Ya Libnan

Hezbollah pledges full support to Hamas, despite Syria rift

Share:

nasrallah 072514Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah pledged full support on Friday to the Palestinian group Hamas in its conflict with Israel despite a deep rift between the two militant organizations over the civil war in Syria.

“We in Hezbollah will be unstinting in all forms of support, assistance and aid that we are able to provide,” Nasrallah said.

“We feel we are true partners with this resistance, a partnership of jihad, brotherhood, hope, pain, sacrifice and fate, because their victory is all our victory, and their defeat is all our defeat,” he said.

Nasrallah delivered his speech in public in Hezbollah’s stronghold of south Beirut, a rare event for the militant Shi’ite Lebanese leader who has lived in hiding, fearing for his security, after Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel.

That inconclusive 34-day conflict won Hezbollah sweeping support around the Arab world for standing up to Israel’s military superiority. But its more recent military action in neighboring Syria has eroded that regional backing.

Shi’ite Hezbollah has sent thousands of fighters into Syria to fight alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, helping turn the tide against overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim rebels.

But the Hamas leadership, once based in Damascus, refused to support Assad as he confronted with force peaceful protests which broke out in 2011 and descended into an insurgency and civil war. Since then 160,000 people have been killed.

“We call for all differences and sensitivities on other issues to be put to one side,” Nasrallah said in reference to the rift over Syria. “Gaza is above all considerations”

His speeches are usually delivered via video-link from an undisclosed location, but in a sign of confidence the Hezbollah leader spoke on Friday for an hour in front of hundreds of supporters at Hezbollah’s Martyr’s Compound in the south of the Lebanese capital.

“We say to our brothers in Gaza: We are with you, by your side, trusting in your strength and your victory. We will do all that we believe to be our duty, on all fronts,” he said.

Nasrallah did not specify what support would be given, but he pointedly said that Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in the past had supplied “all factions of the Palestinian resistance, financially, materially, politically…with weapons, logistical help and training.”

Reuters

Share:

Comments

12 responses to “Hezbollah pledges full support to Hamas, despite Syria rift”

  1. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    “As long as you’re fighting Israelis, we’re behind you.”

  2. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    As an Arab Sunni Muslim, I support the Palestinian people, but I do not support Hamas and its pro-Iran, pro-Hezbollah and pro-Assad position. Thus, I am torn and divided about the situation in Gaza.

    1. Anti ISIS Avatar
      Anti ISIS

      Well thank god no gives a toot about what you think.

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        Well, Farq. That was unkind. After all, he’s a novice. 😉

  3. josephphdman Avatar
    josephphdman

    palestinians are sunnis , beiing a shia,nasrallah is happy that israel destroying sunnis but he ca,nt admit that to the arab world because he will face a bigger sectarian war than the one he is fighting , the palestinian mostly sunnis around 90% and they do,nt support assdad and shia,s , if nasrallah really serious about supporting them he is being stupid , because one day they are powerfull in gaza they will support the palestinian sunnis in lebanon to come after his shia,t ass and fight the lebanese shia ,using the palestinians camps in lebanon; as a base,avery weak palestinians sunnis , is much safer or a lebaneese shia,s .

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      “palestinians are sunnis” …. errr … no. They were also a mix – moreso when they first ‘landed’ of course … I knew a Christian one who married a Lebanese … now dead of course because AGE eliminated most of them, no matter which sect they were in.

  4. ZJSO Avatar
    ZJSO

    Lebanon Will Again Be Embroiled Against It’s Will: Thanks HizbuShaitan
    One of the few mentionable merits of Lebanese politics—compared to the situation in neighboring Arab countries—is that everything is exposed. The Lebanese people have now grown accustomed to believing in conspiracy theories, even when there are no conspiracies. The advances made by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in western and northern Iraq, leading to the occupation of Mosul, the displacement of the Christian population in the area and the declaration of a caliphate, have had remarkable consequences on the political scene in Lebanon.

    To begin with, Lebanon has found itself embroiled, against its will, in the conflict Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, is using to serve his project in Syria, which in turn is part of a more dangerous and larger-scale regional project.

    As the larger project is imposed from above, allowing no room for hesitation or objections, if any exist, a key Lebanese side—Hezbollah—has also become involved in the Syrian conflict. Its public involvement came, as we all remember, under a varied range of pretexts. The first pretext was that it was “defending villages inhabited by Lebanese nationals” on the Syrian side of the northern and northeastern border. When that task was accomplished, the second pretext emerged. This time it was “defending holy Shiite shrines,” and with it the scope of intervention widened to cover towns in Aleppo and Idlib provinces.

