Nasrallah says no red lines

Nasrallah ignored Siniora's statement yesterday and went on TV to threaten Israel with more rockets. He said Hizbullah had been patient and avoiding civilian targets until the Israeli army started killing Lebanese civilians and bombing infrastructure. He assured the "stupid" Israeli government that Hizbullah has not been scratched, and that their bombing is only hitting civilians. Nasrallah claimed Hizbullah has more rockets than Israel realizes, and that from now on Hizbullah will resort to any means to defend "ourselves."

"We still have full capabilities ... They don't know what they're targeting ... Their plan is based on wrong information..."

He said he spared Israel a disaster by not bombing petrochemical factories. But there will be no red lines anymore.

He also denied reports of Iranian soldiers helping Hizbullah.

Nasrallah tried to bribe Lebanese by promising to help with the reconstruction. " We have friends who can help with pure money," he declared.

Update. AP report: Hizbullah in control of Lebanon, government is helpless.

After moderating their stance in recent years, the guerrillas surged back to the war front with a surprise attack on Israel and a sophisticated arsenal, leaving Lebanon's politicians and army looking nearly powerless. The government seems paralyzed over how to deal with Hezbollah, whose Shiite Muslim fighters have had near autonomy in the south for more than a decade.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah acted Sunday like the man holding Lebanon's reins, though he looked tired and stressed as he vowed that his group had only begun to fight.

"We are in our full strength and power," he said on the group's Al-Manar TV. "Hezbollah is not fighting a battle for Hezbollah or even for Lebanon. We are now fighting a battle for the (Islamic) nation."

On the Lebanese army's ability to fight Hizbullah, and Nasrallah's hijacking of the country, AP's Zeina Karam writes:

Lebanon's army of about 70,000 soldiers far outnumbers Hezbollah's estimated 6,000 fighters, but its troops lack the guerrillas' battle experience.

Largely manned by Shiite Muslims, the army could also break up along sectarian lines, while the guerrillas can call on thousands of supporters. And Hezbollah's religious zeal — and willingness to die in battle — also makes it a formidable foe, increasing fears that the latest conflict could tear Lebanon apart.

"Hezbollah has taken the country hostage. They have destroyed people's homes and infrastructure," cried Mohammed Bazazo, 50, a merchant in the predominantly Sunni southern port city of Sidon.

Nasrallah tried to address those concerns Sunday, vowing that Hezbollah will help rebuild. "You are truly a historic people," he said, addressing Lebanon. "By your steadfastness, we will be victorious."

Comments

[observer]

Nasrullah is a cancer deep in the body of Lebanon. He is self feeding and desirous only of growing his destructive organization at the cost of the health of Lebanon. Make no mistake, the Israeli retaliation is just a local aggressive response of the immune system. It is not enough. Radical surgery is called for. Dr. Siniora now understands. Will the majority of the Lebanese population, the UN, the Arab League and/or the EU be able or willing to help excise the tumour? Lebanon's life is at stake.

[ramzi]

Didn't you just love that not-so-subtle jab at Saudi Arabia with the 'untainted' money comment?
Who wouldn't love a Lebanon rebuilt along the Iranian guidelines? Man oh man... we're in for a ride.

[friend of lebanon]

with all due respect .
your country is invaded..
you have agoverment?
you have an army/?..
if yes where are they..
if you say that you do not than you agree that hizbolah dictats the nation agenda..
so let it be at that make your own conclution..
if not rise up your moment in history is now.....

[Nasrallah]

Israel is owned, HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Solomon2]

Nasrallah is so scummy, he wants everyone else to clean up his s--t, doesn't he?

[charlie]

What Nasralleh is doing is a full criminal theft of the Lebanese state. A complete Hijack to all of Lebanon and turning the Lebanese into subjects of the Iranian-Syrian axis. Nasrallah is delivering his speeches, making decisions on behave of the whole country, acting as the president , the prime minister and the speaker of the parliament all in one. There is a word to describe this, a dictator!

I hope PM Siniora is now actively working to bring the Lebanese together to make the hard decisions that will take the initiative away from Nasrallah. The risk of a civil war is high and real, but letting Nasrallah carry on with the Iranian plan is even much more dangerous than the prospect of a civil war.

[Zeina]

Does he really think that the Lebanese are going to believe him??

There is a little place in hell just for Nasrallah.

[dirk]

An interesting article in today's (UK) independent newspaper by Robert Fisk, who lives in Beirut and has been there since the Lebanese civil war. Some of his biases are (to me anyway), a little suspect, but he is still a great journalist and anyone who reads his stuff regularly will know he's extremely well connected.

