Video- ‘Palestinians have right to resistance’

The Islamic Awakenings will give rise to intellectuals who will call on states to support the Palestinian people, and to boycott and cut all relations with Israel and the West.

In an exclusive interview with Press TV, Mohsen Saleh, professor of Beirut University, elaborates on the main issue of the Middle East – the Western-backed Israeli usurpation of Palestinian lands and the destruction of its native people.

Press TV The leader of the Islamic Revolution has said that the answer to the Palestinian situation is a referendum. One person, one vote by the native Palestinians is the only fair way. How likely are we to see such a vote take place in the near future?

Saleh First of all, I should recognize here the role of Iran. It’s very solid in terms of the Palestinian issue. In Iranian opinion, the core issue of the issues in the Middle East is Palestine.

From the early times, the first days of the Revolution of Iran, Imam Khomeini — may peace be upon his soul — said to go to and liberate Palestine, that Palestine is for the Palestinians, to expel the Zionist Israeli ambassador and place the Palestinian Embassy in Tehran. That should be recognized from the outset.

Now, some Arabs claim that we should give up this kind of resistance and go to the United Nations and accept the resolution of 1947: the division of Palestine for a Jewish state and Arab state.

After the awakening of the Islamic nations, especially in Egypt, we should say that the Arab and Islamic intellect before these revolutions and awakenings should be changing with the matters of, especially, Palestine and other issues related between these Islamic countries.

Now, proposing the referendum for the Palestinians also cuts all the ways for the Europeans and the Americans. OK, you want democracy for the Palestinians? Do not agree on this division of Palestine — they want their homeland. You can’t give the homeland of the Palestinians to the Jews. You committed crimes against them; give them their own country in Europe or anyplace in the world.

That’s the voice of Iran saying to the Arabs and to the Muslims: boycott Israel and cut all kinds of relations; don’t host their embassies in Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other places as well.

By that, we find a kind of consensus on the rights of the Palestinians. The Palestinians have the right to return. Now we have six million Palestinians or more outside, dispersed all over the world. We cannot wait until the Europeans and Americans take the decision for us.

Press TV There are many Palestinian and Middle East experts that say that the Palestinians have been trying, peacefully, to regain their land since they lost it. What’s your take on this? The direction that it’s going, for example, Abbas proposing that this Palestinian state in the United Nations is a natural step in the best direction to go into.

Saleh It’s not in the right direction because the Palestinians tried with the Arabs, the United Nations, the West, the Americans, Camp David, Oslo, Madrid, Saudi Arabia, etc…all these agreements went away. There’s no kind of reliability on these agreements.

I would say that the international law permits all the peoples all over the world that they can carry arms, resistance against any kind of occupation.

The Israelis, the Zionists, backed by the West and the United States, are occupying Palestine — all of Palestine. They are not occupying lands from 1935, 47, 48, 67, or 73. In all these wars, the Israelis, backed by the power of the West, gain more momentum on the lands of Palestine.

Now, after the Islamic Awakening, they have the right to go to resistance. The Lebanese were able to kick out the Zionist Israelis from the south of Lebanon because they resisted occupation. They had the right to resist occupation.

And now the Palestinians have the right to resist the Israeli occupation. And there is no power on earth that can prevent the Palestinians from regaining their homeland, Palestine. Not to go to compromise with the occupation. If you go to compromise, then you are giving something to your enemy. That’s not the right way.

The right way, as the The Leader of Islamic Ummah and Oppressed People Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei said, the Palestinians should go to a referendum to see what they should do in order to regain Palestine — no division inside for the Palestinians. They should unite in order to resist. And they should put the Arabs and Muslims under their responsibility to support them in all means in order to resist.

We can’t find a resistance which is backed by the international community without having themselves to resist. And now it’s the turn and roll of the Arabs and the Muslims, but not like what is happening with Qatar and Turkey as they are pressing Hamas in order to give up and acknowledge the Israeli existence in their homeland.