US-Israel manipulate UN tribunal against Hizbullah

Yusuf Dhia-Allah

Muharram 26, 1432 2011-01-01

News & Analysis

by Yusuf Dhia-Allah (News & Analysis, Crescent International Vol. 39, No. 11, Muharram, 1432)

The Zionist State of Israel and its financial underwriter, the US, are getting desperate. They can no longer get away with their propaganda branding Hizbullah and Hamas as terrorist organizations. People worldwide are beginning to understand the true nature of Zionism.

The Zionist State of Israel and its financial underwriter, the US, are getting desperate. They can no longer get away with their propaganda branding Hizbullah and Hamas as terrorist organizations. People worldwide are beginning to understand the true nature of Zionism and the cruelty it has and continues to inflict on innocent Palestinians. Israel’s claim to being the “victim” no longer finds many takers.

Two events in the last four years in particular have proved as catalysts to unmask the true nature of Zionism. Israel’s attack on Lebanon in summer 2006 and its invasion of the tiny Gaza Strip in December 2008–January 2009. In the 2006 attack on Lebanon that lasted 34 days, the Israeli army, despite its lethal US-supplied military weapons, was badly mauled by Hizbullah’s fighters. The invasion was meant to crush Hizbullah; instead, the Israeli army barely managed to escape leaving behind the hulks of hundreds of destroyed tanks.

In order to whitewash the shame of that defeat, the Zionists decided to attack Gaza, the tiny enclave that had been under siege for years and in any case, has no army to fight the Zionist marauders. The 22-day attack on Gaza was not a war: there was no Palestinian army to fight back; it was a massacre of innocent people. More than 1,400 Palestinians, one third of them children, were slaughtered. Schools, hospitals and factories were destroyed in relentless bombardment. Even white phosphorus bombs were used against the civilian population. The aim of the Gaza invasion — to decimate Hamas, the Islamic resistance that rules Gaza — was not achieved. So appalled were people worldwide at Israel’s indescribable cruelty that apart from widespread protests in capitals around the world, numerous aid convoys were organized to break the Israeli siege of Gaza, a barbaric form of collective punishment.

It was the former British Member of Parliament, George Galloway who took the lead in breaking the siege. He has sent four convoys to Gaza so far. Other groups have followed, the most famous of which was the Turkish flotilla that was attacked in international waters killing nine Turkish peace activists on May 31, 2010. In the last few days, an aid convoy, the Asia Caravan, is about to enter Gaza (December 27) after Crescent goes to press. It started in India and travelled through Pakistan, Iran and Turkey on its way to Gaza. Aid convoys to Gaza are one sign of the world’s revulsion at Israeli cruelty and barbarism. Starving people to death or depriving children of medicines and baby formula milk is definitely unacceptable to most people with even a hint of conscience. One has to be a rabid Zionist to indulge in such cruelty.

Unable to achieve their military objectives in Lebanon and Gaza, the Zionists have now resorted to their favourite ploy of using American diplomatic blackmail to tarnish Hizbullah’s image. The 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri is being used as a cover to implicate Hizbullah in the dastardly crime using the UN, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) that was established soon after the attack. Initially, the Zionists and Americans blamed Syria. This was used to pressure Damascus to pull its troops out of Lebanon. Hundreds of millions of dollars of American money flooded into Lebanon to whip up mass hysteria against Syria and Hizbullah. Unsubstantiated allegations were made against Lebanese military officers including generals. They languished in detention for nearly four years until it was proved that the allegations against them were completely baseless.

Throughout this time, Hizbullah spokesmen pointed out that the STL should look into Israeli involvement as well. After all, every crime has a motive and those who benefit from it. There was absolutely no benefit to Syria or Hizbullah. Rafiq Hariri was planning to visit Damascus but was murdered before he could undertake the journey. Removal of Syrian troops from Lebanon had been a long-cherished goal of the Zionists who consider Lebanon as their backyard game preserve. Hariri’s assassination achieved what Israeli military might could not: the removal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

With Syrian troop withdrawal and therefore reduction in its influence in Lebanon, the Zionists and their western allies turned on Hizbullah, the real target they want to eliminate. Hizbullah has successfully frustrated US-Zionist plots in Lebanon as well as their ultimate objective of destroying the Islamic Republic of Iran and its independent policy, now being emulated by others.

