Text Box: The 20th Arab summit commenced its session, which began Saturday morning, by the Leader of the Revolution's speech, through which he diagnosed the current ill-starred Arab situation, where they are living in a cross road due to their inability to demonstrate their existence after failing to establish their State in the era of nationalities, which ended and was replaced by the era of globalization and powerful spaces that are based on demographics and common material interests. The following is the speech of the Leader of the international revolution, Colonel Muammar Al Qatha fi:

 

 

 

 

Text of the Leader's Speech by at the opening session of the 20th Arab Summit in Damascus-Syria  

29th March 2008 

In the name God!

At the beginning, I would like to greet my son Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian people for the warm reception and the facilitations to convene the summit. And I would like to thank my brother Amr Musa for his diligent effort and assuming a difficult task.

We should at least adhere to minimum level of Arab unity or annually convene this summit in this manner and on the Arab summit and its activities... this represents the minimum level of Arab existence.

When we say Turks, one would find they had a state... when we say Persians, they have the state of Iran... when we say the Italians, they have the Italian state... when we say the Chinese, they have the state of China... and when we say Arabs, they have no state.

The Arabs are a nation without a state, all the other nations have a state and that is why they proved their existence. The Arabs are incapable of proving their existence, for not having a state; this is a very dangerous matter, especially in the current era. The reason, Arabs were not able to establish their state during the era of nationalities. When nationalism, national unity, language, culture, origin, blood and religion was widespread during the time, we didn't benefit from it and we wasted time, we entered in a time where nationalism, religion and culture didn't prevail, rather materialism, demography and the single space prevailed, regardless of nationalism, religion, language and culture.

We squandered language... nationalism when this matter prevailed; now, we've entered another era, the era of globalization and powerful spaces that are based on demographics and common material interests that has no relation with race, language, religion or culture.

The Europeans established a single state, the Africans have a union and could become a single state, and Latin America is shaping in a single state (Insha Allah). In the north, the Americans formed the United States of America, China is a powerful space, even the countries of the Soviet Union are now shaping in what's known as the new commonwealth or the independent states. The Indian Ocean is shaping and one day will form a single state.

As for the Arabs, where are they? They have no place in the new world map.

ASEAN is being formed there from 10 Asian states + one or + two or + three. The Arabs are in the Indian Ocean... they're not in ASEAN...they're not in China... they're not the new commonwealth "the independent states"... they're not in the European Union... they're neither in the African Union, Latin America, NAFTA nor North America. Hence, where are they?

Unfortunately, the situation of the Arabs is very difficult and frightening; a question mark looms over their future. A question mark looms over us the Arabs, a large question mark looms over our future... where are we going to be? How are we with?

We are not together now.

Two-third of the Arabs are Africans, we in the African Union will be a single African army... in a single defense zone, in the African space... one African government, or possibly in the future, the United States of Africa. One-third of the Arabs are outside Africa... and outside the Asian space... outside the European space, they cannot form a space on their own.

Spaces have prerequisites, namely huge economic power, consumer market and formidable defense capabilities. Unless you have these, you cannot live outside a space that has the capability to compete. This is an analysis of our situation right now. That's why I called for the establishment of an Arab African union. The one third of Arabs who live outside Africa to join the African space, should they choose to the contrary they end up as areas of influence, marginalized protectorates and dumping grounds.

As for the Palestinian issue, the Arab's central issue about which we talk a lot… unfortunately we squandered it stage after stage until we got to where we are... and the enemy knew we plundered hence acting accordingly... it gained as we lost.

The PLO is neither Fatah nor Hamas. It is like Zionism, the umbrella of all Jewish extremists from the right and left that led them until they created a state... it is like the ANC which led the fight for the liberation of South Africa, also like the Algerian Liberation Front that incorporated all Algerian parties and led the liberation struggle.

The PLO should not be dwarfed into Fatah, and Hamas will lose its Palestinian identity if it were to leave the PLO which I don't think it will happen. Khalid Mishal and Ismail Haniya welcome a PLO that encompasses all of us. Why don't we make use of this...? Fatah and Hamas cannot be reconciled because they are of different ideologies... and because they are so they should appreciate that there is an umbrella that covers them... the PLO, they should end the struggle.

As you know there are extremists as well as moderate Jews, who disagree but they meet under the umbrella of Zionism... their common goal, to establish the Jewish state.

The goal of the PLO is to establish a Palestinian state which they cannot dispute, but it is impossible to get Fatah and Hamas together, so let the Palestinians go in parallel lines which can never meet but equally can never collide.

