Protestor at Beirut rally to denounce a film mocking Islam holds poster of Nasrallah and Assad (Photo: Joseph Eid AFP)
Both U.S. and Israeli ambassadors to the UN addressed Hezbollah at the UN Security Council meeting yesterday after Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah confirmed on Saturday it was Hezbollah who sent the drone shot down by Israel.
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice’s remarks centered on Lebanon’s relationship with Syria. She accused Hezbollah of being part of Assad’s “killing machine” and Nasrallah of carrying out a “deadly form of deception” regarding Lebanese national interests. She also urged other security council members to “expose Hezbollah’s deepening involvement in Assad’s war.”
AP:
“Hezbollah’s active and growing support for Assad’s war exposes Hassan Nasrallah’s claims of promoting Lebanon’s national interest as nothing more than a deadly form of deception,” Rice said.
“The group’s leaders may try to change the subject by invoking hollow rhetoric about so-called resistance, but the truth is plain to see: Nasrallah’s fighters are now part of Assad’s killing machine and Hezbollah’s leaders continue to plot with Iran new measures to prop up a murderous and desperate dictator,” she said.
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Many speakers at the day-long council meeting mentioned the escalating casualty toll in Syria – now estimated by activists at over 30,000 – and the divided council’s failure to take action to halt it, but much of the focus was on the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Rice also warned of the possibility that the ongoing unrest in Syria will have negative repercussions on other countries, giving Lebanon as an example of a state that is feeling the effects of the conflict.
“No one can deny that Assad’s war against the Syrian people now poses real challenges to all of Syria’s neighbors, including Lebanon. From deadly Syrian regime attacks across the border to tens of thousands of refugees, Lebanon is already suffering the consequences of this conflict,” she said.
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Last week, Nasrallah denied reports that members of his group were fighting alongside Assad’s forces, but Rice called on the international community to dig deeper into Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian conflict.
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Jeffrey Feltman, U.N. undersecretary-general for political affairs and former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, said that Lebanese areas near the border with Syria are still threatened by a possible spillover from Syria.
Feltman told the Security Council that the Syrian conflict is spiraling beyond its border, affecting Lebanon……. Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor said that by providing Hezbollah with sophisticated arms, Iran is turning Lebanon into an “outpost for terror.”
“Iran has provided Hezbollah with the funds, training and advanced weapons to hijack the Lebanese state and transform it into an outpost for terror,” Prosor said.
Rice referencing Lebanon “suffering” from Syria’s conflict as well as Jeffrey Feltman’s spillover remarks eerily reminded me of spillover warnings from last year in an article relating to tense border issues between Lebanon and Israel.
It follows rising concerns that conflict in next-door Syria may spill into its neighbor, where Lebanese are deeply divided between supporters and opponents of the Syrian regime. Lebanese see regional powers including Syria as having sponsored violence in their country in the past, to send messages to each other or to settle accounts.
Meanwhile, speaking of grave consequences, checkout Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor’s alarming warning to UN member states regarding support for Abbas’s efforts to renew Palestine’s bid for UN recognition:
Palestinians made a plea for non-member status, during the monthly debate on the Middle East, renewing their bid for UN recognition. To this Israel’s Prosor responded with a warning. “Every Member State that lends it hand to supporting Palestinian unilateralism at the UN will be responsible for the grave consequences that follow. You will be encouraging the Palestinian leadership to intoxicate its people with fantasy when it needs to sober them up with reality – inflating a dangerous bubble that will inevitably burst. The PA devotes 6 percent of its budget to terrorist salaries and less than 1 percent to higher education. Instead of investing in their children’s future, they offer incentives for future terrorists. Instead of using their funds for nation building, they use them for nation sinking. The EU sends more than 500 million Euros in annual EU aid to the Palestinian Authority. How many taxpayers in London, Paris, Berlin and Lisbon know that some of their money is going to convicted terrorists with blood on their hands?”
Bildt tweeted from the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg that there was “great concern among EU FM’s about continued Israeli occupation and settlement activities as well as total standstill in peace process.”
So much for scaremongering over Hezbollah and Iran, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has his priorities straight.
