Ya Libnan: "Nasrallah makes excuses for more assassinations"

This is nicely anti-Hizbollah:

Anti-Syrian lawmaker Wael Abu Faour poured scorn on claims by Hassan Nasrallah that Israel is responsible for the spate of political assassinations in the country.

He said that such remarks by the Hezbollah leader cleared the way for another politically motivated killing, by attempting to absolve Syria of any blame for the murders.

In a televised speech broadcast Friday evening to his supporters to mark Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day, Nasrallah accused Israel of killing anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon to cause strife and drag his militant movement into fighting other Lebanese communities. He said Israel has a network of agents working in Lebanon who are responsible for the assassinations.

"If Israel is indeed to blame for what is happening in Lebanon, why is the Hezbollah-led opposition working to thwart the establishment of an international court to try the killers of the former prime minister [Rafik Hariri]," Abu Faour asked.

Hariri, who was vehemently opposed to Syria's then military presence in Lebanon, was killed in a massive car-bombing in Beirut in February 2005. His murder led to the "Cedar Revolution," a civil protest named for Lebanon's flag, and the removal of Syrian troops from Lebanon after almost three decades.

Anti-Syrian groups that control the Lebanese government claim Damascus is behind a two-year killing spree that has left a number of anti-Syrian politicians and public figures dead. The latest was on September 19 when lawmaker Antoine Ghanem was killed in a Beirut car bombing a week before Parliament was to meet for the election of a new president.

Nasrallah, whose group leads the pro-Syrian opposition to Lebanon's U.S.-backed government, also warned the parliamentary majority against picking a president of their own to run the country if talks with the opposition failed, and called for polling the general population on their choice if the lawmakers fail to reach agreement.

The Hezbollah chief said that the supposed Israeli attacks against members of Lebanon's anti-Syrian parliamentary majority in the last two years were designed to drawn condemnation from that coalition against Damascus, Hezbollah's ally.

"The hand that is killing is Israel's," he told thousands of supporters who occasionally interrupted his speech with roars of approval.

"Israel has a sure interest in the assassinations, because its project is sedition... Israel wants the resistance [Hezbollah] to be dragged into internal strife and fighting to weaken and exhaust it," he said. "It [Israel] is the prime beneficiary of any internal strife in Lebanon." [...]

Tags: Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Hizbullah, Nasrallah