Speech of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah at the Arab International Assembly to Support the Resistance

In the Name of Allah, The Compassionate, The Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, The Lord of the world. Peace be on the Seal of prophets, our Master and Prophet Abi Al Qassem Mohammad and on his chaste and pure Household, chosen companions and all prophets and messengers. Peace be upon you all and Allah's mercy and blessing.

Brothers and sisters! Ladies and gentlemen! I welcome you all in the city of Beirut, the capital of culture, freedom, Arabism, struggle and resistance. Welcome in powerful Lebanon which has forsaken the marvel of Lebanon's strength in its weakness to the truth of Lebanon's strength in the solidarity of its army, people and resistance. Welcome in Lebanon the victorious which could - thanks to the blood of its children and the sacrifices of its martyrs and lionhearted resistance - expel the occupier from its land and restore its captives from prisons and stand proud and revered in face of Israeli risks, challenges and threats. Thus it made for its people and nation a new advanced post in the way of the final victory Inshallah. I address you with my thanks after my welcome. Thank you for your massive and truthful attendance to support the resistance, its project, movements, peoples and cultures and to embrace and support the resistance in the time of challenges and difficulties. Brothers and sisters! Know that your blessed attendance and the views and stances which you will present will have great impact on the awareness, will, determination and resolution of our peoples and its confidence in the future.

Brothers and sisters! Because of the time limit, I resorted to writing. I would like to talk about the brilliant side of the ongoing struggle. Many in this world unfortunately do talk about the dark side. Since the powers of hegemony and arrogance founded Israel as an entity which usurped Israel and as an advanced military barrack for arrogance, these powers and their Zionist collaborators aspired to establish a strong expanding settlement entity which poses a permanent guarantee for their interests in our region. This was known as the project of Great Israel. Thus was the Israeli victory in 1948 and in 1967 which was more expansive. The Zionists and their masters thought that they were about to achieve the project of Great Israel. Then was the war of Ramadan - October 1973. Today I will talk about facts without any courtesies. They formed a historic and important turning point in the struggle with the Israeli enemy. Truly both the Egyptian and Syrian Arab armies made unforgettable historic and heroic epics. That put a limit to the Zionist aspirations to expand. Years later, the Egyptian regime put Egypt outside the struggle with Israel via Camp David. This was the most dangerous change in the history of the struggle. But Allah, the Benefactor, wished that Imam Khomeini let Iran in the struggle through the victorious Islamic revolution and toppling the Shah regime which is an agent to America and Israel. This also was the most critical change in the history of the struggle.

In 1982, Zionists troops invaded Lebanon and occupied the Arab capital Beirut. They wanted to control Lebanon and annex it finally to Israel. The Israeli invasion revived anew the dream of establishing Great Israel. Yet after few years of the resistance of the Lebanese, their sacrifices, chaste blood and legendary steadfastness, Israel was pulled out of Lebanon defeated and humiliated dragging its tail between its legs as the Zionists themselves said in May 25, 2000. This was a flagrant announcement for the final flop of the project of Great Israel. Thus started the theories of the great Israel which is outstanding in power in return for the previous project of Great Israel which has geographic expansion. Few months after the Lebanese victory Al Aqsa Intifada in Palestine started and then turned to great towering jihadi resistance. Great Israel thus started feeling perplexed, weak and worried. They started talking anew about the battle of existence and the second independence. Even remaining in historic Palestine seemed impossible. Here Gaza of the Resistance expelled the occupation with resistance. With their grudge and spite to Gaza, Zionists wished it would be drowned in the sea but it will not be drowned, it will rather drown them Inshallah. Walls were erected in the West Bank as an attempt to re-delineate anew borders in which Zionists might hide from the bravery of the Palestinian fighters and self-martyrs. Afterwards, Israel launched its aggressive war against Lebanon in July 2006 to crush the resistance but the resistance remained in Lebanon and it grew stronger and greater. It launched the war to restore the lost deterrence prestige but it lost what remained of this prestige. All of Israel acknowledged its defeat in July and the dreams of great Israel were dispersed in Maron Arrass, Aita Shaab and Bint Jbeil. And the dream of great Israel was branded with the sealing wax on the hands of those who fought until martyrdom and victory in Gaza in 2008.

Israel stepped out of its wars with the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon to examine Vin Grad and draw conclusions in an attempt to rebuild its army and its morals. Brothers and sisters! Frankly speaking and without exaggeration, Israel today is living in a true crisis of which its leaders, experts, newspapers, elites, parties and polls are talking. It's the crisis of the project and the dream… the crisis of leadership…the crisis of the undefeatable army which was defeated by a small group of resistance fighters. It's the crisis of trusting the regime, institutions and the future. Today Israel is trying to address all of that through the rattle of weapons, the beating of drums and daily threats on platforms against Lebanon, Gaza, Syria and Iran. These threats do not frighten anyone anymore but cowards and the defeated. But those who experienced the battles of jihad and tasted the divine victory look forward to encounter and confront to make for their nation a new pride and great victory Inshallah.

Here is defeated Israel seeking power against the resistance movements and powers from the international community, the Security Council, international institutions and some Arab regimes and intelligence. It is also seeking power through building steel walls, the campaigns of terrorizing, falsification and siege. But at the same time it is taking into account all the considerations of a direct military confrontation. Brothers and sisters! Israel is searching for guarantees for victory and triumph in any upcoming war.

