BEIRUT, 8 May 2005 — The Hezbollah resistance group said yesterday it expected to engage in heated debate over demands to disarm after Lebanon’s elections, but insisted it would keep its weapons as long as Israel posed a threat to the country. “I don’t think the Lebanese government would just confront and say ‘I demand you deliver your weapons’,” Hezbollah’s deputy chief Sheikh Naim Kassem told Reuters in an interview.
“I expect that soon after the election there will be an internal discussion about the weapons ... calmly inside closed rooms,” he said. “I think the discussion on Hezbollah’s weapons with many Lebanese sides is going to be a heated one but I can’t anticipate what the result is going to be”. Kassem, who reiterated the group’s position that it would not disarm as long as Israel posed a threat, said the group’s arms were needed to protect Lebanon.
“We believe that the arms are a need for Lebanon, to defend it in the face of the Israeli danger... That is what we are going to discuss with others,” he said. Kassem said that even if all Arab countries, including Lebanon, signed a peace treaty with Israel, the group which was instrumental in ending Israel’s 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon would never recognize the Jewish state.
“(Palestinian) land should return to its real people. We will say no to recognizing Israel even if all the others did,” he said. “So we in Hezbollah believe that keeping our weapons is a necessity now and in the future as long as the Israeli threat exists.”
Lebanon will hold general elections from May 29-June 19, the first ballot in the country without Syrian domination in 33 years. The anti-Syrian opposition hopes to win a majority of seats at the assembly, now dominated by pro-Syria lawmakers.
Hezbollah has 12 deputies in the current Parliament and plans to run in the coming elections.