In his piece (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1180160.ece) he says that Hizbollah actually managed to attack Israel's Northern command - something I haven't seen elsewhere.

The online article is unfortunately subscription only and I'm too lazy to type it all out from my print copy, but the relevant section:

"The long-range Iranian made missiles which later exploded on Haifa had been preceded only a few weeks ago by a pilotless Hizbollah drone aircraft which surveyed northern Israel and then returned to land in eastern Lebanon after taking photographs during its flight.

"These pictures not only suggested a flight path for Hizbollah's rocket attacks to Haifa; they also identified Israel's top secret military air traffic control centre in Miron.

"The next attack - concealed by Israel's censors - was directed at this facility. Code named "Apollo", Israeli military scientists work deep inside mountain caves and bunkers at Miron, watching all air traffic moving in and out of Beirut, Damascus, Amman and other cities. The mountain is surrounded by clusters of antennae which Hizbollah quickly identified as a military tracking centre. Before they fired rockets at Haifa, they therefore sent a cluster of missiles towards Miron. The caves are untouchable but the targeting of such a secret location by Hizbollah deeply shocked Israel's military planners.

"The 'centre of the war on terror' - or whatever they imagine Lebanon to be - could not only breach their frontier and capture their soldiers but attack the nerve centre of the Israeli northern military command"

[Sheikh en Blanc]

Ziyad Makhoul, one of Beirut’s leading pro-Saudi infomercialists and a self-proclaimed “francophone intellectual” whatever that means has a surreal editorial in L’Orient-le-Jour, the newspaper of choice of Lebanon’s Fascist far right, who says the following after blaming Hezbollah for everything that has happened in the Middle-East in the past 5,000 years:

« … with, deep in [Olmert’s] heart, the other obsession of every Israeli government: to prevent the revival of its only rival in terms of tourism, intellect, democracy, investment, prosperity, attraction,…etc., to prevent it from muscling its feet [sic] and taking off»

Ah! The scales are finally falling off my eyes: these perfidious Pharisees are deliberately targeting the unrivaled talent of the glorious inventors of intellectual landmarks such as the alphabet, purple dye, and rosewater baklava- the secret of which has been fiercely guarded by Lebanon’s engineers since time immemorial…

We won’t let them have our baklavas!

Sheikh Abu Bahim Ab Rûti

[Globular Cluster]

It will not be long before the only red lines Nasrallah sees are the X's in front of his eyes.

You missed the remaining part of the article dirk, here's the full thing:
"
It will be called the massacre of Marwaheen. All the civilians killed by the Israelis had been ordered to abandon their homes in the border village by the Israelis themselves a few hours earlier. Leave, they were told by loudspeaker; and leave they did, 20 of them in a convoy of civilian cars. That's when the Israeli jets arrived to bomb them, killing 20 Lebanese, at least nine of them children. The local fire brigade could not put out the fires as they all burned alive in the inferno. Another "terrorist" target had been eliminated.

Yesterday, the Israelis even produced more "terrorist" targets - petrol stations in the Bekaa Valley all the way up to the frontier city of Hermel in northern Lebanon and another series of bridges on one of the few escape routes to Damascus, this time between Chtaura and the border village of Masnaa. Lebanon, as usual, was paying the price for the Hizbollah-Israeli conflict - as Hizbollah no doubt calculated they would when they crossed the Israeli frontier on Wednesday and captured two Israeli soldiers close to Marwaheen.

But who is really winning the war? Not Lebanon, you may say, with its more than 90 civilian dead and its infrastructure steadily destroyed in hundreds of Israeli air raids. But is Israel winning? Friday night's missile attack on an Israeli warship off the coast of Lebanon suggests otherwise. Four Israeli sailors were killed, two of them hurled into the sea when a tele-guided Iranian-made missile smashed into their Hetz-class gunboat just off Beirut at dusk. Those Lebanese who had endured the fire of Israeli gunboats on the coastal highway over many years were elated. They may not have liked Hizbollah - but they hated the Israelis.

Only now, however, is a truer picture emerging of the battle for southern Lebanon and it is a fascinating, frightening tale. The original border crossing, the capture of the two soldiers and the killing of three others was planned, according to Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah leader who escaped assassination by the Israelis on Friday evening, more than five months ago. And Friday's missile attack on the Israeli gunboat was not the last-minute inspiration of a Hizbollah member who just happened to see the warship.

