On Wednesday, the Lebanese “Hezbollah” organization demanded that Saudi Arabia stop what it described as “hegemony” over the Lebanese and “blatant interference” in their affairs.
This came according to the head of the party’s Executive Council, Hashem Safi al-Din, during a meeting organized by the party in the southern suburbs west of Beirut entitled “The Opposition in the Arabian Peninsula” on the occasion of the sixth anniversary of the execution of the Saudi dissident Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, which was reported by the organization’s “Al-Manar” channel.
Al-Nimr, a Saudi Shiite cleric who led protests in eastern Saudi Arabia in the early 2000s, was executed by Riyadh along with 46 other people in January 2016 for accusing them of “igniting sectarian strife” or “belonging to terrorist organizations.”
Safi al-Din said: “Saudi Arabia must stop hegemony over the Lebanese, and stop interfering and imposing opinions and threats. This is blatant interference in the country.”
He added, “What is required of it (Saudi Arabia) is not to interfere in the classification of the Lebanese and incite them once morest each other,” he said.
Safi al-Din continued, “We say to the United States, Saudi Arabia and their thieves in Lebanon (he did not name them), that you did not know the strength of this resistance, as it is capable of achieving a sovereign, free and independent homeland without any dependence on the outside.”
He expressed “the party’s support and standing by the opposition in the Arabian Peninsula,” wishing them a “dignified life because they deserve it.”
These statements come in light of the recent high level of tension between Riyadh and the party, as Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz urged the Lebanese leaders in late December to “stop the terrorist hegemony of Hezbollah,” while Riyadh’s ambassador to Lebanon, Walid Bukhari, accused Thursday, “Hezbollah” as a “threat” to Arab national security.
The statements of the Saudi king angered the party and prompted its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah to respond to them a few days later, by saying: “Saudi Arabia’s problem in Lebanon is with those who defeated its project in the region and prevented the transformation of Lebanon into a Saudi emirate.”
On more than one occasion, the Lebanese government said, “Hezbollah’s statements do not represent its position,” while Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi affirmed on Tuesday that “Lebanon should not be a springboard for insulting any Arab country.”
