Statements by Radical Muslims calling for the destruction of Israel (and its ally the United States)
By Discover The Networks (January 2007)
Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, President of Iran
- “The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land.”
- “As the Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] said, Israel must be wiped off the map.”
- “… the annihilation of the Zionist regime will come.”
- “The Islamic umma (community) will not allow its historic enemy [Israel] to live in its heartland.”
- “Any leaders in the Islamic umma who recognize Israel face the wrath of their own people.”
- “There is no doubt that the new wave [of attacks] in Palestine will soon wipe off this disgraceful blot [Israel] from the face of the Islamic world.”
- “The creation of the occupying regime in [Israel] is a strong action by the ruling arrogant [American imperialist] world order against the world of Islam. There continues a historic war between the World Arrogance and the Islamic world, the roots of which go back hundreds of years ago. … The World Arrogance turned the Zionist regime occupying Jerusalem into a staging-ground to dominate the Islamic world. This occupying country is in reality the staging-ground of the World Arrogance in the heart of the Islamic world. They have created a base, from where they can expand their rule over the entire Islamic world; it has no other purpose other than this.”
- “The war that is presently going on in Palestine is the frontline of the war of destiny between the Islamic world and the World Arrogance, which will determine the outcome of hundreds of years [of war] in Palestine.”
- “Our dear Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] ordered that the occupying regime in Jerusalem be wiped off the face of the earth. This was a very wise statement. The issue of Palestine is not one which we could compromise on. … This would mean the defeat of the Islamic world.”
- “The issue in Palestine is by no means finished. The Palestinian issue will only be resolved when all of Palestine comes under stringent Palestinian rule.”
- “I am hopeful that just as the Palestinian nation continued its struggle for the past ten years, they will continue to keep their awareness and vigilance. This period is going to be short-lived. If we put it behind us successfully, god willing, it will pave the way for the destruction and the downfall of the Zionist regime.”
- Ahmadinejad has called Israel a “tumor” that should be “wiped off the map” or moved out of the Middle East, perhaps to Alaska.
- “Zionists have launched their own destruction by attacking Lebanon.”
- “Their [Israelis’] methods resemble Hitler’s. When Hitler wanted to launch an attack, he came up with a pretext. Zionists say they are Hitler’s victims, but they have the same nature as Hitler.”
- “The Zionist regime is counterfeit and illegitimate and cannot survive. … The big powers have created this fraud regime and allowed it to commit all kind of crimes to guarantee their interests.”
- “They [the Jews] have no boundaries, limits, or taboos when it comes to killing human beings. Who are they? Where did they come from? Are they human beings? ‘They are like cattle, nay, more misguided.’ A bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians. Next to them, all the criminals of the world seem righteous.”
- “When I see the behavior of America, England, and their other accomplices in recent days, I get the impression that they are preparing even greater crimes. I warn them: Know that the fire of the wrath of the peoples is about to erupt and overflow. If you do not put an end to your crimes, know that the ocean of the peoples will soon rage. When the peoples begin to move, they will drag everybody to the defendant’s bench, and will remove them from the throne of power.”
- “Today, the Iranian people is the owner of nuclear technology. Those who want to talk with our people should know what people they are talking to. If some believe they can keep talking to the Iranian people in the language of threats and aggressiveness, they should know that they are making a bitter mistake. If they have not realized this by now, they soon will, but then it will be too late. Then they will realize that they are facing a vigilant, proud people.”
· “Today, Hizbullah in Lebanon is the standard-bearer of the resistance of all the monotheistic peoples, of the seekers of justice, and of the free people. Hassan Nasrallah is shouting the loud cry of the vigilant human consciences. Today, Hizbullah stands tall as the representative of all the peoples, all the vigilant consciences, all the monotheistic people, all the seekers of justice, and all free people of the world, against the rule of hegemony. Until now, with the help of Allah, [Hizbullah] is winning, and, Allah willing, it will reach the ultimate victory in the near future.” Abu Maamun, a senior leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin
“I think and I have no doubt that they have the ability to target Tel Aviv and that the question when to do so depends on the situation on the ground. As long as the hero [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah will manage to lead an equal fight with Israel it will not target Tel Aviv and will leave this to the next round in a few months. We hope he will hit Tel Aviv very soon, but as militants of a resistance organization, we know that there are priorities, considerations and calculations [regarding] when to make a strategic decision. Our dream is to see the Zionists in the center of occupied Palestine under rocket attack – a thing they have not felt in all the Arab-Israel conflict. … [T]his is the dream of the great majority of our people. We pray that this will happen, and we believe that such a great rocket revolution will mark the beginning of a new era in the region and will break the psychological wall in the idea that Israel is invincible.” (August 3, 2006)
The Charter of Hamas (1988)
The Charter of Hamas, puts forth “The Slogan of the Hamas,” which reads as follows: “Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Qur’an its Constitution, Jihad its path, and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief.” The Charter says that jihad, or holy war, “becomes an individual duty binding on every Muslim man and woman; a woman must go out and fight the enemy even without her husband’s authorization, and a slave without his masters’ permission.”
