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Al-Monitor — A popular central Tehran park was prepared for loyalists of the Islamic Republic to watch a live broadcast of the speech on Friday by Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.
The giant screen was one of many media and public relations gestures in anticipation of the “game-changing” speech. Iran’s state television had predicted that Nasrallah’s remarks would upend Israel’s military plans to destroy the Hamas movement in Gaza, and would decide the future of the Middle East.
Many hardline outlets even focused on the speculation that the Lebanese cleric might openly declare war on Israel. The state-run Tasnim news agency reported on the Israeli army going into a state of high alert, while Nour News said the speech would be “the storm after the lull,” referring to the Shiite leader breaking his three-week silence on the war.
But as it turned out, while maintaining his anti-Israeli tone, Nasrallah exercised caution, distancing his organization from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks inside Israeli territory. It was a “100% Palestinian” job, he declared. The statement echoed the line put out earlier by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the triumph for Gaza and the “resistance.”
Avoiding wider war
From the onset of the war, Iranian diplomats and commanders have been warning against and pushing back on a wider war, urging the United States to restrain Israel’s attacks on the besieged coastal enclave. The same was repeated by Nasrallah, as he called on Washington to stop “the aggression” upon Gaza.
Laying out no commitment for his militias, he hinged any next Hezbollah move upon the trajectory of the war, again following Tehran’s policy of avoiding direct engagement.
Founded only a few years after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and mainly under instructions from the country’s Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah has grown over the years into an influential regional entity with cash and arms funneled from Tehran.
The Islamic Republic has nurtured several other similar groups across the Middle East to push its anti-Western and anti-Israel agenda. Yet among them Hezbollah has been favorite, receiving the lion’s share of political and financial support.
Amid the sensitive, fast-paced nature of the ongoing Gaza war and the possibility of US involvement, both Iran and Hezbollah seem to be attempting to publicly deny the level of their closeness, as neither appears willing to risk the survival of the other Shiite players.
