Interview with Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah

[bemildred]

by Al-Jazeera
July 22, 2006
Al Jazeera in Arabic

Someone went to the trouble to do a translation. A long read, but worth it if you want to know the Hiz'bullah point of view. There have been fragmentary reports in the Western press, this contains a lot more.

Note that he admits that he ordered the assault and hostage taking that was the pretext for the present war. I'm not convinced as to whether he was surprised by the IDF reaction or not.

Clearly a clever politician, the "who me?" parts are quite convincing. I will not comment otherwise.

Text of report by Qatari Al-Jazeera satellite TV on 20 July

Interview with Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah, by Al-Jazeera Beirut Bureau Chief Ghassan Bin-Jiddu, on 20 July.

Emphasis added by Global Research

It is sufficient to say that we are in the company of Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Al-Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah at this time in particular. The battles are still continuing. We are at a certain time in a certain place of this world, and not only in Lebanon, as I used to say earlier. This is why, without any introductions at all, I will start my questions to His Eminence Al-Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah. Your Eminence Al-Sayyid, first of all, thank you for responding to this interview at this time in particular. Around 10 days have passed since the outbreak of hostilities. What do you say militarily and politically?

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Politically and militarily all at once, it is difficult. Let us start...

Not in detail. We will go into details with you.

Let us start militarily and in the field. The general headline we can speak about clearly on the military level is steadfastness--the great and significant steadfastness first and, secondly, full absorption of the Israeli strike. Over the past few days, the Israelis, in our opinion, did the maximum that they can do, from the air and the sea. Of course, we will discuss the ground option shortly. There is no target--old, new, assumed, expected, based on information or analysis--that they did not hit. Also, when we speak about what was hit, this includes military and civilian targets, but I want to speak now about the military aspect.

I can confirm at this moment--this is not an exaggeration and not part of psychological warfare, but facts--that the command structure of Hezbollah has not been harmed. Yesterday night, they conducted a very violent raid on a building in the southern suburb. They spoke about 22 tonnes of explosives and a large number of aircraft that conducted the raid. They said that they made an achievement and killed some Hezbollah leaders and a large number of members of the resistance. This is not true. At any rate, your correspondent reported that he saw the area and that no ambulances came to the scene and no rescue efforts were made because the building is vacant and is under construction. The entire command structure of Hezbollah, including the political, jihadist, executive, and social--so far, the Zionists have not managed to kill any Hezbollah cadre or leader at any level.

Global Research

[Turbineguy]

1. Thanks for posting! Very Interesting

I have to wonder however, this part of Hezbollah is run by and for Lebanese but how many of the actual fighters are Palestinians?

There was a report on CNN this morning about all the wonderful things the Hezbollah does for ordinary people. It is of course able to do so with it's pennies from heaven (well actually, Iran) method of obtaining funds. It's an interesting juxtaposition. The "Bad Guys" doing something good for the ordinary or disadvantaged. This is something the "Good Guys" (that would be us) seem to miss.

They bring hope and education, we seek out the crooked and corrupt and pay them to keep a lid on things.

The radical Islamists seem to have a better handle on co-opting people to their cause.

[bemildred]

2. As far as I know:

I suspect the distinctions among Lebanese, Hiz'bullah, and Palestinian in South Lebanon are somewhat arbitrary nowadays. There may be more knowledgable people here who will respond to that.

The notion of providing services to ones political constituency in order to gain support is not at all new, is as old as Rome and time honored in many parts of the World. Moqtada al Sadr uses much the same formula in Iraq, Hamas in Gaza, Chavez in Venezuela. The cultural details vary a bit. The governing class in the USA hates that idea, because it threatens their power, so we get a warped view of the issue.

I suspect "radical Islam" is as much a matter of the chauvinism of a culture under attack as any sort of religious frenzy.