Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah - English Interviews - 60 Minutes (2003), Julian Assange (2012)

Speaker 1: But Hezbollah's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who we met in Beirut, insists that today his group poses no threat to the U.S. Unlike the leadership of al-Qaeda, he is in hiding from anyone. You may never have heard of Nasrallah before, but he is a hugely popular figure not just in the region but also among Arabs living in the West. You know that the, the top deputy to the Secretary of State Colin Powell has referred to Hezbollah as the Team of terrorism. In other words, better at terrorism than Al Qaeda.

Speaker 2: هو يستطيع أن يقول ما يشاء ولكن أنا أعتقد.

Speaker 3: Secretary Powell can say what he wants. I believe the Americans are just saying what the Israelis want them to say. I consider this to be an Israeli accusation coming out of an American mouth and nothing more.

Speaker 1: When he became its leader ten years ago, Nasrallah turned Hezbollah into a formidable. Fighting force. Few people know more about him than journalist Nick Blanford, who has covered Lebanon for 8 years and is now writing a book about Hezbollah and Sheikh Nasrallah. People adore him.

Speaker 2: I talked to some Hezbollah fighters that speak of him almost as they would a wife or a mother, that they think of him before they go to sleep at night, that he's always in their thoughts. So he has this tremendous sort of, uh, power over the, the rank and file.

Speaker 1: Enough power to recruit and train skilled commandos who specialized in attacking the Israeli forces which occupied southern Lebanon for 22 years. Their most effective weapon: remote-controlled roadside bombs which were detonated when Israeli patrols passed by, as in this attack in southern Lebanon. All told, Israel lost more than 900 soldiers in Lebanon. In May 2000, the Israeli army withdrew. What did Israel's withdrawal do for Hezbollah in the eyes of the Arab world?

Speaker 2: Well, it was an enormous boost for Hezbollah. I mean, this was a small Arab organization had defeated the, the mightiest military force the Middle East has ever seen.

Speaker 1: With the Israelis out of Lebanon, Nasrallah encouraged and assisted the Palestinian uprising against Israel. He has acknowledged sending secret agents carrying weapons to the West Bank, where he is considered a hero. Some kids in the Gaza Strip even dress up like him, down to the beard and the glasses. At this event, a boy playing Nasrallah is flanked by one child playing a security guard and another dressed as a suicide bomber. All together. And in Lebanon, where Hezbollah runs a network of schools and hospitals and participates in local elections, Nasrallah, a Muslim, is a hero even to the country's Christian president, Emile Lahoud.

Speaker 2: For us Lebanese, and I can tell you majority of Lebanese, Hezbollah is a national resistance movement. If it weren't for them, we couldn't have liberated our land. And because of that, we have big esteem for the Hezbollah movement.

Speaker 1: President Lahoud has such high esteem for Hezbollah, he ceded control of the border with Israel to them, a border where Hezbollah and Israeli soldiers now confront each other just a few yards apart. This side controlled by Hezbollah, over there is Israel. Hezbollah has already fired rockets across the border, and U.S. officials believe that in the past 2 years they've been stockpiling rockets in this area hidden in caves and underground bunkers— higher-quality Iranian rockets that could reach Haifa about 50 miles away. Openly calling for terrorism against Israel, Nasrallah in this speech is urging suicide operations. In Palestine, he's saying, these operations are the only way to root out the Zionists. That's the kind of material Hezbollah broadcasts daily on its own television station, Al-Manar, which reaches a worldwide audience by satellite. Because of Washington's support for Israel, Hezbollah is conducting a ferocious propaganda offensive against the United States. This message broadcast on Al-Manar portrays U.S. foreign policy as satanic. The image of the Statue of Liberty, a skull for her face, wearing a gown dripping with the blood of other nations. But even though he's one of the most powerful anti-American voices in the Middle East, He has no use for Saddam Hussein. In fact, he blames the U.S. for Saddam's rise. The U.S.

