[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 21849]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



          DISAPPOINTMENT IN FORMER LEBANESE OFFICIAL'S REMARKS

  (Mr. WOLF asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I want to express deep disappointment in an 
article which appeared in yesterday's New York Times with regard to 
Lebanon.
  We lost American men and women at the American Embassy in 1983. We 
lost 241 Marines who went there to help the Lebanese people and to help 
the Lebanese Government.
  There was an article whereby the former Prime Minister, Selim al-
Hoss, said the following: ``The United States is consequently a 
terrorist partner, which makes the U.S. unfit to lead the world.''
  Mr. Speaker, we need in this region reconciliation; we need peace. We 
do not need inflammatory statements like this from the leadership and 
former leadership of the Lebanese Government. We should be bringing 
people together, not dividing people.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the article I referred to.

                [From the New York Times, Nov. 6, 2001]

             Lebanon To Resist U.S. Sanctions on Hezbollah

                            (By John Kifner)

       Beirut, Lebanon.--The Lebanese government is indignant over 
     American pressure to freeze the assets of Hezbollah, the 
     Shiite Muslim organization bitterly opposed to Israel.
       It is a request the Lebanese are likely to reject, 
     according to officials and accounts in newspapers here 
     including the daily owned by Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, 
     which is presumed to reflect his views.
       ``The government is headed for a refusal to freeze 
     Hezbollah money or to interfere with the resistance,'' that 
     newspaper, Al Mustaqbal, reported today.
       The apparent impasse once again spotlights the difficulties 
     the Bush administration has in cobbling together its 
     international coalition against terrorism in the face of 
     overriding, passionately held views on local issues, 
     particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
       Hezbollah, whose name is Arabic for Party of God, was 
     listed by the State Department on Friday, along with 21 other 
     groups--a number of them Palestinian supporters opposed to 
     the faltering Middle East peace efforts--as a terrorist 
     organization whose financial resources should be cut off.
       Those groups join the list that already includes groups 
     under the control of or with ties to Osama bin Laden, who is 
     suspected of being behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the World 
     Trade Center and the Pentagon.
       The American action on Friday imposed stringent financial 
     sanctions on the 22 groups. The government seized any assets 
     of Hezbollah in the United States long ago, but the latest 
     move is seen as putting pressure on Arab governments to crack 
     down on the fund-raising activities of Hezbollah and other 
     groups on the list.
       The widespread Lebanese outrage over the American demand 
     reflects the distance Hezbollah has traveled since it rose 
     from the Shitte Muslim slums on the southern fringe of Beirut 
     in the early 1980's as a shadowy, brutal band of kidnappers, 
     suicide bombers and airplane hijackers.
       Now it is a part of the Lebanese establishment, with 
     members in Parliament, an important social service network 
     and a television station whose news programs are avidly 
     watched by many Lebanese.
       Hezbollah has enjoyed the support of Syria and Iran. Syria 
     dominates Lebanon's political affairs.
       Indeed, Hezbollah members are officially regarded as 
     national heroes--``the resistance''--for their role as 
     guerrillas who opposed the 22-year-long Israeli occupation of 
     southern Lebanon.
       The American ambassador here, Vincent Battle, presented the 
     American position at an emergency meeting he requested on 
     Friday with the Lebanese foreign minister, Mahmud Hammud.
       The foreign minister was apparently unimpressed.
       ``The Lebanese resistance has expelled Israel's occupation 
     army from south Lebanon last year,'' Mr. Hammud said. ``We 
     are proud of it.''
       ``We view the resistance as a legitimate means to liberate 
     our land from Israeli occupation, and we hold fast to it, 
     with the support of Syria and the rest of the Arab world.''
       Perhaps the most striking reaction came from an unexpected 
     quarter, the elder statesman Selim al-Hoss, a soft-spoken 
     academic and a Sunni Muslim who was the long-suffering prime 
     minister through many years of civil war. He is widely 
     respected for his personal integrity, though as a leader he 
     was rendered powerless by religious militia factions in a 
     land then corrupt beyond imagination.
       ``America supports the world's most brutal terrorist state 
     and the deadliest ever terrorist who leads it,'' Mr. Hoss 
     said, referring to Israel and its prime minister, Ariel 
     Sharon. ``The United States is consequently a terrorist 
     partner, which makes the U.S. unfit to lead the world.''
       Indeed, it was widely assumed here that Israel was behind 
     the new list, particularly after the influential Israeli 
     lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs 
     Committee, applauded it.
       To Hezbollah the condemnation was a badge of honor.
       ``We feel proud we have been taken as an enemy that should 
     be blacklisted as terrorist by the Great Satan who heads the 
     greatest pyramid of tyranny, repression and arrogance of 
     modern times,'' Sheik Hassan Nasrullah, the group's leader, 
     said at a rally. ``It is natural for the American 
     administration to blacklist Hezbollah and the other 
     struggling Palestinian factions.''
       Sheik Nasrullah issued a prohibition against any form of 
     assistance to the American operation in Afghanistan, calling 
     it, ``a war against every Muslim who refuses to bow or kneel 
     to the United States.''
       In southern Lebanon, Sheik Nabil Qaook, the strategist of 
     the guerrilla campaign against Israel, said in a speech 
     during the weekend: ``The U.S. lists don't bother us the 
     slightest. When America accuses Hezbollah, we take it as 
     proof of the credibility of our goals.
       ``In the past, America didn't shout so loud. When it is in 
     a dominating position and when the rules of the international 
     game are in its favor, we don't hear accusations of 
     terrorism. But when the balance of power leans the other way, 
     we hear them scream.''

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