Transcription
Welcome to Al-Ghawit. Without an introduction, we started directly, without an introduction, because this is an important episode. And with us today for the first time, we are bringing together Professor Hamed Abd El-Samad, the permanent guest of the program and, we can say, the owner of the program from within, and also our friend, Professor Khatib Badla, who has appeared with us several times in several episodes. He was a discovery, of course, for the enlightened and media and cinematic Syrian and Arab world, but he was a beautiful discovery and one of the few minds, truly, in our Arab world today that we can rely on to shed some light on the path. Welcome, Professor Khatib, and welcome again, Professor Hamed.
Hello, hello.
For the first time today, we are conducting a poll. I don't know how it will work or if it will appear on all channels or my channels, but please, people, comment and see if you see it on Professor Hamed's channel and Professor Khatib's channel at the same time. And I don't know if you might change your mind during the episode. You might start by saying, "Yes, the Islamization of conflicts has ended forever, with no return," or say that it is merely a warrior's rest, and who are you to judge that? Or say that it will return in a different form, like militias or scattered groups, in failed states, as happened at some point in Syria and Iraq, and so on. So, we wish you an enjoyable viewing, and I am sure it will be a fiery meeting. We will start with Professor Hamed by asking him the question titled the episode. You know, we saw what happened in Gaza, and we saw the revolution that happened in Egypt and the ousting of the Brotherhood, and then we saw the war on Iran. It's as if we have shifted to the Shiite part of political Islam. Does this mean that the world is washing its hands of these manifestations, or is it just a link in an endless chain? Please.
Yes, first, I would like to welcome Professor Khatib Badla, the important intellectual whom I value and respect for his stances. I always criticize intellectuals who are fence-sitters, who try to play both sides. But from time to time, we must also highlight intellectuals like Professor Khatib, who do not flatter and speak with great clarity, great courage, and great balance at the same time, without any populism or any, you know, flirting with any feelings of any kind. The goal is analysis and enlightenment. So, I welcome him, as it is our channel, and I am very happy with this meeting.
Thank you, thank you, Professor.
And returning to your question, in an ideal world, after the Gaza war and the Iran war, the idea of the Islamization of conflicts should have ended from our identity, political, and social lexicon. But unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world. We live in a world with a fish's memory; it forgets quickly. It forgets that no conflict has been Islamized and ended in favor of the side that Islamized it. On the contrary, the Islamization of conflicts always serves the interest of the other party, whether that other party is America, Israel, England, or any other place or entity. The Islamization of the Arab-Israeli conflict has not benefited the Palestinians in anything; on the contrary, it has made them lose everything. The Islamization of the political arenas in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Morocco, and Iraq has turned these countries into open war zones and has not benefited the peoples in any way. But when we talk about the Islamization of conflicts, we must talk about the other parties that participate in fueling the use of this Islamization sometimes. And let us not forget that America and the West, in general, have always been professionals in employing this Islamization for their benefit, from the days of the war against the Ottomans when they employed Islam and Arabism against the Ottomans in World War I, when they employed the Muslim Brotherhood in their war against global communism and Arab communism and against Nasser, when they employed the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviets, and when they employed the al-Shar'a group and militias in Syria to achieve an agenda we all know and has become clear. They dance with each other a tango dance. And there has been no force used by the West in the last 100 years more than political Islam and more than military militias in Libya, Iraq, and Syria, and even in Yemen. So, I hope that this conflict in its current form will exhaust these forces that have played on the chord of Islamization to the extent that it makes it no longer worthwhile in the future to open this file again and try to return to resolving conflicts in the usual political way that involves a balance of interests. I believe if this conflict were with another country, say, not Iran at the present time, there would have been some kind of balance of interests, and we would have reached a compromise that satisfies all parties, or at least does not exclude a party. But when the conflict is charged with religious ideas, heavenly prophecies, and end-of-the-world ideas, you find a kind of nihilism and risk-taking that makes each side go to the extreme and try to sacrifice everything. And this makes a solution seem out of reach. You have all parties to this conflict with a mixture of political pragmatism, religious prophecies, and religious chauvinism. And sometimes chauvinism prevails over pragmatism, and we hit a wall. I believe any other country besides Iran would have said, "I will not sacrifice my people's resources and my infrastructure. I will not sacrifice my entire army, and in the end, I will become one of the militias that I used to support before, just to throw a few missiles at the Strait of Hormuz, and then I will have won." So, I have no electricity, no economy, no army, and no access to the world. But the most important thing is to hurt my enemy from time to time and make his citizens complain