Speaker 3: provided political and military support to the Iraqi regime for decades. They created this mess. I don't believe Saddam alone should be held accountable. We should also go after those who supported him, like the American government.

Speaker 1: Sheikh Nasrallah has described war on Saddam as a satanic American Zionist plan to dominate the Arab world. What is satanic about removing Saddam from power?

Speaker 3: The United States isn't seeking democracy in Iraq. It's after the oil in Iraq, and that isn't exactly a humanitarian pursuit. The U.S. wants to impose its political will on Iraq and wants to impose Israel's domination in the region. Certainly, these objectives are not moral objectives, in my opinion. In fact, we say they are satanic objectives.

Speaker 1: And yet Nasrallah has spoken out against terrorist attacks on the U.S., including the attack of September 11th.

Speaker 3: We reject those methods and believe they contradict Islam and the teachings of the Quran, which do not permit this barbarity.

Speaker 1: But Senator Graham doesn't buy it.

Lindsey Graham: There are a number of lessons that we should learn from September 11th. One of those lessons is these terrorist groups tend to do what they say they are going to do. If they define the United States as being satanic and that therefore they want to kill us, they will find ways to carry out that objective.

Speaker 1: And are you convinced that they possess weapons of mass destruction?

Lindsey Graham: I'm not certain whether they possess them, but I am confident that they could possess them through their close affiliation with Iran which has a larger warehouse of chemical and biological weapons and is closer to gaining nuclear capability than Iraq.

Speaker 1: So if Iran wants them to have weapons of mass destruction, they'll have them?

Lindsey Graham: They will have them, and they'll have them in large quantities.

Speaker 2: The story will continue after this.

Speaker 1: Iran isn't the only country that supports Hezbollah. Syria allows them to train fighters in remote camps in Syria and in territory under their control in Lebanon.

Lindsey Graham: In recent years, they have been infiltrating into this core in the United States people who have gone through their training camps and have the skills of terrorist activity.

Speaker 1: According to the FBI, Hezbollah has never conducted a terrorist attack in the United States. The FBI says that its members here are raising money for activities overseas, nothing more than that.

Lindsey Graham: There has to be a first for every organization. The first for al-Qaeda was September 11th, 2001. When will be the first attack against an American in America by Hezbollah?

Speaker 1: We asked Lebanon's President Lahoud, a political ally of Hezbollah, if Americans have anything to fear from them. Americans, for sure not. But the United States is the strongest backer of Israel. It's the same kind of thing you see with al-Qaeda attacking the United States to get at Israel.

Speaker 2: Well, believe me, they don't have anything to attack the U.S. or any U.S. citizen, for sure. But Israel is our enemy. That's something else. It has nothing to do with the U.S.

Speaker 1: But that's not what Nasrallah said last month, just days before the war began. We are confident, he said, the Iraqi people cannot accept the humiliation of a U.S. occupation government, which he added would really be a Zionist occupation government. Then he warned the Americans they'd be met with rifles, blood, and suicide operations.

Speaker 3: American policies in the region encourage this kind of retaliation, whether we agree with it or not. I am expressing the reality. I believe the continuation of American policy will make enemies of all Arabs and Muslims. Meaning hundreds of millions of Arabs and 1.4 billion Muslims around the world, lots of groups will surface, not necessarily al-Qaeda, and they'll be impossible to bring to justice.

Julian Assange: This week, I am joined by a guest from a secret location in Lebanon. He is one of the most extraordinary figures in the Middle East. He has fought many armed battles with Israel and is now caught up in the international struggle over Syria. I want to know, why is he called a freedom fighter by millions, and at the same time a terrorist by millions of others. This is his first interview in the West since the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War. His party, Hezbollah, is a member of the Lebanese government. He is its leader, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah. Are you ready?

Speaker 2: I'm ready, Colin.

Julian Assange: What is your vision for the future of Israel and Palestine? What would Hezbollah consider victory? If you had that victory, would you disarm?

