Adnan Hajj/Associated Press
Supporters of Syria in Beirut drove Sunday by a billboard of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon, who was assassinated last month. Mr. Hariri opposed Syria's domination of Lebanon.
Posted on 03/06/2005 11:03:09 PM PST by neverdem
BEIRUT, Lebanon, March 6 - The Lebanese faction Hezbollah declared its full support for Syria on Sunday, directly challenging opposition groups a day after Syria promised to gradually withdraw troops from Lebanon.
Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, spoke to reporters on Sunday in his stronghold in southern Beirut, breaking weeks of relative silence over the crisis concerning Syria's presence in Lebanon. He called for Lebanese to "express their gratitude" to Syria by joining a demonstration on Tuesday against United Nations Resolution 1559, which calls for Syria's withdrawal and Hezbollah's disarmament.
"I invite all Lebanese to this meeting to refuse foreign interference," he said.
Although he acknowledged that a Syrian pullout was a reality, he emphasized that Syria must be able to leave with honor - a reaction to repeated statements by the Bush administration and Lebanese opposition groups calling for a quick and complete pullout of Syrian forces.
Sheik Nasrallah's statements came a day after President Bashar al-Assad of Syria announced an eventual pullout from Lebanon, promising an immediate redeployment of Syrian troops eastward to the Bekaa Valley, followed by a second move to areas "near the Lebanese-Syrian border." Late Saturday evening, Syrian officials clarified Mr. Assad's statements, insisting that the redeployment would be to the Syrian side of the border.
Mr. Assad and President Emile Lahoud of Lebanon are expected to meet with senior government officials in Damascus on Monday to outline the details of the pullback. Reuters reported that Lebanon's defense minister, Abdul-Rahim Murad, said Syrian troops would begin moving Monday, though there were no signs on Sunday of any preparatory movement at bases in many Lebanese towns.
For weeks, Hezbollah, which maintains a well-armed, 25,000-man militia in Lebanon and commands the support of hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims in the country, has been a political wild card. Throughout the recent crisis, in which public outrage led to the breakup of a strongly pro-Syrian government, the group kept a relatively low profile, never wholeheartedly offering its backing to a Syrian presence and never extending its hand to the opposition, which has sought to get Hezbollah into its camp.
"This was really a warning to the opposition that they were getting a little carried away by all the talk of democracy and all the attention," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a professor at Lebanese-American University in Beirut. "It was Nasrallah's way of saying, 'We are here, we have been quiet long enough, and are now going to have our say.' "
Hezbollah, whose name means Party of God, a guerrilla group started in the early 1980's with financing from Iran, has built broad support by providing social services and health care. Recently, it has tried to refashion itself as a political party, with 13 members in Lebanon's Parliament.
In many ways, Hezbollah's fate has been tied to Syria. The group, branded terrorist by Washington, forged an alliance with the country in the early 1990's, after the end of Lebanon's civil war, and the Syrian government has allowed it to continue its battle with Israel on the condition that Syria maintain military and political constraints on its operations. As a result, the group has been able to maintain its armed strength, even though competing Muslim, Druse and Christian factions in Lebanon were formally disarmed.
On Sunday, Sheik Nasrallah reiterated Hezbollah's traditional stand that it could never give up its arms "because Lebanon needs the resistance to defend it." But he offered a legalistic solution to opposition figures, reminding them to call Hezbollah a "resistance movement" instead of a militia, which would be bound by the call for disarmament in Resolution 1559.
Trying to strike a conciliatory note, he said he agreed with the opposition's goals, but took issue with its methods. The opposition's tacit support of the Security Council resolution, he said, served American and Israeli aims to "bring Lebanon back to a state of chaos and find excuses for foreign intervention and push some Lebanese to call for international intervention."
He railed against rumors that opposition figures had been in discussions with Israeli politicians, saying that even if Lebanon accepted peace with Israel, Hezbollah would not.
Hezbollah's plans for the demonstration on Tuesday are a notable departure from its traditional outpourings, which draw hundreds of thousands of Shiite Lebanese into Beirut's southern suburbs. For the first time in Hezbollah's recent history, said Professor Saad-Ghorayeb, the party has planned to hold the demonstration in central Beirut, near Martyrs' Square, where the opposition has recently held rallies. Ostensibly, the location will encourage Lebanese from other factions to join. But ultimately, she said, it would serve to contrast the opposition's tens of thousands of followers with Hezbollah's huge support base in the country.
Syrian government: (Begins weeping)
If Hezzbola had decided to back Lebanon, they would have lost Syrian support but gained world body recognitions as a legitimate enterprise. The smart thing to do.
But, they had to be what they are. Now they will lose their last stronghold.
It is always heartwarming to see a terrorist organization let people know beyond a shadow of any doubt, exactly what they are, and will continue to be.
And to think that they almost pulled it off.
Honor is not fitting for a fool.
Hezbollah AKA Iran
IAF , isn't it about time to pay Nasrallah a visit ?
TelAviv has not been answered
Right , And watching them get run out of town should be interesting .
This is an example of where black ops assassinations could be very good.
A two-fer.
Adnan Hajj/Associated Press
Supporters of Syria in Beirut drove Sunday by a billboard of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon, who was assassinated last month. Mr. Hariri opposed Syria's domination of Lebanon.
Did you just make a Star Trek and a Starcraft reference in one post? Shame on you, lol.
LEEEEEEETTTSSSSSS Get Ready To RUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNBLEEEE!!!!!!!!
Syria is under the thumb of the Allawite minority.
This is nothing but traditional power politics and has nothing whatsoever to do with religion.
I have asked this guy to stop posting to me and stop calling me a NAZI, but he keeps trying to goad me into a flamewar. Can you please tell him to quit, or is he somehow special and immune from obeying the rules?
My comment concerned your attempt to portray a bunch of dirt poor Arab nutcases out in the desert in the 20th Century as somehow the equal of such noted terrorists as Joe Stalin, Adolph Hitler and Mao Tse Tung.
In the meantime you and a couple of your gumbahs have argued that unless it's privately conducted by an NGO it's not really terrorism!
Get real.
The FR monitors can track back through this thread to every reference to see what was said if need be. They can also reference ever post you've ever made.
I suggest you dig through my many thousands of postings on FR some day. You will discover I am not a Moslem and suffer not the Islamofascists among them. On the other hand, I do know Arabs (both Christian and Moslem), as well as Moslems from many countries, and have studied the area for many years, both in formal and informal settings. I even known folks who live in israel (Moslems, Jews of all kinds, and Christians).
If you could set aside your prejudices for a second you might learn something useful.
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