AMERICAN LEBANESE COORDINATION COUNCIL

“There is no new Middle East,” Nasrallah told an estimated 5,000 seated supporters in Bint Jbeil, one of the towns hardest hit by last summer’s war. “It’s gone with the wind.”

Nasrallah did not personally attend the rally to mark the first anniversary of the war which Hizbullah calls “a divine victory. His speech was relayed to the crowd on a giant screen set up in the main square of Bint Jbeil.

He said that “the American project was swept aside by the victory of the Islamic Resistance,” the armed wing of Hizbulllah.

Nasrallah charged that the July-August war was the result of “a U.S. decision” and the United States provided Israel with “political and material support.”

Nasrallah, who has been in hiding since the war sparked by Hizbullah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, said both Washington and Israel were counting their losses since the conflict.

He said Hizbullah would never be at peace with Israel.

“We will not wait for anyone to defend us. We will defend ourselves and our country,” he said. “We possess and we will continue to possess rockets that can hit any area in occupied Palestine if Israel attacks Lebanon,” he added. Hizbullah launched nearly 4,000 rockets at Israel during the 34-day war.

“It is impossible to live with a back-stabbing enemy on our border, who has been assaulting us ever since it was born.”

Another aim of the war, which cost more than 1,200 lives in Lebanon, mostly of civilians, according to Nasrallah, was to strengthen the government of Prime Minister Fouad Saniora.

“The Israelis and Americans wanted the Saniora government to expand its authority to the whole of Lebanon’s territory to the detriment of the resistance, but that was another failure,” he said, gesticulating with his right hand to stress his points.

Nasrallah added that Israel’s only hope for the return of its two captured soldiers was the release of Lebanese prisoners it held.

“The only way is indirect negotiation which frees the Lebanese detained by Israel,” he said.

Nasrallah renewed his call for a national unity government and dismissed allegations that his group is seeking to govern Lebanon or impose tyrannical rule over the country.

Addressing Christians, Muslims and Druzes, he said: “We want Lebanon to be a nation for all (Lebanese), with all its religions and sects.”

“Our utmost ambition is partnership … political partnership,” Nasrallah claimed. “Our utmost ambition is to be treated as normal Lebanese citizens and not as second-class citizens.”

Lebanon has been plunged in a deep political crisis since mid-November when six pro-Syrian ministers, including five Shiites, stepped down from the Saniora government, demanding the formation of a new cabinet with greater representation.(Naharnet-AP-AFP)

An-Nahar quoted unnamed German diplomatic sources as saying officials in Berlin tried to obtain from Free Patriotic Movement leader Michael Aoun “some information” about the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah operatives in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006 which sparked a 34-day devastating war with Israel.

“Aoun refused to get involved in this issue. However, security agencies there understood that one of the two prisoners is still alive and the second had passed away,” the report said without further elaboration.

Aoun is allied with Hizbullah, which leads a campaign backed by Syria and Iran against Premier Fouad Saniora’s majority government.

The two Israeli soldiers held by Hizbullah are Ehud Goldwaser, 31, and Eldad Regev, 26.

Hizbullah had said it was prepared to swap them for Lebanese and Arab prisoners held by Israel.

Quoting unnamed German diplomatic sources, the report said Berlin officials “pointed to the dangers facing Lebanon” during their talks with Aoun earlier this week.

But they concluded that FPM leader remains motivated by “personal ambition,” the report added without further elaboration.

“The Lebanon dialogue can continue, and I think today has seen some progress,” he told reporters after meeting the pro-Syrian opposition speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri.

“But that does not mean everything has been settled …If the Lebanese do not resume this necessary dialogue, unfortunately there will be more war,” Kouchner warned.

“There are clans, struggles, sorts of poker games over power… but this is a deadly game in Lebanon,” he said.

Kouchner met civil representatives before meeting Berri, a member of the Shiite-led opposition, and then had lunch with Western-backed Prime Minister Fouad Saniora.

He was expected later to meet with other political leaders, including members of Hizbollah.

“I know that deep down, everyone in Lebanon wants reconciliation… maybe not the politicians, maybe not those who seize power and want to keep it… but civil society has had enough of war,” Kouchner said.

The resignation last November of six pro-Syrian ministers, five of them Shiite, sparked the current political standoff, the country’s worst since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.

Hizbullah, the Shiite group backed by Syria and Iran, is pushing for the opposition to be better represented in government in order to give it veto power.

But the majority insists this can only happen if Hizbullah agrees to stop blocking parliamentary sessions in order to ensure the quorum needed for the presidential elections to replace pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud by a November 22 deadline.

If the parties fail to resolve their differences in the coming weeks that could spark a dangerous power vacuum or even the creation of two rival governments that would plunge the country into further chaos.

France has taken the lead in trying to resolve the crisis, gathering all the parties for a conference near Paris earlier this month and sending a top envoy to the region for consultations with all the key players.
These talks did not yield much in the way of results, but Kouchner stressed on Saturday that the process was ongoing.

“This is not a moment of despair, nor is it a moment of joy,” he said. “We will continue, I am available, France is available.”

But he also said that any solution had to come from within the country itself.

“We won’t find a solution from outside… there are countries that weigh more than others on Lebanese decisions, but the only way to get away from these exterior positions and pressures is to have unity and reconciliation among the Lebanese,” Kouchner said.

He is due in Egypt on Sunday to meet the foreign ministers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia and the Arab League secretary general to brief them on his Beirut visit.(AFP-Naharnet)

“I think they’re going to keep the property,” he said.

The decision “came about because of…a changed situation on the ground,” he added.

McCormack made the comment during his daily press briefing Thursday, a day after ABC news network quoted a State Department official as saying plans to build the compound near the Presidential Palace have been put on hold indefinitely.

ABC reported that ambassador Jeffrey Feltman sent a classified cable to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on May 31, saying his staff “unanimously opposes construction” of the compound in Baabda which overlooks Beirut’s southern suburbs - a Hizbullah stronghold.

According to the report, Feltman also told Rice that his staff would be “an easy target” for Hizbullah and that U.S. diplomats would “be under siege” during any conflict.

ABC quoted U.S. officials as saying that Baabda is controlled by Hizbullah and not the Lebanese government, adding that the Shiite group “could sever access to the area at will.”

The network said that U.S. military personnel had told State Department officials that the army would have evacuated the staff had the embassy been located at the Baabda site during last summer’s Israel-Hizbullah war.

The report said the land was purchased by the U.S two years ago for more than $22 million.(Photo courtesy of ABC News Network shows the construction site in Baabda)