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Nasrallah: Obama deceived Muslim world, loves Israel

By Eric Fingerhut · November 13, 2009

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The leader of Hezbollah says President Obama's promise to engage with the Muslim world was a "deception" and that the U.S. president has demonstrated commitment to Israel.

In a Beirut speech, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah, said that the world had hoped that the election of a new U.S. president "would mark a major turnaround in favor of the Arab world, but this notion quickly dissipated," Israeli media outlets reported. Instead, said Nasrallah, "the result was a complete American commitment to Israel's interests and security." He cited joint U.S.-Israeli military exercises that the Israelis said were to deal with rocket attacks from Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

"For the first time since the inception of the Zionist entity, the U.S. is prepared to actively participate in any conflict" that Israel "will force on Lebanon, Gaza, Syria or Iran," said the Hezbollah leader. "We did not see this during the Bush administration."

Nasrallah also said that the U.S. demand that Israel halt settlement construction was "no more than an American ploy to earn the Arabs' support," and that the U.S. call for the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table with no preconditions had exposed Obama's "deception" sooner than expected.

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