So let it be a recommendation of the conference that the PLO is the national umbrella of all Palestinians Fatah, Hamas and others. They may be different in all other aspects but they have something in common, all being Palestinians.

We often talk about the Palestinian Legislative Council and Palestinian elections and all fuss... I say if there is a Palestinian congress... it should represent all Palestinians all over the world not only free elections inside Gaza and the West Bank because this is part of the Palestinians. There are three million Palestinians outside even the Arab homeland... in Syria there are half a million... they should be represented in the Palestinian congress, in Lebanon there are 300,000 Palestinians, they should also be represented, in Libya there are 30,000 Palestinians in Libya none had been represented.

The Palestinian Legislative Council should represent all Palestinians everywhere so the world knows there are Palestinian people who are displaced and expelled from their land.

If there would be a Palestinian government in the air with no territory... you know that people and the territory are the fundamental requirements of a state... the Palestinian state has no territory... where is the territory of the Palestinian state… the West bank is not Palestinian and so is Gaza... they are mixed. Even the 1948 territory in which there are one million Palestinians is mixed. So where is the Palestinian territory on which a Palestinian state to established?

When we speak about the border of 1967, this is in fact very surprising. Where was the cause before 1967? Have we been lying to ourselves or lying to the world? Thousands of martyrs fell before 1967. For whom was that? How could we say that Palestine was occupied in 1967 and we have to return the borders of 1967?

Is Palestine the West Bank and Gaza strip? Well if it was like this, this was not occupied by the Israelis in 1948. They left it 20 years for you. Why didn't you make a Palestinian state there and then? Wasn't the Gaza Strip part of Egypt? Wasn't the West Bank belonging to Jordan? Didn't we have 20 years? We left for the Jews from 1948 till 1967. Why didn't you make the state of Palestine then? What justification is there for the wars, the sacrifices and the economic boycotts before 1967 against the Israelis?

Well, the Israelis could bring a case against the Arabs. They may call for compensation of billions or probably trillions for their losses between 1948 and 1967. You the Arabs, you have acknowledged that the cause started after 1967. They will ask then why did you fight us before 1967? You have to pay compensation and reparations to us. And what about the so-called Israeli boycott and the economic losses inflicted through the boycott on the Israelis. Then the Arabs have to go and pay the price for that. They may sue you and they may win the case. They may say we are unfairly treated. And you have told us that we came like lambs amongst wolves. And from 1948 we used to say this and the evidence for that is the Arabs themselves are recognizing this. They are recognizing that Palestine was occupied in 1967 and they are calling for the return of the 1967 borders then the problem will be over and we recognize Israel.

Where were the losses of 1948, the losses of 1956, the losses of 1967 and the losses of 1973 and so forth? If the case was only after 1967, why didn't you recognize Israel before 1967 as long as Palestine was only occupied in 1967?

This is shocking and bizarre. It is illogical and absurd. What is this? Good heavens. It is absolutely unacceptable. If you say 1967 and you acknowledge recognize Israel.

There could be a new Israeli occupation of further Arab lands in 2008 for example. And then some years later you will call for the return to the 2008 borders and Israel will be recognized. This is what happens in this way.

We have experimented with negotiations and we went far in the talks. The Jews used to say, you have to meet us once in direct talks and the problem is solved. They used to say this in the 50s and the 60s. They used to say that we urge you Arabs to sit at the table with us just once and the problem between us will be over.

You have seen what happened. We met them a thousand times beginning with Camp David, to Annapolis. These were all negotiations we went through. Camp David, Oslo of our brother Abu Mazin. Of course he is the hero of Oslo. Saddate is the hero of Camp David and then there was the Arab initiative, which we presented and urged them please withdraw to the border of 1967 and there will be total recognition and total normalization. So what happened? After that came the road map of the American president. Where is it now? Where is Annapolis? And now Russia is also calling for a peace conference.

There is no use. Every time there are negotiations the Palestinians and the Arab splits and disputes soar. And now the world is playing that tune. It says if there are negotiations then the Arabs will split further and the Palestinians will split. And negotiations became fuel to cause more Arab and Palestinian splits.

And now if you hear of any desire for negotiations it is not to solve the problem but to cause further splits within the Palestinian and Arab ranks.

I have presented you with the solution in what I call the White Book. I presented it to the world. It is for the establishment of one state, the Palestinians and the Israelis are to establish one democratic state on the condition that all Palestinian refugees return. By that we mean all the Palestinians abroad, the three million or so have to return to Palestine. We have to dismantle weapons of mass destruction from this state. There have to elections supervised by the United States. The President could be Israeli and then succeeded by a Palestinian or a Palestinian then succeeded by an Israeli. It doesn't matter.

