called “Hezbollah” and the US is ready to help them with that.”
Sayyed Nasrallah asked: “Do the US and Israel want to help the Lebanese people or blackmail them? The US equation for the Lebanese is for the latter to abandon their strength element so that the US helps them… The US and Israel have failed for decades to solve the obstacle which the resistance formed, therefore they are trying to take advantage and blackmail the Lebanese to achieve that.”
In parallel, his eminence referred to “Israeli” statements which considered that this is a historic opportunity to weaken Hezbollah and to make an agreement with Lebanon on the oil and gas. Sayyed Nasrallah assured that “Hezbollah is a great threat. A threat on US agendas and interests not on the Lebanese interests. In contrast, it is the defender of the Lebanese interests and dignity.” His eminence further indicated that “the Israeli is building a wall on the border because the resistance left this issue to be dealt with by the Lebanese government. If the resistance spoke against that the Israeli would have thought a thousand times before taking this step. The same applies on the oil digging in the regional waters.”
Sayyed Nasrallah called on the Lebanese not to trust the US promises, noting: “look how the US left its allies in the middle of the crises and humiliated them. Look how the countries who submitted to the US role became regular countries after having had a great role in the world. They want us to abandon our power, independence, and sovereignty… but if the Lebanese cooperated, they are capable of getting out of this crisis.”
Fabrication of Iranian statement
Concerning the latest fabrication of a statement by an Iranian official in which he was quoted as saying that “Iran will respond to any attack on it, and the response will be from the Lebanese territories”, Sayyed Nasrallah assured that there are sides who seek to create tension and incite against Iran in order to put Hezbollah, the presidency and allies in a critical situation, and these sides fabricated this statement which is not true in any way.
His eminence said Hezbollah instantly contacted their Iranian allies to ask about the statement and the latter denied its existence to instantly issue a clarification after that. In this context, Hezbollah SG indicated that “some think that if Iran was attacked it will refer to its allies to defend it, and let me correct this misconception and assure that Iran will defend itself by itself, it will not stay silent and will not accept to be defended by anyone… If its allies wanted to take action, that would be their own decision.”
Government formation
Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that “Hezbollah was against the government resignation in the first place because the formation of a new government would take time and the economic and financial situation does not bear vacuum. Some considered that the resignation of the PM was a victory but in contrast, it was time wasting and instead of responding to the demands and initiating with the reformations people had to focus on the government formation. The best case scenario would have been for the government to stay and the protests to continue and in that case many achievements would have been made,” he added.
“We are now in front of several choices, the first is a one color government which could get the highest number of votes in the parliament, and our political opponents were pushing toward that, while in our political team some supported it and others didn’t. We, as Hezbollah and Amal movement refused this choice because it poses danger on the country, besides that it contradicts the constitution. Just like we refused a one color government in the past and called for a unity government, we refuse it now even as we have become the majority. The current crisis requires everyone’s cooperation. The second choice is a one color government formed by the opposing political team, and we refuse that because the country’s situation is unbearable.
The third and fourth choices are partnership governments which protest delegates take part in, I don’t know how this can happen as the latter was incapable of choosing a leadership or form a delegation to visit the president. The third choice is a partnership government headed by Saad Hariri and the fourth choice is a partnership government headed by someone else. The third choice was not implemented because Hariri put unacceptable conditions so we moved to the fourth choice and accepted all the PM names that were proposed by Hariri but this did not succeed. The third and fourth choices are still on table, what’s important is to form a government that could make reformations and just as we refused a government that does not include the Future Movement, we will refuse a government that does not include the Free Patriotic Movement.”
Security Situation
Sayyed Nasrallah saluted people for their patience on the road cutting which aimed at causing riots and dragging them into clashes, adding: I call for further patience as we are getting closer to the solution. His eminence assured that some media outlets’ claims that Hezbollah and Amal movement were attacking protesters are not true and great efforts were made to control the street and absorb the anger.
Economic situation and social responsibility
Sayyed Nasrallah called for social solidarity in order to overcome this tough situation. He called upon business owners not to take advantage of this crisis to raise prices of their products but instead lower the prices and get little gains until we get over this phase. No one should manipulate or take advantage of anything related to people, from bread, medicine, fuel, etc… these must not be used as pressure tools.