The Hamas Charter explicitly abjures negotiated settlements as mechanisms for peaceful coexistence: “There is no other solution for the Palestinian problem other than jihad. All the initiatives and international conferences are a waste of time and a futile game.” According to the Charter, those against whom jihad is to be directed are the Jews. “The Nazism of the Jews,” it says, “does not skip women and children, it scares everyone. They make war against people’s livelihood, plunder their moneys and threaten their honor.” Hamas seeks to fulfill the Qur’anic scripture which reads: “The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!”
The Hamas Charter further states: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”; “The day the enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In the face of the Jews’ usurpation, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised”; “Ranks will close, fighters joining other fighters, and masses everywhere in the Islamic world will come forward in response to the call of duty, loudly proclaiming: ‘Hail to Jihad!’. This cry will reach the heavens and will go on being resounded until liberation is achieved, the invaders vanquished and Allah’s victory comes about.”
Hassan Nasrallah, Leader of Hezbollah
- “The limit of our bombardment will not remain Haifa, regardless of the enemy’s response.”
· “Brothers and sisters, throughout the entire Arab-Israeli conflict — when were two million Israelis forced to become displaced, or to stay in bomb shelters for more than 18 days? This figure will grow as we extend the phase of ‘beyond Haifa’ – because the bombing of Afula and its military base was [only] the beginning of this phase. There are many cities in the center [of Israel] which will be targeted in the phase of ‘beyond Haifa,’ if this barbaric aggression against our land, people, and villages continues.” (July 29, 2006)
- “When the people of this tyrannical state [Israel] loses its faith in its mythical army, it is the beginning of the end of this entity – because Israel is a country that was established for the sake of an army, and the army in Israel does not belong to the state. Once they sense that this army has become helpless, weak, defeated, humiliated, and a failure, the question will definitely become one of life or death.” (July 29, 2006)
- “Anyone who reads the Koran and the holy writings of the monotheistic religions sees what they did to the prophets, and what acts of madness and slaughter the Jews carried out throughout history … Anyone who reads these texts cannot think of co-existence with them, of peace with them, or about accepting their presence, not only in Palestine of 1948 but even in a small village in Palestine, because they are a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment.”
- “[I]f they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”
- “[T]hey [the Jews] are a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment.”
- “There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel.”
- “One of the central reasons for creating Hizbullah was to challenge the Zionist program in the region. Hizbullah still preserves this principle, and when an Egyptian journalist visited me after the liberation and asked me if the destruction of Israel and the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem were Hizbullah’s goal, I replied: ‘That is the principal objective of Hizbullah, and it is no less sacred than our [ultimate] goal.’ We face an entity that conquered the land of another people, drove them out of their land, and committed horrendous massacres. As we see, this is an illegal state; it is a cancerous entity and the root of all the crises and wars and cannot be a factor in bringing about a true and just peace in this region. Therefore, we cannot acknowledge the existence of a state called Israel, not even far in the future, as some people have tried to suggest. Time does not cancel the legitimacy of the Palestinian claim.”
- “Put a knife in your shirt, then get close to an Israeli occupier and stab him.”
- “The Palestinian National Charter will live on as long as there is a knife in a Palestinian woman’s hand with which she stabs an Israeli soldier or settler … as long as there are suicide bombers in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv … and as long as there is a child who throws a stone in the face of an Israeli soldier.”
- “Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan [America] is absolute. … Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, ‘Death to America’ will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: ‘Death to America.'”
