April 9, 2000
Hassan Nasrallah is the secretary-general of the Hizbullah
terrorist organization. At the start of the 1980's he was
responsible for the Beka'a area on behalf of the Amal movement.
He was also a founder of the Islamic Resistance which carried out
terror operations in south Lebanon. He left the Amal organization
in 1982 and affiliated with Hizbullah, taking with him many of
his followers. Following the death of Abbas Musawi in February
1992, he was unanimously elected as his successor as commander of
operations.
Speaking at the Shi'ite Moslem "Ashura" flagellation ceremony on
April 9, 2000 he made a number of very inflammatory statements,
including Holocaust denial, a call for the expulsion of the Jews
from Israel, and accusations of Israeli atrocities. Following are
excerpts:
"A group of Jewish Zionists, people without a name, came from all
corners of the world and conquered part of Palestine. The
Zionists carried out massacres, slashed open the bellies of
pregnant women, slaughtered children, women, men and old people,
destroyed houses, wiped out entire villages, and founded a state
of their own on land stolen through acts of slaughter, terrorism,
violence and cruelty...
"The Jews invented the legend of the Nazi atrocities. It is clear
that the numbers they talk about are greatly exaggerated. They
can speak of fabricated or exaggerated massacres that occurred
during the Second World War, but we must forget the massacres
that they committed against us and the peoples of the region
which are documented and proven...
"If we forget the massacres of the past, won't they carry out new
massacres?... If we forget our conquered land, will the Zionists
not conquer additional land, when they claim a historic right in
our land from the Nile to the Euphrates?... If we were to give
them Jerusalem and forget it, who could promise that they would
not tomorrow demand Mecca and Medina?...
"All the major disasters which befell the region stem from the
existence of the state called Israel. So long as there is a state
called Israel, disasters and suffering will continue. This is a
cancerous body in the region... When a cancer is discovered, it
must be dealt with fearlessly; it must be uprooted...
"The only way to achieve just and comprehensive peace is not
through the implementation of resolutions 425, 242 and 338 but by
restoring all the Arab lands to their sons and owners, without
war and conflict. Let us spare bloodshed. Let the Yemenite Jews
return to Yemen, the Moroccan Jews to Morocco, the Ethiopian Jews
to Ethiopia, the European Jews to Europe, and the American Jews
to America. The Palestinian people will get their land back and
establish their state...
"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..."