Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
Member of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc MP Ibrahim Mousawi hit back at accusations made by Head of Lebanese Forces party Samir Geagea that Hezbollah is seeking to delay parliamentary elections.
In a statement late Tuesday, MP Mousawi stressed that Hezbollah’s stance towards date of elections in Lebanon is clear and doubtless, noting that any accusation in this regard is fabricated and baseless.
“Such claims aim at instigation and elector mobilization in a bid to gain more votes,” MP Mousawi said in remarks carried by Al-Manar.
“Hezbollah, who has set his strategy based on great national and solid principles, sees in the election a chance for the Lebanese people to renew the political life and to freely choose their representatives at the Parliament as part of the democratic system ensured by the Constitution,” the Lebanese lawmaker stated.
“On the contrary, others’ policies don’t adopt national and solid principles, and deal temporarily with the issues and according to their interests. Those wait for the elections, hoping to turn the tables,” Mousawi said, stressing that those will “sooner or later discover that they are deluded.”
“We feel pity for those people, as we pray for them to be on the right way in order to preserve our country from collapse,” the Hezbollah MP concluded his statement.
Can the Beirut blast’s lead investigator, Judge Tarek Bitar, take on his negligent colleagues? Events so far suggest he won’t.Photo Credit: The Cradle
Lead investigative Judge Tarek Bitar refuses to prosecute his judiciary colleagues who signed to unload, store, then ignore the ammonium nitrates that devastated Beirut last August.
The Lebanese are split on the performance of Judge Tarek al-Bitar, the lead judicial investigator in the massive 4 August Port of Beirut explosion last year.
One side blindly trusts the man, believing Bitar will spearhead the fight against Lebanon’s existing corrupt political class and discover the identities of those responsible for the deadly port blast.
The other side views him as a foreign tool used to create sedition in Lebanon by targeting political figures critical of the US. The Lebanese resistance, Hezbollah, was the first to draw suspicion to Bitar’s performance, whose arbitrary and biased allegations seemed to target only one side of the political divide.
Hezbollah’s charges have gradually escalated over the months. When Bitar first took on the blast investigation – the second judge to do so – Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah urged him to publish the blast site’s technical report so it would quash unsubstantiated rumors about the group’s role in the explosion, or allegations that it stored ‘weapons’ at the Port of Beirut.
Bitar did not respond to Nasrallah’s request for transparency, however, and allowed political and media disinformation to go unchecked during a national crisis.
In one example of this, an alleged ‘witness’ named Imad Kashli appeared in a Lebanese media outlet claiming that he transported ammonium nitrate for Hezbollah from the Port of Beirut to a village in the south, in what was later discovered to be false testimony. Bitar failed to take any action against Kashli under the pretext that he was ‘sick,’ and media outlets never bothered to refute or retract the fabricated story.
Furthermore, Bitar’s political targets say the judge’s own allegations are not comprehensive, but deliberately selective. His interrogation roster focuses overwhelmingly on personalities belonging to one political affiliation, while unjustifiably excluding officials in the very same posts with opposite political views. Bitar has interrogated former Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) Commander Jean Kawahji, for instance, while skipping over current LAF Commander Joseph Aoun, a Washington-favored army man.
Aoun cannot be bypassed or absolved of responsibility. The explosion happened on his watch, during his tenure. Bitar’s detractors rightly point out that the ultimate responsibility for the Beirut blast must focus on the Lebanese judiciary and the military. The former signed the papers that allowed in and continued to store tons of illegally-stored ammonium nitrate in Beirut, and the latter has the final word on any explosives inside Lebanon’s legal boundaries.
The fact that Bitar has ruled out questioning the current army leadership, most of the judges, the Ministers of Justice and Defense, and the Justice Ministry’s cases commission from has raised eyebrows, obviously. Nasrallah did not mince his words when he stated, in a recent speech, that the greatest responsibility for the 2020 calamity rests with the judges who gave permission to unload vast amounts of ammonium nitrate explosives from a foreign ship seized by Lebanese authorities, and then gave permission to store these substances in dangerous conditions inside the Port of Beirut.
Bitar’s choices lead to armed confrontations
Leaked reports in the media and from within the corridors of Lebanon’s Judiciary, instead deflected blame onto cabinet ministers and members of parliament (MPs), revealing that they would be arrested even before Bitar issued the summons. Furthermore, he has been quoted as saying that he wanted to fight, not avenge, the political class, which he did not deny in a press interview – thus, confirming the words attributed to him.
His behavior and the investigation’s bias has only reinforced suspicions against Bitar, who was expected, at the very least, to handle these processes and suspects impartially, and to display good faith by muzzling rumors and disinformation.
The judge’s questionable performance finally prompted supporters of Hezbollah, Marada, the Amal Movement, and members of professional organizations (lawyers, etc) to hold a protest in front of the Beirut Palace of Justice.
On 14 October, a peaceful demonstration by these groups was ambushed in Beirut’s Tayouneh neighborhood by far-right Lebanese Forces (LF) party gunmen. Rooftop sniper fire quickly escalated into an armed clash that killed seven Hezbollah and Amal supporters and injured dozens of others.