that gasoline prices are high. What is this mentality? How are wars waged with the logic of "I will hurt my enemy," not "I will defeat him economically," or "I will take a piece of his land"? No, I will be completely destroyed, no problem. My economy will be completely gone, no problem. I will be completely isolated from the world and ruin my relationship with all my neighbors, no problem, just so I can have the ability to keep four or five of my soldiers or leaders and be able to throw a missile or two at the strait from time to time. But if we are talking about the end of the Islamization of conflicts, then other endings must be associated with it, which is the end of the era of American arrogance in dealing with the Middle East and in dealing with global issues. The approach that Trump follows in dealing with issues is not suitable at all. I have completely lost confidence in the United States, which, despite all the criticisms we leveled against the United States, there was always a degree of confidence in American diplomacy, in American promises, on which we could build. And America, despite all the problems, was able to play the role of mediator. Currently, we are looking for a mediator to mediate so that we can deal with America. This is a very serious problem. So, just as the Islamization of conflicts must end, American dominance to the point of absurdity must also end, and Israeli intransigence and the dream of Greater Israel must also end, so that we can sit down and negotiate on the basis of a truly new Middle East, without the Islamization of conflicts, but also without the Christianization and Judaization of conflicts, and without Christian and Jewish prophecies within the same system. I see that these three have found each other and are dancing a tango dance together with extreme nihilism and extreme danger, and it is pushing the world to the brink of collapse and opening the door to other conflicts without us equating one party with another. But intransigence in politics ultimately leads to ruin for everyone. And mixing religious discourse with political discourse, as is happening from all parties, is a great danger. So, just as we reject the Islamization of conflicts, we must also reject the Christianization and Judaization of these conflicts. This is a strong introduction that has opened up many other questions. In meetings like these, I don't prepare many questions, perhaps two or three at most, because I know the interaction will bring out much deeper questions than anything I might think of. So, Professor Hamed has given a broad perspective on the idea of the end of the Islamization of these conflicts and that it must also end any Judaization or Christianization of these conflicts or the imposition of a religious character on them. So, Professor Khatib, we know that the Islamization of conflicts did not start from a vacuum. It had reasons, including the Arab regimes themselves, which took the Palestinian issue as a religious issue and a source of legitimacy for their rule or the legitimacy of their rule. And also from the global situation and encouragement from Western countries, if you wish, to exploit a certain situation or attack a certain situation between the Soviet Union or communism at one time. So, has that changed now? And has the global situation changed? And if so, why do we see Golani welcomed in Germany and England? And I always find the situation of Golani specifically puzzling. Did we start saying that this is the end of political Islam, the Brotherhood, and the Islamist groups in power, and suddenly he is brought back to power on a silver platter? So, I will ask you the same question: Has the Islamization of conflicts and the reasons for this Islamization truly ended? And if you agree with Professor Hamed that there is now a Judaization and Christianization of this conflict, imposing a religious character on the political formula? Please.
First, thank you. Regarding Dr. Hamed, I made a short video some time ago that I talked about. I don't want to repeat it now. I truly see him as one of the great people who have enlightened many people who have been enlightened and benefited from him. So, we don't want to get too caught up in praising each other. Of course, Dr. Hamed, and your role is not insignificant either. Now, regarding the Sunnis, it's one thing, and the Shiites, it's another. Iran is different from when, for example, ISIS was formed, and the coalition attacked it. No one stood with ISIS, why? Because it doesn't have an extension within the Shiites and Sunnis. But what is dangerous about Iran is that it entered the issue by supporting a Sunni cause in the first place. For example, saying, "We want to support, we want to reclaim Jerusalem, liberate it." Jerusalem, for whom? Is Jerusalem a Shiite holy place, or Sunni? Who built the Al-Aqsa Mosque? The Umayyads, perhaps, Walid bin Abdul Malik. So, it infiltrated both currents. Iran, first of all, even when it enters our regions, it wants to export the revolution. In 1979, they announced that this revolution, we want to export it. They announced that they are expansionist people. And in 2015, their intelligence chief said that we now control four Arab capitals. And among these Arab capitals they controlled are Yemen and Syria, which are Sunni capitals. Lebanon is Christian, with some Sunnis and Shiites. Iraq has a Shiite majority. But how did it control Sunni capitals, and how did it seize Sunni masses? It seized them by saying, "I want to liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem for you, and these are holy sites considered Sunni." Now, today, when Iran is in crisis, fighting, and being hit, are the Sunnis standing with it more than the Shiites? I don't know. I believe there is no statistic to rely on, but most Sunnis are standing with it. And if you want to look at the political currents in our countries, the Middle East region, you find that the Ba'athists, the