02 April 2011

BEIRUT: A Hezbollah official urged the Lebanese government Friday to launch a multi-front campaign to counter Israeli reports that Hezbollah has established over 1,000 military sites in south Lebanon, laying the groundwork for a future assault against Lebanon.

“Lebanon’s official institutions should respond to Israeli leaks about military and security plans to strike Lebanon with media, political and diplomatic campaigns to prevent the enemy from fabricating facts and to inform the world about Israeli massacres,” Tyre MP Nawaf Musawi said.

The Israeli military released Thursday a map detailing what it said were approximately 550 underground bunkers, along with 300 monitoring sites and 100 weapons-storage facilities, saying the sites were located near homes, schools and hospitals.

“Lebanon should stress that it has always been the victim of Israeli aggression and has the right to take legal defensive measures,” Musawi said.

Despite his call for Lebanese state institutions to respond, Musawi refrained from either denying or confirming the Israeli allegations, a tactic that Hezbollah has long employed when discussing its military arsenal and capacities.

According to observers, the Israeli report was aimed at delegitimizing the party before the international community by highlighting Hezbollah’s violations of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for a weapons-free zone south of the Litani River.

Musawi said the Israeli leaks should not be met with silence by Lebanese state institutions but rather with a legal, international campaign to prosecute “Israeli political and military criminal [officials].”

The Justice Ministry should assist Lebanese citizens in filing lawsuits against “Israeli criminals” before international courts, while the Foreign Ministry should direct its ambassadors to highlight criminal acts by Israel before the world,” Musawi said.

State officials have yet to publicly comment on the Israeli claims, which were first published Thursday by the Washington Post.

Musawi said Lebanon should react to the Jewish state’s claims with the same tactics, by resorting to foreign media outlets to expose Israeli crimes.

“The information minister should at least write to the U.S. paper and convey the Lebanese position, underscoring that Lebanon is being attacked and subjected to Israeli crimes and is entitled to defend itself in line with international resolutions and charters,” Musawi said.

Musawi stressed that it was the resistance’s defensive capacities, rather than diplomatic efforts, that stop Israel from attacking Lebanon.

“The resistance and its people alike are aware that defending Lebanon does not take place through pleading with the international community, which is biased toward Israeli interests … instead, it is the capability of the resistance that prevents aggressions,” Musawi said.

The Israeli threats as well as internal challenges highlight the need for the formation of a new government capable of safeguarding Lebanon against diplomatic and security attempts by the U.S. to infiltrate the country and instigate sectarian strife, Musawi added.

The March 8 coalition has failed so far to reach an agreement with President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati over the Cabinet makeup, as caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s March 14 alliance stepped up its campaign against Hezbollah’s weapons, describing them as illegitimate.

Hezbollah and its allies ousted Hariri’s Cabinet in January after he refused to halt ties with a U.N.-backed tribunal widely expected to indict members of Hezbollah in the assassination of his father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. – The Daily Star

Copyright The Daily Star 2011.