Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad To Stand Up Against Israel?

The recent events showed that the incident on the border between Israel and Lebanon, which took place in the beginning of last week, was not just a set of tragic circumstances. Someone in the Middle East wants the armed conflict between the two countries to repeat again.

Photo: Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad To Stand Up Against Israel?

The UN Security Council and other international mediators urged Israel and Lebanon to take efforts not to let the events of the year 2006 repeat again, when Israel invaded Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah gunmen. However, it seems that politicians from Damascus and Teheran are not willing to look for a compromise about the incident.

Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Dov Harari was killed on April 3 as a result of an armed attack from Lebanon. Israel responded, having killed two soldiers of the Lebanese army and a newspaper journalist.

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The Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri condemned Israel's aggression having stated that Israel had infringed upon Lebanon's sovereignty. The second power in the country represented by Hezbollah leader sheikh Hassan Nasrallah was much more emotional in its statement about the border incident. The official said that Hezbollah would cut out Israel's arm, if it dared to attack the Lebanese army. The Hezbollah leader obviously had serious reasons for such bellicose remarks.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) may lay the responsibility for the death of the former prime minister of Lebanon Rafic Hariri on Hezbollah. If it happens, the reputation of the movement will be damaged considerably. That is why the administration of this organization, which has become a state within a state in Lebanon, demanded the tribunal be dissolved. The movement even threatened to organize a coup in the country.

The threats from Hezbollah became a reason for a special meeting in Beirut between the King of Saudi Arabia Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Saudi king asked the Syrian president to restrain Hezbollah. However, Assad told the king that he would not tolerate Hezbollah's accusation of Rafic Hariri's assassination.

In the meantime, some countries in the Middle East have already announced their readiness to support radical political groups in Lebanon and in the Palestinian Authority in their efforts to repulse the possible aggression from Israel.

Ali Akbar Velayati, the advisor to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been very active during the recent several days. The official had a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad to discuss the state of affairs in Lebanon and in the Palestinian Authority. Syria and Iran set out their support to the forces of the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance, which, as the two sides believe, make the only real force that can stand up against Israel.

It is worthy of note that the Lebanese army did not participate much in the military actions against the Israeli military men during the 34-day war in 2006. Hezbollah, which started that war, proved that it had the support of the population and possessed well-developed military infrastructure.

Ali Akbar Velayati earlier visited Beirut, where he met Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and the head of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah.

In Damascus, Velayati conducted negotiations with the head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Khaled Meshaal. The officials discussed the situation in Palestine, as well as the subject of the Palestinian national reconciliation, news agencies reported. Mashaal said after the meeting at a news conference that he and the Iranian official exchanged opinions about the state of affairs in the Middle East and in Palestine. The sides also discussed the "threat from Israel and the USA." The radical Palestinian official said that Hamas was capable of dealing with the above-mentioned challenges.

Velayati also had a meeting with the general secretary of Palestine's Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Abdallah Shalah. The sides discussed the issues of direct talks between Palestine and Israel, as well as the recent border incident.

All those meetings testify to the fact that the situation in the Middle East is becoming a matter of a large geopolitical game. Syria and Iran will try to retrieve its dominating positions in the Arab world targeting irreconcilable contradictions between radical and loyal political forces and provoking another war between Israel and Lebanon, in which Hamas will be ready to open a second front in the Gaza Strip.

Will the weak coalition government of Lebanon and Saudi Arabia be able to restrain Hezbollah? The situation will mostly depend on the Israeli military men, who seem to be eager to start another war too.

Ivan Tulyakov
Pravda.Ru

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