nationalists, the Nasserists, all stand with Iran. And the Brotherhood, who represent almost the Sunnis, are with Iran. And the communists, the majority of them, and unfortunately, or rather, with great astonishment, are standing with Iran, which they always said was a reactionary regime and we are against reactionism and so on. So, the danger of the Iranians in their project is that it has become a dual project, even though they have taken Shiite positions against Sunnis more than once. For example, in 2012, when the revolution occurred in Syria, and the revolution was almost entirely in the areas that erupted, which became predominantly Sunni, Hezbollah entered, under orders from Iran, and Iran itself was present, supporting Bashar al-Assad against these groups. So, it showed the Shiite face. And about two years ago, Khamenei said that the real conflict is the conflict between the supporters of Muawiyah and Yazid. Not the real conflict between the Iranian project and the Israeli project. That is the real conflict. It is that there is an Iranian expansionist project that entered our region by claiming that it wants to confront the Israeli project. It has harmed and damaged our countries much more than the Israeli project has harmed them. Where is Jerusalem? Where is Al-Aqsa Mosque? Who can enter them except with permission from Israel? So, you say, "I want to liberate." Go pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque. There is only one way you can go pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is to get permission from the Israeli state. And this Israeli state, what I find very strange is that countries like ours, in our countries, want to eliminate it. For example, the October 7th operation of 2023: "We want to liberate Palestine," and they entered with this operation. My man, don't you know that it is a nuclear state? What does a nuclear state mean? It means that if someone attacks it, it will retaliate with nuclear weapons. No, it's not like that. If it reaches the point of existential threat, it will use nuclear weapons and wipe out entire countries from the face of the earth, reducing them to dust, as they say. So, these dreams have become fantastical dreams. Acts of hostility or attempts to liberate Palestine and so on, by force, have become a failed experiment that is reapplied or experimented with from time to time. And even though it has yielded results, they expect each time that it will yield better results. I tell you, my brother, you want to liberate. Okay, you have an enemy. Do you know how big this enemy is? Its size is 100. My brother, prepare 70. Let you have 70 against 100. But you have 2-3-4% of the power sources and you attack. And when they are defeated, what do they tell you? "The Arab rulers have betrayed us, they have conspired." Why? Did the Arab rulers promise you that you would go and strike, kill some Israelis, and we would come with vast armies from here and there, and we would come to Israel? So, they betrayed you. Where do you get this talk from? Well, these countries that are called the treacherous Arab regimes, I am not with them, nor do I admire any of them. But what is the goal? What is the reason for them to withdraw their army and gamble with their people and the stability of their country to enter a war that is ultimately not their war? You made it their war. You told them when they Islamized the conflict from its beginnings. I was watching an old video of the poet Said Akl, may God have mercy on him. He said, "I said, in the presence of a representative of Gaddafi and a representative of the Palestinians, I told them, 'If the conflict had remained Palestinian-Israeli in 1948, all these calamities and destruction would not have happened.'" When it was Islamized and Arabized, you made it Islamic and Arab. This has brought us 78 years of destruction, and it is only getting worse. Now, I am saying, it's not that every time Israel advances, develops, creates science, creates technology, and we are falling further behind, to the point where in our countries, if we calculate the percentage of construction, for example, in Syria that has not yet been destroyed, you find about 20% of Syria or 15% of Syria with houses on the ground. The same is true for Iraq. Since Saddam Hussein's wars and so on until now, there are cities or areas that have been destroyed in Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza. All these countries have been destroyed. Why were they destroyed? Because they insist on the idea or illusion of resistance. I don't want to take too long, but I once said during this war, after October 7th, that a time will come when the idea of resistance will be abolished. Not because we were militarily defeated, but no. If we don't reach the stage where the idea of armed military resistance is removed, because it yields no results, it's not yielding results. You want to resist. There are dozens of peaceful, international, legal, and rights-based methods. But the problem is that those who surrender to public opinion don't let you think correctly. They tell you, "Ah, he's a traitor, he's a Zionist," and so on. Your second question, I want to answer it briefly or in passing. The issue of Ahmed al-Shar'a's or al-Golani's visit to Germany and other places. I am not thinking about it from the perspective that this regime of al-Shar'a is handing over the country. No, they don't think like that. They believe, "My brother, this has happened in Syria, and most of the people are satisfied with it. What business is it of ours? We have refugees who need to be deported urgently." I don't know. There is a statistic on how many prisoners are in Germany, and the state is feeding them, giving them drinks for years, treating them, and to no avail. What is their benefit? They are sitting in these prisons. And there are groups who came to Germany and did not get residency. Some of them came after 8/12/24 and still haven't