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Following are excerpts from an interview with former Hizbullah secretary-general Subhi Al-Tufeili, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on May 4, 2006.
Interviewer: How would you characterize your relationship with the current Hizbullah leadership, and especially with Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah?
Subhi Al-Tufeili: We have no relations. Since 1997, we have had no relations.
Interviewer: Why? What is the main disagreement?
Subhi Al-Tufeili: When I called upon them to defend our people, they refused and said: "Go. We will oppose you."
Interviewer: What was the reason?
Subhi Al-Tufeili: They are committed to the Iranian policy.
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I have said before that the Shiites in Lebanon serve as Iran's "playing ground" in the following sense: The resistance has been dragged into things that are not resistance. Today, we have no resistance, I'm sad to say.
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We are a resistance organization. We have an enemy which has occupied our Jerusalem and our land. It has spilled our blood for more than half a century.
Interviewer: So you are Arab resistance, not Lebanese...
Subhi Al-Tufeili: We are Islamic resistance - an Arab resistance and even broader than that. This is what our religion has instructed us, and this was where we began. When we established the resistance, this was our point of departure. The motto of the resistance was the liberation of Jerusalem. That's how we started.
This kind of resistance must continue. Today it is not resistance, but merely a border police. This is painful not only for me, but to our youth as well. I know them well, because I raised them myself. They are good people, pure people, who love defense, martyrdom-seeking, and Jihad. It pains them that they are stopped at the border.
This is a tragedy. The weapons of the resistance have been transformed from weapons used to strike fear in the hearts of the enemy into weapons we use to strike fear in the hearts of one another.
The resistance used to constitute glory, power, and honor for all Lebanese. Today, because it stands at the border this way, it has turned into an internal problem. Today we have the internal problem of the weapons of the resistance. What are we going to do with these weapons? One says keep them, another says disarm, a third says incorporate them in the army, and so on. The country is on the brink of civil war because of this conflict.
Interviewer: What do you, Sheik Subhi Al-Tufeili, say about this internal problem of the weapons of the resistance?
Subhi Al-Tufeili: The reason for this problem is that the resistance has given up its role.
Interviewer: So if they had carried out operations within the Israeli, or Palestinian, borders, the internal problem of the weapons of the resistance would not have existed?
Subhi Al-Tufeili: With your permission, I'd like to ask a question instead. Is there anybody in Lebanon, or even outside Lebanon - in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, anywhere - who would say no to the liberation of Palestine?
Interviewer: No one is saying no to the liberation of Palestine, but it depends on the methods. The Palestinian people have decided to sign a peace treaty, Sheik.
Subhi Al-Tufeili: Let us not get into the small details. I know that if we were to conduct a survey in Lebanon, or anywhere else in the Islamic world, I believe that most of the people - and I don't want to say all of them... The vast majority of the people would be willing to pay the price, with their children, with their own lives, and with the destruction of their country, for the liberation of Jerusalem. The issue of Jerusalem for us...
Interviewer: You are very optimistic, Sheik. People would pay for the liberations of Jerusalem with their children, while the Palestinians have signed a peace treaty with the Israelis?
Subhi Al-Tufeili: Okay, okay. We need to put things in the proper context. The deceit, lies, threats, deception, and all the despicable methods that were used in order to force the Palestinians to agree to the plundering of their land - the recent elections have proven that all this is gone.
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Hizbullah definitely fosters its relations with the Syrians, but its real leadership is "the rule of the jurisprudent" - in other words, Khamenei.
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The Iranians wanted to get rid of Saddam by bringing the Americans into Iraq. This is a very grave responsibility that they bear.
Interviewer: Do you contend that they foster the American plan?
Subhi Al-Tufeili:They wanted this, and they sent Iraqis to America in order to reassure the Americans that they should come to Iraq.
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Interviewer: Do you support [Iranian] nuclear weapons today?
Subhi Al-Tufeili: I'm in favor, I support, and I am willing to make sacrifices so that all the Islamic countries and peoples will develop scientifically in terms of nuclear and other technologies. We cannot remain at the bottom of the ladder of humanity. The justifications that many people use are invalid, in my opinion.
I defend the nuclear development of Saudi Arabia with the same passion and fervor with which I defend the development of Iran, Turkey, or Pakistan, in the hope that the rulers will go, and this technology, science, knowledge and capabilities will remain in the hands of the peoples, which will survive. We cannot continue to be left as prey for those who want to devour us.
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