Nasrallah: Syria to Supply Hizbullah with Game-Changing Arms, We Will Back Resistance in Golan
Syria is to supply Hizbullah with "game-changing weapons" despite Israel's air strikes reportedly aimed at cutting off the flow of arms, Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday, vowing to back “the Syrian popular resistance” in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
"You Israelis say your objective is to stop the capability of the resistance from growing ... but Syria will provide (Hizbullah) with game-changing weapons it has not had before," Nasrallah said in a televised speech on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Hizbullah's al-Nour radio station.
“We declare that we are ready to receive any game-changing weapons and we're competent to possess and protect such type of weapons and we will use them to defend our people,” he added.
Nasrallah said the shipments of new types of weapons would serve as the Syrian reaction to Israel's airstrikes. Syria has long been a conduit for Iranian weapons bound for Hizbullah.
Israeli officials say the Lebanese group has tens of thousands of rockets, but that most of them are unguided. Israeli officials said the shipments targeted twice last week included precision-guided missiles.
After the Israeli attacks, there had been speculation about whether Syria would retaliate, at the risk of drawing Israel into Syria's civil war.
"This is the Syrian strategic reaction," said Nasrallah of future weapons shipments.
"This is more important than firing a rocket or carrying out an airstrike in occupied Palestine," he said.
Israel never formally acknowledged the airstrikes, but Israeli officials have said Israel would keep striking any shipments of advanced weapons meant for Hizbullah.
“Everyone knows what Syria has offered to resistance movements, especially the Palestinian resistance. Israel knows that the source of strength of the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine is Syria, that's why it wants to remove it from the equation and to besiege the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine," said Nasrallah.
“The response was foiling the objectives of the aggression and this is what the Syrian leadership did, although friends and foes wanted Syria to respond and bomb the enemy,” added Nasrallah.
He noted that Syria's “highly-strategic response” against Israel involves the decision to “open the door to popular resistance in the Golan.”
“The same as Syria stood by Lebanon, we in the resistance declare that we will stand by the Syrian popular resistance that is aimed at liberating the Syrian Golan,” Nasrallah pledged.
“I'm not speaking out of enthusiasm or sentiments, but a calm evaluation says that the stances issued by the Syrian leadership prove its strength of nerve,” said Hizbullah's leader.
He pointed out that Syria has “a wise leadership that oversees the battle with the Israelis through a strategic mind, not through anger.”
Commenting on the joint Russian-U.S. effort to organize a conference to end Syria's two-year-old conflict, Nasrallah said "it is shameful that the U.S. is being depicted as Syria's savior through the proposed political solution.”
But he added that any time wasted means “further destruction and losses and this is all in the enemy's interest.”
Addressing the Palestinians, Nasrallah said: “You won't find anyone to stand by your side other than those who have stood by you since years.”
“The Palestinians benefit from any serious efforts to achieve a political settlement in Syria and prevent its fall into the hands of the Takfiris, the Americans and the Israelis,” he said.
Nasrallah stressed that “the only choice is resistance for those who want to preserve al-Aqsa Mosque and the Christian holy sites and for those who want to give back Jerusalem to the Palestinian people and to the Ummah.”
“The choice is neither the Arab League nor the U.N., the choice has always been the resistance,” he said.
Nasrallah lamented that “today, after this Arab Spring, the Arab regimes are more willing to offer compromises to the enemy.”
“The Palestinians were hoping that the Arab Spring would make Arabs less willing to offer compromises, but the scene of the Arab foreign ministers making a dangerous compromise, with the U.S. secretary of state sitting in the middle, indicates that the Palestinian cause is in danger,” Nasrallah added.
Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassem has said an Arab League delegation that met U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington last month recognized the possibility of a land swap.
His statement was welcomed by the United States, the main broker in talks between the Palestinians and Israel, and by Israel itself.
The Palestinians have played down a shift in the Arab League's stance, saying they had already agreed in past talks with Israel on minor land swaps in which Israel would retain some settlement blocs in the West Bank.
Turning to the Lebanese domestic affairs, Nasrallah stressed that Hizbullah wants the new cabinet to be formed and the parliamentary elections to happen on time.
He demanded that the Hizbullah-led March 8 camp be represented in cabinet according to its “parliamentary weight.”
“Amid these circumstances, a cabinet of national interest and true partnership must be formed and we must not waste time in this issue,” added Nasrallah.
Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam is seeking to form what he called a “cabinet of national interest” that comprises no MP hopefuls.
Meanwhile, the March 14 alliance have been calling for a neutral cabinet, while the March 8 camp has demanded a “political government” and centrist Progressive Socialist Party chief MP Walid Jumblat has stressed that his bloc will not grant its vote of confidence to a “one-sided cabinet.”
Addressing the controversial issue of the electoral law, Nasrallah said: “We don't know if there is any alternative to the Orthodox Gathering proposal and we're under the pressure of time. We are not with political vacuum and all options other than vacuum can be discussed."
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