Sayyed Nasrallah: Palestine’s Nakba is the Whole Nation’ Nakba

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah offered Monday condolences to the family, pupils and followers of Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammad Taqi Bahjat who passed away on Sunday. "In the beginning, and before I tackle any topic, I would like to pay my condolences to Muslims worldwide, to our revered scholars particularly Imam Khamenei and the Hawzas for the passing away of Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammad Taqi Bahjat. I would like to pay special condolences to the family, students and followers of the Ayatollah who stood by our resistance and provided us with lots of moral support and was the first to give us the good news of our victory in July 2006."


Sayyed Nasrallah was speaking in a live address broadcast on Al-Manar TV where he recalled Nakba (Catastrophe) that took place in Palestine 61 years ago.
"Brothers and sisters, the first topic that I would like to address is the Nakba; the Nakba of Palestine and the whole umma that took place 61 years ago. I do not have to recall the facts because we are still living them. When commemorating Nakba, we have to underline the fact that this entity was founded on massacres, exodus and is still based on occupation. Therefore this cannot be a legitimate entity. The establishment of this aggressive entity in the heart of our Arab and Islamic region 61 years ago, is the main reason for all wars and wows in the regions, and therefore the past, present and next generations will have to deal with the repercussions of planting this cancerous body in the region. Everyone ought to realize that the wars that took place in the region were imposed by this entity through hegemony. What the peoples of this region had done was reacting to the occupation that was established in 1948 and expanded in 1967 and 1982. We have to speak the naked truth. The origin of the struggle is the Palestinian cause and everything that happened later was the result of this struggle. The bargain has always been on liquidating this cause. Schemes were set to push the Palestinian people to yield to the status quo, to surrender and to relinquish their legitimate rights. Since the beginning, plans to settle Palestinians (outside Palestine) and finding an alternative country as well as autonomous rule in Gaza and the West Bank were put on the table. 61 years after this collusion on the people of Palestine, and in front of this people's steadfastness, we can't but praise this people and its armed resistance and the martyrs, as well as the determination of the families, the injured, the 11,000 detainees and the refugees."

"We have to remind the Umma and all the free men in the world, particularly the governments and the peoples in the Arab world, that they have a responsibility to take for Palestine and its people, especially those who have been suffering in the Gaza Strip in the wake of the latest war...They share responsibility to support this people with every possible means. This is the people that proved it is worthy of support and perhaps the best proof is that it refused to surrender for decades and it is bearing the suffering of the resistance."

"The second topic is the Israeli maneuver. This is a fundamental and sensitive issue that requires some illustration in details. First, what is this maneuver and what are the Israelis doing? Second, What are the probabilities? Third, what is required and how we should act?
Since the end of the July war (2006), there has been consensus in Israel, whether the government or the military, security apparatuses, the media and the public opinion that the war on Lebanon was an utter failure. We followed the Winograd report and the terms it used, frustration and flaws, which exposed the handling of the war by the government and the military command as well as the security cabinet. Based on the Winograd assessment and the conclusions of the 40 panels, it was found that there had been a great deal of flaws that must be addressed. We are in front of a serious enemy that is acting responsibly. This is why they immediately begin to work on plans to rebuild the army and deal with the flaws and mistakes through new weapons and technologies as well as a series of military exercises. There had been large scale maneuvers recently, including Juniper and Turning point 1 that was focused on the command and the home front. It was a maneuver at the level of the entire entity. The Spring Flower maneuver and the North Winds offensive maneuver in the north and other offensive exercises at the level of the general staff."


"This morning, the Israeli army radio said that the Israeli Air Force was conducting exercises all over the entity. Moreover, Turning Point 3 maneuver will take place between May 31 and June 4. This drill will be at the level of the whole Israeli entity. It is a windup of Turning Point 1 and 2. They describe it as a large scale exercise with the aim to lift the national state of readiness in case of a military confrontation in which the home front would be part of the battlefield. The Israeli Deputy war (Defense) minister says that the goal of the maneuver is to bring in the culture of emergency to the people. We will try to tackle the issue in an objective way, but let's see what the Israelis say and what they will do. The whole entity, the hospitals, the shelters, the government, the armed forces and the media will take part in the drill. This exercise has dimensions. He says that the goal is to introduce the culture of emergency as if war was to erupt tomorrow. (Gabi) Ashkenazi says that 1009 will ripen complicated security challenges that requires full alert. This explains the importance of this maneuver for the enemy. In short, as said by the Deputy war minister: a whole nation will engage in exercise for five days."

"In this maneuver, Turning Point 3, the emergency authority will be responsible for the whole drill, the government will be on alert, the security cabinet will hold meetings in a state of war and take decisions, the Israeli army in all its formations on top of which is the IAF will be on full alert as well are local councils, ministries, educational institutions, home front units, police, civil defense and the Red Magen David. The scenario they are suggesting is: confronting a rocket attack from Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza simultaneously with an escalation in the West Bank, unconventional rocket attacks, the explosion of dangerous material in the Haifa Bay and a terrorism-related incident in Eilat; a series of attacks across the entity. The Israeli enemy will be preoccupied with this maneuver for five days, yet they are ignoring the correlated negative impact and say that it's no problem if people lived in an atmosphere of war and bombings adding that this can be handled for the sake of greater objectives the Israelis are striving for through the drills. If we study this maneuver we find that it cannot be separated from a series of bellicose schemes and the developments in the region. There have been developments and challenges in the region. In assessing the matter, it goes without saying that the defeat of the Israeli army in May 25, 2000 and its humiliating and unconditional pullout from Lebanon, left serious marks on the zionist entity and the army, as acknowledged by senior Israeli officials back then. The second Intifada broke out after the 2000 withdrawal and it developed into a fierce armed resistance in occupied Palestine so much that the Israeli command considered itself fighting its second independence war. Later on, the enemy had to make a unilateral pullout from the Gaza Strip. And in 2006, the Israeli army was dealt a serious blow in Lebanon and the Winograd committee findings, as well as the repercussions of the July war on the Israeli society and the political and the military commands, not to forget the failure of normalization with the peoples of the Arab states that signed peace treaties with Israel, particularly in Egypt and Jordan, led to the increase of the Arab awareness and the wide public support to resistance movements. It was a support that overcame all efforts aimed at isolation resistance movements. We can also add Iran's growing capabilities in all domains and its acquirement of nuclear technology for peaceful and civil purposes, Israel's accusations to Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons; something that Israel dismisses as an existential threat and Iran denies, the development of Syria's capabilities and the strategic cooperation between Tehran and Damascus, Syria's support to the resistance and the failure to isolate Damascus, the setback of the US project as well as the American ability to launch new big wars like in Afghanistan and Iraq, the preoccupation of world with lots of crises, on top of which is the economic crisis. There are more factors like the development of the skills of resistance movement. The Israelis used to face guerrillas, but today they face a new school that projected itself in the wars of 2006 and Gaza and declared that all of Palestine will be part and parcel of any war in the future. The Israelis have categorized resistance movements as threats to Israel's strategic security after they were a mere threat to the Israeli population. In the middle of these developments and this atmosphere, after the July 2006 war in particular, under a new zionist government that has brought back the settlement process - as the Palestinians say - to square one, where the world is begging (Benjamin) Netanyahu to endorse the two-state solution, the enemy is undertaking those drills."