Hizbullah leader says Arabs afraid of 'oil weapon' WASHINGTON (October 21) : The leader of the Iranian-backed group Hizbullah said on Thursday that Arab leaders would like to support the Palestinians in their clashes with Israel but are afraid of using their "oil weapon."

"One of the most important weapons in the hands of the Arabs is the oil weapon," Sheikhh Hassan Nasrallah said on ABC's 'Nightline' programme in a taped satellite interview from Lebanon, where his group is based. "But the Arab leaders have not even dared to think of using such a weapon."

Nasrallah said Arab oil producers should halt oil exports until the United Nations condemns Israel's "massacres" in more than three weeks of violence that has left at least 108 people, mostly Palestinians, dead in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. "The (Arab) rulers who have this option don't have the will, or the option to do this," said Nasrallah told "Nightline" interviewer Ted Koppel through an interpreter. "They are afraid of you."

Hizbullah, considered a terrorist group by Israel and the United States, has said it wants Israel to free 19 Lebanese prisoners in return for information on three Israeli soldiers the group is holding. "The goal is the release of Lebanese detainees in Israeli prisons," said Nasrallah. "And we are ready to conduct a full exchange in this regard." Hizbullah, which led the guerrilla campaign that helped end Israel's 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in May, also claims to have seized an Israeli colonel.

Nasrallah said his Shia Muslim group had nothing to do with last week's apparent suicide bombing of the US destroyer USS Cole in Yemen's Aden port that killed 17 American sailors. He also said he had no information on who was behind the attack. Nasrallah questioned Yasser Arafat's leadership of the Palestinian people, although he said he represents "an important portion" of the population. Asked whether Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation was still the sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, Nasrallah said, "I don't believe so."

"In matters as important as this, no one party can claim to represent the Palestinian people," he said. "It would be better to get an idea of the opinion of those people through a referendum."-Reuters

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), October 20, 2000