Hezbollah to Saudi Arabia: Lebanese Are Not for Sale

Date: 31 October 2021 - 21:31

News ID: ۹۶۰۱۹

BEIRUT (Dispatches) – The
Hezbollah resistance movement on Sunday slammed Saudi pressures exerted against Lebanon over comments made by Information Minister George Kordahi on the Saudi-led war on Yemen.
In a ceremony in the southern town of Al-Sharqiyyah, Sheikh Daamoush criticized several Lebanese politicians and journalists over subduing to Saudi Arabia, stressing that the Lebanese people are rather “not for sale and refuse to be blackmailed.”
Meanwhile, the Hezbollah official stressed that the Saudi campaign to press Lebanon over Kordahi remarks indicates Riyadh’s failure in both Lebanon and Yemen.
On a TV program filmed in August and aired this week, Kordahi said the war in Yemen was an aggression by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. He called the war “absurd,” saying it must stop because he is opposed to wars between Arabs.
He called the war on the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country “futile” and said it was “time for it to end.”
Kordahi also said the Yemeni army forces and their allied fighters from Popular Committees were “defending themselves... against an external aggression,” and that “homes, villages, funerals and weddings were being bombed” by the Saudi-led coalition.
Angered by the criticism, Saudi Arabia on Saturday afternoon ordered Lebanon’s ambassador to leave the kingdom within 48 hours and banned all imports from the fellow Arab country.
In solidarity with Riyadh, Kuwait and Bahrain followed suit, ordering the Lebanese charge d’affaires to leave within two days and recalling their own envoys from Beirut. The United Arab Emirates also said Saturday it was withdrawing its diplomats from Lebanon.

‘Resignation Out of Question’

Kordahi said on Sunday that resigning from the government was “out of the question”, Al Jadeed TV channel quoted him as saying.
Member of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc MP Hasan Fadlallah also said the Lebanese Resistance movement wants good relations with Arab brothers, but stressed that attempts by any state in order to dictate its own policies on Lebanon is refused.
“We don’t accept that any state would impose its oppressive regime on us,” the Hezbollah lawmaker said, noting that some of these states have ruled their countries “with iron and fire.”
“In Lebanon, we don’t accept any violation to our national dignity and sovereignty.”
Amid the diplomatic rift, a Lebanese lawmaker says the country that failed in its war on Yemen is now planning to take revenge against Lebanon over its support for the oppressed Yemeni people during the devastating military aggression.
Mohammad Raad, the head of Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc — the political wing of the Hezbollah resistance movement — in the Lebanese parliament, made the remarks on Saturday.
“Today, we are facing a crisis created by one of the regional countries that launched a cruel war against another Arab country and lost it,” Lebanon’s al-Ahed news website quoted him as saying, apparently referring to Saudi Arabia.
“The country that lost the war now intends to avenge its defeat against Lebanon since Lebanon stood by the oppressed nation that has been under invasion for eight years and whose country has been destroyed amid attempts by some parties to make it surrender.”
Raad also said that the verbal attack against the minister may be aimed at destroying the stability that prevailed in Lebanon after the recent government formation, which ended a months-long political stalemate in the country.
Those who are creating a crisis for Lebanon want to disrupt the 2022 general election because they may have realized that the results would not be in their interests, he noted.
Meanwhile, a member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council said that recent tensions created by the Saudi regime were in line with the interests of the United States.
Speaking to the Lebanese al-Mayadeen television channel, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, said, “Saudi Arabia’s objective in stoking tensions with Lebanon is to bring the Lebanese people to their knees and enslave them.”
He slammed the Riyadh regime for attempting to “blackmail” Lebanon.