BEIRUT: Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah hailed Future Movement leader Saad Hariri for pushing for dialogue Thursday, confirming that one of the party’s officials detained five months ago was working with Israeli and U.S. intelligence.
“There is no doubt that the man is the one who makes decisions in the end, and he was the one who pushed in this direction [dialogue],” Nasrallah told Al-Mayadeen TV director Ghassan Bin Jeddo in a three-hour interview when asked whether it was due to Hariri that talks were taking place, despite opposition from within the Future Movement.
Nasrallah said Future officials who opposed dialogue were “well known to the Lebanese,” and added that a personal meeting with Hariri was “possible.”
He also hailed Speaker Nabih Berri and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt for working to make the dialogue possible.
He said he was very optimist about talks with the Future Movement, but stressed that the bar could not be set very high and an agreement in Lebanon was not contingent on resolving the dispute in Syria.
“Our experience with the Progressive Socialist Party is not bad and it succeeds; we cooperate in Lebanon but disagree on Syria,” he said, hinting the same could be done with the Future Movement.
The dialogue between the rival parties holds promise to ease sectarian tensions in the country, the outcome of which is already apparent, Nasrallah said.
“Imagine if the two aggressive suicide bombings against our people in Jabal Mohsen happened during a different climate,” he said.
“Tripoli and the region would have been set ablaze.”
Nasrallah reiterated support for the much anticipated talks between the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement, saying internal Christian dialogue would help end the 7-month-old presidential vacuum.
Separately, he confirmed that one of the party’s officials busted five months ago was found to be working with Israeli and U.S. intelligence.
“He was responsible for one department inside one of the security units of Hezbollah,” he said, explaining that the unit was responsible for work of a “sensitive nature.”
However, Nasrallah said the official’s importance and status had been exaggerated by the media, adding that he did not hold a very high rank.
“He confessed to everything and to what extent he collaborated with Israel,” Nasrallah said. The collaborator’s family was responsible for informing the party about their son’s actions, he revealed.
“After 32 years of resistance ... and with the expansion of Hezbollah’s structure horizontally and vertically, this is normal,” he said.
“We should not treat it as normal, but it is.”
He also stressed that his party’s military wing was as ready as ever to fight Israel, saying it was stronger now than ever despite “being busy in Syria and probably elsewhere.”
Nasrallah said the resistance’s military capabilities grow by the year, adding that Hezbollah possesses “everything the enemy expects and doesn’t expect,” including “weapons of all types.”
“We are busy in Lebanon, in Syria and probably in other places, but our utmost priority remains to stay ready to confront Israel,” he said.
“If the Israelis believe that the resistance is exhausted or that its determination and military power have been weakened, they will learn that they are delusional.”
Nasrallah revealed that an attack on the Galilee in northern Israel was possible in the event of a new war.
“The resistance is ready to enter Galilee and move the battle into the land of the enemy if there is ever an attack against Lebanon,” he said.
Nasrallah said his party’s military wing had learned much from fighting in Syria about how to enter villages, liberate them and establish control, warning that such action could also be applied in Galilee and extend to other Israeli towns.
Nasrallah confirmed Iranian reports that said some Arab intelligence agencies had informed Israel about Hezbollah during the summer 2006 War.
The resistance leader said he did not expect 2015 to be much different from last year in terms of military standoffs with Israel.
Nasrallah also touched on relations with Hamas, saying the Palestinian party had demonstrated a will to strengthen its bonds with Iran and Hezbollah, after the relations had deteriorated over the past four years due to the events in Syria.
He acknowledged problems remained with Hamas’ stance toward the Syrian regime.
“Even if Hamas chooses to mend its relationship with the Syrian regime, Syria might have some difficulty accepting this due to past events and developments,” he said.
Nasrallah highlighted that his party seeks to build a strategic alliance with Hamas and other resistance groups in Palestine.
During the interview, which dedicated much time to the situation in Syria, Nasrallah made a definite statement about the destiny of President Bashar Assad’s regime.
“The notion of overthrowing the regime or controlling Syria is gone, I am talking field-wise, it’s over,” he said. “We should [only] speak of a political solution to end the violence.”
Nasrallah said the Free Syrian Army and other moderate Syrian rebels had lost much of their territory in Syria, either to the regime or to ISIS and the Nusra Front.
He predicted that the future would bring a tripartite partition of Syria, between the regime and the two fundamentalist groups.
Saudi Arabia’s role in Syria has dwarfed with the rise of ISIS and the Nusra Front, Nasrallah added, saying that the two factions became too strong to handle and now threaten the kingdom.
However, Nasrallah acknowledged that Saudi Arabia would be greatly influential in any potential negotiations to reach a political solution in Syria, but the strongest cards remain in Turkey’s hands.
He said Turkey had strong military bonds with ISIS, and if it decides to take the political solution route, the conflict would be easier to resolve.
“Any solution at the expense of President [Bashar] Assad is not a solution,” Nasrallah said.
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