Speaker 2: The state of Israel is not a— is an illegal state. It's a state that was established on the basis of occupying the lands of others, of usurping the lands of others. Of controlling by force the lands of others, of committing massacres against the Palestinians who were expelled, and these include Muslims and Christians too. So for this reason, justice is justice remains remains on the on the side where even if ten years passes, the the progress of time does not turn justice. Into— does not negate justice. If it's my house— if your house, and I go and occupy it by force, it doesn't become mine in 50 or 100 years just because I'm stronger than you and I've been able to occupy your house. That doesn't give me— that doesn't legalize my ownership of your house. At least this is our ideological view and our legal view. And we believe that Palestine belongs to the Palestinian people. But if we wanted to combine ideology and law, and— political realities and related from the ground, we should say that the only solution is we don't want to kill anyone, we don't want to treat anyone unjustly, we want justice to be restored to the— and the only solution is the establishment of one state, one state on the land of Palestine in which the Muslims and the Jews and the Christians live in peace in a democratic state. Any other solution will simply not be viable, and it won't just be sustained.

Julian Assange: Israel says that Hezbollah has fired rockets into Israel at civilian areas. Is that true?

Speaker 2: Throughout the past years, even since 1948, when the State of Israel was created on the land of Palestine, Israeli forces have been shelling civilians, Lebanese civilians, in Lebanese towns and Lebanese villages. In the resistance years— that's between 1982 until '92— after 10 years of resistance, we started reacting, but purely and only and strictly to stop Israel shelling our civilians. So, in 1993, there was an understanding. It was indirect, between the resistance and Israel. And that understanding was reaffirmed in 1996. And that understanding makes clear that both sides avoid shelling civilians. And we always used to say, if you don't shell our villages and towns, then we have nothing to do with your villages and your towns. So this method, Hezbollah resorted to it after long years of aggression against Lebanese civilians. And its aim is purely to make a kind of deterrent balance to prevent Israel from killing Lebanese civilians.

Julian Assange: According to WikiLeaks cables coming out of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, you said that you were shocked About how corrupt Hezbollah members are, because some Hezbollah members were driving around in SUVs, wearing silk robes, buying takeaway food. Is this a natural consequence? Of Hezbollah moving into electoral politics within Lebanon?

Speaker 2: First, what they said about this phenomenon is not correct. This is part of the rumors that they wanted to use to discredit Hezbollah and distort its image. This is, anyway, part of the media war against us. You know, they talk about us. They say that we operate, you know, mafia organizations and drug trafficking organizations around the world, which, even though in our religion and in our morality this is absolutely one of the biggest bans and it's something we fight against, they say a lot of things that are baseless. And I would want to affirm to you first that this thing is not correct. Secondly, what they said recently, I say it is just a very— it is a limited phenomenon. And the reason for it is that there are some rich families which in the past were not supporting Hezbollah or supporting its its line or its ideology or its program. You know, after 2000, when the resistance in Lebanon and Hezbollah— and Hezbollah is a main component of the resistance— when they managed to liberate South Lebanon, that was seen as a kind of miracle. It created a great shock in Lebanese society, because how could a small group like this just stand for 33 days facing the biggest the most powerful army in the region, without being defeated. So, there are groups in society which started considering themselves pro-Hezbollah or supporters of Hezbollah, and they come from, you know, a wealthy background, that lived— live a life consistent with their financial capabilities. So, you know, it's— you know, they say this phenomenon moved to Hezbollah, but it's not true. I say this really confident and with the information I have available to me. This is not really a phenomenon that is there that needs to be remedied.

Julian Assange: Why have you supported the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, and other countries, but not in Syria?

