BEIRUT: By Elias Sakr | Daily Star staff | Saturday, January 16, 2010
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Friday he was confident that any new conflict with Israel would see his group emerge victorious and change the face of the region. “I promise you, in view of all the threats you hear today … that should a new war with the Zionists erupt, we will crush the enemy, emerge victorious and change the face of the region,” Nasrallah said via video link to an Arab and international forum for resistance movements in Beirut. “The future of this region is the resistance, dignity, freedom,” Nasrallah told an audience that included representatives from Iran, Syria and other countries, as well as Hamas’ exiled leader Khaled Meshaal.
Nasrallah said that Israel, which fought a devastating conflict with Hizbullah in 2006, was again beating the drums of war to try to restore its military’s reputation as an invincible regional force.
The Hizbullah leader also took aim at domestic opponents who criticize Hizbullah as embracing a “culture of death,” saying that the “culture of life” slogan championed by the party’s rivals was a cover for a “culture of surrender.”
For his part, Meshaal urged Egypt to stop building an underground wall along its border with Gaza, which the Islamist group says would put further strain on the isolated enclave.
Meshaal also called for a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of the rival Fatah party, to try to achieve reconciliation between the two groups.
Egypt is constructing an underground barrier to stem Palestinian arms smuggling into Gaza and has played down the scope of the work on the 14-kilometer-long frontier.
“We call on the Egyptian leadership to stop building the steel wall along its border with the Gaza Strip,” Meshaal told the conference. “A wall [is erected] between enemies and not between brothers.”
Israel has long lobbied Egypt to tackle cross-border smuggling, which supplies Palestinians with munitions as well as with basic goods lacking in Gaza.
Meshaal’s day in Beirut was also spent visiting top Lebanese leaders, whom he told that Lebanon’s state sovereignty was of paramount importance.
“Weapons outside or inside refugee camps are not part of a Lebanese domestic [political] formula but come from a historical background tied to the Palestinian revolution and concerns against Israeli aggressions,” he said following talks with President Michel Sleiman.
Meshaal, who also met with Speaker Nabih Berri and Premier Saad Hariri, said he informed top Lebanese leaders of recent developments regarding the inter-Palestinian reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.
For his part, Sleiman underscored the importance of sacrifices to complete the inter-Palestinian reconciliation, which would have a positive impact on the Middle East peace process.
During his talks, Meshaal also tackled the issue of Palestinian refugees civil rights as well as the issue of Palestinian weapons outside of refugee camps. “This issue requires discussions, but as a principle we consider the state’s authority above all,” Meshaal said. – With agencies
