Mohammed Raad, the head of the Hezbollah parliamentary bloc in the Lebanese parliament declared on Saturday that it would take a mere $9 billion to obliterate the State of Israel.
“The resistance only needs $9 billion and there will be nothing left called Israel in the region," said Raad, who previously met with French president Emmanuel Macron, according to a news broadcast by Lebanese outlet MTV.
#محمد_رعد: تكفي المقاومة 9 مليارات دولار كي لا يبقى هناك شيء اسمه إسرائيل https://t.co/hYGRKvMlp3 pic.twitter.com/TD39xCHtlQ
— MTV Lebanon News (@MTVLebanonNews) April 16, 2022
MTV tweeted Raad’s remarks to its 1.4 million followers on Twitter.
The Islamic Republic of Iran — the world’s worst state-sponsor of terrorism as defined by the US state department — is the main financer of Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah. Raad also said that $900 billion was spent to destroy Yemen during the unfolding civil war.
France has outlawed Hezbollah’s military wing yet continues to block a full terror designation of Hezbollah within the EU. Meanwhile the US, the Arab League, Germany, Japan, Canada, Austria, the United Kingdom, and additional European and Latin American countries classify Hezbollah’s entire organization a foreign terrorist movement.
“What bankrupted the Lebanese and plunged them into the latest economic and financial crisis is the U.S. domination, which wanted to besiege the resistance and failed to do so,” Raad said in early April, according to Lebanese news site Naharnet.
“It then sought to besiege all state institutions, which could not bear the siege, so they collapsed and became a burden on people, our resistant environment and the resistance,” he added.
“Some people say that those who don’t communicate with the Americans are not worthy of living in this country, but we won’t communicate nor talk with the Americans, and we have the right to defend our existence against those threatening it,” said Raad.
In response to Raad’s comments in early April, Michael Young, an expert on Lebanon, tweeted “What bankrupted Lebanon was a vampirical, kleptocratic political class that Hezbollah has been defending, at times through violence, since the protests of 2019. Mohammed Raad is not going to fool anyone about this.”
What bankrupted Lebanon was a vampirical, kleptocratic political class that Hezbollah has been defending, at times through violence, since the protests of 2019. Mohammed Raad is not going to fool anyone about this: https://t.co/EOKfZtiDbE
— Michael Young (@BeirutCalling) April 4, 2022