- “Martyrdom operations — suicide bombings — should be exported outside Palestine. I encourage Palestinians to take suicide bombings worldwide. Don’t be shy about it.” (December 6, 2002)
- “If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli.”
- Nasrallah has characterized Jews as the “grandsons of apes and pigs,” and as “Allah’s most cowardly and greedy creatures.”
- “It is our pride that the Great Satan [the U.S.] and the head of despotism, corruption and arrogance in modern times considers us as an enemy that should be listed in the terrorism list. … I say to every member of Hezbollah [should] be happy and proud that your party has been placed on the list of terrorist organizations as the U.S. view it.” (November 4, 2001)
Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, the top Egyptian cleric of AlAzhar University
- According to the Middle East Media Research Institute, a website associated with AlAzhar University recently reported in early 2002: “The great Imam of AlAzhar Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, demanded that the Palestinian people, of all factions, intensify the martyrdom operations [i.e. suicide attacks] against the Zionist enemy, and described the martyrdom operations as the highest form of Jihad operations. He says that the young people executing them have sold Allah the most precious thing of all. [Sheikh Tantawi] emphasized that every martyrdom operation against any Israeli, including children, women, and teenagers, is a legitimate act according to [Islamic] religious law, and an Islamic commandment, until the people of Palestine regain their land and cause the cruel Israeli aggression to retreat…”
Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Al Tayyeb, Egyptian Mufti
Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS), and spritual guide for the Muslim Brotherhood
- “We are fighting them in the name of Islam, because Islam commands us to fight whoever plunders our land, and occupies our country. All the school of Islamic jurisprudence – the Sunni, the Shi’ite, the Ibadhiya, and all the ancient and modern schools of jurisprudence – agree that any invader who occupies even an inch of land of the Muslims must face resistance. The Muslims of that country must carry out the resistance, and the rest of the Muslims must help them. If the people of that country are incapable or reluctant, we must fight to defend the land of Islam, even if the local [Muslims] give it up.”
- “They must not allow anyone to take a single piece of land away from Islam. That is what we are fighting the Jews for. We are fighting them… Our religion commands us… We are fighting in the name of religion, in the name of Islam, which makes this Jihad an individual duty, in which the entire nation takes part, and whoever is killed in this [Jihad] is a martyr. This is why I ruled that martyrdom operations are permitted, because he commits martyrdom for the sake of Allah, and sacrifices his soul for the sake of Allah.”
- “We do not disassociate Islam from the war. On the contrary, disassociating Islam from the war is the reason for our defeat. We are fighting in the name of Islam.”
- “They fight us with Judaism, so we should fight them with Islam. They fight us with the Torah, so we should fight them with the Koran. If they say ‘the Temple,’ we should say ‘the Al-Aqsa Mosque.’ If they say: ‘We glorify the Sabbath,’ we should say: ‘We glorify the Friday.’ This is how it should be. Religion must lead the war. This is the only way we can win.”
- “Everything will be on our side and against Jews on [Judgment Day]; at that time, even the stones and the trees will speak, with or without words, and say: ‘Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there’s a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’ They will point to the Jews. It says ‘servant of Allah,’ not ‘servant of desires,’ ‘servant of women,’ ‘servant of the bottle,’ ‘servant of Marxism,’ or ‘servant of liberalism’… It said ‘servant of Allah.’”
- “There is no dialogue between us [Muslims and Jews] except by the sword and the rifle …”
Hezbollah, Muslim terrorist organization
- In a 1992 statement, Hezbollah vowed, “It is an open war until the elimination of Israel and until the death of the last Jew on earth.”
- The Hezbollah Founding Statement reads: “We are the sons of the umma [Muslim community] — the party of God … the vanguard of which was made victorious by God in Iran. … We obey the orders of one leader, wise and just, that of our tutor and faqih (jurist) who fulfills all the necessary conditions: Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini. … Our culture is crystal clear. It is not complicated and is accessible to all. No one can imagine the importance of our military potential as our military apparatus is not separate from our overall social fabric. Each of us is a fighting soldier. And when it becomes necessary to carry out the Holy War, each of us takes up his assignment in the fight in accordance with the injunctions of the Law, and that in the framework of the mission carried out under the tutelage of the Commanding Jurist. … We combat abomination and we shall tear out its very roots, its primary roots, which are the U.S. All attempts made to drive us into marginal actions will fail, especially as our determination to fight the U.S. is solid. …”
- The Hezbollah Founding Statement contains a section titled “The Necessity for the Destruction of Israel,” which reads as follows: “We see in Israel the vanguard of the United States in our Islamic world. It is the hated enemy that must be fought until the hated ones get what they deserve. This enemy is the greatest danger to our future generations and to the destiny of our lands, particularly as it glorifies the ideas of settlement and expansion, initiated in Palestine, and yearning outward to the extension of the Great Israel, from the Euphrates to the Nile. Our primary assumption in our fight against Israel states that the Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception, and built on lands wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of the Muslim people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated. We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel, and regard all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation is nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.”
