"No army in the world will force us to drop our weapons, force us to surrender our arms, as long as people believe in this resistance," said Hassan Nasrallah, who claimed Hezbollah victorious in the fighting.
But he added, "We do not wish to keep our weapons forever," because they should not be part of domestic life.
"When we build a strong and just state that is capable of protecting the nation and the citizens, we will easily find an honorable solution to the resistance issue and its weapons," he told the flag-waving crowd gathered in Beirut's bombed-out southern suburbs.
Hezbollah has, for years, used the Shebaa Farms as its excuse to keep its weapons, saying that part of Lebanese soil is still being "occupied" in spite of the UN ruling otherwise. And its constant harping on the issue has gained them apparent support from the US State Department:
US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice spent the weekend in Israel and on Monday made an unannounced visit to Lebanon, where she said "the time has come" to deal with the Shebaa Farms, an area occupied by Israel and claimed by Lebanon. Hizbullah has long cited the liberation of the Shebaa Farms as a reason for its men to keep their arms...So when the issue is put back on the table, what does Hezbollah say?
The Shiite movement Hezbollah said on Thursday that Lebanon would still need its armed presence even if Israel finally quit the disputed Shebaa Farms district in the south.Resistance against what?
"Any Zionist retreat from the Shebaa Farms would be a big achievement for the 'resistance' for this would be the result of its role and its pressure," Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah was quoted as saying by the state-run National News Agency.
But any retreat "will not change the fact that Lebanon needs the resistance," he said.
Rice, as all people who suffer from wishful thinking about Arab terror groups, is not looking at the big picture. She is not taking into consideration Hezbollah's own stated objectives, listed at its founding over two decades ago. Like all terror groups, Hezbollah espouses a philosophy that needs to be revisited in order to understand its actions.
In Hezbollah's case, its guiding principles were formed in 1985 with a letter called "The Hezbollah Program" which enumerated three objectives:
(a) to expel the Americans. the French and their allies definitely from Lebanon, putting an end to any colonialist entity on our land;Because of Hezbollah's constant anti-Israel rhetoric, people think that it will just disappear if its enemy surrenders. But Israel is only a part of Hezbollah's program, and its real goal has been to replace Lebanon's multi-ethnic government with an Islamic state (and eventually a pan-Islamic ummah that includes Palestine, Syria and probably Jordan as well.) Its weapons are a critical part towards achieving this goal, and it will not hesitate to use them (all in the name of Lebanese "unity," of course.)
(b) to submit the Phalanges to a just power and bring them all to justice for the crimes they have perpetrated against Muslims and Christians;
(c) to permit all the sons of our people to determine their future and to choose in all the liberty the form of government they desire. We call upon all of them to pick the option of Islamic government which, alone, is capable of guaranteeing justice and liberty for all. Only an Islamic regime can stop any further tentative attempts of imperialistic infiltration into our country.
Rice is utterly ignorant of Hezbollah's real positions and goals, and she is willing to sacrifice America's best friend yet again in order to support her ignorance.