The attack could have easily spiraled into a civil war had it not been for Nasrallah’s public calls for restraint, which gave space for an investigation by army intelligence, under the supervision of the judiciary, that this week summoned LF leader Samir Geagea for interrogation. That case continues.
Judiciary and military responsibility for the explosives
Why has Bitar overlooked the judicial and military responsibilities for the ammonium nitrates and its storage at the port for seven years? Why does he persist in focusing his investigation on cabinet ministers and parliamentarians mainly, despite the fact that the explosion was primarily a security and judicial failure?
If the army had carried out its function, entrusted exclusively to Lebanon’s military under the country’s Weapons and Ammunition Law, by supervising the nitrate storage, destruction, or re-export, the devastating explosion would have been averted.
Similarly, if judges had done their job, a legally binding – not a political one – decision would have ensured the destruction or immediate exportation of the explosive materials from Warehouse 12 in the Port of Beirut.
Despite the negligence of his judicial colleagues, Judge Bitar has been noticeably timid about addressing their liabilities in the lead-up to the explosion. The politicization of his investigation has all but buried the legal distribution of responsibility – the truth, so to speak – for the blast.
The judges who escaped Bitar’s ‘judgement’
Judge Jad Maalouf
To this day, the ‘guardians of justice’ continue to remain unaccountable. But the names of seven judges and a state attorney suspected of negligence have been identified as those most liable for the judiciary’s failings: Judges Jad Maalouf and Carla Shawah from the Beirut Urgent Matters Court, Ministry of Justice Judges Marwan Karkabi and Helena Iskandar, head of the Beirut Executive Department Mirna Kallab, government commissioner at the Military Court Judge Peter Germanos, Appeals Court Attorney General Ghassan Khoury, and state attorney Omar Tarabah.
Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces (ISF) had identified these judges in a report presented to Judge Bitar at the start of his investigation.
The judiciary’s responsibility in the blast has also been lost amid blanket local media focus on Lebanon’s political class since 17 October 2019, when a street ‘revolution’ arose in response to the country’s economic collapse. The prevailing trend in the country has been to lay all blame on the politicians and bankers who let this happen.
So there would be little fallout for Bitar if he took the easy path, focused on the easy ‘villains,’ and didn’t rock the boat with his judicial colleagues or Lebanon’s ‘neutral’ military establishment.
Bitar checked some boxes, but basically played softball with the judiciary. As an example, he formally requested that the Cassation Court’s public prosecutor separately verify the negligence of Beirut Judges Maalouf and Shawah in order to charge them with the crime of probable intent, like the rest of the defendants in the case.
Although more than a year has passed since the blast investigation began, any action against the judges, or even checking their files or hearing their statements, has been delayed for months, although the role of one of them – Jad Maalouf – is critical.
Maalouf signed off on the decision to unload the ship’s ammonium nitrate cargo and appoint a judicial guard as the head of the port, Mohammad al-Mawla. After Mawla claimed that he did not hold the keys to the warehouse, Maalouf was supposed to appoint another judicial guard and establish a time period for guard duty, which did not happen. Bitar listened to the statements of Maalouf and Shawah as witnesses only, unlike others who he intends to prosecute. Why?
The file of the ammonium nitrate shipment had swung back and forth for years between the General Customs Directorate and Beirut Urgent Matters Judge Maalouf. Several letters were sent to the Director General of Customs Badri Daher to re-export the goods, but Judge Maalouf kept writing down the request and sending it to the Justice Ministry’s cases commission, which responded only once by approving the re-export.
Maalouf was assigned to transfer the ownership of the goods within a week, even though Article 13 of the UN’s Hamburg Convention permits the destruction of goods – and if they are hazardous, without transferring their ownership – without paying compensation to the owner. The Hamburg Convention, signed in 1978 and enforced in November 1992, is the UN’s ‘Hamburg Rules’ on cargo sea shipments that unified a legal system regulating the rights and obligations of shippers, carriers, and consignees under the contract of transport of goods by sea.
According to legal experts, Judge Maalouf should have ruled to destroy these highly dangerous materials based on both Article 13 of the Hamburg Convention as well as the provisions of paragraph 2 of Article 579 of the Lebanese Code of Civil Procedure; that is, without a request from anyone and regardless of the rights of their owners, who are not entitled to compensation for the destruction of hazardous goods.
Instead, four years were spent on issuing notifications, or requesting discussions on jurisdiction and the legality of selling or destroying the goods. If Judge Maalouf had taken the decision to destroy the ammonium nitrates immediately, Lebanon would have certainly avoided its destructive consequence last August.
The same reasoning applies to suspected Judge Shawah, who was referred to the prosecution with Maalouf, but judicial sources tell The Cradle that she has not received any document or review from anyone since she took over the ammonium nitrates case from Maalouf.