The state has to be one and there are examples of several states in the world with races and different ethnicities forming one state. What matters is to find one territory for everyone to live in.

And basically they are integrated. We mean the Palestine which was occupied in 1948 and now has around one million Palestinians. But this is not a pure Jewish state as the Jews say it is Hebrew state. It was a million Palestinians and they could become two millions, three or four millions in future. They may expel them. This is not ruled out.

The West Bank is a mixture between Israeli colonies and Palestinian cities. They are mixed with each other in the West Bank which is one state and is there. Gaza has the same thing. The Palestinian workers were in Israeli factories and rely on each other in the services, the production and goods.

Whenever there is a truce between Palestinians and Israelis the matters become normal and peaceful. I don't believe that we the Arabs are loosing if one state is established between the river and sea. The Israelis say this would mean the end of Israel.

If the peaceful solution means the end of Israel, let them then tolerate the war solution which is not peaceful and we will if it will entail the end of Israel or not.

If the Israelis want peace let them accept one state. The Palestinians will stop their rockets and will halt fighting and the Arabs will halt fighting and we will have one democratic state. If they reject this solution let them shoulder what will result from that. This means war. There is nothing but war. And in this case the negotiations door is closed and we will start supporting the liberation movement and the PLO.

Of course we are in a worse situation much worse than what it had been in the past.

When Algeria was fighting, donations for Algeria were received openly from the ocean to the Gulf. There were volunteers from Syria. From here there was Dr Ibrahim Bakos and a group went with him to fight alongside the Algerian Liberation Front. They were not considered terrorists and no action was taken against Syria.

When fighting was raging in Libya against the Italian occupation the Arabs used to support the Libyan mujahiddeen. The Arabs used to support the Libyan mujahiddeen. It is known that Aziz El Masri was one of those who fought and was not considered a terrorist and he continued fighting alongside the Libyans.

The donations were sent to the Libyan mujahiddeen from all Arab countries until they were forced to erect barbed wire fences to stop these donations and supplies. When fighting was there in south Yemen there were volunteers and the weapons flowed into south Yemen and we have here my brother Abdu Rabo Mansour whom I know for a long time, since he was a military in the union army.

In 1948 all the Arabs took part in the fighting.

But now we cannot fight, not in Iraq, not in Palestine least we are considered terrorists and we cannot pay a penny and you cannot volunteer. This means that if the Palestinians fight now I believe that the Arabs could not shoulder such a responsibility. This is why rebellion and terrorism is spreading now because of the official deficit. There is a cause and people have to fight for that cause.

The ordinary citizens in Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, Libya, Egypt or Palestine have by passed the official system and they are fighting. Those who belong to Al Qaeda and those who belong to any fighting group. Those who detonate and those who rebel and those who hold alliances with Satan against the regime. This is an expression of the failure of the official Arab system because it is incapable of defending the Arab presence.

We the Arabs, we never occupied anything. And of course unfairly we occupied Andalusia and we were expelled and then we never occupied any country.

It is our countries which are always occupied. Palestine is occupied. Iraq is occupied. And instead of talking about the occupations, you are talking about the islands. It is not in the interest of the Arabs to have hostility and animosity with Iran, nor with Turkey, or with any other country. It is not in our interests to provoke Iran and make antagonism with us.

If there was a problem let this conference decide the shifting of this case to the International Court of Justice which is the suitable place to solve such problems. We have to decide to raise the case of disputed Emirate islands to the International Court of Justice and any ruling by the court will be accepted.

Once again we say these are Arab countries and lands which are occupied. This confusion is always manipulated and exploited. Eighty per cent of the populations of the Gulf are Iranians. The ruling families are Arab and the others are Iranian. The whole people are Iranian.

This is a dilemma. We cannot avoid Iran. It is a neighbour, it is a brother and Muslim and we have no interest to turn Iran into our enemy. We have to solve this case by peaceful means.

Are these islands gone forever? Is the Arab honour gone forever? Where has the Arab past gone and what about the Arab future?

There are other cases you are incapable of solving. We are incapable of solving the Somali problem and the solution of the Comoros case was only through African and Arab states. This may be only Sudan, Libya and Algeria. These are the countries I know in addition to African states and the African Union. These are the countries that contributed towards the liberation of Anjouan.

