Get off the Resistance”s Back
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah told his local and Arab foes on Friday "to get off the resistance”s back" and threatened Israel that his fighters would "shatter" its army if the Jewish state attacks Lebanon.
"The right strategy is the following: If you do not want to preserve the resistance in Lebanon, suit yourself, but get off its back," Nasrallah told a mass rally at the Sayyed al-Shouhada compound in Beirut”s southern suburbs on the occasion of al-Quds or Jerusalem Day.
"I am not addressing the Lebanese because the majority of them back the resistance. But by this I mean some people in Lebanon and some Arab countries," Nasrallah said.
Addressing Arab leaders, he said: "Either support the Palestinian people or leave them alone."
Turning to Israel, Nasrallah said the Jewish state is arming and conducting military exercises "day and night because it is afraid."
"If the Jewish state attacks Lebanon then we have to transform the threat to an opportunity to destroy and shatter the Israeli army," he told cheering crowds, but "we don”t want war" with Israel.
On the cabinet crisis, the Hizbullah secretary-general said: "It is not worth taking the country to a political, sectarian and security tension."
Premier-designate Saad Hariri is capable of consulting with parliamentary blocs following his return from Saudi Arabia, he said, adding: "Let us stay calm in order to reach a solution."
"No one has the right, no matter who he is" to give up the land or to recognize Israel”s right to exist, he said in a clear criticism of Arabs. "Normalization of ties (with Israel) is a sin."
He described Israel as a "cancerous cell that should be wiped out" and added that Palestine belongs to the Palestinian nation and people.
"It”s not true that we have two choices of either fighting or surrendering. There is a third option of remaining steadfast and resisting," Nasrallah told his supporters, many of whom waved the party”s yellow flags.
Experience and facts prove that only the choice of resistance would give back the land to the people, the Hizbullah leader added.
Before Nasrallah”s speech, units of Hizbullah members in olive green military fatigues marched to the band.
An initiative started by Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Quds Day is held annually on the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan and calls for Jerusalem to be returned to the Palestinians.