Judge Bitar has also asked the Appeals Court public prosecutor to verify the suspected negligence of Public Prosecutor Judge Khoury for authorizing the closing of the nitrates file. But Bitar did not do that for months, and until the day before, he believed that the Court of Cassation might recuse him based on the lawsuits submitted by the defendants and ministers accusing him of bias.
It appears that Bitar initially suspected Khoury of involvement in criminal activities that contributed to the death and injury of people and causing damage to public property as a result of the judge’s decision to shelve the State Security’s investigation report. Then, inexplicably, Judge Imad Qabalan, the Court of Cassation’s public prosecutor, decided those suspicions were unjustified and threw out Bitar’s inquiries by saying he considered “the report of the judicial investigator [Bitar] dated 24 September 2021 to be empty of any suspicions and does not prove fault in the job duties of Judge Khoury.”
The fourth and fifth judges, Helena Iskandar and Marwan Karkabi, who headed the Justice Ministry’s cases commission, are suspected of years of procrastinating before responding to the correspondence of the Director General of Customs and the Urgent Matters Judge. Although they received several letters, they responded only once by proposing to re-export the nitrates without following up on the case, which is one reason the ammonium nitrates remained in the heart of Beirut.
The sixth judge, Peter Germanos, was contacted by State Security investigators – when he was the government representative at the military court regarding the ammonium nitrate stores – to notify him about the high risk of these materials. But Germanos told them this case was not in the jurisdiction of the military prosecution because the Urgent Matters Judge had ruled to remove that material from Warehouse 12.
Although the issue is related to the Lebanese state’s national security and clearly falls within the jurisdiction of the Army Intelligence, Germanos decided that it is not within the powers of the Military Public Prosecution. Why?
Judge Germanos has denied on Twitter that he received any reports or minutes on the ammonium nitrates from the State Security or any other agency. Here, Bitar’s investigation needs to discover which side is telling the truth, bearing in mind that most communications between the judicial police and public prosecutor were conducted orally, over the phone, until written investigation minutes are stamped and referred to the Public Prosecution.
The seventh judge – Mirna Kallab, head of the Executive Department in Beirut – following correspondence from the Justice Ministry’s cases commission on the sale of the nitrates, was tasked specifically with appointing an inspections expert. A dispute emerged from the start between the Ministry of Works and the cases commission over who should pay the expert’s fees, which did not exceed 700,000 (approximately $467) Lebanese pounds.
Here, state attorney Omar Tarabah’s name appears for procrastinating for more than a year over correspondence related to paying the expert’s fees to inspect the Rhusos, the ship which transported the ammonium nitrate to the Port of Beirut.
In a nutshell, it is believed that the reason for Bitar’s leniency in holding negligent judges accountable for the Beirut blast is due to the prevailing conviction among judges of the need to protect and provide their colleagues with immunity, lest they next become scapegoats for the political class who would also wish to protect their colleagues with immunity.
Bitar should have refused to cater to the judiciary and military establishments, and made a beeline for whomever he suspected of negligence, regardless of their affiliations. Having failed to do so, this investigation is now a bust. Unless Bitar changes course and takes on these two protected institutions, only scapegoats will be charged for Lebanon’s deadliest explosion in history.
A protest against US military aid to Israel. (Photo: File)
– Jeremy Salt taught at the University of Melbourne, at Bosporus University in Istanbul and Bilkent University in Ankara for many years, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East. Among his recent publications is his 2008 book, The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (University of California Press). He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
What a chamber of horrors the third millennium has been so far in the Middle East, without even a quarter of it having passed. Iraq, Syria and Yemen on a scale unimaginable even at the high point of imperialism in the 19th century. An estimated 300 children under five dying every day in Yemen from malnutrition, Palestinians shot dead in their occupied country every day, Lebanon and Syria slowly strangled by US sanctions, Iran threatened with military destruction and the revelation of yet another massacre by the US, in Syria, where “about” 70 women and children were killed at Baghuz by bombs dropped one after the other to make sure that no-one escaped.
There is no suggestion that anyone should be punished for yet another ‘mistake.’ This is where thousands of years of drawing up covenants to make the world a safer place have ended up: back where we started, the law of the jungle.
This is what the guardians of ‘western civilization’ have given to the world just in the past three decades:
Two wars on Iraq, the ‘cradle of civilization’ shattered by the cradle of a violent hamburger junk culture, millions killed or displaced. Libya, the most developed country in Africa, pulled up by its roots, uncounted thousands killed, the leader of its 1969 revolution slaughtered as Hillary Clinton cackled with glee like one of the witches around the cauldron in Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’. Syria torn to pieces, ancient cities and markets destroyed, and half a million killed. In Yemen, more than 230,000 dead, with 43 percent of prematurely born babies dying because of the lack of medical equipment and a genocidal famine – 75 percent of children are suffering from acute malnutrition – continuing even as fresh supplies of weaponry are dropped off in the Saudi kingdom by the US and Britain. Iran, Syria and Lebanon targeted with economic sanctions: in occupied Palestine, in Syria and in Iran the Zionist state continues its murderous march through history.