It is interesting to note that while Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of the late Rafiq Hariri has publicly declared he does not believe Hizbullah was involved in his father’s assassination and that he wants Israel’s role examined, neither the US nor the tribunal has paid any attention. In fact, American officials including former US ambassador to Lebanon, Jeffrey Feltman, have gleefully said Lebanon has nothing to do with the UN tribunal. Its only relevance is that it is the scene of the crime. Further, the tribunal was set up, through US blackmail, under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. What this means is that UN members can use force to implement the tribunal’s findings.

The STL’s aim is not to find Hariri’s assassins; its real purpose is to implicate by whatever means possible members of Hizbullah. The tribunal would then demand their hand over for trial at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. While the US does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court it insists that people implicated by the UN be tried there. The Zionist-American thinking is — and they are not far off — that if the Lebanese government were to go after indicted Hizbullah officials, the latter would resist. This would instigate civil war in the country. If the government refuses to abide by the tribunal demand, punishing sanctions would be imposed on the country that the fun-loving Lebanese would not be able to withstand. The hope is that sanctions would instigate not only Christian-Muslim but also Sunni-Shia conflict in Lebanon.

Aware of the US-Zionist conspiracies being hatched through the UN, Hizbullah Secretary General Shaikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, on the occasion of ‘Ashura ceremonies, addressed the issue directly on the evening of the 10th of Muharram (December 15). In a departure from past practice when he used to talk about the sacrifice of Imam Husayn and concentrate on purely religious aspects of the occasion, Sayyed Nasrallah went directly to the heart of the tribunal conspiracy.

He began by declaring that the “Greater Israel” project was dead, thanks to the valiant resistance of Hizbullah fighters that had driven the final nail in its coffin on May 25, 2000 when the Zionists were driven out of much of Lebanon. Shaikh Nasrallah said that the initiative was no longer with the Zionists; they can neither dictate conditions of peace nor declare war. He paid tribute to the steadfastness of the people of Gaza led by Hamas that had also contributed to the death of the “Israel Project”. He said Israel could no longer scare people into doing what it demanded. “These are two achievements by the resistance and the camp that backed it, and whoever was on the other side of the conflict lost with Israel despite international and some regional support,” he asserted with confidence.

The Hizbullah chief warned that Israel’s defeat, however, did not mean it had lost the ability to make mischief. He pointed to the furious zionisation of Palestine and the declaration that Israel is a “Jewish State”. Focussing on Lebanon, Shaikh Nasrallah said as a result of close coordination between the Lebanese army and the resistance, several sophisticated spying instruments and cameras constantly relaying pictures to Israel, had been dismantled on the Sannine and Barouk Mountains. Thus, Israeli spy networks in Lebanon had been dealt a blow but not completely dismantled.

He also warned about US-Zionist attempts to create Sunni-Shia discord in the Muslim world. Pointing to the statement by Shaul Mofaz, head of Israel’s Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, warning the Arab world against what he called the “Shia threat” or the “Shia epidemic”, Shaikh Nasrallah said this is what Muslims needed to guard against. Mofaz “called for an alliance between Israel and what he calls moderate Arabs against the Shia danger. He told the Sunnis he wanted to make an alliance with them against the Shias. Mofaz seems to have forgotten what he did to the Sunnis. Every massacre Israel has committed in Palestine was against the Sunnis. All of the displaced Palestinians are Sunnis, those that Israel eliminated from the face of earth were Sunnis, the thousands of prisoners in Israeli jails are Sunnis, and those whom Israel fought in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and part of Lebanon were Sunnis. Impudent Mofaz has his reasons to make such an appeal.” Hizbullah chief pointed to a number of seditious moves by the US-Zionist combine to destabilize the Muslim world: Muslim-Christian strife in Egypt, Sunni-Shia strife and Arab-Kurd strife in Iraq as well as Lebanon and elsewhere.

