The President of Just and Comprehensive Peace

“In Lebanon, the brave national resistance wrote the best anthem of heroism and martyrdom and shall always remain in its path and achievement and example that will live long with future generations.”

"Regardless of one or different terms given to this order, or the theories that come up from time to time, some of which call for submission to this order, others caution against it, and still others call for resisting it, it is actually a complete scene depicting the absence of balance in this world. This balance is not necessarily of economic or military nature; it is rather a balance of values, ethics, and concepts. It is a balance of justice and equity among peoples and nations, between West and East, between North and South. Resistance seeking the liberation of the land should not be described as a militant struggle in one place and terrorism in another.”

'' The difference between terrorism and resistance is clear and simple like the difference between the owner of the right and the one who usurped this right'' asserting that the deportation of others and the cleansing of people were definitely terrorism. The President asserted that the resistance is the legitimate right against occupation pointing out that in Israel all are armed where the settlements are even built as military fortifications and bases, '' For us, terrorism comes from Israel; we see, whatever presentation for terrorism in the world, through this terrorism. Any discussion of terrorism in the Middle East without Israel being the axis and the essence, is not objective and deformed,'' President Assad noted and brushed aside all bids to impose confused expressions and deformed coinages on the region, which understands its causes more than others do.”

“We have to talk about reality, and we can take similar experiences. I start by talking about the balance of power and say that there was no resistance in history that settled this balance especially from the military point of view , because resistance is not a military force. Resistance is not an army, it is a public situation. Hence , we can say that resistance is a public situation ; it is a legitimate cause, and anything public is legitimate. It is not abnormal. It expresses the Palestinian citizen. We have no right to evaluate its legitimacy or illegitimacy. The Palestinian citizen is the only one who evaluates it. It is an internal issue. We have the right to stand beside it when the Palestinian people wish. But to say that it is legitimate or illegitimate, this wording is illegitimate. I want to complete the question : Is it workable or not ?. As I said I do not want to talk about the future . This wording was said to the Lebanese in the 80s, but the resistance in the end ,was effective and gave results .It liberated the land and only Shebaa Farms remain.”

“As I said when I talked about the Palestinian resistance. If they are popular , they will be legitimate. We can not nor can others, call them otherwise, since popular support calls them resistance. Is it possible that all those hundreds of thousands, and millions of people who are resisting occupation using different forms, not necessary to be military, are belonging to al-Qaeda ?”

“On the Palestinian arena, we supported president Mahmoud Abbas when he came to Syria, stressed the importance of the unity of the Palestinian people, insisted on their inalienable rights through national dialogue among Palestinian factions and the complementarity of their roles. Our position has been the support of the struggle of the Palestinian people in order to regain their rights, and giving everything in our power to this end. We declared on many different occasions that Syria agrees to whatever our Palestinians brothers agree to, and will definitely reject what they reject.”

“If you want to see the picture you have to see the whole picture. If you talk about violence, let us talk about four thousand Palestinians killed during the last five years while on the other side, the Israeli side, few hundred are killed. So if you want to talk about the violence and you call this violence terrorism, Israel killed more Palestinians than the Palestinians killed Israelis. This is first. Second, you have to see both sides. They talk about Hamas and what they did in Israel but they don't talk about Israel and what they did in the Palestinian territories. They assassinate people from time to time in public, and they say it, "we are going to kill". So, this is the whole picture. Anyway, it doesn't matter what label we put, if we want to have a solution we have to deal with the facts not with the terms. Whether they are terrorists or not; this is not the problem. We have to deal with the facts and the fact is if you don't have peace, you will have more bloodshed. So we don't support violence in Syria. This is part of the story.”

“No, we don't support Hamas. First of all, we support the Palestinians. What do we support? We support their rights as I said. We used to support Hamas because we saw that Hamas represents the will of Palestinians, and this is democracy. The latest elections proved that we were right.”

“Exactly. Now they are elected. If you want to call them terrorists, then call them elected terrorists. It doesn't matter. But they are elected. They represent the Palestinians. You can't say all the people are terrorists.” “ If it is mutual, yes. But if you talk one way, then no. It should be mutual. What about Israel? Do they recognize the Palestinian state? We should ask them the same question.”

“On the other hand, we in Syria have stressed this choice, the peace choice, from the very beginning of the peace process, but we adhered to the choice of resistance as long as peace has not been realized, particularly that the assumed partner in peace does not believe in this theory in the first place and has given us one evidence after another in confirmation of this fact.”

