Nasrallah: No Cabinet without Hezbollah July 25, 2013 01:03 AM By Dana Khraiche, Thomas El-Basha The Daily Star BEIRUT: Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah wrote off Wednesday the recent European Union decision to blacklist the military wing of his group and said a Lebanese government could not be formed without his party. “We were not surprised with the [EU] decision. Rather we expected it and in fact found it odd it had taken so long,” Nasrallah said in a televised address during an iftar event. “The facts prove that the Israelis and the Americans exercised tremendous pressure on the European Union countries to take such a decision,” he said, adding that blacklisting Hezbollah served the interests of the Jewish state. “Content of discussions, deliberations and contacts over the course of months and years prove that Europe succumbed to the will of the Israelis and the Americans even though this was not out of its own conviction,” Nasrallah said. The EU’s 28 member states unanimously agreed Monday to designate Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organization. Israel and the U.S. had long pressured the EU to blacklist Hezbollah, especially after Bulgaria accused the Lebanese party of orchestrating the 2012 bombing in the city of Burgas. The blast, which killed five Israeli tourists and their Bulgarian driver, also came at a time when a Cypriot court indicted a Lebanese-Swedish man affiliated with Hezbollah of plotting attacks against Israelis. Hezbollah has denied involvement in the Burgas bombing. Although Nasrallah noted that the EU had yet to issue an official statement of the decision, he said that by blacklisting Hezbollah EU member states were providing “legal cover” for Israeli aggressions against Lebanon.“This is also something dangerous because these states ... are providing legal cover for any aggression on Lebanon. Israel will say ‘I am fighting a terrorist organization,’” Nasrallah said. “They [EU] are making themselves fully complicit in any Israeli aggression against Lebanon, the resistance or any resistance target,” Nasrallah added. He said the EU decision had no tangible impact on the resistance group, describing it as a form of psychological intimidation. “You will never diminish our morale given that the only aspect of this decision is psychological,” he said. Read more: dailystar.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2013/Jul-25/224973-nasrallah-no-cabinet-without-hezbollah.ashx#ixzz2a2rGVgI6
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 08:45:30 +0000
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