Khalid Mashal, member of the Hamas Political Bureau
Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas Foreign Minister
- “I dream of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it.”
- “Even if the U.S. gave us all its money in return for recognizing Israel and giving up one inch of Palestine, we would never do so even if this costs us our lives.”
Fatah, terrorist faction headed by the late Yasser Arafat
- Fatah defines as its principal goal the achievement of the “complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military, and cultural existence.” According to Fatah, this objective is not to be accomplished by peaceful means; nor does it allow for Israel’s continued existence: “Armed public revolution is the inevitable method to liberating Palestine. … [T]he Palestinian Arab People’s armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.” Candidly opposed to “any political solution offered as an alternative to demolishing the Zionist occupation in Palestine,” Fatah has made its organizational emblem a grenade and crossed rifles, superimposed on a map of present-day Israel. Fatah’s military arm, Tanzim, is funded by the Palestinian Authority and has played a leading role in Palestinian violence in recent years.
- The “Essential Principles” of Fatah’s Constitution include the following: “Palestinian struggle is part and parcel of the worldwide struggle against Zionism, colonialism and international imperialism“; “Liberating Palestine is a national obligation which necessities the materialistic and human support of the Arab Nation“; “UN projects, accords and reso[lutions], or those of any individual which undermine the Palestinian people’s right in their homeland, are illegal and rejected“; “The Zionist Movement is racial, colonial, and aggressive in ideology, goals, organization and method“; “The Israeli existence in Palestine is a Zionist invasion with a colonial expansive base, and it is a natural ally to colonialism and international imperialism“; “Liberating Palestine and protecting its holy places is an Arab, religious, and human obligation.”
Sakher Habash, senior Central Committee member of Fatah
- During a 1998 lecture at Shechem’s An-Najah University, Habash said: “To us, the refugee issue is the winning card which means the end of the Israeli state.”
Charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (excerpts)
- Article 1: Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.
- Article 2: Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.
- Article 3: The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland and have the right to determine their destiny after achieving the liberation of their country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of their own accord and will.
- Article 4: The Palestinian identity is a genuine, essential, and inherent characteristic; it is transmitted from parents to children. The Zionist occupation and the dispersal of the Palestinian Arab people, through the disasters which befell them, do not make them lose their Palestinian identity and their membership in the Palestinian community, nor do they negate them.
- Article 8: The phase in their history, through which the Palestinian people are now living, is that of national (watani) struggle for the liberation of Palestine. Thus the conflicts among the Palestinian national forces are secondary, and should be ended for the sake of the basic conflict that exists between the forces of Zionism and of imperialism on the one hand, and the Palestinian Arab people on the other. On this basis the Palestinian masses, regardless of whether they are residing in the national homeland or in diaspora (mahajir) constitute — both their organizations and the individuals — one national front working for the retrieval of Palestine and its liberation through armed struggle.
- Article 9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. Thus it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it. …
- Article 10: Commando action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war. This requires its escalation, comprehensiveness, and the mobilization of all the Palestinian popular and educational efforts and their organization and involvement in the armed Palestinian revolution. It also requires the achieving of unity for the national struggle among the different groupings of the Palestinian people, and between the Palestinian people and the Arab masses, so as to secure the continuation of the revolution, its escalation, and victory.
- Article 15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine. Absolute responsibility for this falls upon the Arab nation — peoples and governments — with the Arab people of Palestine in the vanguard. Accordingly, the Arab nation must mobilize all its military, human, moral, and spiritual capabilities to participate actively with the Palestinian people in the liberation of Palestine. It must, particularly in the phase of the armed Palestinian revolution, offer and furnish the Palestinian people with all possible help, and material and human support, and make available to them the means and opportunities that will enable them to continue to carry out their leading role in the armed revolution, until they liberate their homeland.
