Lebanon’s Daily Star on Wednesday conveyed a statement from the anti-Hezbollah March 14th coalition blasting the organization’s chief Hassan Nasrallah over a recent speech in which he had among other things doubled down on Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian conflict:
The March 14 coalition Wednesday slammed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah for “political triumphalism,” accusing him of trying to make gains in the presidential election.
Nasrallah’s Liberation Day speech “offered political triumphalism, based on the illusion of victory in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon,” the coalition said in a statement at the end of the group’s weekly meeting.
The outlet archly headlined the controversy with “March 14 urges Hezbollah to Lebanonize,” a reference to the Iran-backed terror group’s long-emphasized claim – echoed by more than a few Western foreign policy analysts – that, while Hezbollah may have begun as an Iranian proxy, it had undergone “Lebanonization” and become an indigenous militia.
Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria had shattered that brand, and a top official from the group was killed fighting on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad regime this week. Fawzi Ayoub had been on the FBI’s most-wanted list for attempts to bomb Israel.
The speech had linked Hezbollah’s continued commitment to the eradication of Israel to a refusal to “allow the US to impose its ideas on us,” though it also blasted the UK:
The Hezbollah leader assailed the US and the West for “bringing extremists into Syria in order to destroy it and the center of the resistance.”
He called on all Lebanese to support Hezbollah’s battle on behalf of Assad. “When we confront this project, we remember that those who created the Israeli entity were the British, and this gives them power in our Arabic and Islamic region.
Nasrallah also demanded that any future Lebanese president support his organization (Hezbollah has in recent weeks politically maneuvered to deny a quorum to Lebanese parliamentary sessions seeking to elect a new president, creating a vacuum in the institution).
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