Hizbullah accused leading March 14 Forces member Walid Jumblatt on Friday of discarding allies when it suits him and embracing new ones on a whim, adding that the MP now has a "new master" in the form of the United States. Loyalty to the Resistance MP Hussein Hajj Hassan was responding to comments made by the Progressive Socialist Party leader in an interview with Al-Arabiyya television channel.Speaking during a religious ceremony in the South, Hassan said that when Jumblatt needed Iran he would go and see Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and issue speeches of support. Addressing his comments to Jumblatt, Hassan said: "Now you no longer need them [Iranians and Syrians] you are against them and you discard them."
Responding to Jumblatt's accusations that Hizbullah was involved in the string of assassinations that targeted Lebanon's anti-Syrian politicians and journalists, Hassan said: "We demand to know the truth behind the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri and this truth will be determined by the investigation commission and the court, not by Jumblatt."
He said that while the Druze leader accused Hizbullah of being behind the assassinations, in past statements both Jumblatt and the parliamentary majority leader, MP Saad Hariri, exonerated Hizbullah, "so which statements are we to believe?"
In his interview with Al-Arabiyya, Jumblatt accused Hizbullah and its leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, of being behind "some, if not all" of the assassinations in Lebanon, accusing them of obtaining weapons from Israel in exchange for the release of Western hostages in what was known as the "Iran-Contra" affair.
Referring to earlier statements made by Jumblatt that he would rather be a trash collector in New York than a political leader in Lebanon, Hassan said that "if Jumblatt's imagination convinces him he would rather be a 'trash collector' in New York, he is free to do so, but to link [Hizbullah] with Israel ... I do not know how he can do that. The Israelis who have admitted to their defeat have not made such statements. It is the strangest thing to say Israel arms us so we can fight them and humiliate their army," Hassan added.
In his interview, Jumblatt said that both Hizbullah and Nasrallah are not Lebanese and receive their orders from Syria and Iran. He said he feared that those who control Hizbullah's decision-making "are pushing for a civil war in Lebanon."
Jumblatt's comments came on the heels of an announcement the day before that Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri would launch a new initiative to end the political standoff between the two rival camps. Jumblatt, in his most scathing attack on Hizbullah yet, said the party hijacked the Shiite sect, leading it astray and far from its Arab and Lebanese identities, harming the Shiites culturally, politically and economically. Jumblatt said there is no possibility to work with Hizbullah as it represents the "culture of death," stressing that there will be no resolving matters with the Syrian regime either. The majority has the right to seek help from any country, he added, except Israel, in facing the Syrian regime.
In response, Hassan said: "We are students of the culture of martyrdom; we differ from you [Jumblatt] in culture, for we have not called for the invasion of another Arab country even if we disagree with them," referring to Jumblatt's call on Turkey to "sweep Syria away."
As a result of Jumblatt's allegations that footage of Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh's booby-trapped car has disappeared from the archives of the Military tribunal, to later surface in the office of former Surete Generale Chief Major General Jamil Sayyed, the latter's lawyer filed a complaint with Beirut's Court of Cassation demanding an investigation into Jumblatt's claims.