gotten residency. Their legal status is still... they don't want them in the end. So, they have tried, or are trying, to make a deal and send them away. But I say that the German state can do this without receiving al-Golani. Why? Because this is their law. They can make amendments to the laws of that country and say that these people are no longer a threat in Syria, in their country. We will send them back to their country. I don't know what he will offer them. In Syria, the camps that exist before 8/12/202 are full, crowded with people. So, where will I put these people? I don't know. The important thing is that the democratic systems here prevent any action. Until now, we haven't heard of Germany deporting anyone. Perhaps they deported three or four for reasons I don't know, but there is no... They opened voluntary return, and few refugees left voluntarily, even though they gave them incentives. They give each person several thousand euros, but few left. The rest are clinging on and staying. They are here, enjoying secularism, democracy, human rights, and so on, and they support dictatorial regimes with a religious character. I'm afraid I've spoken too long, and we'll get back to the discussion later. Thank you.
Okay, Professor Khatib, you touched upon the idea of expansionist Israel and expansionist Iran. Professor Hamed, you also said in your remarks that Israel should abandon its expansionist and hegemonic ideas, and does Iran not desire expansion either? Iran does not distribute roses in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, and export the Shiite revolution, and so on. The second question: You did a special, short episode about the visit of al-Shar'a or al-Golani to Germany. So, could you also give us the reason, as you live in Germany and know the Arab community in Germany, the data of this visit, and the reasons for the German politicians' interaction with al-Golani and giving him legitimacy?
Yes.
Please.
First, regarding the issue of Iran and Israel, I also did a special episode about the history of the Jewish people and the history of the Persian people. You know, from the persecution and marginalization that both peoples suffered in different cultures. The Iranians were marginalized by the Arabs throughout history, by the Turks, by the Seljuks, and by the Mongols. And they remained for many years holding onto the idea of the return of the Mahdi and religious salvation at the end of time as a last resort, until Khomeini came and turned this verse around. He wrote a book called Islamic Government, in which he said that achieving Islamic government is more important than fasting, prayer, zakat, and Hajj, and all the obligations of Islam. So, it shifted from the idea of making the state the savior instead of waiting for the Mahdi. No, someone came and created the game of Wilayat al-Faqih, where he takes the place of the Mahdi, because it's clear that this salvation has taken too long. And the same story is the Israeli story. The Jewish people, who always remained in the diaspora, were persecuted, their rights were violated, and they were expelled. With brief periods of some peace and quiet, they also clung to the idea of the coming of the Messiah at the end of time, and with the coming of the Messiah, the state of Israel would be established. But what happened in Europe in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century completely turned the tables. They said, "No, we will not wait for the Messiah. We must establish a state that will be the Messiah, that will be the savior, the place to which Jews from all over the world can flee." And here you find two states rising against each other in the same region. They chose each other. And each of them, with the idea of divine salvation, the idea of historical right, and the idea of sacred prophecy, transformed from oppressed to oppressor, and transformed from, you know, the creed of survival to the creed of expansion and spreading influence, and the creed of deterrence. And both of them began to create long arms in the region. Both of them, one of them managed to create nuclear bombs, and the other is trying to pursue this path. And we see today the clash of prophecies and the clash of old spiritual wounds that have gathered and have not learned from the injustice that they were subjected to. You know, the Israelis or the Jews were subjected to great injustice by European nationalism, which crushed their rights and persecuted them. So, a Zionist movement emerged, imitating the same nationalism from which they were fleeing. And the Iranians were persecuted by the Arabs, by the Turks, and marginalized even by the West. So, they also created Persian nationalism and mixed it with religious Shiite nationalism. So, they also imitated those who oppressed them and began to oppress other peoples and violate the rights of other peoples. And I don't think that the policy of the long arm and the policy of deterrence will always bring peace, but it will continue to entangle the region in endless wars, because the dream of expansion and the dream of influence, my brother, every country today, this small, wants to be an empire. In the past, at least, you found America, China, and Russia had the qualifications: large populations, immense resources, vast lands. So, an imperial dream would have been understandable. For example, India. But now, you want a country this small, like Israel, to become an empire. A country like the Emirates wants to become an empire with influence outside its borders and so on. Iran wants to become an empire. So, when everyone wants to become an empire, what happens? Empires clash. We are back to the old wars of the Persians and the Romans, with the same logic of expansion and spread. They kept hitting each other until they exhausted each other in the end. I imagine and hope that if this Iranian regime is heading towards collapse, even if this war does not bring it down, I don't