The United States must accept the Lebanese government's demands over border disputes with Israel, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday, vowing his Iran-backed Shiite terrorist organization was ready to act against Israel if necessary.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Lebanon on Thursday and said the United States was engaging with Lebanon and Israel to ensure their frontier remained calm.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Friday told acting Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield that Lebanon rejects current U.S. proposals over the maritime border with Israel as "unacceptable."
This was an apparent reference to a maritime demarcation line proposed by U.S. diplomat Frederic Hof in 2011. The line would give Lebanon around two-thirds and Israel around one-third of a disputed triangular area of sea of around 860 square kilometers (330 square miles).
Berri, whose position is the second-most powerful in government, insisted during his meeting with Satterfield that the maritime border should be drawn up through a committee that stemmed from a 1996 cease-fire, the state-run National News Agency said.
He said he wanted to see a similar process as produced the U.N.-demarcated Blue Line border, which marks Israel's military withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
Lebanon has hoped to explore for energy in its waters since other countries started finding gas in the area in 2009, but its plans were put on hold by political paralysis in Beirut.
It restarted a stalled tender process for five of its 10 offshore blocks, including three along the disputed border with Israel, last year after a political deal that led to the formation of a new government.
Lebanon has one of the world's highest debt-to-GDP ratios in the world and its economic growth is very weak.
One of the blocks signed last week, Block 9, lies partly in waters disputed by Israel. Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz described the decision to explore there as "very provocative."
Lebanon's energy minister has said the dispute with Israel would not stop Lebanon benefiting from potential undersea reserves in Block 9.
Consortium operator Total said it would not drill the block's first well near the disputed zone.
According to Nasrallah, "The state must have a strong and firm position."
"If the Americans come and say you must be responsive so that I restrain Israel from you: tell the Americans they must accept [Lebanon's] demands so that we hold Hezbollah back from Israel," he said in a televised speech at a rally.
Nasrallah said the main issue currently at stake was Lebanon's maritime borders.
"In the oil and gas battle, the only power [the Lebanese] have is the resistance," he said in a reference to his heavily armed organization.
The Lebanese army could not stop Israel in this matter, he said, because the United States – Israel's key strategic ally and also a key supporter of Lebanon's military – would stand in its way.
"If Lebanon's Higher Defense Council were to decide that [Israeli] offshore oil and gas plants … should be forbidden from working, I promise they would stop working within hours," he said.
Nasrallah also said that the downing of an Israeli jet last week was a "very big military achievement."