“Iran has provided Hezbollah with the funds, training and advanced weapons to hijack the Lebanese state and transform it into an outpost for terror,” Prosor said.
Some Western observers are developing second thoughts if it is such a good idea to provide guns and ammo to jihadist in Syria, where journalists have seen empty crates of Ukrainian ammunition that was shipped to Saudi Arabia. And indeed, Lebanon gets a spillover effect, e.g. some Alawites in Tripoli were killed.
I have been hoping that things might improve at State once Clinton leaves. If Rice’s incendiary rhetoric here is any sign, she’ll continue Clinton’s trajectory as SOS.
As amazing as it may seem, I find this Rice to be orders of magnitude more repugnant and bike than her namesake in the Bush administration.
The US is simply dwstroying it’s own credibility and prestige by the day at the UN. Their hopes that Assad would fall have hot a wall. Not only has Assad survived, but the opposition has fractured and is running out of arms and support.
This is turning into a disaster for Washington.
As for Hezbollah’s drone over Israel, I imagine the entire UN building tilted to one side from the collective rolling of the eyes of the general assembly as the Israeli and US ambassadors protested.
Oops ,and then Hezbollah is the big threat.
Hezbollah is the 600 pound gorilla in the room.
In 2006 ,during the Israel-Hezbollah “war”,various things happened ,that most people have forgotten;Hezbollah took out an Israeli warship with one missile,Israel is still trying to find out how that could have happened(probably Chinese technology).
Hezbollah threw two missiles in the same spot,right next to Haifa trainstation.
The “war” stopped(Israel withdrew) after Hezbollah threw a rocket next to Netanya.
This was 6 years ago,now Hezbollah’s weaponry is a lot more advanced.
Estimated Hezbollah fighters ,in tunnels lobbing rockets at Israel,about 150.
Netanyahu warned that if Hezbollah would attack,the rest of Lebanon will pay.
And he’s not joking,because the 2006 war showed that there’s not a lot more Israel can do ,besides threatening to mass murder lebanese civilians.
Depleted uranium weapons,mini nukes,real nukes?
All useless,because the wind will blow the radiation right back and living in the north of Israel (or Lebanon)will be quiet impossible for the next few thousand years or so.
Proffesor Busby claims Israel has used depleted uranium in Lebanon and Gaza.
So why do Rice and Prosor get so hysterical about Hezbollah now?
This has got to do with Syria,Turkey and the elections in the US.
An uncoordinated attack on Syria by Turkey,Nato or anybody else,without going for Hezbollah(and possibly Iran) at the same time ,will expose Israel to an extremely unpleasant confrontation with Hezbollah.
But no worry,Ehud Barak has promised us that there will be only 500 Israeli dead in such a confrontation.
By the way ,the same scenario will occur if Israel will attack Iran without controlling Syria(chemical weapons) and Hezbollah at the same time.
In short ,Hezbollah is a bigger threat to Israel than Iran or Syria.
That’s why Israel wants the world “to do something about it”,
The question is ,what can the world do?
Maybe Israel has been totally outplayed on the global chessboard,and the US(at least Obama)is not prepared to start ww3 because of Israel.
Israel will have to start ww3 alone or accept that the world is not going to swallow her behaviour anymore.
Chess is a Persian invention,and it’s best players have historically been Russians.
PS:
Why am I(sometimes) being censored ,is what I write so far from the truth?
Maybe make a list of opinions posters are not allowed to have,so they know ahead.
While the “Jihadi Salafists” are actively fighting in Syria, the US is worrying about Hezbollah?
The Salafists are linked to AlQaida, the group that the US says is responsible for 911 while the latter is a Lebanese resistance group that successfully fought to end the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, continues to defend Lebanon and has never attacked the US. Despite US govt claims to the contrary, Hezbollah denied at the time and continues to deny any involvement in the suicide bombing of the marine barracks in 1982. The difference is that Hezbollah is an obstacle to complete Israeli domination of its neighbors. It has nothing to do with US interests.
From The Angry Arab Blogspot
I want to say it’s amazing that the MSM doesn’t question the official US govt line, but it’s so common place that it’s not amazing or surprising any more, it’s just disgusting.