- Article 19: The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland …
- Article 20: Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.
- Article 22: Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress. Israel is a constant source of threat vis-a-vis peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Since the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian people look for the support of all the progressive and peaceful forces and urge them all, irrespective of their affiliations and beliefs, to offer the Palestinian people all aid and support in their just struggle for the liberation of their homeland.
- Article 23: The demand of security and peace, as well as the demand of right and justice, require all states to consider Zionism an illegitimate movement, to outlaw its existence, and to ban its operations, in order that friendly relations among peoples may be preserved, and the loyalty of citizens to their respective homelands safeguarded.
Yasser Arafat
- “We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. . . . We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.”
- “Peace for us means the destruction of Israel. We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations.”
- “The victory march will continue until the Palestinian flag flies in Jerusalem and in all of Palestine.”
- “Continued to press on soldiers of freedom! We will not bend or fail until the blood of every last Jew from the youngest child to the oldest elder is spilt to redeem our land!”
- “Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.”
Zahir Muhse’in, PLO Executive Committee Member
Excerpts from Palestinian Authority sermons:
- “We the Palestinian nation, our fate from Allah is to be the vanguard in the war against the Jews until the resurrection of the dead, as the prophet Mohammed said: ‘The resurrection of the dead will not arrive until you will fight the Jews and kill them…’ We the Palestinians are the vanguard in this undertaking and in this campaign, whether or not we want this…” (Palestinian TV, July 28, 2000)
- “Blessed is he who fights jihad in the name of Allah, blessed is he who [goes on] raids in the name of Allah, blessed is he who dons a vest of explosives on himself or on his children and goes in to the depth of the Jews and says: ‘Allahu Akbar, blessed be Allah.’ Like the collapse of the building upon the heads of the Jews in their sinful dance-hall, I ask of Allah that we see the Knesset collapsing on the heads of the Jews.” (Palestinian TV, June 8, 2001)
- “The battle with the Jews will surely come … the decisive Moslem victory is coming without a doubt, and the prophet spoke about in more than one Hadith. And the day of resurrection will not come without the victory of the believers [the Moslems] over the descendents of the monkeys and pigs [the Jews] and with their annihilation.” (official P.A. newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 18, 2001)
- “The Jews are the Jews. There never was among them a supporter of peace. They are all liars… the true criminals, the Jewish terrorists, that slaughtered our children, that turned our wives into widows and our children into orphans, and desecrated our holy places. They are terrorists. Therefore it is necessary to slaughter them and murder them, according to the words of Allah… it is forbidden to have mercy in your hearts for the Jews in any place and in any land. Make war on them anyplace that you find yourself. Any place that you encounter them — kill them. Kill the Jews and those among the Americans that are like them… Have no mercy on the Jews, murder them everywhere…” (Palestinian TV, October 13, 2000)
- “O Allah, destroy America as it is controlled by Zionist Jews… Allah will avenge, in the name of His Prophet, the colonialist settlers who are the descendents of monkeys and pigs…” [Ikrime Sabri, Mufti of the Palestinian Authority, (from weekly sermon in the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem). Voice of Palestine, July 11, 1997]
Abd-Al Malek Dahamshe, Israeli Arab Knesset Member
- “Our problem with Israel is not a border problem, but an existential one,” Knesset Member Dahamshe responded: “We exaggerate when we say ‘peace’… What we are speaking about is Hudna” [a temporary agreement until some future liquidation of Israel]. (September 1, 2000)
Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas leader
- “It’s our land. Nobody among our sons and grandsons will accept Israel as a legal state. … Israel is a foreign body. Not in this generation, not in the next generation, will we accept it here.”
- “We do not recognize the Israeli enemy, nor his right to be our neighbor, nor to stay [on the land], nor his ownership of any inch of land. … Our principles are clear: Palestine is a land of Waqf [Islamic trust], which can not be given up.”
Yasser Mansour, Hamas political candidate
- Mansour said his group demands ownership of “Palestine from the river to the sea” — and believes in retaking the land from Jordan to the Mediterranean, including Israel.