Speaker 2: نحن لدينا أسباب واضحة. Clear reasons. أولاً في الأساس نحن لا نتدخل. Originally, first. In principle, we don't want to interfere in the affairs of Arab states. This has always been our policy. There have been developments in the Arab world, have been very serious and very important, to an extent that nobody, no movement, no party can just not take a position regarding them. In Syria, everybody knows that Bashar al-Assad's regime has supported the The resistance in Lebanon supported the resistance in Palestine. It has not backed down in the face of Israeli and American pressure. So it is a regime which serves the Palestinian cause very well. What we call for in Syria is negotiation, is dialogue, is reform, and for the reforms to be carried out, because the alternative to that, because of the diversities inside Syria, because of the sensitivity of the situation in Syria, The alternative is to push Syria into civil war, and this is exactly what America and Israel want for Syria.

Julian Assange: Said, over the weekend, over 100 people killed in Homs, including a journalist I had dinner with a year ago, Mary Colvin. I can understand your logic in saying that we should not just destroy a country for no purpose, and it is much better to reform a country if possible. But does Hezbollah have a red line? If there are 100,000 people killed, 1 million people killed, when will Hezbollah say that that is enough?

Speaker 2: From the beginning of the events in Syria, we've had contacts, constant contacts with Syrian leadership. And we've spoken as friends, giving each other advice about the importance of carrying out reforms. Right from the beginning, I personally found that President Assad was very willing to carry out radical and important reforms. And this used to reassure us regarding the positions that we took. At more than one occasion, publicly, I used to give speeches and say this, and say this exactly. And in my meetings with various Lebanese and Arab and other political leaders, I used to tell them the same thing, that I am confident that President Assad wants reform, and he will carry out reforms, realistic, genuine reforms. But the opposition has to agree to dialogue. I'll say more than this. This is the first time I say this. We contacted even elements of the opposition to encourage them and to facilitate the process of dialogue with the regime. But these parties Rejected dialogue. And right from the beginning, we've had a regime that is willing to undergo reforms and prepared for dialogue. On the other side, you have an opposition which is not prepared for dialogue and is not—it's not prepared to accept any of the reforms. All it wants is to bring down the regime. So this is a problem. Another thing: What's happening in Syria has to be—we have to look at it with two eyes, not just with one eye. The armed groups in Syria have killed very many civilians.

Julian Assange: Where do you see the Syrian situation going? What should we do to stop the killing in Syria? You have spoken about dialogue, and dialogue is very easy to talk about, but are there practical measures to stop the bloodshed occurring in Syria? هناك شيء في السؤال السابق أنا.

Speaker 2: In the previous question, there's something I didn't I didn't mention, but I'll add it to this to this answer. There's certainly states that offer money, that provide money, that provide weapons, which are encouraging fighting inside Syria, and some of these are Arab Arab countries, and there are non-Arab countries as well. This is from one side. There's a very serious issue as well, which is confirmed, and we all. Heard Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader, when he called for fighting in Syria, to arms in Syria. So there are fighters from al-Qaeda who have arrived in Syria and others that are following them from various countries. And they are trying to turn Syria into a battleground. So countries that provide weapons and money would be able to get the opposition groups that they're supporting to sit down at the table and resolve things politically. I said this a few days ago, that certain Arab countries are prepared— are prepared to have 10 years, to go into a political dialogue with Israel for tens of years nonstop, despite everything that Israel did in the region, but they won't give 1 year or 2 years for a political— or even just a few months for a political solution with Syria. And this just doesn't make any sense, and it's unfair.

Julian Assange: Would you be willing to mediate between these opposition groups and the Assad regime? People trust that you are not an agent of the United States or Saudi or Israel. But will they trust that you are not an agent of the Assad regime? If they can be convinced, will you accept to broker the peace?

