| Sayyed Fadlullah warned against putting the Muslim world under occupation or under direct political tutelage |
The Religious Authority, Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah, issued a statement in which he warned against working on widening the sphere of the Western occupation to include new Arab and Muslim countries, indicating that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has become a huge American stick, dragging the main European countries that have lost their personality. He also pointed out that this will widen the gap with these countries that rode the American train and did not draw for themselves an independent political line, especially concerning the Palestinian cause.
The Sayyed stressed that deploying NATO troops in the West Bank represents, in reality, an American attempt to gain time and dilute the Palestinian cause, while on the strategic level, it seeks to put an end to it. H.E warned the Arabs that the fire would reach their countries in case they insist on dealing with this cause as a detail in the file that is directed by America and to which the European and the world countries are submitted.
Sayyed Fadlullah said:
The initiative that the American Administration has launched recently for approaching the Palestinian cause regarding the role that the NATO is intended to play in the occupied Palestine, by talking about the possibility of deploying NATO troops in the West Bank, represents an attempt of the political American Administration to end the Palestinian cause under the titles of solving it and formulating realistic solutions for the Palestinian "problem".
H.E. added: We see that the American Administration started to work on plunging the Palestinian cause into a new stage of messing around with its principle political elements in order to reinforce the Israeli security, strengthen the Israeli hegemony and preserve the freedom of the Israeli security and military movement inside the occupied West Bank, under the Atlantic cover. This issue will drag the Palestinian file into a new maze that will further distance it from independency and liberation. It also gives an additional and a decisive proof that this Administration can never be with any independent and liberal reality in the Arab and Muslim world. That is because this Administration seeks only to serve its own interests as well as the interests of the Israeli security.
The Sayyed added: We warn the European Union countries from continuing to run after the American Administration in the region, since that would lead to new political and security collapses in the region and might widen the rift between our peoples and the EU countries, since most of them have decided to follow the American Administration in dealing with the situation in the region. That is because we see that the NATO has changed into an American huge stick that the Bush Administration uses in what serves its needs and interests to the extent that the main European countries have lost their personality and their image due to the American pressure that cares only for the Israeli interest.
He said further: We notice that the plans that are directed by the American Administration and that the EU countries follow, aim at widening the sphere of occupation in the Arab and Muslim world, in an attempt to put this world under the direct occupation of America and its allies or under political tutelage, and thus establishing a reality that is similar to an occupation, a mandate…
Consequently, the resistant countries must take this into consideration and they should start to draw counter plans. The Arab and Muslim peoples should also support these countries in order to prevent the rest of the nation's countries from falling under the influence of this destructive occupational line that the American Administration leads.
We warn that this suggestion (deploying NATO troops in the West Bank) represents, in reality, an American attempt to gain time and dilute the Palestinian cause, and strategically, it represents a movement for ending the Palestinian cause.
Therefore, we warn the Arabs, who are dragged into the political vacuum and into the deadly failure and incompetence, that sooner or later, the fire will reach their countries and the chaos will reach their centers and fronts. That is because not being any more concerned with the Palestinian cause and canceling it from their main agenda and making it a detail of the file that is directed by Washington and that the EU countries as well as the international Quartet Committee are submitted to, will lead not only to paralyze the Arab role, but also to destroy the higher Arab interests on the political, economic and other levels for the sake of the Israeli-American interests. But, the Arab and Muslim world will not accept this and they will have the final word.