Bush administration sources say Washington's appeals to Lebanon for a crackdown on Hizbollah are meant to assuage the fears of Israel and its supporters in the US Congress, the Jerusalem Post said Thursday, citing reports.
Administration sources were quoted by the Internet World Tribune newspaper as saying that “the State Department and the White House have agreed that significant pressure on Lebanon or Syria would divert from the military offensive in Afghanistan.”
The sources said Arab allies of the United States as well as France and Russia were opposed to a US campaign against Hizbollah, the resistance group mainly responsible for driving out Israeli troops that for year occupied southern Lebanon.
When the occupation forces pulled out under pressure in May 2000, they left behind ruined infrastructure, numerous minefields and countless orphans.
Last week, the Beirut government rejected a US demand to freeze assets of groups deemed terrorists by Washington. Lebanese government officials said they regarded Hizbollah and Palestinian resistance groups as conducting what they termed a legitimate war of liberation against Israel.
Israel has occupied vast areas of Arab land since the 1967 war, and has annexed or threatened to annex parts of such areas.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese government is intensifying its international efforts to protect its Islamic resistance movement.
Lebanon’s bid to win European support in its spat with Washington stumbled in Berlin on Wednesday, when the Prime Minister Rafik Hariri failed to convince his German hosts to back his government’s defense of Hizbollah.
“On the question of Hizbollah we have different views,” German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said after talks with visiting Premier Rafiq Hariri, the Daily Star reported.
Hariri’s visit to Germany followed talks last week with French President Jacques Chirac, who offered sympathy to the Lebanese government on the Hizbollah dispute – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