Not one of the global criminals responsible for these massive crimes against humanity has been punished. They play golf or roam the world picking up millions for their speaking engagements and their ‘philanthropic’ foundations. Not one word of contrition or remorse has been spoken by any of them for the lives they have ended or ruined. Not even the death of children has forced admission of guilt out of them. Others have been punished for lesser crimes but not this gang. They are completely remorseless.
Imagine the reaction if these crimes were committed in Europe and white people were being slaughtered or driven out of their homes, out of their countries and drowning in their thousands as they tried to escape across the seas.
Well, between 1939-45 it did happen and those responsible were hanged at Nuremberg. We have no Nuremberg now but we do have an International Criminal Court (ICC) which does punish the architects of war crimes and crimes against humanity – as long as their skin is the right color. With the exception of pale-skinned Balkan Serbs charged after the breakup of Yugoslavia, all those hauled before the ICC have been brown or black.
The tsunami of death and destruction which began rolling across the region when Napoleon landed in Egypt in 1798 shows no sign of receding. Almost no country from the Atlantic coast of West Africa down to the Arab Gulf has avoided being swamped by it and many have been swamped several times.
The prime beneficiary of all of the above in the past century has been the settler state implanted in Palestine after 1918. Israel is the heart and soul of US foreign policy. Indeed, US foreign policy is no more than the Stars and Stripes draped over the interests of the Zionist state.
Take Iran as an example. After the death of Ayatullah Khumayni, Presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami sought to repair relations with the US. They offered investment concessions, diplomatic rapprochement and a political pathway into a region of critical interest, central Asia. Iranian society is conservative and God-fearing, rather like the US itself, but as long as Rafsanjani and Khatami refused to drop Iran’s righteous defense of the Palestinians, nothing else counted. Even in the ‘moderate’ Khatami’s time, economic sanctions were tightened, paving the way for the election of the ‘hardliner,’ Mahmud Ahmedinejad.
The attempted strangulation of Iran and Syria through war, assassination and sanctions necessarily involves Lebanon, Hezbollah’s home base. Since the 1980s Hezbollah has successfully fought off all attempts by Israel – backed to the hilt by the US of course – to destroy it. Far from being weakened, Hezbollah has gone from strength to strength, militarily and as a Lebanese political party. The lesson learned by the US and Israel is just that they have to try harder, to tear Lebanon apart if that is what it takes to destroy Hezbollah.
The latest provocation through Israel’s agents took place in Beirut on October 14, in the predominantly Shia neighborhood of Chiyah, bordering predominantly Maronite Christian Ain Rummaneh, where the ‘bus massacre’ of 27 Palestinians on April 13, 1975, was the trigger pulled to start the civil war.
This time snipers positioned on rooftops shot at Amal and Hezbollah supporters as they moved towards the Palace of Justice in Al Tayouneh to hold a vigil calling for the removal of Tariq al Bitar as the judge appointed to investigate the Beirut port explosion on August 5, 2020, on the grounds that he is running a heavily politicized inquiry heading towards a preordained conclusion, that this was a crime committed by Hezbollah.
Holding Hezbollah or Syria responsible for the crimes they have not committed was first tried after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005. Initially, four ‘pro-Syrian’ generals were imprisoned for four years before an international tribunal took over the prosecution and released them for lack of evidence. It immediately pointed the finger at Hezbollah, eventually finding one person, Salim Ayyash, guilty of “involvement” on the sole basis of tapped phone calls made through communications networks known to have been completely penetrated and manipulated by the Zionist state.
The tribunal cleared Hezbollah’s leadership. What this actually means is that if the leadership did not order the assassination, no senior figure in the movement would have carried it out. Nasrallah and Hariri had differences but a good working relationship and it is virtually unthinkable that Nasrallah would ever have sanctioned such a heinous act.
The only beneficiaries of this monstrous act were the US, Israel and their agents in Lebanon. Syria was embarrassed internationally and had to withdraw its remaining forces from the Bika’a valley. Lebanon was thrown into the chaos that gave birth to the rise of the anti-Syrian/pro-Saudi, US and Israel March 14 alliance.
Hezbollah produced intercepted reconnaissance footage showing that Israel had been tracking Hariri with drones wherever he went for years and was flying an AWACS plane and another reconnaissance aircraft over Beirut at the precise time of the assassination. One of its agents had been located at the scene of the killing only the day before. None of this circumstantial evidence was ever followed up by the tribunal. Israel and the US have shed buckets of blood in Lebanon over many decades, have between them committed the most atrocious crimes, but the tribunal never even considered them as suspects.
The snipers waiting on the top of apartment buildings in Tayouneh on October 14 killed seven people, one a woman shot dead in her own home. Not just on rooftops, however, but on the ground, the demonstrators were surrounded by militiamen waiting to ambush them with guns, knives and even rocks. Despite denials by Samir Geagea (Ja’ja), the head of the fascist/sectarian Maronite Christian Lebanese Forces (LF), the armed men were clearly LF and acting on his orders. Of the 19 arrested, several quickly implicated him.