“This subject of resistance and its importance has been under long discussions for over a decade now with foreign and Arab officials, and in the stage that preceded liberating the largest part of the Lebanese territories in 2000 we used to get into discussions with Arab and foreign officials about this issue. Of course, it did not surprise us that foreigners were not able to understand our logic, but in our deliberations with Arabs, which is of interest to us, we used to tell them that this resistance will liberate Lebanon and they, I mean some of them of course, used to answer that it is more like cat scratching. In 2000 Lebanon was liberated thanks to the resistance, which proved they were wrong and we were right. After 2000 once again we started to have the same kind of discussion as we, Arabs, are fond of repeating history with all its details without advancement sometimes. The same discussion took place by exerting pressure on Syrian with regard to the same issue. Our answer was that the resistance is a deterrent to any Israeli aggression, a logic which they once again rejected. Now the most recent battles prove the same logic. They were wrong and we were right, which means a double mistake in mathematical terms. If we want to calculate the result of previous discussions regarding other subjects starting by terrorism and going through the war on Iraq and Iran, we would have scored a big number of mistakes.”

“The glorious battles fought by the resistance with rare faith and competence have proven a number of facts: The first is that military force, no matter how great, produces defeat when it does not have faith and morals, and when it is not based on legitimate rights and principled policy. The second is that the resistance that has faith, determination and steadfastness and that encompasses the vision, principles and goals of the people and is encompassed and adopted by them produces victory. In this case the victory of the heavy-armed enemy does not exceed being a destruction of stones and killing of civilians. And as every occupation is an immoral act, then it is doomed to, and must, fail and meet defeat. Israel is the best example here. Military force is not everything and the destructive force of weapons is not everything. The only thing Israel possesses is the destructive force at the military level and some other factors at the international level, but at the same time it possesses a very big force; namely the weakness of the Arabs, both morally and physically. When we decide to overcome this gap, a decision that we ourselves can make, there is no doubt that the balance is in our favour. Hence the third fact that stresses the limitation of the Israeli force despite its superiority. This limitation is determined by the intensity of our faith, steadfastness and will to fight, which must enhance our self-confidence and erase all traces of psychological defeat fostered by the enemy’s propaganda that sees the battle as being settled in advance in the interest of Israel or that defeat is the destiny of Arabs. This fact has to further motivate Israel to consider the future results of its terrorist policy against Arabs. Here we can draw a comparison between what took place in between the 1982 war 24 years ago and the last war in Lebanon a few days ago. In 1982 Israel started its war or land invasion of Lebanon on the 6th of June where it reached Ba’abda that overlooks Beirut on June 13th, i.e. on the seventh day Israel was very close to Beirut.  Then they resumed the process of encircling and occupying Beirut. Today, after five weeks almost, Israel is still struggling and suffering to occupy several hundreds of meters here and several hundreds of meters there, and they are trying to reach the closest point to the Litani River, which is only six kilo meters, yet they fail. And I am sure that had there been a spring or a stream of the Litani on the Palestinian-Lebanese borders, they would have put their feet in the water and said, “we have reached the Litani!”. They have become the subject of sarcasm and lost the credibility which they have never enjoyed before. They say, “we have occupied a site”, then they say, “we have bombed the site”. It is supposed to happen in the opposite way. This is common sense that we first bomb a site then occupy it. Anyhow, what is the difference between the first war and the second? In 1982 the technical gap between Israel and the opposite Palestinian-Lebanese side in military assets was smaller than the gap today. Israel’s force has doubled several times during this time and there is a big gap between it and that of the resistance today. But the difference is the will to fight. In fact, in 1982 there were tough Palestinian and Lebanese fighters who fought in the real sense of the word. But this is not enough as certain leaderships did not enjoy the will to fight at all in 1982, while now the will to fight is there in the base and at the top and there is a popular embracing of this resistance that helped it succeed.”

