BEIRUT: Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah Friday kept up a blistering tirade against Saudi Arabia over its military intervention in Yemen, vowing to maintain his party’s unwavering support for Iranian-backed Houthi rebels regardless of the consequences.
He also blamed Saudi Arabia for the spread of extremist ideology in the Arab world and called on Hezbollah’s rival, the Future Movement, to cooperate to prevent the Yemen conflict from spilling over into Lebanon.
However, Nasrallah’s anti-Saudi diatribe quickly drew a rebuke from former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who accused the Hezbollah chief of following in the footsteps of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in making “fabrications, distorting [facts], misleading [the public], [putting on] shows of strength and sectarian incitement.”
“What we heard was a coordinated event of slander and an act of digging up the graves of hatred,” Hariri said on his Twitter account Friday night, shortly after Nasrallah ended his speech. “It has exposed the hatred in [Nasrallah’s] heart against Saudi Arabia, its founder and its leadership.”
Hariri warned that offending the founder of Saudi Arabia, the late King Abdel-Aziz, would trigger a counterattack against the highest spiritual leader in Tehran and the lowest in Beirut’s southern suburbs. “Political tension will not succeed in distorting the image of Saudi Arabia, its role and standing,” he said.
Despite the escalating rhetoric, Hariri said his Future Movement would continue the dialogue with Hezbollah. “Hezbollah’s continuing escalation will not drag us into stances that will undermine the rules of dialogue and civil peace,” he said. “We are guardians to ward off strife in Lebanon and they [Hezbollah] are champions to rescue the Bashar Assad regime and the Iranian role to infiltrate into Yemen and intervene in Arab affairs.”Addressing a Hezbollah rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs to show solidarity with the Yemeni people, Nasrallah waged yet another fierce diatribe against Saudi Arabia, blaming it for the rise of extremist ideology in the region and for funding ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
“The aim of this rally is to announce our rejection and condemnation of the Saudi-U.S. aggression on Yemen and to declare our solidarity and sympathy with the oppressed people,” Nasrallah said via video link.
“It is our humanitarian, moral and religious duty to take this stance ... Nothing will stop us, neither intimidation nor threats, from continuing our condemnation of the Saudi-U.S. aggression on Yemen and declaring our support for the Yemeni people regardless of the repercussions,” he said.
Nasrallah dismissed Saudi labels that the intervention was designed to defend “Arabism” and confront “Iranian hegemony” in the region. “I said in my previous speech that the real goal of this war is to regain Saudi-U.S. tutelage over Yemen after the Yemeni people have recovered their sovereignty.”
Nasrallah scoffed at claims that the war in Yemen was designed to protect the two holy mosques in the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina. “Yes, the two holy mosques are threatened by Daesh [Arabic acronym for ISIS] when the caliphate state announced it would destroy the Kaaba,” Nasrallah said.
But Hariri said Nasrallah’s speech would not affect Saudi-Yemeni ties.
“Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s shared history and destiny is deeper and greater than the speeches of Iranian wailing and crying that we hear from Tehran to Beirut’s southern suburbs,” he said. Hariri linked Nasrallah’s “mad” escalation against Saudi Arabia to operation “Decisive Storm.”
Saudi Arabia is spearheading a regional coalition, which since March 26 has carried out airstrikes as part of operation “Decisive Storm” against the Houthis who overran the capital Sanaa in September and have expanded to other parts of Yemen.
Nasrallah noted that after 22 days of airstrikes, operation “Decisive Storm” has failed to bring Yemeni President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi back to Sanaa or Aden, adding that any political settlement would not reinstate him as president of Yemen. The war has also failed to prevent the spread of rebels across Yemen, he added.
Ruling out a ground operation in Yemen, Nasrallah said the Houthis have not yet responded to the Saudi-led intervention. “The Yemenis have not resorted to their real options while the aggression has reached the end of the line,” he added. Despite voices in the world calling for a political solution in Yemen, he said: “The prospects of a political settlement do not seem to have ripened.”
Referring to soaring tensions between Hezbollah and the Future Movement over Yemen, Nasrallah said the two sides should respect each other’s diverging views over the conflict in order to insulate Lebanon from any spillover.
“We have had our differences over Yemen and over Syria and before that over Lebanon,” he said. “We in Lebanon want to live together and work together. We do not want the dispute over Yemen to spill over into Lebanon.”
Nasrallah said he advocated a Saudi-Iranian dialogue as this would leave a positive impact on regional conflicts. “Iran has for years been seeking to reach understanding with Saudi Arabia but Saudi Arabia has always refused,” he said. “Iran is ready today for dialogue with Saudi Arabia. But Saudi Arabia has defiantly refused because it had failed in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon and is searching for success in Yemen before going to the dialogue table.”
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