Nasrallah New TV interview - excerptsNasrallah further accused Roed-Larsen of having “a very well-known role, which is to serve the US and Israel’s interests.” He added: “A Dutch minister who visited Lebanon said he had met with the Israeli side and that there will be no second round of aggression… and I tend to believe the Dutch minister and not Roed-Larsen...My other analysis is that the Israeli settlers went back to their homes in Haifa and other cities and that the Israeli premier told them that there will be reconstruction… the Israeli army is decreasing its posts in the Lebanese southern territories instead of reinforcing them… all of this indicates that there wouldn’t be a second round of aggression.”
Nasrallah said that Hizbullah’s “priority now is the social and humanitarian situation… we are not a militia or mercenary… I have promised from the very first day - and I never promise anything that I know Hizbullah cannot fulfill - that we will help reconstruct every house that was damaged or destroyed.” He added: “I didn’t only promise the Shia, but also all the Lebanese, any Lebanese who had his house damaged or destroyed…better yet we will help any Lebanese or non Lebanese families who suffered damages during the Israeli aggression.”
When asked why Hizbullah didn’t wait for the government to make an initiative to help the “one million displaced people,” or in the reconstruction process, Nasrallah said: “We didn’t want the people to stay on the streets. Because of corruption, bureaucracy, theft, lack of ability, and other matters the government’s decision to help those people would take a long time. We [Hizbullah] directly went on the streets and helped the people, gave them money for a year’s rent and money to buy new furniture… started working on removing the rubble from the streets from the very first day of (UN-enforced) cease-fire… it took the government 7 days before deciding to have its bulldozers working in the southern suburbs.”
He added: “Some information reached me that some people in the state have decided on purpose to leave the people on the streets for a week or two to make them hate and blame us (Hizbullah) for what happened and to rise against Hizbullah… I bear the full responsibility of what I just said.”
He continued: “Some delegations were sent by the US and the UK embassies to speak to the displaced who were staying in schools to see if the people have started to melt and turn against Hizbullah and these delegations were shocked to see the high level of determination and back up which these people have for the resistance.”
Nasrallah said: “Hizbullah has taken the burden of paying the people for rent and furniture, assessing damages and clearing the rubble and you want us to take care of rebuilding the streets and bridges? Let the government bear its responsibility.”
He added jokingly, “if you want me to take care of everything then hand me over the state and I am ready to work things out...The government has a responsibility and I have a promise. If the state cannot reconstruct the houses of the people then Hizbullah, by Allah’s Will, will do the job. We are waiting for the state to decide on this matter, in the mean time we continue to pay for the displaced people’s yearly rent until the matter of the reconstruction of their houses is solved.”
He also said that the money which Hizbullah is giving the people, “is not tied with any pre or post conditions... Hizbullah doesn’t take money or arms from any one who puts conditions on it.” Besides, “Iran has pledged to reconstruct the bridges and roads all over Lebanon and which have been damaged.”
On a possible Hizbullah vision of creating an Islamic or Islamic-Shiite state and working outside the state, Nasrallah said that Lebanon “is a weave of various entities, religions, parties, and sects, and cannot be ruled as an Islamic or Christian state or even an Islamic- Shiite state.” He added: “This is all US and Israeli threatening talk which was used in the past to make the Christians afraid of a possible Islamic state and apparently now they (US and Israel) want to create a new fear among the Sunnis from the Shiite.”
Nasrallah said: “Let me say what is in my heart… the state never fought to liberate my land, the Lebanese territories, so when we held arms and fought the occupation we became accused of becoming a threat… if the Lebanese detainees remained in Israeli prisons and no one said anything to get them out it was fine, but if we moved to free them then they call us adventurers.”
Nasrallah continued: “The state doesn’t move to liberate a land or free a detainee or protect us or feed us or help us or teach us or provide medication for us… it only takes taxes from us… it is a miracle that the people have remained silent about such an injustice… they want us to be killed or die of famine, diseases, remain ignorant… or we work to enhance our situation, tar the roads, and clean the streets and construct schools… and then they accuse us of being state within a state.”
