Sayyed Fadlullah: America and Israel are the only source of violence and anarchy in the region

Asked in his weekly seminar the following question: How do you see the current state of the Arab and Muslim world in view of what could be described as a race between the American war on it and the internal war that has taken the form of bombs targeting civilian complexes?

The Religious Authority Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah said:

Violence is usually fueled by two major sources: The first is the state of oppression and pressure exerted by the arrogant which generates radical reactions… The second is the cultural environment which is also affected by the pressurizing political climate, and which makes certain parties impatient and resort to violence as the fastest way to bring out change.

The problem is that the Arab and Muslim peoples are the most targeted in the war the arrogant powers are waging. Furthermore, it is a vicious war that targets their wealth , their future, and even their identity as Muslims… The intensity and the manner by which the American war has been conducted after September 11, have led many to think that it will not stop until Israel feels that it is no longer threatened and until the Arab and Muslim peoples surrender to the American imperialism which is now acting as a colonial force.

We believe that there are those in the American Administration who seek to present Islam as a strategic enemy to the Western civilization, so as they could target the Arab and Muslim countries one after the other and launch a media and propaganda campaign that targets Islamic concepts and values, even though it might claim to seek democratic change, because we still believe that America does not accept any change in the region that does not promote its interests.

Thus, the Americans have tried to inflate the size of those whom they accuse of being terrorists.

Moreover, the way the war was waged on the region from Afghanistan to Iraq has played a great part in enlarging the sphere of the security chaos, and in the spreading out of the groups that America accuses of being terrorist... They even began to gain a popular sympathy as a reaction of the American support to Israel.

We believe that America and those who are behind it (Israel and the Jewish Lobby) are the sole responsible for the escalation of violence in the region.

The mentality of parading and canceling the other that controls the American Administration might not be un-similar to the mentality that governs the way America is being confronted by some in the region. They both believe that “you are either with us or with the enemy”.

That is why we find that those who pay the price in this blind and mad war are the innocent who are said to fall as a result of the nature of the war itself which kills both the innocent and the fighters.

We would like to assert that Islam is not responsible of the state of political and security anarchy that prevails in the region and in many other parts of the world. It is the American Administration that is responsible.

It has to rethink the whole situation and try to understand why the peoples of the region hate the US. This comprehensive review should be followed by a radical change in the American foreign policy… On the other hand, we emphasize that Islam does not justify the suicidal operations that target the innocent, whether Muslims or non -Muslims. Islam respects human life and does not accept any military action that does not fall within a general plan of confrontation. Those operations, as they are practiced now are one of the methods of the enemy resorts to in his war on Islam, for they give him what he needs to distort its image and falsify its concepts.