It now appears clear that the Hizbollah leadership - Nasrallah used to be the organisation's military commander in southern Lebanon - thought carefully through the effects of their border crossing, relying on the cruelty of Israel's response to quell any criticism of their action within Lebanon. They were right in their planning. The Israeli retaliation was even crueller than some Hizbollah leaders imagined, and the Lebanese quickly silenced all criticism of the guerrilla movement.

Hizbollah had presumed the Israelis would cross into Lebanon after the capture of the two soldiers and they blew up the first Israeli Merkava tank when it was only 35 feet inside the country. All four Israeli crewmen were killed and the Israeli army moved no further forward. The long-range Iranian-made missiles which later exploded on Haifa had been preceded only a few weeks ago by a pilotless Hizbollah drone aircraft which surveyed northern Israel and then returned to land in eastern Lebanon after taking photographs during its flight. These pictures not only suggested a flight path for Hizbollah's rockets to Haifa; they also identified Israel's top-secret military air traffic control centre in Miron.

The next attack - concealed by Israel's censors - was directed at this facility. Codenamed "Apollo", Israeli military scientists work deep inside mountain caves and bunkers at Miron, guarded by watchtowers, guard-dogs and barbed wire, watching all air traffic moving in and out of Beirut, Damascus, Amman and other Arab cities. The mountain is surmounted by clusters of antennae which Hizbollah quickly identified as a military tracking centre. Before they fired rockets at Haifa, they therefore sent a cluster of missiles towards Miron. The caves are untouchable but the targeting of such a secret location by Hizbollah deeply shocked Israel's military planners. The "centre of world terror" - or whatever they imagine Lebanon to be - could not only breach their frontier and capture their soldiers but attack the nerve-centre of the Israeli northern military command.

Then came the Haifa missiles and the attack on the gunboat. It is now clear that this successful military operation - so contemptuous of their enemy were the Israelis that although their warship was equipped with cannon and a Vulcan machine gun, they didn't even provide the vessel with an anti-missile capability - was also planned months ago. Once the Hetz-class boats appeared, Hizbollah positioned a missile crew on the coast of west Beirut not far from Jnah, a crew trained over many weeks for just such an attack. It took less than 30 seconds for the Iranian-made missile to leave Beirut and hit the vessel square amidships, setting it on fire and killing the sailors.

Ironically, the Israelis themselves had invited journalists on an "embedded" trip with their navy only hours earlier - they were allowed to film the ships' guns firing on Lebanon - and the moment Hizbollah hit the warship on Friday, Hizbollah's television station, Al-Manar, began showing the "embedded" film. It was a slick piece of propaganda.

The Israelis were yesterday trumpeting the fact that the missile was made in Iran as proof of Iran's involvement in the Lebanon war. This was odd reasoning. Since almost all the missiles used to kill the civilians of Lebanon over the past four days were made in Seattle, Duluth and Miami in the United States, their use already suggests to millions of Lebanese that America is behind the bombardment of their country.
"

[Hassan]

So Shimon Peres thinks that all the casualties fallen in Lebanon so far are not civillians, but HA ogres.
No big surprise to hear a statement like that from Peres. After all, he was in command when 10 years ago the IDF pulverised over a hundred ogres taking refuge in the UN headquarters in Qana, by "mistakenly" bombarding the headquarter for over 20 minutes.
Wake up cruel world, HA "has not been scratched", we the civillian people of Lebanon remain the only casualties of israeli attacks.

[ju7a]

Fisk is wrong when he says that Israel is contemptuous of its enemy. Even in the press briefings given by the army that I've heard on the radio, there is a lot of talk about the determination and sophistication of Hizbullah fighters.

[Globular Cluster]

Hassan, if you stopped being a human shield for Hizballah you would find that life will improve.

I haven't heard much apologizing for the bombing of the Marine barracks back in the 80s, or the 8 civilians killed in a trains station to day in Haifa. Any thoughts?

You guys are running out of time to get a clue. Help the IDF by getting the fuck outta the way or dropping a dime. The clock is ticking.

[Hassan]

Globular Cluster,
A bus load of children is considered a human shield in your terms!!
You want an apology, ask HA for one, none of the Lebanese civillians attacked the Marine barracks in the 80s or is attacking Haifa today.
Get a freakin clue people.

[dirk]

"You missed the remaining part of the article dirk, here's the full things."

Indeed - I was too lazy to type it all out!

I did include the Northern command bit as that's one piece of information Robert Fisk seems to have that noone else does. The full version you've added is well worth reading though.