As for the project of US hegemony in the region, I may also say that we have overcome one of the most dangerous stages in the history of our region and nation. The US military, security, economic and political strength has reached its peak in the past two decades. Its monopoly in the world has encouraged it to move with its project and aggressions in our region, nations and peoples to the end seizing what it considered a historic chance to put a decisive end to its struggle with out nation. Thus was the US occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the incessant threat to the regime of the Islamic Republic in Iran and Syria, the attempt to control Lebanon and the support and sponsorship of the Israeli wars on Lebanon and Gaza. What was demanded was liquidating the resistance movements in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan and drying up the various sources of support in the world to these movements and toppling the regimes of opposition to the hegemony project which support the resistance especially in Iran, Syria and Sudan. They wanted to impose the culture of succumbing and failure on our peoples and governments. They wanted to achieve a settlement for the Palestinian cause with US-Israeli conditions. They wanted to thrust the region finally in the US-Zionist era. The title of this project, attack and fight was a new Middle East which Condoleezza Rice talked about its labor pains on the onset of July War 2006.

Anew the resistance, opposition and steadfastness project and people could make great historic achievements. The resistance movements remained steadfast in all battlefields, war and bodily and moral liquidation attempts. The opposition governments remained steadfast before all pressures, isolation and penalties. Our peoples adhered to the culture of nobleness, freedom and jihad. Thus they became more proud and more unwilling to succumb to humiliation and surrender. The settlement negotiations went into a coma. Many inadequate doctors are trying to revive it. The new Middle East project collapsed before the arms of the fighters, the awareness of the elites and the sacrifices of the people, children, women and elderly and the massive demolition which made with steadfastness and resistance great victories.

If we did not talk today about the final collapse of the US project in our region, at least we may talk about the US flop, retreat and feeling of weakness and loss of choices. These are prelude to the final collapse for this project and war on our nation Inshallah. This is a quick representation of the great victories and achievements of the resistance in our nation and region. They were achieved in the worst Arab conditions in the history of our Arab nation and this increases its brilliant historic greatness and importance. They were the worst Arab and international conditions which you are acquainted with. The resistance movements made the greatest achievements in the worst conditions of desolation, loneliness, siege, terrifying, conspiracy, connivance and backstabbing even from those "next of kin". Still it gained victory with its faithfulness, truthfulness, determination, sacrifices and the blood of its fighters and pure martyrs. We are saying this to stress to our peoples through your noble conference that the choice of resistance is the true, logical rational and victorious choice. It has great horizons and expectations. It is not a transient emotion or a whim of anger.

Brothers and Sisters! The resistance project, movements and people need all kinds of political, media, legal and financial support and embracement especially to confront the psychological war which is among the great risks which are still facing the resistance movements but is the most dangerous and critical. My hope at the end of my speech is to call on this conference with all the attendance is the true aid in face of this kind of war. It's the war of distortion to touch on its awareness, will, authority and the trust of its people in it on the national level and the trust of its nation in it on the general level. How? It's through questioning its futility and consequences and talking about the martyrs and demolition that took place in Gaza and Lebanon; through questioning its futility and consequences with its clear victories; through accusing it of perpetrating crimes which have no relation with the resistance but rather it condemn them in every occasion; through accusing it of moral corruption such as promoting drugs and the like; through challenging its personalities, leaders and factions; through branding it with sectarianism and factionalism; and through accusing it of betting on regional countries and especially Iran and Syria which must be thanked always and forever on their unlimited and unconditional support which they offer to the resistance. Still the resistance movements in our countries are among the most honorable national movements in history and among the most honorable national movements in the world. It's also through accusing it of promoting the culture of death which is in fact the culture of jihad and martyrdom in face of the culture of surrender which they call the culture of life; through thrusting it and dragging it to internal struggles which the resistance refuse to get engaged in; through pushing it to change its priorities; through misleading the nation through replacing the enemy with the friend and being antagonistic to Syria and Iran; through besieging the resistance and its voice and logical, rational, humanistic, noble, clear and faithful rhetoric; and through preventing it from attending conferences; through the act the US administration is seeking to issue to silence voices and which aims above all against Al Manar and Al Aqsa among other TV channels which are trying to say the truth. Unfortunately, brothers and sisters, many Arab media outlets and pens which are so called Arab are being used to serve this war against the resistance movements while great financial and technical capacities are being used in this perspective.

One final word if you allow me. I call on your honorable conference which gathers these political, intellectual, religious, cultural and jihadi elites from all around the world: support the resistance in the first hand in confronting this gigantic media war which they call today the soft war and which could be one of the important war means which led to the collapse of the USSR and the socialist campaign as Gates, the US War Minister himself acknowledged. I assert on you brothers and sisters to be assured. I know all the resistance movements. I assert to you we will not be defeated by this or any form of war. We will face them with faith, patience, awareness, determination and certitude. We are the children of that Divine Book which has been eternally calling on us for hundreds of years: "Men said to them: A great army is gathering against you, so fear them: but it only increased their faith: they said: for us Allah sufficeth, and He is the best disposer of affairs." In our previous wars we said "For us Allah sufficeth, and He is the best disposer of affairs" and we gained victory and today and in the future we say "For us Allah sufficeth, and He is the best disposer of affairs" and we will gain victory.

Today, I would like to promise you who love Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, the nation and the resistance in face of all of these threats against Lebanon which you hear daily – I promise you as I used to promise you always. In any future confrontation with the Zionists we will frustrate the aggression goals. We will beat the enemy. We will make great historic victory. We will change the face of the region Inshallah. I assert for you ladies and gentlemen the future of the region is that of the resistance, dignity, honor and freedom. Israel, the occupation, the hegemony and arrogance are to an end Inshallah. Peace be upon you and Allah's blessing and mercy.