Sayyed Fadlullah:Any violent phenomenon in the East is a result of the educational or social backward mentality which Islam is not responsible for. Moreover, it does not accept the backward phenomenon of violence against women, or repressing freedoms and human rights.

Asked in his weekly seminar the following question:How do you view the spread of violence in the World in general and in the Middle East in particular?

The Religious Authority Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah said:

It is obvious that violence is a general human state that is usually provoked by the various economic, social, political and even cultural pressures that an individual or a group are subjected to. It could be also a reaction to another violence or a result of a cultural mentality, following the distortion of basic cultural principles of religion, which do not approve of violence, except in self-defense.

Although the region has witnessed waves of violence in the previous centuries, violence as a renewed and rooted phenomenon was the result of the birth of the Jewish entity and the pressures on the Arabs and Muslims to secure a favorite atmosphere to facilitate this birth. Several international axes sought to nourish violence in the Arab countries that are close to occupied Palestine to ensure the settling down of the Zionist entity, until it became an established reality that the Arabs and Muslims can not change.

Therefore, we believe that the Arab and Muslim region was a victim of the Jewish violence that was nourished and aided in the beginning by the political and military British support, as well as a victim of the West in general which encouraged and promoted fragmentation trends, and which staged coups and dictatorships with all the terror they practiced.

In addition, there are the ideas that came from both the West and the East which called for change through bloody violence, and influenced certain radical groups in the region.

Islam does not, in any way, call for this kind of mad violence that kills individuals or targets groups. Any violent phenomenon in the East is a result of the educational or social backward mentality which Islam is not responsible for. It does not accept the backward phenomenon of violence against women, or repressing freedoms and human rights.

We believe that the American Administration is responsible for all violence that is spreading in the world, and especially in the Arab and Muslim region, through its direct involvement in acts of violence in Iraq and Afghanistan and its support of all massacres committed by the Zionists in Palestine. These massacres have led to a counter violence that is still growing and will certainly expand to new areas, for what is going on is no less than crushing the dignity and values of the nation. Such acts of continuous killing could not bring about a feeling of peace of peace or tolerance.

Therefore, America has to admit that it was wrong when it waged a war on terror in this way. It has to admit that its actions generated these successive waves of violence.

It is not enough for the American officials to talk about the need to eliminate the culture of violence. Violence was the result of many other political, economic and military causes that were created by the US itself due to its policy of support to Israel that led the Palestinians to a state of despair, as well as following its agenda of occupying the region to secure its hegemony over its (the region’s) vast oil resources.

Nevertheless, we vehemently denounce all uncalled for an illegitimate violence actions that target Muslims and non-Muslims, like the one that was staged lately in al-Khobar. We do not know what kind of a mentality that makes these people target non-Muslim foreigners whom the countries of the region may need their expertise. We also cannot imagine how could these people claim that their kidnapping and killing of innocent people is based on Islam which respects not only the right of man to live but also his right of having a different opinion. We find this mentality not that different of Bush's mentality who staged a "crusade". And although he then said that he did not mean it, he went on in waging it.

The world needs a great political movement to reform the means of political action that were distorted by the American culture of aggression. It needs a cultural revolution against the culture of killing, terror and intimidation practiced by America and Israel and the forces that claim to confront them but use their methods.

We claim that Islam is the force that is qualified to lead this movement, which could attract all these who care about human life in the world.