think it has long-term means of survival, because it has almost no cards left to play except the cards of resistance militias. It might itself turn into one of the militias. But it is impossible for Iran, and impossible for the world, to accept that a country like Iran will remain as it is, sitting at the strait and controlling who enters and who leaves. The countries of the world will unite, including China, Japan, and Korea. They will say, "We don't want a country like this to be the one sitting at the choke point, opening and closing oil." The West learned from 1973 when the Gulf countries closed oil during the war between Egypt and Israel. America sent after that and began to establish bases in the Middle East and began to support Israel significantly so that what happened would not happen again. So, I imagine that no one will allow Iran to remain with its imperial logic after all that has happened. On the other hand, those who reject this must have the same strength to reject the idea of Greater Israel, the idea of expansion, the idea of the long arm, and the idea of unlimited patches. As someone who lives half the time in Beirut, I have seen the war myself. No one told me about it. They strike indiscriminately. There is no such thing as Hezbollah striking. No, no, they strike indiscriminately. I know people who died in that war, they had nothing to do with it, they weren't even Muslim. They go to strike indiscriminately. And this method, you know, makes the world alienate them and makes the chances of peace limited because it hits everyone. And it feels like it has to keep the war going all the time so that the anti-corruption office doesn't come after them, just like Trump wants the war to keep going all the time so that he appears as the savior and rescuer and does everything. So, if you want to fight the logic of religious extremism in the region, don't play with the cards of political Islam again, and don't support militias. And this brings me to the second point. Why are they supporting Ahmed al-Shar'a? First, the support for Ahmed al-Shar'a did not come in the last few months or the last few years, nor did it come with his invitation to Washington, Germany, or Paris. The support for Ahmed al-Shar'a began in 2021 from British intelligence. He was trained in Idlib, and it was, you know, his project began to be paved, that this could be someone we can rely on. And this is not a secret. So, he did not impose himself on the West as much as there were understandings long before he came to power, through which they knew that this man could be someone we can rely on. First, they need him in more than one file. So, it's not a matter of them loving political Islam. No, they have, of course, the idea that the people are naturally religious, just as they made the same mistake with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Tunisia, that no, the people have religious inclinations, so let them rule, and so on. So, some government experts are still living in that illusion. A second part is that they need him in clear and explicit files, the first of which is the file of immigration and refugees. They want to return large numbers, but he wants to keep the refugees in Germany and the West because they send him hard currency. So, this is also a dilemma. If he sends them back, who will send him hard currency? His economy is almost based on them, just as Lebanon's economy is largely based on expatriates who send hard currency to the country. So, he would be stupid if he said, "Come." First, as Professor Khatib said, there is no room. The camps are full. Second, reconstruction. They thought Qatar would give them billions, and Saudi Arabia would give them billions. All of this is gone. Each country went about its own business and problems, especially after this last war. The Gulf countries will be self-sufficient and a bit stingy in dealing with external files because they want to do reconstruction themselves first. No, they want to oversee more than one file. The file of securing the southern borders for Israel is another file. The file of energy and trade routes that are supposed to pass through Syria and Turkey and reach Europe, and the gas and oil pipelines that are supposed to come from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. These are long-term projects. They want Ahmed al-Shar'a to be the watchman guarding the pipelines going to Europe, and he promised them all of this. And the man, honestly, since he came to power, Israel comes and strikes and breaks, and he is powerless, he doesn't even speak. Or if he speaks, he speaks shyly, saying, "Gentlemen, tell Israel not to strike us." So, he is following the script that was drawn for him. And I say he used the term "handkerchief" that is used and then thrown away. And the West has always used Islamic currents and militias as handkerchiefs, using them and then throwing them away or using them and then fighting them for another reason. Even Iran itself in Iraq, America allied with it against ISIS, and they were fighting together. So, America has no... So, what made al-Shar'a gain this position is primarily Tom Barrack, who was the ambassador, or still is, the ambassador of America in Turkey, and who is a close friend of Erdogan and has business with him, and a close friend of Trump and has business with him and his family. So, this is where the two heads met. This is what Trump listens to regarding the Middle East. So, Erdogan told Barrack, Barrack told Trump, "You can rely on al-Shar'a. He's a good guy, and I've tested him, and so on." So, this was the beginning of the story. But don't be surprised at all that after Iran weakens a bit in the region, Turkey's star rises, and Israel becomes worried about Turkey, you find the tables turned, and the danger all comes from Turkey and Ahmed al-Shar'a. And then they will come and say, "We want to form an international alliance to rid Syria of the rule of Islamists."