Somali is being treated as an African country not as an Arab country. Ethiopia for example is fighting against the Somali government. Somalia and the Comoros are members of the Arab League.

As for Iraq, of course we have no power in this respect. We are only asking and say why, is it Iraq? Why have you destroyed Iraq? Let our American friends answer this question. Why is it Iraq? What is the reason?

Is Bin Laden Iraqi? He is not Iraqi. Those who struck me were they Iraqis? No they were not Iraqis? Were those who struck the Pentagon Iraqis? Were there any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? No there weren’t. Even if there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq we have Pakistan with an atom bomb, China, Russian Britain, France and America all have atom bombs. Are they going to be destroyed? Well let us destroy all those countries with weapons of mass destruction.

A foreign power comes to occupy an Arab state and hang its president and we are just watching and laughing. Yasser Arafat stayed in prison for several years and we were just watching and we used to hold our summits without Arafat. Why haven't we said that there will be no Arab summit unless Arafat is released? Finally they poisoned and killed him. Why didn't we go to the Security Council? Why didn't we investigate the killing of Arafat? Why didn't investigate the hanging of Saddam Hussein? How could a prisoner of war who is a president of an Arab state and a member of the Arab League be hanged? We are not speaking about Saddam's policies and our dispute with him. We may have our political differences and there are even disputes amongst us. There is nothing that combines us ever in this hall. Why isn't there any investigation about the death of Saddam Hussein? A whole Arab leadership gets killed and hanged and we continue watching.

And it might be your turn next.

America has fought with Saddam against Khomeini. He was America's friend. Dick Cheney was a friend of Saddam Hussein and Rumsfield, when he was a defense minister, when Iraq was being destroyed was a close friend of Saddam Hussein. But finally they sold him and hanged him.

Even you, America's friends, let us not say you, we - we are all friends of America and America might agree to hang us one day.

Amr Musa has thoughts and he is very enthusiastic about it. And he has a programme which he mentioned in his report. The Arabs have the right to use the atom for peaceful means. The programme has to be Arab nuclear. This is their right. And they have the right to many things but good heavens, where are those Arabs who say they could make one nuclear programme? Where are those Arabs?

Unfortunately we are enemies of ourselves. We all hate each other. And we engage in hostilities and conspiracies and we get pleasure at the misfortunes of others. Our intelligence and security organs are conspiring against each other. They are not defending us from the enemy because we are enemies of ourselves and the enemy of one Arab could be the friend of another Arab.

We would have wished that this sharpness and severity which used against each other is used against the enemy.

Where is the Arab entity which will use a nuclear programme for peaceful means? Where is that my brother Amr Musa? It is not there. What is the Arab entity that could provide that? With who are you are going to make the Arab nuclear programme?

We, the Arabs have no one currency. We have no one state. We don't have one central bank and we have no joint market, no one negotiating stance, no one export, no one import, no one economy.

There is nothing except our name Arabs. Perhaps our blood is one and our language is the same. Of course it is known that the Arab language is threatened. Anyhow beyond that there is nothing that unites us.

We are meeting in Syria which is an Arab country. The relation between Syria and Russia or Syria with Iran or Turkey is a thousand times better than the relationship between Syria and its Arab neighbours. The relationship between Libya and Italy is much better relations between Libya and Egypt or with Tunisia, our neighbours. This is the Arab situation.

If you want to be sincere and serious for the Arab nationals, for the Arab future and for future generations we have to be sincere for the Arab conscience. We have to analyze the present situation. We  have to think seriously about all our problems. We have to think about the future of this group in the era of the larger spaces. Where will its place be?

You may decide on an Arab-African Union. A third of the Arabs who are outside Africa may join Africa as has been hailed by Professor Omar Konare who clarified this aspect.

What will the third of the Arabs outside Africa lose if they join Africa? We have Sinai linking us with Asia. I mean we could link this country where we are now with Africa. We could link the Straits of Eden, that is linking the Arab Peninsula with the African Horn and we may also establish railways like the ones linking Britain and France under the sea. It means we could link all Arab parts in the Fertile Crescent, the Arab peninsula, through Sinai and through the Straits of Eden i.e. With the African continent...

You will have no future if you do not establish one space, one bloc. There is no one national state that could live on its own from now on, even if that is Germany. It has to join a larger space or a bigger bloc to protect its economy, its security, its military and all aspects.

The time of the national state is over. The national state is receding before larger blocs. Do not entertain the ambition to live as a national state unless that was an American protectorate, a Chinese protectorate or a European protectorate. Any protectorate has no future. But if you like to be protectorates, then it is up to you.