    ‘Holy war’ turns defensive

    Next, the “holy” war morphed into a defensive, preemptive and necessary war based on the premise of pushing back against “takfirist” groups that posed a threat to Lebanon’s national security. The scope of operations expanded to include the Qalamoun Mountains in Rif Dimashq province. On the ground, this resulted in what was practically a siege of the Sunni Lebanese town of Arsal and of a few other towns and villages in the northern Beqaa, home to tens of thousands of mainly Sunni Syrian refugees.

    The Syrian conflict has exposed like never before Hezbollah’s true identity, the nature of its allegiances and priorities.

    Lebanon’s written constitution enshrines religious and sectarian diversity. The Lebanese, therefore, cannot be content with polite but empty and unreliable slogans regarding “self-distancing” from the Syrian crisis when Hezbollah is publicly fighting alongside Syrian government troops. In my view, the sectarian Assad regime has long claimed, to the point of exhaustion, to be secularist. However, had the Syrian regime really been secular, no popular uprising would have erupted against its injustices in the first place. This is, of course, before the uprising was indeed hijacked by sectarian-minded forces and taken off track. In the process, the entire situation has become a prelude for a long episode of strife that was awaiting the region.

    Confronting HezbuShaitan

    Today, the Lebanese authorities are too weak to confront Hezbollah with the truth, at least by means of citing the constitution and international law. Even if we were to accept that Hezbollah’s slogans of “resistance” had noble purposes, many in Lebanon no longer deem the militia to be a legitimate political entity. Regardless of whether the term “resistance” is still valid or not, the Lebanese state has become the weaker partner in an imbalanced domestic equation since Hezbollah’s decision to fight the phony 2006 war with their Zionist masters (Israel) without the sanction of the government. Moreover, Hezbollah has directed its weapons towards Lebanon with the aim of settling political scores, and is still insisting on keeping its weapons based on a national consensus that no longer exists.

    Thus, while Syria is being torn apart, Iraq is bleeding and Israel is keen on destroying and delegitimizing the Palestinian Authority through its new war on Gaza, Lebanon fears that the worst is yet to come. The Syrian conflict has exposed like never before Hezbollah’s true identity, the nature of its allegiances and priorities and the role it was founded to perform—namely, furthering the interests of a project much larger than Lebanon (Greater Israel/Shiite Crescent).

    Meanwhile, the suspicious pace at which the Khawarij (ISIS) managed to spread across Iraq and eastern Syria, and then its eviction of Iraqi Christians—a step unprecedented in the Middle East’s modern history—under the guise of bogus Islamic slogans, suggests that the condition of Christians in the region requires further contemplation and analysis.

    Today, we are also witnessing a new tragedy unfolding in Gaza, which we presume is not a matter of coincidence. Wars are not fought pointlessly without political purpose. Indeed, the current Israeli leadership has been publicly opposed to the settlement between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Thus, undermining the Palestinian Authority is at the crux of Israeli interests. Any long-term truce agreement between Israel and Hamas, which, in turn, would declare a glorious “victory” like the one announced by Hezbollah in 2006, may prove to be a fatal blow to the Palestinian Authority.

    Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees

    The possible collapse of the Palestinian Authority, along with Hamas’s declaration of “victory,” will also probably be echoed in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, particularly the Ain Al-Hilweh refugee camp in Sidon, the largest predominantly Sunni city in the Shiite-majority south. The sparks of what happened in Mosul and the surrounding Christian towns in Iraq after the attacks on the Christian towns of Syria, such as Maaloula, will also have a negative impact on the political scene in Lebanon. On top of that, the state of polarization between Sunnis and Shiites in the region has already done its damage as far as the Lebanese scene is concerned, producing radical militancy in the country. This includes the emergence of multiple Khawarij militant groups in Tripoli, the capital of the north, and the possibility of Beirut turning into a Khawarijs breeding ground like Iraq, Syria, etc.

    Ignoring the problem will not solve it, and the time for polite, kind words has long passed. Sunni moderation as represented by the Future Movement, despite its political indecision, needs to be met halfway by the Shiite side. This is particularly important, since we believe some of the Christians who are affiliated with the Tehran–Damascus axis are pressing ahead with their suicidal march into the abyss.

    The leader of the Future Movement, Saad al-Hariri, last week launched a road map in which he suggested immunizing Lebanon by electing the President of the Republic. With Hezbollah’s known position, it was its Christian lackeys who rushed to reject the initiative, which they interpreted in accordance with their deep commitment to the anti-Sunni “alliance of minorities.” All the signs indicate that the situation in Lebanon is, once again, up in the air.

  5. William Petro Avatar
    William Petro

    wheres the sunni help?
    oh that’s right sunnis only kill other sunnis!

  6. Guest Avatar
    Guest

    Hezbollah is helping Palestinians in Gaza vicariously by fighting in Syria against Syrians.

Leave a Reply