Defiant Hezbollah ramps up diatribe

BEIRUT: Hezbollah Sunday kept up a blistering tirade against Saudi Arabia, rejecting the kingdom’s pressure on Lebanon in response to what Riyadh perceives as “hostile” positions linked to the party at Arab League and Islamic meetings.

The party also remained defiant, opposing Lebanon’s apology to the kingdom over the Lebanese foreign minister’s refusal to endorse joint statements at Arab and Islamic meetings in Cairo and Jeddah last month condemning attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran by protesters angered by Riyadh’s execution of a prominent Shiite preacher.

“Lebanon did not offend anyone and will not apologize to anyone. It has always been on the side of the Arab nation,” Sheikh Mohammad Yazbek, head of Hezbollah’s Shariah Council, told a memorial ceremony in the town of Al-Mouaisara in the Kesrouan district.

“When did the Arabs meet to resolve the Arab nation’s problems? Let no one intimidate us because the project of pride, dignity and defending the [Arab] nation’s causes and Palestine is preserved by real honorable Arabs,” he said.

Declaring that Lebanon is strong with its Army, people and Resistance, Yazbek said: “Lebanon will not be a farm for the Al-Saud family and others. … Lebanon will not collapse.”

Yazbek was apparently responding to Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awad Asiri, who said Friday that Riyadh was still waiting for a “proportionate response” by the Lebanese government to the “mistake committed” in order to put an end to the diplomatic rift between the two countries.

Saudi Arabia Friday stepped up pressure on Lebanon, blacklisting four companies and three Lebanese men it accused of having links to Hezbollah, in the latest escalatory measure by Riyadh and its Gulf allies against Lebanon – with a focus on Hezbollah – over the country’s controversial foreign policy. It vowed to continue to fight the “terrorist activities of the so-called Hezbollah with all available means.”

The Saudi measure came a week after Riyadh said it was halting $4 billion in grants to purchase arms for the Army and police after stances were made by Lebanese officials at Arab League and Islamic meetings “which were not in harmony with the ties between the two countries.”

This was an allusion to Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, who refused to sign up joint statements at the Cairo and Jeddah meetings condemning the attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.

In the following days, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar issued travel warnings to Lebanon.

Although Hezbollah has so far declined comment on the Saudi sanctions against the four companies and three Lebanese allegedly linked to the group, a senior party official said the kingdom’s pressure would not change Hezbollah’s position.

“What the kingdom is doing is pressure [exercised] by the weak. But this [pressure] will reflect on its [March 14] allies and not on us,” Hezbollah’s deputy head Sheikh Naim Qassem told a Quran reading graduation ceremony in the western Bekaa town of Mashghara.

“We will not be affected by these pressures and our position will not change. Your measures enhance our conviction that we are right and we will continue in this path,” Qassem said.

Referring to Hezbollah’s fierce verbal campaigns against Saudi Arabia for spearheading a one-year war on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, Qassem said: “We have criticized Saudi Arabia because it is attacking an Arab country, Yemen. It has no right to attack Yemen. Saudi Arabia says its interests are deep rooted in Yemen. Does this mean that it goes on killing children and women and destroying hospitals and mosques, putting Yemen and the majority of its population below the poverty line?”

“Saudi Arabia’s problem with us is that we have liberated our land without assistance from anyone, by relying on Almighty God. Its problem with us is that we have derailed the takfiri project in the region,” Qassem said. “Its problem with us is that we constitute strength for a free, independent and sovereign Lebanon. Its problem with us is that we have succeeded in warding off sectarian strife and we are working for national unity and stability, extending our hands to everyone.”

Qassem has also rejected Saudi calls for Lebanon to apologize, saying it was Riyadh that should express remorse for its actions against Lebanon.

MP Mohammad Raad, head of Hezbollah’s bloc in Parliament, dismissed Saudi threats of action against the party, particularly labeling it a terrorist organization.

“We fear no shouting. Let no one threaten us with the use of force and firmness. We have turned their Decisive Storm into shreds and ashes,” Raad told a memorial ceremony in the southern town of Deir al-Zahrani. He was referring to Saudi Arabia’s “Operation Decisive Storm” launched against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last March.

Indirectly addressing the Saudis, Raad said: “They must know their limits and they must not smear a resistance that has honored them and honored all our Arab and Muslim region. Resistance is the only light in this Arab and Islamic world. We are not terrorism. We are a resistance against terror organizations and against state terrorism of the Zionist entity and those standing behind it.”

The remarks by Raad, Qassem and Yazbek signaled no quick end to the diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia, seen as a threat to Lebanon’s ailing economy and political stability.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s supporters Sunday blocked roads in some areas for the second day in a row in protest a short skit broadcast on a Saudi-owned channel poking fun at party chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah.

The Choueifat-Kfar Shima main road, south of Beirut, and the Chtoura-Taalabaya road in east Lebanon were cut off with burning tires, the National News Agency reported. The roads were later reopened by security forces.

Hezbollah’s supporters gathered in the southern Beirut suburb of Ghobeiri Saturday evening to demonstrate against the two-and-a-half-minute skit on MBC’s “WiFi” comedy program, which depicted a man impersonating Nasrallah.

The protests quickly spread to other areas around Beirut, where roads were also blocked with burning tires.

The Army said in a statement that it had deployed soldiers in several areas around the capital and its suburbs and set up checkpoints to contain the protests.

The NNA said that protesters had also blocked a road at the entrance of Baalbek in northeast Lebanon. The Army said no violence or damage to property was reported and all roads around Beirut were reopened.

MBC studios in Lebanon are located in Zouk Mosbeh, north of Beirut.