Personally I agree with the part about Israel doing exactly what Hezbollah intended. The only difference is I'd substitute the word "cruelty" with "stupidity." I don't think the Israelis are being willfilly cruel, or as jua7 says, contemptuous of the enemy. But it seems just crazy to hit targets like roads and airports that Hezbollah (like most insurgent and terrorist groups) doesn't actually need, but that the general population does.

[Ghassan Karam]

If the news reports are true ( i have not found a copy of the Nasrallah speech) then it is becoming abundantl;y clear what all this fight is all about. As we have stated many times for so long, HA is neither a Lebanese party nor does it have its allegiance to the Lebanese state. That is no longer specualtive because Nasrallah said that he is fightiong this war on behalf of all the Arabs and all the moslems. We , the sorry Lebanese, have engaged HA in a dialoguebased on the idea that they were guided by the interests of Lebanon. What a waste of time and energy. He took advantage of our weakness andvulnerabilities to hijack a nation in an attempt to realize his grand scheme of waging a fight on behalf of the Arab nation and the Moslem Umma. Pity a nation that is up untyill know willing to listen to such rants of a mad man.

[Saya Anak Malaysia]

The actions of terrorists speak much louder than their words. And their actions forever betray them as inhuman animals bent on destruction, death and the promotion of hatred.

[Miss Lebanon]

Globby--

"Help the IDF by getting the fuck outta the way or dropping a dime." Brilliant!

My family should should get the fuck out of the way. First, they could fly out of the way...oh wait, no airports left. Oh oh oh--they should flee to the mountains...oh wait, the roads, overpasses, highways, and bridges are destroyed. OHHH, I know, they can flee from the ports...ohhh, those are toast too? Oh, I know! They should flee to their enemy, Syria. Umm, nevermind, I forgot the highway is destroyed and the last bridge connecting it was destroyed yesterday. Ohh, that minibus full of children should flee their towns because Israel warned them...oh wait, KABOOM. It's really nice of Israel to give the warnings, and destroy the only way out.

You offer some really good advice Globby. Thank you for coming here repeatedly to offer this advice and reminding us and our loved ones deserve to die--we really appreciate it, and your brilliance will make us see the light! Hallelujah!

PS--Some of us are very sorry civilians have died on the other side. You are not sorry about civilians have died on the Lebanese side. If you can't understand that Lebanese are going to care about Lebanese civilian deaths more than Israeli civilian deaths, then please tell me which citizens you put above your own. There is NO country in the world that puts the concerns of foreign civilians before concerns for their own. Why the double standards? And this does NOT mean that we all agree with Hizbullah's actions against civilians before you go accusing me, like you have with all other Lebanese commenters. This is a LEBANESE blog. Expect comments on the Lebanese side, and from Lebanese people...you don't want the Lebanese viewpoint, GO ELSEWHERE THEN.

[Captain America]

If you recall, the original stated intent of the incursion into Israel was a prisoner exchange. As in, we give you your two soldiers back and you release 000s of prisoners. So, to suggest that the "all-knowing" Nasrallah foresaw the intensity of Israel's response, etc. etc. is a bit disingenuous.

Moreover, Israel left Lebanon as certified by the UN year ago. This was an incursion by Hez. No nation can accept constant volleys of missles indiscriminately aimed at its civilizans followed by a blatant incursion into its terrority, the killing and kidnapping of its soldiers. Therefore, Israel's response is wholly justified.

Let's recall UN Resolution 1559 for a moment. You know, where Lebanon was to disband and dissolve Hez from southern Lebanon. Since its passage, Hez has become more emboldened (vs. disbanded).

In sum, blame for any ensuing miltiary action (and unfortunate killing of innocence) should be fixed on Nasrallah, Hez, Iran, Syria, and the Lebanese government (as it is)

[Vox P.]

HA has 50 000 trained reservists, and unlike the army, they are willing to fight.

[Vox P.]

"We won’t let them have our baklavas!"

Turkish or Greek?

[Ghassan Karam]

Captain America,
It is not easy to say this, I have been saying it for 3-4 days, but I am afraid that your logic is impecable.
This should not be misconstrued as condoning the Israeli invasion and the severity of the physical destruction and deep psychological scars thatit has created in its wake but the truth of the matter is that Lebanon is paying for its inability and its unwillingness to act as a responsible state. Lebanon, just like any other state, has the full fight to choose confrontation but once it does ; for any reason; then it must come to terms with the fact that its failures to act have unleached ,in this case, the doors of hell. The moral of the story is that to stop this madness we have to adress its root causes,