Sayyed Fadlullah: Using the stick against Arab and Muslim peoples to promote US and Israeli interests as a means of boosting George Bush's chances of reelection will produce several other sticks that would threaten the American interests whether as a means of retaliation or in self-defense.

Asked in his weekly seminar: Do you find in the campaign against Islam by the US congress delegation any new stands?

The Religious Authority, Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah, said:

It is interesting to note that the culture of the members of the American Congress in general and the Republicans in particular is an exclusionist one especially towards anything that has to do with Islam or with Arab or Islamic issues. It is a culture of prejudice against all Arabs and Muslims based on certain false concepts that were drawn in advance by the Zionist Lobby and the neoconservatives. The Democrats too are not that different, since the Zionist influence has affected both parties.

Furthermore, fighting Islam in the entire world might be one of the strategic goals of the American-Israeli plan… And the Islamic World has come to understand that the so-called "War on terror" is actually a war against Islam as a whole.

To prove this, it is enough to review some of the American statements and stances. There are those who consider the Messenger (p.) as the biggest terrorist and those who consider Islamic comities as a favorable environment for anti-American positions. Then, there is the statement made by the head of the American Congress delegation that proved that president Bush talk about a crusade war against Arabs and Muslims was not a slip of the tongue, but a part of the plans drawn by the strategic centers that are supervised by the Zionists and that aim to occupy the Islamic world as a whole and not only Jerusalem.

What happened in Iraq and Afghanistan was also a first phase of this plan that is supposed to be continued by the coming administrations…

There is a terrorist mentality that controls the White House and many of the members of the Congress, since they refuse to define the concept of terrorism, or what led to it while they continue to practice terrorist acts. The violence in the Middle East is mainly as consequence of the American Administrations’ policies which turned their backs to the Palestinian questions and spread chaos in the World… They also prevented the Muslims from practicing democracy as they are sure that the Arabs and the Muslims are against their policies.

Bush himself has admitted that his country has protected dictatorships in the region for 60 years. The fact that they are still doing so proves that this is the established US policy.

If the head of the Congress delegation is talking about Islam canceling of half the society by denying women their rights although Islam has given women their political civil and other rights, how would we explain how the West has canceled women from the society by presenting them as commodities and not as human beings?

And how would we explain some of the Western regimes’ persecution of Muslim women in the West by denying them the right to practice their religious rites? What they are talking about is a result of a state of backwardness and has nothing to do with Islam. Yet, this backwardness was safeguarded by the regimes that are protected by America.

The members of the American Congress had to read Islam in a thorough way before talking about it. What is being presented in the media represents a total ignorance of the doctrine and laws of Islam, and of being the religion of peace and a religion of rejecting injustice at the same time.

The talk of the head of the Congress Delegation about the stick that America has used in Iraq and Afghanistan and that frightened Libya and Yemen proves that the American Administration seeks to use the stick as well as terrorism to extend its hegemony over the nations of the region and the world. Its continuous wars in Iraq prove that it wants to eliminate any voice that is opposed to the American plans. Its position towards the Palestinian issue is another case in point. It has refused to do anything to find a solution for the Palestinians although Europe has asserted that if the Palestinian issue is not solved, violence will escalate in the region and in the world.

Moreover, the talk about settling the Palestinians in the countries they are living in is another proof that they do not care about justice or human rights. All they care about is implementing the Zionist strategy that wants to kick the Palestinians out of Palestine, which proves how racial the American policies have become.

Using the stick against Arab and Muslim peoples to promote US and Israeli interests as a means of boosting George Bush's chances of reelection will produce several other sticks that would threaten the American interests whether as a means of retaliation or in self-defense.