Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Andalucia1 would be repeated in Palestine. We cannot accept that Palestine will become Jewish.
And with regard to you, Muslims, this is the day of question. This is a new (inaudible) against you, all against the Muslims and Medina. So be like the followers of the prophet,2 peace be upon him, and all countrymen, lovers of God and the prophet within, and a new battle, great battle, similar to the great battles of Islam, like the conqueror of Jerusalem.3 So, hurry up to the dignity of life and the eternity of death.
I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger.
There is America, hit by God in one of its softest spots. Its greatest buildings were destroyed, thank God for that. There is America, full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that.
What America is tasting now is something insignificant compared to what we have tasted for scores of years. Our nation [the Islamic world] has been tasting this humiliation and this degradation for more than 80 years.4 Its sons are killed, its blood is shed, its sanctuaries are attacked, and no one hears and no one heeds.
When God blessed one of the groups of Islam, vanguards of Islam, they destroyed America. I pray to God to elevate their status and bless them.
Millions of innocent children are being killed as I speak. They are being killed in Iraq without committing any sins, and we don't hear condemnation or a fatwa [religious decree] from the rulers.5 In these days, Israeli tanks infest Palestine--in Jenin, Ramallah, Rafah, Beit Jalla, and other places in the land of Islam--and we don't hear anyone raising his voice or moving a limb.6
When the sword comes down [on America], after 80 years, hypocrisy rears its ugly head. They deplore and they lament for those killers, who have abused the blood, honor and sanctuaries of Muslims. The least that can be said about those people is that they are debauched. They have followed injustice. They supported the butcher over the victim, the oppressor over the innocent child. May God show them his wrath and give them what they deserve.
I say that the situation is clear and obvious after this event, after the senior officials have spoken in America, starting with the head of infidels worldwide, Bush, and those with him. They have come out in force with their men and have turned even the countries that belong to Islam to this treachery, and they want to wag their tail at God, to fight Islam, to suppress people in the name of terrorism.
Atomic bombing of Japan
When people at the ends of the earth, Japan, were killed in the hundreds of thousands, young and old, it was not considered a war crime, it is something that has justification.7 Millions of children in Iraq is something that has justification. But when they lose dozens of people in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam [capitals of Kenya and Tanzania, where U.S. embassies were bombed in 1998], Sudan was struck and Afghanistan was struck.8 Hypocrisy stood in force behind the head of infidels worldwide, behind the cowards of this age, America and those who are with it.
These events have divided the whole world into two sides--the side of believers and the side of infidels. May God keep you away from them. Every Muslim has to rush to make his religion victorious. The winds of faith have come. The winds of change have come to eradicate oppression from the island of Muhammad, peace be upon him.
To America, I say only a few words to it and its people. I swear by God, who has elevated the skies without pillars, that neither America nor the people who live in it will dream of security before we are secure in Palestine, and before all the infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad, peace be upon him.
God is great, may pride be with Islam. May peace and God's mercy be upon you.
1. The Moors, who adhered to the Muslim religion, ruled Spain from the eighth century until their defeat by armies fighting under the banner of Christianity. The final battle was fought in 1492 over the city of Granada in the province of Andalucia.
2. The prophet Muhammad, founder of the Muslim religion, is buried in Medina.
3. Salah Al-Din, the Kurdish Muslim general, defeated Crusader armies from Western Europe in a series of battles beginning in 1187 AD, culminating in the conquest of Jerusalem.
4. The Sykes-Picot agreement, signed in 1916, carved up the Arab provinces of the Ottoman empire--which at its height had ruled much of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa--between the French and British imperialist powers. A British protectorate was imposed on what is now Saudi Arabia.
5. Refers to the brutal impact of imperialist policy on Iraq, including UN sanctions, imposed in 1990 in the leadup to the Gulf War and maintained ever since.
6. Locations in the occupied territories. Jenin, Ramallah, and Beit Jalla are in the West Bank; Rafah is a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
7. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Up to 200,000 people died in the U.S. fire-bombing of Tokyo.
8. Two weeks after car bomb explosions outside embassies in Kenya and Tanzania took 224 lives, including 12 U.S. citizens, U.S. president Clinton ordered air strikes against the Sudan and Afghanistan. U.S. warplanes launched 79 cruise missiles at Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, and several sites in Afghanistan.
Related article:
Imperialism's record of brutality, exploitation in the Mideast
Front page (for this issue) |
Home |
Text-version home