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Last update - 18:16 10/06/2009
Former Hezbollah cleric praises Obama for reaching out to Muslims
By The Associated Press
Tags: Israel News, Hezbollah 

"President Barack Obama's speech reaching out to Muslims had strong points," Lebanon's most influential Shiite cleric told former President Jimmy Carter, "but people are waiting for real results."

Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah's comments came during a meeting Tuesday night at his office with Carter who was in Lebanon to monitor last weekend's parliamentary elections.

Fadlallah, who was widely believed to have been the spiritual leader of the militant Hezbollah group in the 1980s, is a harsh critic of U.S. policies in the Middle East which many Arabs believe are biased toward Israel.
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Though he has since distanced himself from the militant group, he has followers worldwide among Shiites, including in Iraq.

Obama promised to work aggressively to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and called for a halt to Israeli settlement construction on lands claimed by the Palestinians and the need for a Palestinian state.

Fadlallah also criticized U.S. allies in the region for being undemocratic.

"The friends of the United States in the Arab world don't have elections or democracy but regimes that are run by intelligence agencies and emergency laws," a statement released by Fadlallah's office said in an apparent reference to U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.

During a visit to Lebanon in December, Carter said he would have been delighted to meet with Hezbollah official and regretted the militant group's leaders refusal to meet with current or former American presidents.

Fadlallah has escaped several assassination attempts, including a car bomb on March 8, 1985, near his apparent south of Beirut in which 80 people were killed.

Carter later arrived in neighboring Syria where he is expected to meet with leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas Khaled Mashaal. Carter met Mashaal twice last year.

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