Jaafarite Mufti Ahmad Kabalan, close to the Shiite tandem Amal-Hezbollah. (Credit: National News Agency)
"What the resistance and the people of southern Lebanon are doing is strategic defense, so that Netanyahu doesn't drink his tea at Baabda Palace," Jaafarite Mufti Ahmad Kabalan, close to the Shiite tandem Amal-Hezbollah, responded to Maronite patriarch Bechara al-Rai, who on Saturday morning once again castigated Hezbollah's warlike operations and its intervention against Israel.
"The war against south Lebanon has aggravated the economic, commercial, agricultural, financial and educational tragedy of its inhabitants and of the Lebanese in general," the Maronite patriarch said. "South Lebanon belongs to all Lebanese, who decide together on the future of their country, its peace and security, when to fight and for whom."
In this context, Rai called on the Lebanese "to proclaim an immediate cessation of the war, to respect the relevant international resolutions, in particular, Resolution 1701, to neutralize the south in the face of the Israeli killing machine and to elevate the concepts of peace and resurrection above other erroneous concepts."
Kabalan's response
"The pact is a partnership and a national doctrine. The country is at the heart of the holiest war, except for those who don't care about Lebanon," Mufti Kabalan immediately reacted during his preaching at the Burj al-Barajneh mosque, evoking "the 'sovereign' partnership of the Shiite tandem" Amal-Hezbollah.
"Without the Shiite tandem resisting on the south Lebanon front, without the south and its people, Lebanon would no longer be," he insisted, adding that "the tandem takes orders from no one."
Kabalan pointed the finger at "those who only care about Lebanon for their own interests and are under Washington's orders," in a clear criticism of Lebanese parties close to the United States.
Kabalan's intervention came a day after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant made a direct threat to Hezbollah. On a tour of northern Israel, on the border with Lebanon, he had declared that the Israeli army would "pursue Hezbollah wherever it operates and increase the pressure and pace of its attacks" against the party until it achieved its goal of "changing the military situation along the border and enabling the safe return of the inhabitants of northern Israel."
The minister's press office had also stated that Israel was prepared to pursue Hezbollah "in Beirut, Baalbeck, Sour and Saida, all along the border and in other places as far away as Damascus."