Geagea is one of the most murderous individuals in Lebanese history, which says a lot given the bloody track record of many others. During the civil war (1976-1989) he killed rivals within his own Maronite Christian ranks as well as Palestinians and other enemies outside them. In 1994 he was sentenced to four life sentences for the assassinations of former Prime Minister Rashid Karameh (1987), National Liberal Party leader Dany Chamoun (1990), Falangist (Kata’ib) head Elias al Zayek (1990) and the attempted assassination of Defence Minister Michel Murr (1991). In 1978 he and Elie Hobeika, at the behest of Bashir Gemayel, then head of the Falangists, led 1200 men in an attack on the north Lebanon family home of Tony Frangieh, leader of the Maronite Marada (Giants) faction. Geagea was wounded and had to be taken away before Frangieh, his wife and three-year-old daughter were killed.
In the 1990 attack, Dany Chamoun’s wife and two of his sons were also killed. If there is any poetic justice in any of this shedding of blood – including entirely innocent blood – it lies in the 1982 assassination of Bashir Gemayel and the car bombing murder in 2002 of Elie Hobeika, Israel’s leading henchman in the Sabra and Shatila massacres of 1982.
Geagea himself served eleven years of four life sentences before being released under amnesty after the assassination of Hariri and allowed to take up the leadership of the LF. His brutality is a powerful weapon in the hands of Israel and the US, whose ambassador, Dorothy Shea, has been open in her interference in Lebanese politics.
US economic sanctions against Lebanon have one primary target, Hezbollah; one secondary target, Syria; and one-third target, Iran. How many Christians die defending ‘Christian Lebanon’ is not an issue for the US and Israel any more than the number of Muslims who die fighting them. All they want is the chaos that will further their ambitions. They tore Lebanon apart before and they will do it again, mercilessly, ruthlessly, callously, without a care for the innocent blood of thousands that will be shed.
Whatever cause Samir Geagea thinks he is serving, the piecemeal destruction of Lebanon, indeed of the entire Middle East, is primarily about the protection of Israel. However, Israel is not as safe as it used to be or it might think it still is. It is confronted by enemies who have not backed off one meter from the struggle to liberate Palestine. Israel has tried hard to destroy them. Up to now, it has failed, so it is getting ready to try again. While planning/contingency planning is a constant, Israel now appears to be actively preparing for a massive military strike that would target Iran’s nuclear plants and missile capacity.
In September the Zionist chief of staff, Avi Kohavi, said plans for such a strike had been “greatly accelerated.” The military has been given an additional $1.5 billion to buy aircraft, drones and ‘bunker buster’ bombs that would probably include the USAF’s new 5000 lb. (2,267 kg.) GRU-72 Advanced 5k Penetrator, which would be aimed at Iran’s underground nuclear installations. Anticipating a simultaneous war with Hezbollah, Israel has also been carrying out extensive military exercises in northern occupied Palestine, coordinated with all emergency civil services to deal with an expected crisis on the domestic front once the missiles start falling. Israel is clearly planning for a big war, and can be expected to throw everything into this attempt to crush its principal enemies once and for all.
Unlike the white settlers in South Africa, the Zionist leadership sees no writing on the wall, no indications that history is not on their side even as it builds up against them. No more than Netanyahu does Naftali Bennett have any intention of giving anything back to the Palestinians except the smallest fragments of municipal responsibility. Like Netanyahu, he sees no need to negotiate, no need to give anything away. Why would he, when in the last resort Israel even has nuclear weapons to destroy its enemies? This is the question to which there can be no answer until the day comes when Israel faces the reality that even its conventional weapons are not sufficient to destroy its enemies.
All appearances to the contrary, unlimited US economic and military support has been a curse for Israel. It has created the illusion of power. Israel is like a plant with shallow roots. Only as long as the US keeps watering it, can the plant thrive. There is no permanent, unbreakable bond between states and all appearances to the contrary, there never will be between Israel and the US. Slowly, Americans are waking up and Israel’s incessant pleading is already beginning to fall on deaf ears, as the public becomes more aware of Israel’s criminality and as congressmen and women (mainly women) are emboldened to speak out. The time may come when the US can no longer afford Israel. The time may come when public opinion has changed to allow a US government to treat Israel as it treats other states.
US economic and military aid has had the same effect on Israel as steroids have on a bodybuilder. The 97-lb weakling is now the neighborhood bully swaggering down the street with pumped-up muscles. He smacks people around or they run in fright but Hezbollah and Iran are not running. They are standing firm and preparing to defend themselves. In any case, in the next war, Israel will take damage it has never experienced before, to the point where so many Jewish Israelis will just want to get out that Israel as a Zionist state is likely to crumble from within and die of its own contradictions. Is this what it is going to take for peace to become possible?
A top official of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah calls on Riyadh to stop meddling in the country’s internal affairs amid a Lebanon-Saudi rift over comments on the Yemen war.
