Syria would back Lebanon if Israel attacks

Syrian President, Lebanese parliament speaker discuss impact of 'Israeli extremism' on region.

DAMASCUS - Syria will support Lebanon in the event of any attack from Israel, President Bashar al-Assad told the speaker of Beirut's parliament on Sunday, the official SANA news agency reported.

"Syria will stand alongside the government and people of Lebanon against any possible Israeli aggression launched on Lebanon," the agency quoted Assad as saying to Nabih Berri in Damascus.

Assad and Berri discussed "repeated Israeli threats on countries in the region and Israeli extremism which can kill chances for peace and bring war to the region," SANA said.

Israeli officials have threatened to attack Lebanon's Hezbollah opposition movement.

Syria and Israel have also been locked in a bitter war of words for several days.

Foreign Minister Walid Muallem warned on Wednesday that war against his country would become a wider conflict. "Israelis, do not test the power of Syria since you know the war will move into your cities," he said.

His Israeli counterpart extremist Avigdor Lieberman retorted on Thursday that any war would cost Assad his grip on power. "When there is another war, you will not just lose it, but you and your family will lose power," Lieberman said.

Hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to ease tensions on Sunday, saying that Israel wants peace with all of its neighbors.

"We made peace with Egypt and Jordan and we seek peace with Syria and the Palestinians," he said.

On Tuesday Netanyahu had accused Beirut of allowing Hezbollah to smuggle weapons into Lebanon in "blatant violation of (United Nations Security Council) Resolution 1701" which led to an end to the 34-day conflict.

Israel waged a bloody 34-day war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 after Hezbollah fighters seized two Israeli soldiers in a deadly cross-border raid that aimed to free Lebanese soldiers from Israeli prisons. The bodies of the soldiers were returned in a prisoner swap.

The war claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.

Hezbollah, originally a resistance group formed to counter an Israeli occupation of south Lebanon, had forced the Israeli military out of Lebanon in 2000. Israel, however, continues to occupy the Lebanese Shabaa Farms.

Israeli flights over Lebanon occur on an almost daily basis and are in breach of UN Security Council resolution 1710, which in August 2006 ended the war.

Israel also currently occupies the Syrian Golan Heights.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37081.