Lebanon has become a Hizbullah State
Government has become Irrelevant,
Country is controlled by Terror,
Israeli Vice President Ramon
Hizbullah is Government
May 11, 2008
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
On paper, the pro-U.S. government is still the government of Lebanon but, in real ity
, Hizbullah is in control of the government, as indicated by Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon in the Jerusalem Post article which follows.
Begin Jerusalem Post Article 1
‘Lebanon is a Hizbullah state, gov’t has become irrelevant’
JPost.com Staff and AP, THE JERUSALEM POST
May 11, 2008
“Lebanon must be treated as a Hizbullah state,” Vice Premier Haim Ramon said Sunday, as violence in the country spread to the northern city of Tripoli, claiming three lives.
“Everything that happens there is the responsibility of Hizbullah. The country is controlled by this terror organization and its government has become irrelevant,” Ramon said at the weekly cabinet meeting.
“The notion that there is another government apart from Hizbullah is entirely fictitious,” added the vice premier.
Ramon’s remarks came after head of Military Intelligence, General Amos Yadlin, provided an intelligence briefing to the cabinet ministers on the recent clashes in Lebanon and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was paying close attention to the unfolding crisis.
Yadlin said Israel must be prepared for a new state of affairs. “Hizbullah’s use of arms inside Lebanon is a different sort of message. We need to be realistic, but there is no need for hysteria.”
He said Hizbullah had exposed a weakness because it had violated the 1989 Taif Agreement – an Arab blueprint for freeing Lebanon from foreign influence.
Following the agreement, Hizbullah refused to disarm, claiming it was protecting Lebanese interests against Israel in order to return the Sheba Farms.
However, said Yadlin, using their weapons inside Lebanon violated this agreement.
Religious Affairs Minister Yitzhak Cohen called for an urgent appeal to the UN in order to renew discussions on Security Council Resolution 1701, which brought an end to the Second Lebanon War.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said that “Hizbullah continues to be in control of Lebanon, without carrying the responsibility of managing the country.”
“[They] continue to create problems for Israel, like during the Second Lebanon War, and this prevents us from fighting terror,” he said.
Meanwhile, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i told Army Radio that Israel was prepared for the possibility of the situation in Lebanon deteriorating into another civil war and was closely monitoring the situation’s developments, though would not get involved in the latest outbreak of violence there.
As well as the clashes in Tripoli, fighting between pro- and anti-government supporters also broke out in Lebanon’s central mountains overlooking the capital.
The violence that has killed some 40 people in four days was sparked when the US-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora tried to crack down on Hizbullah last week.
Hizbullah responded by seizing control of many Beirut neighborhoods loyal to the government.
Beirut, which experienced four days of bloody sectarian clashes between Sunnis and Shi’ites, spent a quiet night Sunday. But many of its roads remained blocked, including the one to the airport, however, by the ongoing civil disobedience campaign of the opposition, and heavy fighting broke out between pro and anti-government supporters in northern Lebanon, security officials reported.
Vilna’i said the current sectarian fighting could end with a Hizbullah takeover of the government.
“We need to keep our eyes peeled and be especially sensitive regarding all that is happening there,” Vilna’i said.
“We shouldn’t get involved. We need to watch and should follow this very closely even when we are dealing with other fronts,” he said, referring to continued fighting against Hamas.
Israel is especially concerned about the situation in Lebanon in light of the Hamas’s control of Gaza, Vilna’i said. Hamas and Hizbullah, as Iranian proxies, are mutually dependent, he said.
Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit said Israel should not yet take any action, but warned that things could change if Hizbullah takes over Lebanon.
“I think it’s very dangerous, the (possible) situation in which Iran is in fact sitting on our border, and controlling Lebanon,” Sheetrit said. “It’s really dangerous in the long term because now its plain to everyone that … Hizbullah is just the long arm of Iran and that’s the way we should relate to it.”
Maj.-Gen. (res.) Eyal Ben-Reuven, who served as deputy head of the Northern Command during the Second Lebanon War, said Hizbullah’s increasing strength stems from the 2006 conflict.
“I must say, as one who deeply participated in the Second Lebanon War, I feel sad, because if we then would have done what we needed to do and turned Hizbullah into a failed force, we would be in a different situation today,” Ben-Reuven told Army Radio.
Begin Jerusalem Post Excerpt 2
‘Even Israel didn’t act like Hizbullah’
JPost.com Staff and AP, THE JERUSALEM POST
May 11, 2008
“Even the Israeli enemy didn’t dare to do in Beirut what Hizbullah has done,” Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said Sunday as he toured the city’s embattled streets with reporters.
Saniora spoke as heavy fighting broke out between pro- and anti-government supporters in Lebanon’s central mountains overlooking the capital, and violence also spread to the northern city of Tripoli, claiming three lives.
Also Sunday, top Arab diplomats called on Shi’ite gunmen to pull out of west Beirut and leave Lebanon’s army in charge of security across the city.
Sunni Arab heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia organized an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo.
The two nations are deeply suspicious of Hizbullah, accusing it of sidelining Lebanon’s Sunni minority and being a proxy for extending Iran’s power in the Middle East.
The ministers issued a statement urging Lebanon “to immediately halt the violence.”
They are also expected to relaunch a January plan that called for the immediate election of army chief Michel Suleiman as a consensus president and the formation of a national unity government.
Earlier Sunday, Vice Premier Haim Ramon said “Lebanon must be treated as a Hizbullah state. Everything that happens there is the responsibility of Hizbullah. The country is controlled by this terror organization and its government has become irrelevant,” Ramon said at the weekly cabinet meeting.
“The notion that there is another government apart from Hizbullah is entirely fictitious,” added the vice premier.
Ramon’s remarks came after Head of Military Intelligence, General Amos Yadlin, provided an intelligence briefing to the cabinet ministers on the recent clashes in Lebanon and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was paying close attention to the unfolding crisis.
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