on al Manar TV a short time ago Nasrallah made this apparently recorded statement. Here is a rough translation. Not sure what to make of it, but it could be pretty worrying, depending on what the 'post-Haifa' and 'beyond post-Haifa' language means. Possibly missiles fired at Tel-Aviv. Possibly bluff or desperation.
Who knows? Translation over the jump.
on al Manar TV a short time ago...
Hassan Nasrallah: We have to first understand the war imposed on Lebanon. After 2 weeks, we understand very well what it is all about.
After the words of Rice about the "new Middle East', i.e. the new AMERICAN Middle East. Do you think that this came up all of a sudden after we captured the 2 soldiers. Everything points towards a plan that has been in the works for a long time.
The NEW Middle East means the area that the US controls and manages, with Israel as its prime partner. In the NEW Middle East, Palestinian issue should be dealt with... all
the resistance movements have to be crushed.
It started with the Palestinians. The US was surprised by the results of the elections when Hamas won. They punished the Palestinians in every way possible.. embargo, attacks, etc.
Then the Israeli soldier was captured in Ghaza. This led to the unification of Palestinians after they were starting to split after the elections.
In Lebanon, for the past year, there were direct and indirect efforts by the US... they used to bet on internal factors, and they lost. There were no factions who were able or fit to crush the resistance. The popularity of HA was stronger. They assessed the Lebanese army capabilities. They were surprised when they found out they cannot count on the army to turn against the resistance. They bet on the fact that including HA in the gvt will make them change their stance on resistance, but this didnt happen.
So all their efforts failed. They were observing closely the national dialogue, and they realized even that will not crush the resistance. So they realized there was no INTERNAL factor they could count on to eliminate the resistance.
On the regional level, they tried with Syria and Iran, but they also failed. At the end, they realized they had no solution but one: eliminate the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine and then isolate Syria and Iran.
Based on all that, their only choice was WAR by Israel on Lebanon. We have information that all the training that was happening in Northern Israel lately, was all in preparation for this war. It was scheduled for Septemeber or October. They were only getting last pieces of intelligence and information.
Their plan was for Israel to go for a swift and all out war, hitting all the infrastructure, the HA positions, their Headquarters, etc., paralyzing the resistance and turning the public opinion against them. That's what they were planning.
Some might ask, why did you capture the 2 soldiers then.... even if we didn't do it, they would've gone for their war in September anyway!
I am transparent... when we captured the 2 soldiers, we
UNINTENTIONALLY ruined their plans... pushing the Israelis to speed up their plans, hence losing the surprise effect they were counting on. They thought they would invade swiftly without us being prepared. When we did what we did, we were ready for them, and they had to go for their plan...that's the war they called an OPEN war, and we said we are ready for it.
We now realized, with great certainty, the justification for this war and the purposes for this war. Did we make a mistake? no.. they were going to go for it anyway in 2 months.
Our destiny is to face that plan and defeat it.. to liberate our land, and liberate our prisoners. Brothers and sisters, today they started the diplomatic efforts...
giving the enemy more chances. All the envoys who came , came here with dictated statements, not with solutions.
I will assure you, that we will not accept any condition for our people that will be contrary to the Lebanese interests. Houses have been destroyed, but will be rebuilt insha2allah, infrastructure has been destroyed but will be rebuilt insha2allah... but our dignity cannot be destroyed.
After her visit to here, Rice gave Israel another chance. The next week or 10 days will be crucial... everyone is waiting for who will blink first. We would like to announce that after all these attacks from the Israelis, I ANNOUNCE THAT WE WILL GET INTO THE POST-HAIFA PHASE!!!
Unfortunately we have to.. . and if things get worse, we will go for the next phase, that is BEYOND THE POST HAIFA one.
On the ground, we are fighting in Bent Jbeil. Just like we fought in Maroun el Ras. We are not an army, we fight a guerilla war... we want to inflict damages on the Israelis... The occupation of any inch of our land, will multiply our efforts to destroy them and fight them even more. In the ground fighting, the measure is how much damage we do to them.
We will be very transparent.. We dont hide our martyrs. Don't give in to the psychological war they are waging against us. They have claimed controlling Bent Jbeil 2 days ago... until the RECORDING of this message, Bent Jbeil was still free. They talk about hundreds of Hizbullah casualties.... where are they!??
They will spread rumors, I tell you not to believe them. Listen to us, whenever we have a martyr, we will announce his name. When we lose a town, we will tell you we lost a town. They are the ones lying to you, to their people and to
the world. That's their weakness. Our honesty is our strength.
Things will not stay the same.. we promise you we will win. The enemy will not have a long time to do this.. no matter how much coverage they get from the US. The regional and international factors will not allow it to last long.
<the end>.