Asked in his weekly seminar about the American preparations and the international atmosphere that suggest that an American aggression against Iraq is in the making. The Religious Authority H.E. Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah said: It goes without saying that the Palestinian struggle represents the major challenge to America, in addition to its being a very big impasse to the Israelis.

So far all the American and Israeli attempts to subject the Palestinians have failed including the talk about changing or overthrowing the Palestinian leadership.

All these pressures aim at ending the Intifada, and it seems that this goal has given an utmost American priority. It is linked to the American vision of the region’s future, and the project it has prepared for it since it decided to attack Afghanistan, and then started to talk about the “axis of evil” that has to be defeated.

That is why we believe that the American administration has given Sharon a free hand to speed up his war against the Palestinians, thus allowing America to go on to the next step of attacking Iraq and strengthening its hegemony over the whole oil-rich region resorting to direct control this time.

This situation has grown more dangerous as the international powers, which will be also strategically affected by the American project, have resorted to bend with the storm, which made their impact rather marginal. Moreover, the popular Arab and Islamic movements no longer take to the streets. Consequently, America and Israel may be tempted to target new fronts, in addition to Palestine and the neighboring countries.

We call upon the parties that consider themselves influential among the masses, and on the intellectual elites as well, not to wait for the next American step that would be carried out after Sharon completed his new aggression against the Palestinians, or it might not even wait for it to end… We call upon them to start right now a new popular movement that revitalizes the Arab and Muslim streets, so that we can put an end to all this indifference towards our causes and our fates, and bring back life into the spirit of Arab and Muslim Intifada before it is too late.