“Hence, standing by and supporting the resistance will help us possess the bigger part of the peace file, which in turn will make the concerned countries take our opinion and interests into account. In other words, resistance and peace constitute one pillar rather than two pillars, and he who supports part of it has to support the other part. Whereas those who claim to have the experience and vision for peace, here we are… come and show us your achievements in the field of resistance. Apart from that, any experience is incomplete to learn from. And as we are living an exceptional and historic period, there is no room for courtesies, bargains or settlements. Rather, we have to speak frankly: We, in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, still have occupied lands; this means we are the ones concerned with war and peace. In the fist place we want from our Arab brothers to stand with us, and we welcome anyone who wants to do so but only through our vision and evaluation of our interests. We were the ones who suffered in war and in peace negotiations in the last decades. As for those who do not share our vision, we only ask them to stand aside so that we do what we have to do, and we won’t ask anyone to fight with us or for us.   I say this because every time there is turbulence, we come to hear an X official saying, “Why did they drag us into this?” Nobody drags anyone into anything. The truth is that every country is responsible for itself. They didn’t of course say this to us; they said it to the resistance. But as a general principle, everyone is responsible for his own country. Yet as a bottom line, they must not adopt the vision of the enemy towards our issues, and their roles shouldn’t be at the expense of our interests. We say this because anyone never had experience in war is not entitled to assume the role of a guide or instructor in peace. Resistance today will shape the political direction of tomorrow, and the position towards it today is what will determine the roles to be played tomorrow.  In other words, the era of political opportunism and political intrusion has come to an end, especially after these battles. If anyone wants to play a role for domestic reasons at the expense of our issues, this is rejected. And if anyone wants to play a role in order to appease the West, this is also rejected. We, in Syria, haven’t yet decided to display our cause in the international market or any other market for purchase. I don’t think that the Palestinians either, after Oslo, Wye River, and Wye Plantation, among other names, have decided to sell their cause, nor do we see such a thing in Lebanon.  “

“ In the next stage, the role of the resistance will be basic at the Arab level. I don’t mean the Lebanese resistance but rather resistance as a concept that has hugely spread, especially recently. But let’s take the role resistance in Lebanon played in the last meeting of the Arab Foreign Ministers. Three weeks before this meeting, the ministers met in Cairo in a climate similar to the climate that preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq: An almost absolute division among Arab countries. But suddenly, and within three weeks, and knowing that the ministers were not replaced nor the governments were reshuffled, we come to unanimous agreement. But on what did we agree? Or rather why? The reason is the Lebanese consensus.  The essence of this Lebanese consensus is the stand of the resistance. Had the resistance said, “we won’t accept these points” or “we have reservations on this or that point”, the ministers’ meeting wouldn’t mean anything or even take place. Even if it took place and the resistance said after it, “we reject your ideas”, the meeting would have failed and everything would have failed with it. This is only one role of the resistance. Still there is a bigger role that will be part of the domestic situation in the Arab countries. We all, as Arab officials, want our countries to be stable, but such stability cannot be realized or continued under the constant contradiction between the official stands and the public stands. This contradiction has reached its peak in the present era.  Most of the Arab people have clearly and almost completely, as there is nothing absolute, taken the side of the resistance and challenged us as officials. “

