Comments from America’s Ambassador to Beirut Vincent Battle during a meeting with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri have elicited a furious response from Lebanese citizens.
Battle asked Al-Hariri to meet him after Hizbullah fired a rocket on Monday into Israeli territory, killing one soldier. He charged that it was Hizbullah’s actions that sparked the latest confrontaion. Not only did the organization fire the rocket, but it also planted a series of explosive charges on the Israeli side of the border, explained Battle.
“Hizbullah is a foreign terror organization,” said Battle to Al-Hariri. In so doing, he enraged many Lebanese politicians.
“Battle’s words are unacceptable and unjustified,” said Foreign Minister Jean ‘Ubeid to the Lebanese daily A-Safir. According to ‘Ubeid, Battle’s description of Hizbullah as a “foreign terror organization” is a wicked description and an attempt to falsely present its national fight and victims. “The most dangerous thing is that it provides an additional green light for Israeli aggression in Lebanon,” said ‘Ubeid.
The Lebanese government said on Friday that Hizbullah’s attack last Monday was an act of self-defense, thus refusing demands by Battle that the government clamp down on the guerrillas, and deploy soldiers on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
“What new strategic dynamics in the region are the Americans talking about? We do not see these dynamics take into account the Israeli terror inflicted on the Palestinians, or its wish to terrorise Lebanon,” said Lebanese Minister of Information Michel Samaha in an interview with the daily A-Safir.
The American-Lebanese tension started building up last Tuesday, when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell blamed Hizbullah for deliberately igniting a new flare-up with Israel with the rocket attack.