Nasrallah: March 14 can’t build strong state alone

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah scoffed Thursday at the March 14 coalition’s call to build a strong state, saying such a goal cannot be attained without cooperation and dialogue with the rival March 8 camp. Nasrallah also stressed that only a political solution can end the yearlong turmoil in Syria, saying that bets on the collapse of the regime of President Bashar Assad, a major split within the Syrian army and a foreign military intervention have failed. “March 14 say they are the ones who can build a state. But with which mentality and approach?” Nasrallah asked. Referring to differences within some March 14 parties, he said: “In the first place, are you capable of building your own institutions and parties? No state can be built on the idea of eliminating the other but through cooperation and dialogue.” Nasrallah called on March 14 to adopt an approach based on dialogue with the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance in order to confront “challenges and dangers” threatening the country and the region. “Through real dialogue, we can build a state together and face issues in a spirit of cooperation,” he said. Nasrallah was addressing a graduation ceremony at the Imam al-Mahdi High School on the airport road through a giant screen. Speaking via a video link, his speech was broadcast by Al-Manar TV. Nasrallah’s speech came a day after March 14 parties marked the seventh anniversary of the coalition’s founding with a call for a strong, democratic state preceded by civil peace. The call came in the coalition’s charter, which said national peace is needed to protect the country from regional turmoil and particularly the “repercussions of the fall of the Syrian regime.” Speakers at Wednesday’s March 14 rally lashed out at Hezbollah for retaining its weapons in spite of local and foreign calls on the group to disarm. Batroun MP Butros Harb, reading the March 14 charter, said the first step toward building a strong state was for it to reach the stage where it enjoys the exclusive right over the possession and use of arms. While reiterating his group’s readiness to discuss a national defense strategy to defend Lebanon against a possible Israeli attack, Nasrallah was as defiant as ever on keeping Hezbollah’s arsenal. “Anyone who can disarm the resistance [Hezbollah] by force, let him do so,” he said. Nasrallah slammed what he described as March 14’s double standard – the coalition has expressed a willingness to launch dialogue while it rejects Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s government, which is controlled by Hezbollah and its March 8 allies. Nasrallah, whose party has strongly supported the Assad regime since the uprising erupted a year ago, said only a political solution can end the confrontation in Syria between government troops and anti-regime protesters. He called on both the Syrian government and opposition groups to stop fighting, and begin talks on a political crisis to end the violence which has killed more than 8,000 people, according to human rights groups. Expressing fears over the possibility of Syria sliding into a civil war and being partitioned if the violence continues unabated, Nasrallah said: “Since day one, we have called on the Syrians to avoid carrying arms and adopt a political solution ... It has been one year since the crisis began and no tangible results have been achieved. “There is only a political solution in Syria. That is [for government troops and rebel soldiers] to lay down arms simultaneously within an agreed-upon mechanism, in order to embark upon a clear political solution,” he added. “Whoever wants to destroy Syria and topple the regime won’t be able to do that at all.” Nasrallah said those betting on the downfall of Assad’s regime as a result of the uprising have been proven wrong. “Recent developments have shown that bets on the collapse of the [Syrian] regime, a split within the army and a foreign military intervention have led nowhere,” he said. Referring to thousands of people who gathered in Syrian cities Thursday to express their support for Assad on the first anniversary of the revolt against his 11-year rule, Nasrallah said: “There are people who want reforms and not a civil war or partition. They want to continue [to resist Israel] and be loyal to Palestine. We are with them.” In his speech, Nasrallah also touched on the issue of illiteracy in Lebanon and the Arab world, describing the local illiteracy rate as alarming. “Some official statistics say that there are 57 million illiterate Arabs. This constitutes one-third of the Arab population ... This is a disaster,” Nasrallah said. Quoting studies, he said that 16 percent of Lebanese were illiterate and urged the government to strengthen its efforts to eradicate illiteracy in the country’s schools. He also took aim at some Arab states, saying it was in the interest of some of them to keep their populations illiterate in order to keep citizens preoccupied with daily issues. He added that Arab governments, particularly Gulf countries, are financially capable of eliminating illiteracy and unemployment. “Some Arab countries are among the richest in the world, especially Gulf countries, which have deposits worth thousands of billions of dollars,” Nasrallah said. He cited a recent statistic by the Arab Labor Organization that there were between 18 to 20 million Arabs who are unemployed, saying that Arab countries are capable of carrying out major reforms to change the situation. “But there are [Arab] regimes and states that believe it to be in their interest to keep their people illiterate, poor and unemployed,” he said.