Speaker 2: The experience of 30 years of Hezbollah's life proves that it is a friend of Syria, not an agent of Syria. You know, there have been periods of Lebanon's political life during which this— our relationship with Syria was not good. We had problems between us. There were problems between us. And now those who used to benefit from the political and influence of Syria in Lebanon, they are now the ones who are opposing us, whereas we used to be under pressure from Syria. Look, we are friends. We're not agents. The various segments of the Syrian opposition know that, and all the political forces in the region know that as well. We are friends. That's the first point. Secondly, when I say we support a political solution, then most certainly we'll be willing to exert any effort or any contribution to achieve that sort of political solution. In the past, I said to you that we, we contacted some parties, but they refused to get into a dialogue with the regime. So any, any group that wants dialogue with the regime and would like us to be, to be go-betweens, we'll be more than happy to mediate. But we are asking others to make their efforts to create a political solution?

Julian Assange: I believe that these opposition groups would find Hezbollah's role more credible if you said to the Syrian regime of Assad that we have a red line. Is the Syrian regime free to do what it wants as far as Hezbollah is concerned, or are there some things that Hezbollah will not accept?

Speaker 2: Yes, for sure. I think that President Bashar Assad has red lines and that our brothers in Syria have red lines. And we reaffirm these red lines that we should all abide by. But the problem is that there is fighting going on. And accordingly, when one side retreats, the other one advances. So long as the doors to a political solution are slammed closed, then this is going to continue, because even if one party retreats, the other one will advance.

Julian Assange: Tunisia has declared that it will not recognize the Syrian regime anymore. Why has Tunisia taken this strong move to disconnect itself from Syria? لكن أنا أعتقد.

Speaker 2: I believe that the position that was taken in Tunis or elsewhere was based either on incomplete— I won't say incorrect; I would say incomplete evidence. Of course, there's even mistaken, incorrect information which was presented to Arab and Western governments when it was told— when they were told that the regime is going to fall just within a matter of weeks. So a lot of them wanted to be partners to this. Anticipated victory, I don't conceal also my belief that perhaps the reason for some of these positions taken, because the young new governments have got— face tough tests, and they believe that now is not the time to start getting into arguments with the U.S. and the West and things like that, and it's better to appease them and go along with them in a lot of these issues.

Julian Assange: You have made an international media network. The United States is blocking Al-Manar from broadcasting into the U.S. At the same time, the United States declares that it is a bastion of free speech. Why do you think the U.S. government is so scared of Al-Manar?

Speaker 2: هم يريدون أن يقولوا للناس They want to be able to tell people that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. It kills and it murders. But they won't let people listen to us. For example, if there was a just trial, then at the very least, the defendant should have an opportunity to defend themselves. But the U.S. administration— we are accused, but we don't even have that very basic right to defend ourselves. And to give our argument to the peoples of the world. And so they are preventing this voice from reaching.

Julian Assange: Said, as a leader in war, how did you manage to keep your people together under the face of enemy fire?

Speaker 2: The main thing, as far as we're concerned, is that we had an objective. We specified our objective. This objective is a human and a moral and faith-based and patriotic one. There is no debate about it. This objective is to liberate our land from occupation. This is the original reason, the real reason, why Hezbollah was established in the first place. And there's no dispute about this among Lebanese. We did not want to be— we did not want to get into government. We did not compete for political power. The first time we entered the government, the Lebanese government, was in 2005. And the aim then was not in order to have a share of power, but to protect the— to protect the back of the resistance, so that this government, the government that was set up in 2000, wouldn't make any incorrect mistake against the resistance. We had fears of that kind. And so, when you have an objective, a correct objective, and I make it my priority, and avoid all other rivalries for the sake of this objective, then I can keep everyone close together and cooperating to achieve this objective. And until this moment, we avoid getting involved in internal squabbles as far as we can. You can see there are many, many issues in Lebanon about which there are huge arguments and differences. We avoid sometimes even expressing our view or taking a position. So as not to get involved in quarrels with people. Our priority is still the liberation of our land and the protection of Lebanon from the Israeli threat, because we believe that Lebanon, it still faces a threat.

Julian Assange: I want to go back to when you were a boy. You were the son of a greengrocer. What was your first memory as a boy in this home in Lebanon? And did these early memories Affect your political thought?

