BEIRUT: Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah dismissed Wednesday the recent European Union decision to blacklist the military wing of his group, accusing the EU of succumbing to U.S. and Israeli pressure. Nasrallah also ruled out the formation of a new government in Lebanon without the participation of his party. “In the ranks of Hezbollah we were not surprised with the [EU] decision. Rather we expected it and in fact found it odd it had taken so long,” Nasrallah said during the annual Iftar of the Women’s Directorate of the Islamic Resistance Support Association at the Hashem Complex in the Lebanese capital. “The facts prove that the Israelis and the Americans exercised tremendous pressure on European Union countries to take such a decision,” he said, adding that the blacklisting merely served the interests of the Jewish state. “Content of discussions, deliberations and contacts over the course of months and years prove that Europe succumbed to the will of the Israelis and the Americans even though they were not convinced the [decision was warranted],” Nasrallah said. The EU’s 28 member states unanimously agreed Monday to designate Hezbollah’s military as a terrorist organization. Israel and the U.S. had long pressured the Union to blacklist Hezbollah, particularly after Bulgaria accused the Lebanese party of being behind the 2012 bombing in the city of Burgas. The blast, which killed five Israeli tourists and their Bulgarian driver, also came at a time when a Cypriot court indicted a Lebanese-Swedish man affiliated with Hezbollah of plotting attacks against Israelis. Hezbollah has denied involvement in the Burgas bombing. Although Nasrallah noted that the EU had yet to issue an official statement of its decision, the Hezbollah chief said EU member states were providing “legal cover” for any Israeli aggression against Lebanon. “This is also something dangerous because these states ... are providing legal cover for any aggression on Lebanon,” he said during the televised speech that was aired in five different Lebanese regions including Beirut, Bekaa and the southern town of Bin Jbeil. “They [EU] are making themselves fully complicit in any Israeli aggression against Lebanon, the resistance, or any resistance target,” Nasrallah added. He also dismissed the EU decision as having any tangible impact on the resistance group, describing it as merely a form of psychological intimidation. “You will never diminish our moral given that the only aspect of this decision is psychological,” he said. Nasrallah also ruled out any possibility Hezbollah would be affected at the financial or military levels. “We don’t have money in European banks. We don’t even have in Lebanon since we can no longer do that because they [in Lebanon] fear the Americans,” Nasrallah said. EU Ambassador to Lebanon Angelina Eichhorst said Tuesday the EU decision would not affect ties with the Lebanese government even if Hezbollah is represented in the Cabinet, underlying that the Union differentiated between Hezbollah’s political and military branches. Addressing the EU, Nasrallah said: “In Hezbollah, we know that any decision has a goal and the goal here is clear: it’s to subjugate us and force us to retreat, regress, be hesitant, and instill fear in us.” “I tell you that that you will only reap failure and disappointment,” he added. Nasrallah also questioned why the EU had not blacklisted Israeli’s “military wing,” its army, as a terrorist organization, asking: “Those who kill, commit massacres, occupy land, and prevent an entire nation from returning to its territory, aren’t they terrorists?” “But those who fought, endured pain, died, and were imprisoned but were able to restore land, dignity and they still carry arms to fend off any aggressor, you [the EU] come to those and call them terrorists?” he said. On the domestic level, Nasrallah said the decision would have no impact, particularly at the government formation level. “The EU decision domestically makes no [political] difference and I will say what I have said before: there will be no government without Hezbollah,” he said, referring to the March 14 call for excluding the party in any future Cabinet.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 07:12:50 +0000
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