Hezbollah's Nasrallah warns US over anti-Islam film

In rare public appearance, Nasrallah addresses tens of thousands protesting in Beirut; hundreds protest film in Ramallah.

By REUTERS, JPOST.COM STAFF
Nasarallah adresses crowd in Beirut (photo credit: REUTERS)
Nasarallah adresses crowd in Beirut
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah made a rare public appearance on Monday to warn the United States that it faced further anger and repercussions across the Muslim world unless it suppressed a video that mocks the Prophet Mohammad.
"The world should know our anger will not be a passing outburst but the start of a serious movement that will continue on the level of the Muslim nation to defend the Prophet of God," Nasrallah told tens of thousands of marchers in Beirut's southern suburbs.
"The world needs to understand our links to God's prophet ... It did not understand the level of the insult that God's prophet was subjected to through some of the clips of this insulting film," he said, to roars of applause and cheers from the crowd.
Nasrallah called on governments across the world to censor websites carrying clips from the amateurish film, produced in California, and urged Muslims to boycott those sites.
"America, which uses the pretext of freedom of expression ... needs to understand that putting out the whole film will have very grave consequences around the world," he added.
Nasrallah has lived in hiding to avoid assassination since Hezbollah fought a month-long war with Israel in 2006.
Thousands of Lebanese protesters chanting "Death to America, Death to Israel" marched through Beirut's Shi'ite southern suburbs in protest against the film.
"America, hear us - don't insult our Prophet," chanted the marchers at the demonstration, called for by Nasrallah.
The peaceful protest, which came after a weekend of violent demonstrations across Arab capitals in which several US embassies were attacked, stayed well away from US mission on the city's northeastern outskirts.
On Friday, one person was killed in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli in protests against the film which depicts the prophet as a womanizer and homosexual.
Hundreds of Palestinians staged a sit-in demonstration in Ramallah on Monday, in protest of the the anti-Islam film, AFP reported.
The protest in Ramallah, organized by the Palestinian Authority's Waqf (religious endowment), followed similar protests held by Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in Gaza over the weekend.
Protesters held signs with slogans reading, "We are against those who oppose you Mohammed" and "Do not touch our Prophet."
PA Waqf Minister Mahmoud Habbash spoke at Monday's protest calling on the US to apologize for the film and remove it from the Internet.