Nasrallah says polls a 'political July War', urges voting for 'resistance, allies'
The May 15 parliamentary polls will be a "political July War" and Hizbullah “will practice political resistance in the elections in order to preserve the military resistance,” Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Monday.
“Those who want to defend Lebanon, extract its oil resources and protect its waters must vote for the resistance and its allies,” Nasrallah told a Hizbullah electoral rally via video link.
“I call on you to stand by the resistance and by its allies, because they are also targeted,” he urged.
“Some are saying that they won't vote for the resistance due to the economic crisis, but we say that the resistance will guarantee extracting oil and gas from the territorial waters in order to resolve the crisis,” Nasrallah added.
Accusing political rivals of seeking to abandon Lebanon’s “biggest strength for extracting its oil and gas,” Nasrallah said, addressing the Lebanese state and people, that “they have a brave resistance that can prevent the enemy from exploring for oil and gas.”
“Hundreds of billions of dollars are present in our sea and waters,” Nasrallah said of the potential oil and gas reserves.
He added that those “calling for disarming the resistance” want Lebanon to be “exposed to the Israeli army.”
“Does Israel dare to bomb any area in Lebanon today?” Nasrallah asked, attributing the deterrence to Hizbullah’s presence.
“We respect the army and it has a national creed and competent officers and soldiers, but is it capable of shouldering this responsibility at the moment?” he asked.
Moreover, Nasrallah said that his party is ready to discuss a national defense strategy because it has “reason and evidence.”
He added that those calling for disarming Hizbullah have not offered “an alternative” in the face of Israel.
“Who will protect the South and Lebanon if the resistance abandons its duties… The resistance is what's protecting Lebanon today,” Nasrallah went on to say.
Lamenting that some politicians “do not consider Israel an enemy” and do not believe that “it has ambitions regarding Lebanon's water and gas,” Hizbullah’s leader strongly emphasized that “no one will be able to disarm the resistance.”
“I want all Lebanese to know that those calling today for disarming the resistance do not know what the South has gone through since 1948,” he said, decrying that “some political forces have unfortunately made the issue of the weapons of the resistance the main topic of their electoral campaigns.”
Source: Naharnet
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