AFTER Hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah's speech last Friday, I was invited to discuss it on a Lebanese satellite TV, Almayadeen. The interview went like this: Host: So would Saudi Arabia talk to Hasan Nasrallah? He is calling for negotiations regarding all disputed issues, including Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Iraq and Palestine. Me: He forgot his own country! After all, he represents a Lebanese political party. If he has any right to talk on behalf of any nation, it should be Lebanon — after getting a government permission, of course! But what you know! The man wants Saudi Arabia to negotiate with "him" about its relations with other Arab countries and regarding Arab world affairs! This is the man who proudly admitted to being an agent of a foreign country, Iran, and pronounced in a televised speech that his project is to make Lebanon a province of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He is also the one who proudly bragged that he was a slave of "Alwali Alfaqeeh" (the Ruling Religious Scholar) in Tehran. This is the man who fought on behalf of the Farsi nation in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. He is the boss of a criminal organization that manufactures and trades in drugs, orchestrates and participates in government coups, political assassinations, hostage grabbing, airliner hijacking, money laundering, terrorist training and operations — the works! The man who participated in the killing, injuring and displacing of millions of Syrians and Iraqis. I say to him that Saudi Arabia only talks to masters not to slaves. The Kingdom ceased negotiations with his masters in Tehran, why in the world would it consider talking to him, instead? Host: But he talks about extending hands for negotiations! Me: We saw those hands in action. A videotape aired recently showed a Hezbollah trainer, in a Yemeni militia camp, instructing suicide bombers for operations in Riyadh. In Bahrain, they have been training locals and supplying them with explosives to topple the government. Kuwait has been the one country Iran approaches to help improve relations with Saudi and other GCC countries. Its emir visited Iran in 2014 and praised Ayatollah Ali Khamaeni, calling him a wise leader we could all learn from. Still, days after the last good will visit of Iran's foreign minister, last year, Kuwaitis uncovered four Hezbollah terrorist cells with tons of weapons and explosives. The Revolutionary Guards was involved under the direct supervision of ... guess who? "The wise leader" himself! In the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, many Hezbollah cells were found. If those were the extended hands of Nasrallah — they are the hands worth cutting not accepting. Host: Nasrallah criticizes what he argued were Saudi attempts to normalize relations with Israel. What do you say to that? Me: First, Iran and its slaves are the last to criticize contacts with Israel. Iranians have been dealing with the Zionist since IranContra scandal in the eighties. During the Reagan presidency, senior US administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. The scandal began as an operation to free the seven American hostages being held in Lebanon by Hezbollah. It was planned that Israel would ship weapons to Iran, and then the United States would resupply Israel and receive the Israeli payment. The Iranian recipients promised to do everything in their power to achieve the release of the US hostages. If Iran was, as it claims, the sworn enemy of Israel, then it is missing every chance to prove it! For years, now, they have a strong military presence in Syria. Israel has attacked Syrian, Hezbollah and Iranian posts, repeatedly. In response, all Iran could do is to strongly denounce these attacks, promising responses that never materialized. Second, Saudi Arabia has never normalized relations with Israel. It has made it a condition that only after the Zionist regime accepts the Arab Peace Initiative presented by the Arab Summit in Beirut 2002 would normal relations be possible. An individual visit to Jerusalem, or his contacts with Israelis, are not officially condoned. Host: What is your response to Nasrallah's accusation that Whabbism is the doctrine terrorists are following, therefore, Saudi Arabia is to be held responsible? Me: Iran and its slaves have been using this argument against Saudi Arabia for ages. The fact is many of those terrorists are Salafi while others are not. The terrorist who invited Sunni Muslims to a restaurant in Munich then killed them in cold blood is a Shiite Iranian, with an Iranian passport. He came from a culture that believes the Farsi race relates to the Ari, and therefore superior to Arabs and others. Still, Iran was not held responsible, so why would Saudi Arabia be accountable to every crime a Salafi commits? Let's instead look for links and sponsors, and so far all roads are leading to Tehran and Beirut! — Dr. Khaled M. Batarfi is a Saudi writer based in Jeddah. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him at Twitter:@kbatarfi
