Gaza was never an issue.. Palestine is the issue and Gaza is the embodiment of its essence – Al-Baath Media

President Bashar al-Assad stressed that the aggression on Gaza cannot be discussed in isolation from the context of the Zionist massacres against the Palestinians in the past, pointing out that our continued dealing with the aggression today with the same methodology means paving the way for us to complete the massacres until the people are annihilated and the cause dies.

President al-Assad pointed out during his speech today at the extraordinary Arab-Islamic summit that the emergency in our summit today is not aggression or killing, as both are ongoing and both are inherent to the entity and a feature of it, but the emergency is Zionism’s superiority over itself in barbarism.

President al-Assad stressed that the minimum we have is actual political tools, not rhetorical ones, foremost of which is stopping any political path with the Zionist entity, so that its return is conditional on the entity’s commitment to an immediate, long-term, not temporary, cessation of its crimes against all Palestinians in all of Palestine, while allowing immediate aid to enter Gaza.

Below is the full text of the speech:

His Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Your Majesties, Highnesses and Highnesses

Gaza was never an issue, Palestine is the issue and Gaza is the embodiment of its essence and a stark expression of the suffering of its people.

Talking about it in isolation loses the compass, as it is part of a whole and a station in a context, and the recent aggression against it is just an event in a long context that goes back to seventy-five years of Zionist criminality, with thirty-two years of failed peace, the only absolute result of which cannot be refuted or disproved is that the entity has become more aggressive and the Palestinian situation has become more unjust, oppressive and miserable.

Neither the land nor the right returned, neither in Palestine nor in the Golan Heights. This situation produced a political equation that more Arab gentleness with them equals more Zionist ferocity towards us, and that more of our outstretched hand equals more massacres against us.

In light of this very clear equation, it is not possible to examine the aggression on Gaza in isolation from the context of the Zionist massacres against the Palestinians in the past, and the continuation of this context – without a doubt – later.

In light of this very clear equation, we cannot isolate this ongoing crime through our dealings as “Arab and Islamic countries” with the recurring events in a fragmented and isolated manner from the Palestinian cause. Our continued dealing with the aggression on Gaza today with the same methodology means paving the way for us to complete the massacres until the people are annihilated and the cause dies.

The emergency in our summit today is not aggression or killing, as both are ongoing and both are inherent to the entity and a feature of it, but the emergency is Zionism’s superiority over itself in barbarism, which places us before unprecedented responsibilities in their enormity, humanely and politically at the very least, if we put aside the national security of our region.

From a humanitarian perspective, there is no dispute about our duty to bear a large share of the minimum requirements of life, whether through immediate aid or rebuilding the necessary infrastructure later, but will we continue to revolve in a vicious circle of killing and aid, then massacres, then aid, attacks, then statements? The most important question is: what do Palestinians need from us? Do they need humanitarian aid first, or do they need protection from us first from the coming genocide against them? Here lies our role, and here lies our political work, but if we do not possess real tools for pressure, then any step we take or speech we give is meaningless. The minimum we possess are actual political tools, not rhetorical ones, foremost of which is stopping any political path with the Zionist entity, with all that the political path includes in terms of economic or other titles, so that its return is conditional on the entity’s commitment to an immediate, extended, not temporary, cessation of its crimes against all Palestinians in all of Palestine, while allowing immediate aid to enter Gaza.

As for talking about the two states and launching the peace process and other details and rights, despite its importance, it is not the priority at this emergency moment, even though we know that talking about it and about it will not bear fruit or be of any use, because there is no partner, no guardian, no reference, and no law, and because it is not possible to restore a right, and the criminal has become a judge, and the thief has become a ruler, and this is the state of the West today.

Only by our will, brothers, far from our demands for Western countries, international institutions and others to assume their responsibilities, as they only bear historical colonial responsibilities based on the suppression and plunder of peoples, only by our will, with the overwhelming popular public opinion in our countries, with what the Palestinian resistance imposed as a new reality in our region, we have acquired those tools, so let us use them, and let us exploit the global transformation that has opened for us political doors that were closed for decades, to enter through them and change the equations, and let the precious souls that ascended in Palestine be a rewarding price for achieving what we failed to achieve in the past and what we must achieve in the present and future.