“Lebanon is an independent country that does not accept subordination to anyone,” al-Manar television network cited Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem as saying at a graduation ceremony on Wednesday.
Referring to the current dispute with Saudi Arabia, the senior Hezbollah official stressed that it was Riyadh that started the problem with Beirut.
“We don’t have any demand from it [Saudi Arabia] but to stop interfering in our [Lebanon’s] internal affairs,” he stressed.
Sheikh Qassem on Sunday had said the real target of the Saudi diplomatic aggression on Lebanon “has been always Hezbollah as well as its military power.”
Tensions rose between Riyadh and Beirut following critical comments made by Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi regarding the Saudi-led war against Yemen.
On October 29, Saudi Arabia gave the Lebanese ambassador 48 hours to leave the country over Kordahi’s remarks. The kingdom also imposed a ban on all imports from Lebanon.
The measures were taken days after an interview with Kordahi was aired by an online show affiliated with Qatar’s al-Jazeera television network.
During the interview, Kordahi called the Saudi-led Yemen war futile, and said that Yemeni army forces and their allied fighters from Popular Committees are defending themselves.
The interview was recorded before Kordahi was appointed as minister, but it aired on October 25.
Saudi Arabia and some of its regional allies, backed by the US and other Western powers, have been waging a devastating war on Yemen since March 2015 to reinstall Yemen’s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.
The Saudi war, which Riyadh had claimed would last only a few weeks, but is still ongoing, has failed to achieve its goals. It has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine, killed tens of thousands of innocent people, and destroyed the impoverished state’s infrastructure.
Elsewhere in his Wednesday remarks, Sheikh Qassem pointed to a last month’s deadly shootout in Beirut and noted that the resistance movement dealt wisely with the massacre which was committed by the Lebanese Forces [LF] political party in Beirut in mid-October.
At least seven people were martyred and 60 others injured in the attack on October 14, during which Hezbollah supporters were shot from rooftops while they were gathering to peacefully protest against a judge investigating last year’s Beirut Port explosion as they accused him of bias.
In a statement, Hezbollah and its ally Amal Movement said armed groups affiliated with the LF party, a former militia group during the 1975-1990 civil war, fired at the protesters from rooftops, aiming at their heads, in an attempt to drag Lebanon into new sectarian strife.
“Hezbollah and Amal movement spared the country from going into the unknown,” Sheikh Qassem stressed, calling for a “fair, impartial and transparent judiciary.”
Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General His Eminence Sheikh Naim Qassem asserted that Saudi Arabia is disturbed because it couldn’t dominate the political decision in Lebanon despite the cash it had spent on its allies in Lebanon, pointing out that Saudi Arabia couldn’t put up with its casualties in the region, so its aggression on Lebanon was just a reaction, and that is one of the reasons behind the current crisis in Lebanon.
Sheikh Qassem asserted that the timing of the Saudi aggression on Lebanon is linked to Marib and Riyadh’s terrible loss in Yemen, so that it’s trying to divert attention from the battles there by exercising pressure on Lebanon.
The Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General said that Riyadh should apologize for its unjustified aggression on Lebanon, noting that the kingdom is not doing the right thing because nobody can twist the arm of Hezbollah and the Lebanese people.
“Lebanon is not a scapegoat and it’s challenging Saudi Arabia as an independent country. We won’t accept Saudi Arabia’s interference in the government after all the achievements it has accomplished,” Sheikh Qassem added.
His Eminence also said, “We will not surrender or give up on our dignity to please Saudi Arabia, even if it had practiced aggression on us, and we don’t hold responsibility for anything that happened”, pointing out that “Saudi Arabia might continue its aggression against Lebanon, as it doesn’t have any disciplines. It wants to take revenge, and it has to apologize. If it wants to continue its aggression, it will have more casualties.”
Regarding the Tayouneh Massacre, Sheikh Qassem said that “the US couldn’t achieve its goals in Lebanon despite all its attempts, and it had tried with all the possible means to turn the Lebanese public on Hezbollah but it couldn’t make it.”
He asserted that the discord that was sought in Tayyouneh massacre is an American-Saudi act executed by the Lebanese Forces party, but Hezbollah and Amal Movement have aborted it for the sake of Lebanon, pointing out that the Lebanese Forces is the sole party that receives allocations from Saudi Arabia, and the Americans have tried to integrate the Lebanese Forces members into the “NGO” groups to enhance their image.
Sheikh Qassem also talked about the maritime borders, saying that the Lebanese government is the one who says where our borders are, and Hezbollah doesn’t interfere in that, adding that “we are waiting for the government to finish the demarcation process and the disputed areas.”
He also stressed that “If the government says that the “Israeli” enemy is assaulting a disputed area, we, as a resistance, will do our duty.”
Regarding the relationship with Syria, Sheikh Qassem noted that the relationship between Hezbollah and Syria is very good, especially with Bashar al-Assad as a president, and the relations with the Syrian Arab Army is very good as well, adding that such relations are unshakable, and that there is a high level of coordination on the mutual ties.
