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Below is the full text (Transcript) of President Bashar al-Assad at the Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit, hosted by Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
Transcript
Below is the full text of President al-Assad speech in front of the Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit:
Your Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
Your Majesties and Highnesses,
Gaza has never been the issue; rather Palestine is the central cause and Gaza is an embodiment of its essence and a blatant expression of the suffering of its people.
Talking about Gaza individually misses the point, as it is part of a whole, and the recent aggression against it is just an event in a series of events dating back to seventy-five years of Zionist crime, with thirty-two years of a failed peace, the only absolute, irrefutable result of which is that the entity has increased its aggression, and the Palestinian situation has become more unjust, and miserable.
Neither the land nor the right has returned, neither in Palestine nor in the Golan. This situation has produced a political equation stating that more Arab meekness towards them equals more Zionist ferocity towards us, and that more hand extended by us equals more massacres against us. Zionist entity knows nothing about peace.
In light of this very clear equation, the aggression against Gaza cannot be investigated in isolation from the context of the Zionist massacres against the Palestinians committed previously, and the continuation of this – without a doubt – later.
In addition, we cannot isolate this ongoing crime by dealing “as Arab and Islamic countries” with the recurring events in a fragmented manner regarding the Palestinian cause. Our continued dealing with the aggression against Gaza today with the same methodology means paving the way by us for Israel to complete the massacres until the annihilation of the people and the death of the cause.
The emergency situation at our summit today is neither aggression nor killing, as both are ongoing and both are inherent and characteristic of the entity, but the emergency is Zionism outpacing itself in barbarism, which places us before unprecedented responsibilities, both humanly and politically, at a minimum, if we put aside the national security of our region.
From a humanitarian standpoint, there is no dispute about our duty to bear a large share of restoring the minimum requirements of life, whether through immediate aid or rebuilding the necessary infrastructure later, but do we continue to revolve in a vicious circle of killing and aid, then massacres, then aid, attacks, then statements?
The most important question is: What does the Palestinians need from us? Do they need humanitarian aid from us first, or do they need protection from us first from the upcoming genocide?
Here lies our role, and here lies our political work, but if we do not have real tools for pressure, then any step we take or speech we deliver has no meaning. The minimum that we have are the actual political tools, not the rhetorical ones, the most important of which is stopping any political track with the Zionist entity, with all what the political track includes, whether economic or other issues, so that its return is conditional on the entity’s commitment to an immediate and long-term cessation, not a temporary one, of crimes against all Palestinians in all of Palestine, while allowing bringing immediate aid into Gaza.
As for talking about the two states and launching the peace process and other details and rights, despite their importance, they are not the priority at this emergency moment, even though we know that talking about them will not bear fruit, because there is no partner, no sponsor, no reference, and no law, and because it is not possible to restore a right when the criminal became a judge, and the thief became a judge, and this is the state of the West today.
By our will only, my brothers, apart from our demands on Western countries, international institutions and others to assume their responsibilities, they bear only historical colonial responsibilities based on the oppression and plunder of peoples. By our will only, by the overwhelming popular public opinion in our countries, with the new reality imposed by the Palestinian resistance in our region, we possessed those tools. Let us use them, and let us take advantage of the global transformation that has opened for us political doors that have been closed for decades, so that we can enter through them and change the equations, and let the precious souls who rose in Palestine be a rewarding price for achieving what we were unable to do in the past and what we must accomplish in the present and in the future.
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Our thanks to Information Clearing House for the transcript.
