Fadlullah's statement regarding the recent Arab meetings
| Fadlullah: We are witnessing another Arabian setback that uses the Lebanese issue as an excuse |
The Religious Authority, Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah, issued a statement in which he saw that we are witnessing another Arabian setback that uses the Lebanese issue as an excuse. Such a drawback does not stem from the Arabic calculations, but rather from the American pressures. He expressed his fear that the interference in the Lebanese affairs is a part of the ongoing reshuffling, or a part of Arab and international tempering with the Lebanese issue.
He added that the Lebanese welcome any attempt by the Arabs to solve their problems before they go back to the Lebanese problem and defuse its mines.
The Sayyed said:
Despite of all the recent meetings and calls, we are observing a trend of taking lightly the next Arab summit to the extent that some of the Arabs do not seem bothered if the summit is aborted, thus undermining what is left of the Arab unity, under the pretence that the Arab bilateral differences hinder the arriving at common understandings of basic issues such as the Palestinians and the Lebanese issues.
We are witnessing a new Arab setback that uses the Lebanese problem as an excuse. But, such a setback does not stem out of Arab fine calculations, but rather due to American pressures that aim at using the Arab summit to fuel the Arab differences, thus enabling the US to exert more pressure on the various Arab countries by further exploiting the Lebanese problem and flexing its muscles by moving its gunships along the Lebanese coast in a provocative manner.
Thus, the Arab League no longer constitutes an element in uniting the Arabs and a chance to study their state and think about the difficult future that awaits them. The Arab summits have turned into an American huge stick that is held to serve American and Israeli interests.
We are bewildered by this kind of heedlessness towards the Arabs' fate that has turned into a kind of indirect debates, while there is a mountain of problems that the Arabs should address. These problems need more than ever not only a carefully studied and planned summit, but also a crystallized unified plan on how to confront the Israeli aggressions inside Palestine and their ambitions outside it, and also the need of building a strong Muslim and Arab economy that enables the nation to continue its march among the nations which have become far advanced, and which are usurping the nation's wealth and potentials.
The Lebanese thank the Arabs for their concern even though it has been exhibited in well know political landmarks. But they believe that the Arabs should solve first their internal problems, so as to be able to defuse the mines of the Lebanese crisis, which although it contains various inter Arab elements it has also a Lebanese internal element that has to do with the interpreting tie Taif agreement…The presidential problems and the kind of regime that could protect the country and ensure its coherence, diffusing the political and even the security elements of instability.
Thus, the Lebanese will feel relieved if the Arabs are able to solve their internal problems as a prelude of diffusing the internal Lebanese mines.
At a time we hope that the movement of the Muslim-Arab meetings as well as the inter-Arab meetings that were recently held, especially that of the Arab Foreign Ministers, to succeed, we are afraid that the ongoing Arab debate on Lebanon is a part of the game of reshuffling the cards, entering the Lebanese problem in the game of nations to keep Lebanon wailing, or to use it in the Arab and international conflicts, leading to a Lebanese instability that would accompany the internal Arab emerging differences.
The problem lies in the fact that since its beginning, the Arab League did not have any effect on the Arab-Arab crises, nor was it able to represent an effective power for solving any of the Arab main problems, especially the Palestinian cause. The Arabs also could not represent a unifying power in facing the escalating American pressures. All that happened while we are still listening to some Arabs who are talking about an equal footed relationship with America, while everyone knows that this equality does not exist amidst this ongoing American attack against the entire Arab reality and amidst this submission to the US pressures on the level of the regimes.