Asked in his weekly seminar about the consequences of what has happened in Iraq on Syria, Palestine and Lebanon, the Religious Authority H.E. Sayyed Mohammad Hessian Fadlullah said:

I have previously said that the Palestinian front will be the target that will be most focused on in the aftermath of the war on Iraq. It is the main goal of the American Administration. And that is because although America was successful on the military front in Iraq as a result of a preset dead, it has not been successful on the political level despite all its attempts to stir up the state of chaos thinking that this will result in a growing demand for America to secure internal security, and consequently not to be treated as an occupying army.

Therefore, the American Administration is focusing on the Palestinian front to achieve a political victory by creating internal Palestinian rifts, thus paving the way to impose the Israeli solution America is trying to introduce as the ideal one. It aims ultimately to be able to tell the world that all that it did in Iraq was with the Palestinian question in mind.

We have to understand that what America is planning for is not more than providing certain security arrangements that are constantly changing, with no political solution whatever.

This is in fact what Sharon and the Likud are trying to achieve using various methods including internal strife to burry the issue of Palestinians’ right of return and self-determination once and for all... In this respect, we believe that the pressures against Syria are a part of this conspiracy that also wants to legitimize the American occupation of Iraq.

Therefore, as we ask the Palestinians to unite and fail all American and Israeli attempts to create internal rifts among them, we are sure that they could confront all the new escalating pressures, for they alone are the ones who could decide to surrender or continue to fight.

We are sure that they have all the resolve and faith that will enable them to confront all the difficulties in the coming phase provided.

The entire nation supports them in every available means, for Palestine is the battlefront in which the whole future of the nation will be decided.