Professor Khatib Badla, the guests of the episode are lions in the face of the defeated and mice in front of the victors. Please comment on this comment. And someone commented, "Oh, you submissive ones, the Shiites are coming." Something like that.
Okay, I will comment on this comment. We are not against the defeated. We are, on the contrary, supposed to defend them. But I always hold the peoples responsible and do not rely on the idea of conspiracy. For example, now, as Dr. Hamed said, they have been grooming Ahmed al-Shar'a for a while. But they were grooming him, in my opinion, as a precaution, because they were also trying to groom Bashar al-Assad. In 2023, the Jordanian Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, came to Damascus and brought him an initiative for Bashar al-Assad. And they promised him that if you expel Iran from Syria, because the whole game was about Iran. After October 7th, before October 7th, the discussion was different. No one was talking about overthrowing Bashar or striking Hezbollah, or all these stories. It started on October 7th. So, they came and told Bashar al-Assad, Ayman Safadi, "I am not coming alone. There is an Arab initiative, and behind it is Saudi Arabia specifically, and the Gulf states." So, Bashar al-Assad responded, but he couldn't expel the Iranians from Syria. Bashar al-Assad turned Syria into a corridor for financing Hezbollah during his rule. Money and weapons used to come through Iraq, through Syria, to Hezbollah. In addition, Iran exploited Syrian territory to build drones, factories, and weapons and ammunition. And Israel used to come after October 7th and strike the airport, Aleppo airport, and Damascus airport, and they carried out a landing operation in Masyaf, and there was an Iranian presence there. All of this, Bashar al-Assad failed to expel Iran. They presented him with two summits, one in Riyadh or Jeddah, and the other in Manama. And the man was clear, saying, "My brother, it's beyond my ability. Iran has settled in Syria, as their intelligence chief said, that we control four capitals." We control our capital, unfortunately. The Iranians. Well, now we are thinking aloud and analyzing, not taking sides against another. I see that the aggression of October 7th against Israel made Israel and America, behind it, launch this long war that has not ended yet. It is still ongoing and has expanded greatly, reaching Iranian territory. So, if here, I just want to say that if Bashar al-Assad had been able to do what was required of him, he would have remained in power. They were not thinking of overthrowing him. Why would they overthrow him to plunge Syria into chaos, and it is next to Israel? And this is the truth. Perhaps they did not calculate that they brought Ahmed al-Shar'a because he is a radical Sunni to confront the Iranian presence, to prevent the return of Iranian influence in Syria. This is, in my opinion, its primary mission. There is another idea related to the Israeli expansionist project. I am against anyone who expands, whether it is Israel, Iran, or any party, regime, or empire that expands, because expansion means aggression against the lands of others. But I see Israel's obsession as security rather than expansionist, evidenced by the fact that it gave up Sinai in '78 and made a peace treaty and no longer thought of entering Egypt and responded to the idea of Oslo and Yasser Arafat and made peace with the Palestinians. But what is happening is that the idea of resistance has not ended. Even the Egyptians made a treaty with Israel. It was not a peace treaty in every sense of the word. It was a kind of truce, a continuous truce for 50 years. But peace means cooperation. Economic cooperation, tourism visits, etc. No, the Egyptian society remains hostile to the Israelis, not the state. The state, all the presidents who came after Sadat, adhered to the peace treaty, including Mohamed Morsi. But the people, and they still refuse the Israelis as a people. The story is that I, of course, do not wish for Israel to take an inch of our land, neither from our land nor from Egypt's. But why do we always talk about Israeli expansion? Wasn't Gamal Abdel Nasser expansionist? What did he gain from Yemen? What did he bring to Syria? Wasn't Gamal Abdel Nasser trying to do something resembling an empire? No one. He started a project and grew it bigger than his country, which led his country to destruction and ruin. And all of them did