The way to deal with these threats, he said, was to get an accurate understanding of the situation. He reminded the Christians in Muslim countries (Lebanon, Egypt, etc.) that they should not fall for Zionist propaganda suggesting if Muslims were weakened they would be strengthened. “Israel and the US do not care about the Christians in the east; they only care about their own interests.” Shaikh Nasrallah then touched on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) and the indictment being prepared to accuse Hizbullah members or its leaders in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri.

“The indictment issue has become serious and it constitutes the foundation of a plot against Hizbullah and the resistance in Lebanon,” declared Sayyed Nasrallah. “It is irrational to stay silent until the issuance of the indictment. I am sure that the STL will face something more difficult than Wikileaks. Our obligation stipulates that we explain the situation as a whole and we have been doing this for months. We indicated that the investigation is politicized because investigators insist on ruling out the Israeli involvement hypothesis despite the evidence we provided. We do not want tension in the country, but we also have to defend Lebanon and the resistance.”

Shaikh Nasrallah pointed out that Detlev Mehlis, former head of the international investigation, used to rely on Gerhard Lehmann, a former German intelligence officer. “This corrupt man was responsible for leaking investigation reports. Lehmann has sold documents here in Lebanon, and the people who bought those documents handed them to me. He sold them for $50,000 or $70,000. I was made an offer to buy everything that concerns the investigation for $1 million. Perhaps I was wrong to refuse and maybe they will be leaked in the future. They are protecting the false witnesses, those that fabricated the documents: Mehlis, Lehmann, and some Lebanese political and security leaders. Tonight (December 15), the Cabinet did not vote on how to deal with the false witnesses’ issue. The government was protecting them and those who fabricated them.”

Sayyed Nasrallah stressed Hizbullah would not tolerate injustice nor would it indulge in it. “If we wanted to take advantage of this and turn the tables we would have done so, but we did not. We adhere to this country but we don’t want anyone to aggress against the resistance. No one should expect that we want to annul UN Security Council resolutions, but initiatives can suspend UN resolutions. Syria was targeted for four years for a reason. The objectives were thwarted by the steadfastness and perseverance of Syria and the resistance. Today they are pointing the finger at Hizbullah, also for purposes like damaging the image of the resistance and its allies, thus driving a wedge between Hizbullah and its Sunni and Christian allies to isolate the party and then attack it. Let us thwart these goals. Let us review the work of the international investigation and its flaws over the past five years.”

The Hizbullah chief asked: “since the March 14 bloc say they don’t know anything about the investigation, why do they insist on defending the false witnesses?” He went on to explain: “We don’t seek to try those behind the false witnesses; we want the truth. We regard the Syrian-Saudi effort with great hope to find a way to avoid internal tension and we should all work together to back this effort and find a solution before the issuance of the indictment. A major decision has been taken for this country. We should all combine forces to confront the indictment and its aftermath, and protect the country.”

He urged the people to pour out into the streets in record numbers for the ‘Ashura ceremonies on December 16 as a sign of respect for the sacrifice of Imam Husayn and his family as well as to reflect their commitment to righteousness, resistance, unshakable standards, and to protect Palestine. “We will tell the world that the Israeli drums of war do not scare us, and we shall confront the conspiracies. Tomorrow we will tell the world that we are the resistance society that trusts in God and is sure of victory in the end.” The martyrdom-seeking people of Lebanon did not disappoint their leader. They were out in massive numbers in the streets of Beirut and in other cities and towns to revive the memory of Imam Husayn’s sacrifice and to vow that they are prepared to lay down their lives for the sake of truth and justice and no power on earth can deter them from this.

Led by such committed and muttaqi leadership, the people of Lebanon have a glorious future ahead. The suffering masses of Palestine can also look forward to the day when they will overthrow the yoke of Zionist colonialism to live in a society free of tyranny, coercion and bigotry.

The US-Zionist duopoly will be defeated in this latest conspiracy as it has been in all its previous attempts. Hizbullah is showing the way forward on how to confront international conspiracies and blackmail.