“If we assume that it will do so, the answer will obviously be that the circumstances are not suitable now; there will be no resistance if it wants to depend on the government. The word "adventurers" was mentioned; if the men of resistance were adventurers, then can we say that Yousif AlA'zma, Sultan Basha Al-Atrash, Hasan Al-Kharat, Ibrahim Hanano and sheikh Saleh Al-Ali are adventurers?! Can we say that Sa'ad Zaghlul in Egypt, Suleiman Al-Halabi, a Syrian, who killed the British High Commissioner in Egypt, and Joul Jammal, another Syrian, who exploded himself in a French ship and conducted the first martyrdom operation in the Arab region – are also adventurers?! If the situation is like this, then let us ask the education ministries in the Arab World to change the curricula and all these terminologies. Of course, this is not accepted. We always notice the discrimination in certain Western propositions which still exist against the Arabs; they say that the Israeli reaction is disproportionate and unbalanced which means that if Israel reacted according to a certain proportion, its aggression is accepted. They are not against the principle of aggression; they are against the volume of this aggression. There will come a day when they put us tables in which they specify what is accepted to be achieved by Israel regarding the killing and destruction in order not to be considered as surpassing the political, human, or moral aspects, or various international conventions.   It was also proposed that Israel has the right to defend itself as a reaction to the aggression committed by the resistance. Here we see the policy of double standards. If we implement the same idea by a mathematical equation on the Palestinians; if they want to react, so to what extent they have the right to destroy and kill in Israel?! If we practically implement this idea, nothing will remain in Israel. At any rate, what the recent events revealed regarding the interrogations of the agents network captured lately in Lebanon and linked this date to the positions of Mat 17th group before and after the aggression, confirm that this scheme – as I said before – is pre-prepared, and we divide it into three tracks: The first track is the resolution No. 1559, the assassination of prime minister Hariri, the pressures on Syria and the resistance for compliance.  The second track is the failure of American occupation in Iraq. The third track is the burying of the peace process, switching to the military option in order to subjugate Arabs and as a natural result to absolve Israel of all its obligations towards Arabs. In front of this tragic reality, the resistance movements emerged in the Arab arena as a single solution to restore the usurped rights.  After all what is being said, Israel should conclude something, but is seems that they are not analyzing; they did not analyze the resistance situation and power. It seems that when a human being becomes very strong, he looses balance and can not see reality rationally and accurately. Israel has tried for decades to be part from this region through a scheme which was called in the past the Greater Middle East – I don’t know if it is the same as the New Middle East or with some modifications, but this proposition is an old one – where Israel is the dominant power in the Arab region and the Arabs are just money, slaves and satellites rotating in the Israeli orbit. They depended on a basic idea that each new Arab generation will accept Israel more than the previous one, and thus be more obedient. Therefore, it is an issue of time and time is on the side of Israel! Let us see the reality: if we assume that the time separating between two generations is 15-20 years, I consider myself representing the third generation which came after the occupation of Palestine. Now, part of the fourth generation is present with us in this hall and it represents the youth who have become politically mature. The fact that Israel should know is that each new generation will hate Israel more than the generation which preceded it. The word "hatred" is not a good one; we do not hate or encourage people to hate, but Israel did not leave room for any feeling but hatred. For example, we read about the massacre of Deir-Yasin and other massacres done by Israel against Arabs, but my generation and I lived and witnessed Sabra and Shatilla massacres and first Qana massacre, and now we are living the second Qana massacre. The fourth generation remembers the first Qana Massacre and the second Qana massacre. Children are asking now why these children are dying?! They get their awareness of life through the second Qana massacre. Therefore, Israel should know that time is not on its side. On the contrary, there will come a generation which is more determined on hitting Israel and avenging all actions it did in the past. At that time, Israeli children will pay the price. I would like to speak out of the reality we live in; if Israel wants to analyze, it should analyze the Arab-Israeli wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, the confrontations with the resistance in 1993, 1996, and the last war. If they analyze these wars, they will notice that these wars represent the four generations. They will notice that the Arab fighter has become more determined; these battles and wars reflect the Arab status towards Israel. Therefore, we say to them that you have experienced humiliation in the recent battles in Lebanon. Your weapons, warplanes, rockets and even your atomic bombs will not protect you in the future. Generations are developing and the future generations in the Arab world will be able to find the way to defeat Israel in a fiercer manner. Thus, the Israeli leadership should stop their foolishness and arrogant, and should know that it is in front of a historic juncture now; either to go towards the peace and returning rights or to go towards continuous instability until one of the future generations puts an end to this. “

“ The heroic Lebanese national resistance has written with its blood and its people’s sacrifice an eternal epic in the history of the nation, destroyed the legend of the invincible army, buried under its feet the policy of surrender and humiliation and proved that the power of faith in land and HOMEland can defeat the power of armaments.  I express may appreciation and admiration to the men of resistance; I salute with great reverence our noble martyrs and I salute the brotherly Lebanese people whose steadfastness was the incubator of this resistance.  We say to those who accuse Syria that it stands by the resistance, and this accusation is not a new one at all. We say to those who accuse Syria that if standing by the resistance is a mortifying sin, then it is an honor and a source of pride for the Syrian people. This resistance is a badge of honour on the chest of each Arab citizen not only in Syria. By each drop of sweat, each drop of blood, each rocket that destroys a tank and by each Israeli soldier defeated in Lebanon, we consider that there is a badge of honour to be worn on the chest of Arab citizens.  I would like to say to the Syrian Arab people that the word "proud" is not enough at all to express what a human being feels towards the greatness of your support to our Lebanese brothers. You were great when some persons wanted you to look small overwhelmed by malevolence. But, the great people of Syria always surprises the adversary by what is not expected. You dealt a blow to those who wanted to create a division between Syria and Lebanon. You were magnificent in your comprehending the magnitude of the conspiracy, and you were very strong in your reaction towards this conspiracy.”

"The resistance process  is a public process and not a state resolution, and people may overtake their government or countries and do this matter, so it moves the peace process, as we hear now in our region and in the West, and  if it revives the peace, perhaps it will go ahead  towards negotiations.”