Ayman Al-Zawahiri, chief Lieutenant to Osama bin Laden
- Al Jazeera television broadcast a videotape on July 27, 2006, which showed Al-Zawahiri exhorting Muslims to wage jihad against Israel by joining the ongoing military conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza. Asserting that he viewed “all the world as a battlefield open in front of us,” and that the Israeli-Hezbollah war will not be ended with “cease-fires or agreements,” Zawahiri said: “It is a jihad for the sake of God and will last until [our] religion prevails … from Spain to Iraq. We will attack everywhere.” “My fellow Muslims,” he added, “it is obvious that Arab and Islamic governments are not only impotent but also complicit … and you are alone on the battlefield. Rely on God and fight your enemies … make yourselves martyrs. … The shells and rockets ripping apart Muslim bodies in Gaza and Lebanon are not only Israeli [weapons], but are supplied by all the countries of the crusader coalition. Therefore, every participant in the crime will pay the price. We cannot just watch these shells as they burn our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon and stand by idly, humiliated.” In addition, Al-Zawahiri instructed Muslims to attack “crusaders and Zionists” and to support jihad “until American troops are chased from Afghanistan and Iraq, paralyzed and impotent … having paid the price for aggression against Muslims and support for Israel.”
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former President of Iran
Gen. Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani, a top Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander
Suleiman Abu Gheith, al Qaeda spokesman
- In a June 2002 manifesto (translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute), Abu Gheith wrote, “America is the head of heresy in our modern world, and it leads an infidel democratic regime that is based upon separation of religion and state and on ruling the people by the people via legislating laws that contradict the way of Allah and permit what Allah has prohibited. … America is the reason for all oppression, injustice, licentiousness, or suppression that is the Muslims’ lot. … We have the right to kill 4 million Americans — 2 million of them children — and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, it is our right to fight them with chemical and biological weapons. … America is kept at bay by blood alone.”
Al Qaeda, Muslim terrorist organization
- The organization’s worldview and ideals are spelled out in a 1998 document titled “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,” which Osama bin Laden co-authored with, among others, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The document reads: “… [I]n compliance with God’s order, we issue the following fatwah [ruling on Islamic law] to all Muslims: The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it … to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan’s U.S. troops and the devil’s supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.”
- Al Qaeda’s objectives, motives, and strategies are further detailed in an Al Qaeda Training Manual designed to instruct aspiring terrorists in the art of murdering “infidels.” The manual was discovered by England’s Manchester Metropolitan Police during a search of an al Qaeda member’s home. “Islamic governments have never and will never be established through peaceful solutions and cooperative councils,” states this publication. “They are established as they [always] have been by pen and gun, by word and bullet, by tongue and teeth.” The manual exhorts jihadists to “pledge … to make their [the infidels’] women widows and their children orphans . . . to slaughter them like lambs and let the Nile, al-Asi, and Euphrates rivers flow with their blood … to be a pick of destruction for every godless and apostate regime.”
In addition, the manual enumerates what it calls “Missions Required of the Military Organization.” Among these are: “Assassinating enemy personnel as well as foreign tourists; … Spreading rumors and writing statements that instigate people against the enemy; Blasting and destroying the places of amusement, immorality, and sin; Blasting and destroying the embassies and attacking vital economic centers; Blasting and destroying bridges leading into and out of the cities.”
Finally, the manual explicitly declares that among al Qaeda’s “long-term goals” is “the establishment of an Islamic state.” But an “Islamic government would never be established except by the bomb and rifle,” the manual informs. “Islam does not coincide or make a truce with unbelief, but rather confronts it. The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun.”
Yahya Raheem Safavi, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander (July 30, 2006)
- “We Must Keep the Hatred of America Burning in Our Hearts Until the Moment of Revenge Arrives.”
- “I hope that our courageous and great nation will succeed one day in taking revenge against Israel and America, avenging the blood of the oppressed Muslims and the martyrs.”
- “We see America as also being the cause of the death of the 200,000 martyrs in the war that was forced upon us [i.e. the Iran-Iraq war], since it urged Saddam [Hussein] to attack Iran. We must keep the holy hatred burning in our hearts until the moment of revenge arrives.”
- “In light of the Zionists’ crimes and oppression, I ask God to hasten the years when this regime will no longer exist. … The Zionists are hastening their own death through their foul deeds, since Hizbullah and the Lebanese people are undefeated. There is a need to topple the phony Zionist regime, this cancerous growth [called] Israel, which was founded in order to plunder the Muslims’ resources and wealth.”