He said that the Hezbollah-Syrian relationship is one that became deep by blood, resistance, and liberation, and that such relationship was never this good in any past period.
His Eminence also said that “many of our Resistance fighters have come back to Lebanon, and the number of fighters that stayed there is related to the situation on the ground”, asserting that “we are ready for any larger or lower presence there depending on the developments.”
لا نعلم بعد مضمون الاعترافات التي أدلى بها الموقوفون الذين تسببت إفاداتهم بتسطير مذكرة الاستماع لرئيس حزب القوات اللبنانية سمير جعجع، ليقين بأن هذا الاستدعاء لم يكن متوقعاً صدوره بالسرعة والتشدد اللذين شهدناهما، بصورة معاكسة لتدخلات مرجعيات لها تاثيرها على القضاء وقيادة الجيش، وإحراجها لهما، كحال بكركي والمداخلات الأميركية، وما كان هذا الاستدعاء ليحدث ويتم الإصرار عليه لولا وجود وقائع لا يمكن تجاهلها بالنسبة للجهتين المعنيتين، وهما القضاء بشخص مفوض الحكومة لدى المحكمة العسكرية، الذي لم يكن يوماً مفوضاً لحزب الله كما قال جعجع، وتاريخ النزاعات حول الملفات بين حزب الله مليء بالوقائع، ولا يمكن لأحد التشكيك بأن قيادة الجيش ومديرية المخابرات قد يمثلان مجرد صدى لطلبات حركة أمل وحزب الله، وفي الحادثة نفسها كان واضحاً من توضيح قيادة الجيش لتفاوت مضمون بياناتها في اليوم الأول، أنها تسير بموقفها تبعاً لما تتوصل إليه من وقائع، ولا تزال قضايا الخلاف في مقاربة أمل وحزب الله لملفات كملف العميل عامر الفاخوري في الذاكرة القريبة، وقيادة الجيش كما المحكمة العسكرية فعلتا ما تعتقدانه تعبيراً عن مسؤولياتهما بمعزل عن كيف سيقيم أداءهما كل من حزب الله وحركة أمل، وغداً قد تزداد الضغوط الداخلية والخارجية عليهما، ويحدث ما يفتح الباب لخلاف جديد بينهما وبين حزب الله وأمل.
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واقعياً نحن أمام معادلة تقول إن الاستدعاء مبني على شكوك جدية بدور لعبه جعجع في ترتيب مسرح مجزرة الطيونة، عبر معاونين مقربين منه، يملك التحقيق تفاصيل كافية لسؤال جعجع عنها، ومواجهته بها عندما يمثل للاستماع إليه، ولن يكون مفيداً لجعجع الإنكار لأنه سيضيق عليه دائرة الضغط ويزيدها إحكاماً، بقوة تدفق المعلومات التي ستوضع في مواجهته، وقد وفرتها فيديوهات وإفادات واعترافات وداتا اتصالات، ولن يفيد التهرب من المثول لأنه سيخلق ضغوطاً عامة في البلد لفرض المثول عليه، وسيفرض ضغوطاً وإحراجات قانونية له وعليه وعلى الجهات المعنية بمواصلة التحقيق، والأمر مختلف جذرياً عن قضية ملاحقين من قبل المحقق العدلي يطالبون وفقاً لنص دستوري بنقل ملفهم أمام جهة قضائية أخرى نص عليها الدستور، بعدما مثلوا وأدلوا بإفاداتهم أمام المحقق العدلي الأول عندما طلب الاستماع إليهم من دون إطلاق الملاحقة القضائية الاتهامية بحقهم، وصفات هؤلاء مذكورة في نص الدستور كرؤساء ووزراء، ولو كانت هناك محكمة أخرى ذات صلاحية لملاحقة رؤساء الأحزاب سيكون على جعجع المثول أولاً للإدلاء بإفادته الأربعاء، ثم في حال إطلاق ملاحقة اتهامية بحقه أن يطلب نقل ملفه إلى محكمة لرؤساء الأحزاب ليست موجودة.
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إذا صحت الفرضيات بأن جعجع دبر ورتب مجزرة الطيونة، عبر زرع مجموعات استفزاز للمتظاهرين لاستدراجهم بحال فوران إلى الشارع الفرعي وهم يقومون بالتكسير والهتاف، ما يمنح الذريعة لتدخل سلاح جعجع المنظم لفتح النار بداعي حماية الأهالي، أملاً بإطلاق تفجير يستدرج بالدم تورطاً مقابلاً، تضيع فيه نقطة البداية، عندما تغرق المنطقتان المتقابلتان بدماء أبنائهما وبناتهما، وهنا سيكون جعجع قد ارتكب الخطأ القاتل، لأنه على الرغم من النجاح النسبي، سواء باستدراج جزء من التظاهرة عبر الاستفزاز للخروج عن السياق المرسوم لها، سواء في مسارها أو في سلوكها، أو في استدراج إطلاق النار بعد سقوط أول دفعة من الشهداء والجرحى، إلا أن لا هذه ولا تلك شكلتا النجاح الذي يحجب حقيقة المجزرة، لأن الحكمة التي رافقت إدارة ما بعد المجزرة نجحت نجاحاً كلياً في إبقاء الأمور تحت السيطرة، فمنعت توازن الدماء الذي يخفي المجزرة، ومنعت التشكيك بالقضاء ومنحته كل الثقة حتى باعتقالات طالبت بعضاً من مناصريها، ومنعت الطعن بصدقية الجيش التي جرت محاولات لتفخيخها بنشر فيديوهات تظهره مصدراً لإطلاق النار يجب أن نعرف من كان وراء نشرها الآن.