Speaker 2: Naturally, when I was a child, when I was a little child, I was born and lived and lived for 15 years since I was born in a neighborhood in East Beirut. That neighborhood had certain characteristics. And naturally, the environment leaves leaves an effect on one's personality. One of the characteristics of this neighborhood is that it was a poor area. It used to have Muslims Shia, and there was Sunni Muslims. There was Christians. There were Armenians. There were Kurds. And also, there were Lebanese and Palestinians, as well, both. So I was born and lived in this very mixed and varied environment. So naturally, this made me sort of alert and concerned about Palestine and the injustice which the Palestinian people had been subjected to. So I had a very early awareness of that, because the Palestinians who were in our neighborhood, they were all expelled from their towns, from Haifa, From Accra, from Jerusalem, from Ramallah. These this was the environment that I was born in and brought up in.

Julian Assange: I read a rather amusing joke of yours about Israeli encryption and decryption. This is interesting to me because I am an expert in encryption. لأنني خبير في عملية التشفير. And WikiLeaks is under extensive surveillance. Do you remember this joke?

Speaker 2: Yes, I was speaking about about how simplicity can defeat complexity. For example, the Israeli forces in Lebanon—they use very sophisticated technology, either in their weapons or in their communications. المقاومة في The resistance, on the other hand, is a popular resistance. And most of the young men in it are just ordinary village boys, and they come from farms and small towns. And they come from an agricultural community. And they speak on ordinary walkie-talkies. There's no complication about it. They're very simple devices. But when they use code, they simply use the kind of language that— the kind of slang that's used in their villages and among their families. So anyone listening, anyone listening sort of behind the surveillance devices and having computers trying to decode these— this kind of language, they will never be— they won't easily be able to find out what this means, unless they've lived for years Among these villages. So, for example, they use certain words, just the village kind of terms, you know, the cooking pot, the donkey, the— even village sayings. Yeah, sort of, you know, the father of the chicken or something like this, you know. No Israeli intelligence agent or computer Analyst is going to understand who the father of the chicken is and why they call him the father of the chicken. But that's not going to do you any good in WikiLeaks, by the way, using Lebanese dialect.

Julian Assange: I just make one very provocative question, but it is not political.

Speaker 2: ولكن هو ليس سؤالاً سياسياً.

Julian Assange: You have fought against a hegemony of the United. States, isn't Allah, or the notion of a god, the ultimate superpower? And shouldn't you, as a freedom fighter, also seek to liberate people from the totalitarian concept of a monotheistic god?

Speaker 2: We believe that God Almighty is the creator of this existence and of human beings and of all creatures. When he created us, he gave us capabilities. He gave us these bodies. He gave us psychological and spiritual capabilities. We call it instincts. People in isolation, just in isolation from religious laws, Just they have an instinct, but they have an instinct to tell the truth. They have an instinct. Their instinct tells them that truth is good, that lying is bad, that justice is good, that injustice is bad, that helping poor people and unjustly treated people and defending them is a good thing, but attacking others and shedding their blood— this is Horrible. مسألة مقاومة السيطرة الأمريكية أو غيرها. The issue of resisting American hegemony, or resisting occupation, or resisting any attack against us or against our people. This is a moral issue and an instinctive one, and a human one. Now God also wanted it like this. So in this sense. Moral and human principles are consistent with the law of the heavens, because the Abrahamic religions did not come up with anything that contradicts the mind or condemns the human instinct, because the creator of the religion is the same as the creator of the humans, and the 2 things are totally consistent. Whenever, in any country, even if in a house or in a country, if there are 2 leaders, that's a recipe for ruin. So how could the universe last for billions of years in such beautiful harmony and have more than one God? If there was more than one God, it would have been torn to pieces. So we do have the evidence. We don't fight to impose a religious belief on anything. The Abraham— the Prophet Abraham was always in favor of dialogue and showing evidence, and we are all followers of that prophet.

Julian Assange: Thank you, Sayyid Hassan.