Netanyahu: Tyranny Imposed Hizbullah’s Medieval Rule on Lebanon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed the "courageous Arab protestors" battling tyranny which has inflicted “the medieval rule of Hizbullah” on Lebanon.
"The brief democratic spring in Iran was cut short by a ferocious and unforgiving tyranny. This same tyranny smothered Lebanon's democratic Cedar Revolution,” Netanyahu said in an address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday.
He was referring to the movement that started after the assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri which drew Syrian forces out of Lebanon in April 2005.
According to the Israeli prime minister, that same tyranny “inflicted on that long-suffering country (Lebanon) the medieval rule of Hizbullah.”
"An epic battle is now unfolding in the Middle East, between tyranny and freedom. A great convulsion is shaking the earth from the Khyber Pass to the Straits of Gibraltar," he said.
The Middle East stands at a "fateful crossroads," with pro-democracy revolutions shaking Arab nations which hold "the promise of a new dawn of freedom and opportunity," the Israeli premier said in a speech punctuated by warm applause and standing ovations.
"Yet, as we share their hopes, we must also remember that those hopes could be snuffed out as they were in Tehran in 1979," he said, referring to the revolution that deposed the shah but brought in a strict Islamic republic.(AFP-Naharnet)
Source: Agence France Presse
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