snip* Hashem Osseiran| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: If the Saudi-led coalition bombing Yemen directed its warplanes towards Israel, Hezbollah would join it, party chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah declared Friday night, accusing Riyadh of seeking to "regain control" of Yemen.
Nasrallah, speaking a day after Saudi Arabia launched a surprise military operation against rebel Houthis in Yemen, also rejected claims that Iran posed a threat to the Gulf.
“The real reason the Saudi-led coalition is [attacking Yemen] is that Saudi Arabia has failed. It has lost control over Yemen... and fears that Yemen now belongs to the people.”
“The goal of the coalition is for Saudi Arabia to regain control over Yemen,” he added.
Hezbollah calls for the “aggression” to stop and the resumption of talks aimed at a political solution to the conflict, Nasrallah continued.
"We call on the people of governments joining the coalition to consider that the blood of their armies are spilling in Yemen for the sole purpose of helping Saudi royalty reclaim control over Yemen."
It is the right of the Yemeni people to counter the aggression, he said, expressing confidence that the people will be victorious in their confrontation with Saudi Arabia.
“If the war was against Israel, we would have been partners in the war, but not if it's against an Arab peoples,” Nasrallah said.
Nasrallah denounced Saudi Arabia for leading a campaign against Yemen, but failing to take action against Israel over the decades-long conflict.
“The Palestinian people are still calling on you,” he said, noting that a large portion of the population are Sunnis and yet their calls for assistance were not met by unified force like the one organized against the Houthis.
He dismissed arguments supporting the coalition that it was reclaiming the legitimacy of Yemen's President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi and protecting the Yemeni people, saying that these arguments should be used instead to justify action in Palestine.
He also rejected the claim that Iran was threatening to intervene and control the region. “They consider that we should reclaim the land from Iran, and this is the biggest lie,” he said.
“Where is the evidence that Yemen is occupied by Iran,” adding that claims of Iranian bases and armies in Yemen is a lie.
Even claims that Iran is controlling Yemen through political influence and not through military force is a lie.
There is a problem in Saudi Arabia's mentality in that it doesn't respect the will of free peoples. They regard everyone as followers and they can't have an independent will, Nasrallah added.
“This mentality leads to wrong policies... and accumulating failures.”
Saudi Arabia's “faulty policies” are opening up the region to Iranian influence. “You are pushing the people of the region to Iran,” he said.
He expressed hopes that “this new political division in the Gulf” doesn’t lead to negative repercussions in Lebanon, especially with regards to the Lebanese government.
The sharp differences between Lebanese political rivals over the conflict in Yemen would not jeopardize the dialogue between Hezbollah and The Future Movement, which support the Saudi intervention.
He called on Hezbollah members and supporters to be “patient” and not respond to accusations by the Future Movement since they serve to increase sectarian tensions, saying Hezbollah doesn’t want to assist them in achieving this goal.
With regards to Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Nasrallah said that he isn’t concerned with developments at the U.N.-backed court since the party doesn’t recognize the legitimacy of the tribunal.
“We will not comment on anything said in the court... since our opposition to the court is clear,” he said, after former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora earlier this week told the STL that former premier Rafik Hariri had told him that Hezbollah was trying to kill him.
Nasrallah dismissed accusations that Iran was blocking the election of a president that doesn't express support to Tehran.
“Those responsible for disruption... is Saudi Arabia,” he said.
The election crisis in Lebanon is the derived from Saudi Arabia which has vetoed the election of FPM chief Michel Aoun, “so why are you putting the blame on Iran,” Nasrallah asked.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2015/Mar-27/292426-hezbollah-would-join-saudi-coalition-if-aimed-at-israel-nasrallah.ashx
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