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فشل جعجع سيكون هو السبب في تحول فعلته إلى الخطأ القاتل، وهذا الفشل لم يحدث صدفة، بل لأن التفوق الأخلاقي والوطني الذي جوبهت به المجزرة هو الذي أجهض التتمة المطلوبة لتتحق الأهداف المرجوة منها، لكن يبقى السؤال، لماذا يقدم جعجع على هذه المغامرة التي قد يكون بدأ يلمس أنه سيواجه نتائجها وحيداً، هل أن التعطش للمال أعمى بصيرته في ظل توهم حجم العائد المترتب على الظهور كقوة مستعدة للعبة الدم مع حزب الله، أم أن ثمة من نصحه بتصعيد المناخ الطائفي إلى اقصى الدرجات لتحسين نتائج استطلاعات الرأي الانتخابية حتى لو أدى ذلك لسقوط الدماء، أم لأن ما لدى جعجع من معطيات، أسوة بما لدى كل الذين وضعوا بيضهم في السلة الأميركية، أثار ذعره من الآتي، بعدما رأى مشهد أفغانستان، ووصلته المعلومات عن الانسحاب المقبل من العراق وسورية والعودة للتفاهم النووي مع إيران، وحجم الموقع المتنامي لحزب الله في المعادلة الإقليمية وصولاً لتكريسه شريكاً بنصف القرار الذي يصنع الاستحقاق الرئاسي المقبل، ليتقاسم الآخرون النصف الثاني بقيادة واشنطن، فراهن على إنتاج معادلة تتيح له التحول إلى الرقم الصعب الموازي؟
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هل يجوز القول للمرة الثانية غلطة الشاطر بألف، أم أنه لا يكون شاطراً؟
Hezbollah Secretary General last speech about Tayyouneh bloody ambush by Samir Geagea’s criminal militia has continued to send resounding messages in Lebanon and all over the region, and especially within the ranks of the ‘Israeli’ enemy in occupied Palestine.
The content of the speech was very direct in accusing Geagea militia, which is formally called the ‘Lebanese Forces’ party, of being responsible for the bloody massacre they perpetrated against the civilian protesters passing through the area.
The speech has equally exposed the head of this criminal militia Samir Geagea and his long history of war crimes, assassinations, massacres, and aggression against the Lebanese people.
It also exposed his mindset and sick mentality which is always preoccupied and obsessed with violence, power thirst and bloodshed.
The speech exposed the history of this militia and its real agenda of partitioning the country and turning it into closed antagonistic cantons fighting against each other throughout a civil war.
Sayyed Nasrallah made it very clear that the Resistance will never be dragged into this war, and announced for the first time that this Resistance has 100000 fighters who are ready to defend Lebanon and the Lebanese people.
This announcement was the center of interest and deeply examined by many parties inside and outside Lebanon.
Although Sayyed Nasrallah was very clear in explaining that the fighters are to secure a guarantee of protection and safety for Lebanon and the Lebanese, against any inside or outside threat, some of the ill-intentioned tried to use his announcement as an example about Hezbollah threat to the Lebanese.
But aside from the internal Lebanese affairs, the message was read carefully in the circles of the ‘Israeli’ enemy; the ‘Israeli’ media outlets and military research centers had intensive focus on this announcement.
The enemy knows for a fact that Sayyed Nasrallah’s announcement about the resistance’s 100,000 trained and fully-equipped fighters is neither a media joke nor a propaganda. And even if it is part of a psychological war against the enemy, it is built on solid facts.
Thus, it will definitely act as a further deterrence against any ‘Israeli’ aggression and will solidify the Lebanese equation of protection and safety, furthermore, it will send a strong Lebanese message to the ‘Israelis’ that they cannot dig and extract gas and oil from the Lebanese territories and properties in land and sea without taking into account that Lebanon is capable of defending its resources.
This is a very important message at this time as the negotiations over the issue are taking place.
By doing this, Hezbollah is cementing the Lebanese points of strength and showing friends and enemies that Lebanon is not weak or pressured to accept any dictation from outside countries especially the US.
Additionally, this message would definitely help insure the security and protection of the strategic Lebanese natural resources not only for now but also for the coming generations.
In all, the speech has been successfully able to bring more immune stability into the Lebanese fragile political and economic system at a time when it needed it the most! This opens a window of hope and optimism amid all the catastrophic factors surrounding the country and its people from all sides and on all levels!
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