Hezbollah: Israel May Take This Opportunity to Attack Lebanon

Hezbollah chief compares IDF Gaza raid to 2nd Lebanon War, slams Arab states in collusion with Israel.

The head of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said Sunday that he had asked his fighters to be on alert for any possible Israeli attack on Lebanon following raids on Gaza that killed nearly 300 Palestinians.

In a televised address at a religious gathering marking the Shiite Day of Ashura south of Beirut, Nasrallah said "I have asked the brothers in the resistance in the south specifically to be present, on alert and cautious because we are facing a criminal enemy and we don't know the magnitude of the conspiracies."

"What is happening today is a Palestinian copy of the July war," Nasrallah said, drawing a comparison between the Israel Defense Forces offensive in the Gaza Strip and the 2006 Second Lebanon War, which Hezbollah waged against Israel in southern Lebanon.

"This is exactly what happened with us. The possibilities and the same possibilities, the conspiracy is the same, the battle is the same battle, and the result, Allah willing, will be the same result," the Hezbollah leader told the crowd.

Speaking about IDF preparations in northern Israel, at the border with Lebanon, Nasrallah said that he does not rule out the possibility that Israel fears a Hezbollah assault, "but there is another possibility," he said, "that at this terrible timing, in the shadow of the Arab conspirators and the American political vacuum, between Bush and Obama, there is the possibility that the enemy will take advantage of the situation and attack Lebanon. They need it because of the elections, or to improve their power of deterrence. We need to be careful and not take what is happening lightly."

The Hezbollah leader also mentioned the missiles recently discovered by the Lebanese army, which it said were aimed at Israel and had timers set for launch, saying that Israel, or someone working on Israel's behalf, planted them. "Who put them there before a war?" he asked.

"When they found them, they said 'people in Lebanon.' We in the Hezbollah have the courage to take responsibility for every action and we won't hide, like some others. Would it have been difficult for Israel to infiltrate southern Lebanon and put them there? The many Israeli agents, lone and institutional, could do this to give themselves an excuse to attack Lebanon."

In his televised address, Nasrallah criticized some Arab countries whom he accused of colluding with Israel and America, saying "I'll call things by their name. We need the word of truth and we need every nation to shoulder its responsibility in the face of what is happening."

"After Egypt and Jordan signed so-called 'peace agreements' all that remains is the Palestinian people, Lebanon and Syria," Nasrallah went on to say. "The Americans and the Zionists want to reach an agreement to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict on American and Israeli terms. They want the Arabs to capitulate to these terms without any conditions. They want to force these terms on the Arabs, with pressure, isolation, siege, civil war, media warfare, psychological warfare, assassinations and wars."

"There are those who speak of the Arab silence. This is not true. There is an Arab partnership. But not all the Arabs and not all the regimes ? there are those who cooperate with the enemy. Especially those who signed deals known as peace agreements with Israel. They help the American-Zionist project coerce its terms of submission on all the other resistance fighters, in every way - political, psychological and military," the Hezbollah leader continued.

"Just so we are very clear," Nasrallah declared. "The war against us was waged with Arab consent, and sometimes at the demand of Arabs. We are facing a conspiracy on their part regarding everything that is happening in the region."