The assassination of IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and the release of US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan has “ushered in direct confrontation with the axis of resistance in Lebanon,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said recently.
“All the people of the region will carry a rifle, because this American tyrant has left no room for anyone,” he said during a televised speech commemorating 40 days since the assassination of Soleimani and Iraqi paramilitary leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
“The assassination of Hajj Qasem Soleimani and the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ have been designed to facilitate the US and Israeli domineering policy in the region,” and the “two crimes have ushered a direct confrontation with the axis of resistance in Lebanon,” Nasrallah said.
He called for forming a “united resistance front” against the US across the globe and urged an economic boycott against American products as a “new weapon” of confrontation by the group, since America’s “point of weakness is its economy.”
“We have never seen an American regime like Trump’s,” Nasrallah said. “When Trump kills the leaders in a public and brutal manner, he declares war, and we are still slowly reacting.”
“The Israeli enemy has a major weakness, which is the human losses,” he was quoted by al-Manar as saying. “Similarly, the Americans have their economic and financial situation as a point of fragility. Hezbollah hit the Israeli enemy at its weakness. So, likewise, we can concentrate on the US economic interests.”
Nasrallah described the killing of Soleimani and Muhandis as the first of “two great crimes” committed by the Trump administration, with the second being the release of its peace plan.
“‘The ‘Deal of the Century’ is a Zionist plot to end Palestinian causes,” he said. “No people in the world would accept a proposed state like [this]. In fact, this is not a deal, it’s a dictation, [and] its failure depends on the resistance of Islamic states.”
Lebanese national interests, including land and maritime borders, would also be negatively affected by the plan, Nasrallah said.
“The spirit of Trump’s plan will be decisive regarding the issue of demarcating the land and sea borders with occupied Palestine, and it will affect Lebanon’s oil wealth,” he said, adding that the deal would also give Shaba Farms [Mount Dov], Kfar Chouba Hills and Ghajar village to Israel.
In addition to the land borders, Israel and Lebanon have an unresolved maritime border dispute over a triangular sea area of some 860 sq. km. that extends along several blocs for exploratory offshore drilling by Beirut.
Israel and Hezbollah fought a deadly 33-day war in 2006. It ended with UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which called for disarmament of Hezbollah, withdrawal of the IDF from Lebanon, deployment of the Lebanese army and an enlarged UN force in the South.
Nasrallah blamed Washington and Jerusalem for being behind all wars in the region. There “is no other option” but all-out resistance by the group and its supporters, he said.
“We are not afraid of the US, and we believe in our own capabilities and faith,” Nasrallah said.