Sayyed Fadlullah:We say to our generations: You have to retrieve the cultural Islamic elements relating to the Palestinian cause, in addition to the national ones. Palestine could never become a marginal political or security issue, regardless of what happens in other areas of the region. Palestine is the core issue both politically and humanistically. We have to keep it as such, for our existence today and in the future depends on wining it.

Asked in his weekly seminar the following question: In the midst of the struggle in the region, America and Israel are bringing up yet against the claim that Jews have an historic right in Israel. Such a claim is being promoted and spread by the Western media and political circles.

In all this, where is the Palestinian cause?

The Religious Authority, Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah, said:

Western media known for its links with international Zionism is spreading the myth about the Jewish right in occupied Palestine, claiming that it was theirs three thousand years ago, and that they are only going back to their grandfather's homeland.

Some are even trying to say that this right is religious based on the claim that Prophet Musa (Moses) has brought them to this land… But we know from the Holy Quran that Allah talked about this land as a refuge to them and not a historic right as such. 

A part of the problem lies in that the supposedly secular West accepts this logic without asking about the civilized, historic or even legal basis for this myth, and even despite all the sufferings of the Palestinians.

The West knows that the Arabs were in Palestine before the Jews and that there were other peoples in Palestine before the Jews arrived. Then, they were aided by the arrogant powers, especially Britain, that kicked the Palestinians out. If they are trying to suggest that Palestine was not a state, this in itself does not give the Jews the right to occupy it. Palestine was a nation full with life and vigor. And it is the British mandate that paved the way for the Jews to come from all parts of the world and confiscate the Palestinian land.

We ask the West, especially those who adopt this logic: How could those who do not know Palestine have the right to live in it and control it, while the Palestinians do not have the right to return to Palestine, being a “disputed” land?

What human right gives the Jews the right to usurp Palestine to the detriment of the Palestinian people who have been living there for hundreds of years?

To accept the Jewish and Israeli logic on the basis that their grandfather had lived to Palestine thousands of years ago, leads the entire world order to destabilize.

All nations of the world exchange their places as a result of several circumstances. Does that mean that they should all demand the lands they once lived in? It is a myth that is intended to dominate the minds of even those who fly the flag of international law at every political or security development.

We also notice that there are those in the Arab and Muslim world who say: keep the religion away from the Palestinian cause, although the Jews did not leave any mythical or religious element, that they did not utilize, and although Israel's establishment and sustenance were founded on religious false allegations. But on our part, we want religion to show the depth of the Palestinian cause and not to be an element that incites fanaticism.

Our struggle with the Jews in Palestine is no longer only political. It is also cultural and legal, since those who provide support (the American religious right and the neocons) for Israel in the world are making Israeli occupation a Holy religions issue.

We also have to know that the massacres Sharon is committing in Palestine are a part of the culture of killing the Jews inherit generation after generation.

And that the Americans are fully ready to accept this culture, even if it leads to the eradication of all the Palestinian people, and even if it means disregarding all UN resolutions that endorse the Palestinian right of return, since the Americans, as Bush said, deal with the facts on the ground.

Moreover, the Palestinian blood that is flowing like rivers is also a part of the American delegation for Sharon to continue his massacres so as to create these facts.

We say to our generations: You have to retrieve the cultural Islamic elements relating to the Palestinian cause, in addition to the national ones. Palestine could never become a marginal political or security issue, regardless of what happens in other areas of the region.

Palestine is the core issue both politically and humanistically. We have to keep it as such, for our existence today and in the future depends on wining it.