He said: “Both way, I fully pledge now, and the state is hearing me as I speak, wherever we [Hizbullah] have built a hospital and the state builds a hospital next to it, we are ready to close our hospital and the same goes for schools.” On the Israeli war on Lebanon which was triggered by the capture of the two soldiers and the negotiations to effect a swap: Nasrallah said that according to Hizbullah’s information, Israel, “has been preparing for an aggression on Lebanon since a long time… and that the Israeli surprising war was to be launched in September or October… in the mean time, Hizbullah was preparing for the past 5 to 6 months to capture Israeli soldiers to swap them with the Lebanese detainees in Israel… the operation happened in July, and after losing 8 soldiers and a tank and two captured soldiers, Israel was forced to have its aggression in July instead of September-October, as information later reached us… Israel lost the element of surprise… and didn’t manage to kill any of Hizbullah’s leaders, or secure the safety of its northern settlements, or retrieve the two captured soldiers… imagine what would have happened if Lebanon was taken by surprise in September-October? and no one was prepared to take action then?”
He added: “The Israeli aggression was going to happen whether we triggered the excuse or not… but I tell you one thing, the decision making is not up to me only… there are 15 people in the political-military council and if any of us had a 1 percent doubt that Israel was going to reply in this savage manner we wouldn’t have captured those soldiers…”
Nasrallah said that Hizbullah, and ever since it managed to force the Israelis out of Lebanon back in 2000, has been anticipating any kind of Israeli aggression that Israel thinks would save its face. “We didn’t know when the aggression was going to take place… so we prepared ourselves, stashed weapons and made a self-sufficient arsenal base in every base we have in the south just in case Israel decided to cut the roads –and it did—and that is how we managed to continue to shower the Israeli northern settlements with rockets and our fighters managed to continue to fight.”
“...I once said that we have more than 12,000 rockets… I don’t lie, I am not allowed to lie but at the same time I know how to play a psychological war… the number of rockets might be 13,000 or 20,000 or 50,000, and these are all more than 12,000, but I don’t reveal how many.”
“...They speak of fear from us inside Lebanon, I said it before and say it now that our weapons are to fight occupation and the Israeli enemy and not against our Lebanese brothers… I address the Lebanese and Christians especially who keep saying that they are afraid for their status, that they fear for their lives... that they fear syria and iran... we at the resistance are more threatened than they are... our lives are threatened by Israel, the US, and all the international powers... we are being relentlessly followed by those enemies, and we are more threatened than any other person here... I tell my Lebanese brothers and friends that they need not worry from our weapons, we will never point it inside Llebanon as some may wish to create a civil strife... but i also tell those opportunists not to blackmail us on this stand regarding our weapons.”
"...The Israelis have tried after the cease-fire to provoke us to fight them and breach UN Security Council Resolution 1701… they did that by doing a landing in Lebanon in the Bekaa… attacking civilian houses and cutting roads in the south,... all of that after the cease-fire… and there was not one significant international stand to condemn the Israeli breaches to the cease-fire… I tell you that if Hizbullah replied to the Israeli provocation –even in the slightest manner—you would have heard the harshest international condemnations.”
Nasrallah said that "anyone who supported the resistance, whether in their actions, words, hearts, minds, or couldnt do anything but prayed for us… then we give this victory –over the strongest army in the region—to them…” This included, according to Nasrallah, "Syria and its President Bashar Assad... and any other state which supported the resistance... Syria has supported us over the years... Bashar Assad was given juicy offers not to back the resistance and in return he can stay in lebanon as much as he wants and other offers regarding Golan hights... but he refused these offers, and continued to back the resistance."
Nasrallah called for “implementing the Taef Accord… and creating a true national unity government which includes representation of all the Lebanese. The primary condition in the Taef Accord is having a national consensus cabinet which reflects a true representation of the powers in lebanon. How can we have a true national unity government when the power representing 75 percent of the Lebanese is not represented in this government.” He added that MP Michel Aoun, who “represents 75% of the Christians in Lebanon,” should also be represented, as he (Aoun) doesn’t have a single minister in the current cabinet. "We tell them OK you want the implementation of the Taef Accord, then form the national unity government and they (those who are currently in power) say no..." - TV - Middle East, Middle East