not benefit from the advice of Habib Bourguiba, perhaps in 1972, when he told them, "My brother, let everyone sit and build their country, develop their people, send scientific missions, bring people who understand what you want." He told Gaddafi, "What do you want with this Arab nationalism and the four-party union and the three-party union and so on, and supporting organizations?" What do you want from this story? What happened to Libya as a result of this expansionist fantasy? Libya also became like Syria. Now, how long will it take Libya to return to stability? Of course, the stability that existed during Gaddafi's time, the stability of Iraq during Saddam's time, the stability of Syria during Assad's time, all of it is illusory stability, not real stability. Real stability is when all the components of your people agree on the principle of citizenship, peaceful transfer of power, building, and development. None of this has happened in these countries. And the primary reason, if you go and search and go back, you will find that the primary reason is that each of these countries considers the Palestinian issue its issue, not its country's issue. That is, if the Syrians, from 1946 until today, from when France left until today, had made Syria's issue their issue, this would not have happened to them. We want to liberate Palestine, and we want to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque. By the way, there is something like a jest in this: most of those who want to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque do not pray at all. They are liars. But it is a dazzling, rhetorical slogan that can mislead people who have no thought, no opinion, no stance. And these are the people who have no opinion, stance, or thought, and they are the fuel for these wars waged by these expansionists. And the most dangerous of them, I say, is Iranian colonialism, and in the past, Turkish colonialism. When we had Ottoman colonialism, it made us fall behind the rest of humanity, because it is a backward colonialism. Now, the Iranians, if they occupy our countries, what will they bring us? What civilization do they have? They will bring us Wilayat al-Faqih. They want to teach us religion. We have religion, and we have people who pray in mosques and sheikhs. We don't need anyone to come and teach us religion. We need someone to teach us how to build a nation, build a state, achieve liberation, respect for the human being, human rights. These are not respected in all these countries. These Islamist groups despise the human being, and the tyrannical groups with a national character, like the party, Saddam Hussein, Hafez al-Assad, and so on, also do not respect the human being. Even Gamal Abdel Nasser and his rule did not respect the human being. They call him "the beloved of millions." Millions of whom? Who are these millions? What are their thoughts? What is their nature? What is their composition? What is their essence? It doesn't matter. What matters is that there is a leader. What matters is this people. When the individual has value in any country, and the state defends him, fights for him, then we will have countries worthy of respect.
Excellent. Professor Hamed, I wanted to ask you about a point, not just in this episode, but in many episodes, there is a slight confusion or a kind of tension: the idea of the religious motive in governance between Israel as a Jewish state and the Western world, America and Europe. If we agree that their background is Christian or Judeo-Christian, their motive is that. But is there a fundamental difference between Iran and Israel, Israel, America, and those in charge of Western policy? One has a religious state structure, and the other exploits religion for political motives. Please. First, I want to thank the people. We have reached 1200 live viewers due to likes and shares. So, thank you very much for the support. Please.
Certainly, anyone who tells you that Iran is like Israel, like America, is deceiving you, because there is a vast difference. There is a difference between a state whose entire political philosophy and constitution are based on the idea of Sharia, or Wilayat al-Faqih, or the Islamic state, such that all its civil and political laws are based on religion, like Iran, and between states whose constitutions clearly state that they separate religion from politics, but they flavor their religious discourse with a religious charge to win over...
