The chief of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah party in Lebanon said Wednesday that negotiating with Israel was "crazy and futile" and that resistance to the Jewish state was the "appropriate, realistic, logical, and productive" choice to achieve goals, DPA reported.
"Negotiations (with Israel) are the crazy and futile option that don't achieve any results," Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah told his followers during a rally to mark the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000.
"The resistance against Israel restored our land and dignity without any conditions and restrictions," Nasrallah said.
In 2000, Israel ended 18 years of occupation of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah usually marks the occasion with huge "Liberation Day" rallies.
In referring to US President Barack Obama's speech on the Middle East last week, the Hezbollah chief said it was a "blow to the Arab peace initiative (of 2002). I call on the Arab League to take that initiative off the table... it's time to withdraw it."
The 2002 Arab peace initiative was introduced at the Beirut Arab summit in the same year by the then-Crown Prince, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and re-endorsed at the Arab Riyadh Summit in 2007.
The initiative attempts to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, normalize relations between the entire Arab region and Israel, in exchange for a complete withdrawal from the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, and a "just settlement" of the Palestinian refugee crisis.
Nasrallah said "we have no fear of Obama or (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, We do not fear their threats...or accusations...or their warships."
"We have more than 12,000 rockets. These rockets will stay and no one will dismantle them," he said. "These are our pride and dignity."
Nasrallah also denied charges by Obama that the group was behind political assassination and said the remarks proved that a UN international court investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri "was politicized."
He said Obama's remarks to an AIPAC conference on May 22 that Hezbollah was behind political assassinations and car bomb attacks "were aimed at pleasing Israel...These accusations are baseless."
The UN tribunal is expected to accuse some Hezbollah members of being involved in the Hariri assassination, a charge the group has vehemently denied.
The Hezbollah leader also slammed the American policy of "pressure and sanctions" against Syria, linking the measures to Syria's decision to carry out its own reforms independent of US demands.