One Christian MP, Nabil Nkoula, seemed to speak for many Lebanese following the invasion:
"Hizbullah Secretary General Nasrallah has every right to ask the Lebanese not to deal with the international investigators and tribunal. He stressed that the action taken by the international tribunal is a violation of the Lebanese and international even humanitarian laws. All over the world and including Lebanon there are special laws pertaining to the patients and this law is called secret medical records and they are considered sacred just like a confession in a church. The doctor has no right to reveal any information on any patient even in court without prior approval from the patient. This kind of behavior will push a person not to cooperate with such types of tribunal that are not aimed at reaching the truth but rather silence the Lebanese."
Hezbollah has been largely silent the past few years as STL investigators have rummaged across Lebanon and even made available Party members for questioning. This cooperative phase is now over as Hezbollah realizes that its destruction, not justice, is the goal behind what it perceives as the latest US-Israel project to aggress on Lebanon.
Many in Lebanon and abroad suspect that "evidence" gathered by the STL is BCC'd to Feltman's Unit in Washington and to Tel Aviv. Their faltering confidence in the STL is not stemmed by statements made by the likes of Israeli Military Intelligence Major-General Amos Yadlin to the effect that in the past four and a half years, a large number of Mossad cells were reformulated, and Telecoms networks penetrated. "Thanks to Hariri's killing, Israel was able to launch more than one project in Lebanon," he said.
The suspicion is that against the backdrop of so many Mossad networks being
dismantled recently, Israeli intelligence has been able to gather information
through the UN created STL even while Bellemare's office are reportedly unwilling to even consider
Israel's involvement knowing well that Israel is the sole beneficiary of
the assassination.
At best this invasion of Dahiyeh was poorly conceived, clumsily executed and had led to more accusations concerning the STL's politicization. It also lends weight to the growing body of public opinion in Lebanon and internationally that the STL indictments, reportedly already drawn up, are not to be credited.
Israeli Army Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkinazi has said that the
STL indictment will implicate Hezbollah in the Hariri assassination.
His remarks had also popped up in the German Der Spiegel magazine as well as
France's Le Figaro and Kuwait's Assiyassa newspapers. Even the French
Ambassador to Lebanon Denis Pietton's slip that "it's not the end of the world
if members of Hezbollah, not the party, were accused" was solid evidence that
the STL indictment has been already set down in writing.
If the indictments have already been drawn up why the ongoing search for evidence presumably designed to lead to one?
It is also the recent backdrop to the bizarre events of 10/17/10 in Dr.
Charara's clinic that should also be born in mind. US Officials have
increasingly been repeating their manta: "We Are All the Way with the STL Even if This Leads to Lebanon's
Instability."
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