People sympathize or for the crowd, especially in the circumstances we are in in the world today. Wars are increasing, and in societies that have prosperity, stability, and, you know, material well-being, young people don't want to go to war. They consider the state merely a service provider, a state that provides them with services. The state, for them, is not a sacred entity for which they should die. But when wars intensify, and you find other countries like Russia and Iran and others mobilizing and making a great religious mobilization, this matter becomes tempting for the other side to say, "Well, I also have religions and religious culture. Why shouldn't I use them?" But this is just a veneer to stir up people's feelings. Nevertheless, it is very dangerous because playing with religion is playing with fire, and playing with religious discourse and religious feelings, especially in times of war, is very dangerous. We see this in America when the Secretary of Defense speaks, it creates a situation among the soldiers that might lead them to commit war crimes. So, we must de-escalate these speeches because, as I told you, they dance the tango together. They say, "Look, he's speaking in the name of religion, why don't you want to speak in the name of religion?" So, it gives an excuse to the other. But my theory on the matter is clear: the rise of political Islam in the East and West, and in society, along with migration, the Arab-Israeli conflict being Islamized. These two things, or three things: the rise of political Islam, the massive Islamic migration to the West, and the rise of political Islam there, and the Islamization of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and dealing with all that resulted from it in terms of terrorism and security problems in the countries. This migration, yes, it awakened the religious giant in these societies and made them respond with the same logic, at least, the religiously charged, emotionally religious discourse, to say, "I must also use this energy." And the second reason is wars. Someone like Putin, in his war against Ukraine, brings the Orthodox Patriarch to bless his weapons and his warships, and tells him that he resembles Christ. And just as they do with Trump, exactly, his advisor, who a few days ago on Easter, likened him to Christ, that they betrayed him and wronged him, and yet he rose, he rose and appeared. And someone in the Emirates likened Trump to Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib just yesterday. Good. So, there is an exchange of comparisons for free. Today, Trump posted a picture of himself as Christ healing the sick from their beds. So, this mess, when you open the tap, you can't close it again because it's truly playing with fire. But surely, Israel and America use religious discourse, but at the same time, they have knowledge, administration, and laws. In yesterday's elections in Hungary, they ousted a right-winger who was like Netanyahu and Trump. He changed the election rules before, changed the press law, changed the judicial system to stay in power for a long time. Nevertheless, democracy is capable of purifying itself. And he was also using religious discourse, bringing Christianity back to the heart of Europe and so on. In the end, peoples raised on critical thinking and democracy can expose these people and tell them, "No, you go to your mother. That's enough for you. We only took words from you." And this will happen to Trump in the midterms if he cannot get out of this predicament quickly and solve the economic crisis. The American citizen doesn't care about all these religious stunts he's doing. On the contrary, in a pluralistic society, using religious discourse is a greater danger. When you use religious discourse in a Shiite country where all its people are Shiite, it mobilizes them. If you do it in an Orthodox country like Russia, where all its people are Orthodox, it yields results because it unites people. But when you use religious discourse in a pluralistic country like Israel or America, it divides society. It doesn't unite. Even Iran, Iran is supposed to be a pluralistic country. It's supposed to be, but legally, those in power and the important people are all Shiites specifically. The rest of the minorities have no political weight, even though they have millions of people from other ethnicities and religions. So, in the end, no, we are not comparing political structures. We are comparing religious discourse. Religious discourse has become clearly similar; they imitate each other. But the political structure remains. Netanyahu said, "The day will come, and elections will bring him down, and they will bring someone else. And Trump will come, and he will leave power, and someone else will come because democracy and rationality are capable of purifying themselves like the sea. But when we live in a religious swamp, as I told you, we have the memory of a fish. We return to the same discourse that led us into trouble. It brings us back to the same tribal ideas and the logic of undisciplined resistance. And this is a point I have spoken about a lot: we must regulate our terminology. Our terminology is unregulated because we do not have real sociology, and we do not have philosophy. Philosophy, sociology, and true political sciences are responsible for regulating the terminology that politics operates with and that the people understand. What is freedom? So, we must redefine what freedom is, what dignity is, what resistance is, what a homeland is. All these terms. I am surprised in a country like Lebanon, its problem is known. And I tell you, I have criticized Israel as much as I can. I criticize it while I am in Germany because I see a lack in this area. But while I was in Lebanon itself, I criticized Hezbollah and its irresponsible actions, which led Lebanon into a war it has no stake in, and makes Lebanon a tempting target for wars, and they will sacrifice it in the end. They will say, "Okay, let's leave Lebanon and divide the strait and collect the fees together." And Trump is willing to sell anyone his family the next day. There is no problem with these issues. The second issue that Professor Khatib spoke about is the issue of Israeli expansion. True, Israel's greatest concern for decades has been security. And the idea of expansion has always been present, but there have been no serious steps taken. But now we are beginning to see steps, such as the attempt to annex the West Bank, wanting to take part of Gaza, and now wanting to take a piece of Lebanon and a piece of Syria. This project is already underway, not just talk. It's a project that has already begun. And the Israel that made peace with Egypt is not the Israel of today. The Israel that made peace with Egypt was still largely a secular state with a secular society, with a few people, the Orthodox, living on the side, not paying taxes or anything. They were left alone. Now, these people are increasing, while the rational and secular people are decreasing. So, there is a dual demographic pressure on Israel. First, the increasing number of Palestinians in Gaza and the Strip and within Israel itself compared to the number of Jews. And demographic pressure from settlers and religious people who have five or six children, so their numbers are increasing. So, it's a matter of time before the majority becomes religiously fanatical. Because you cannot guarantee this if secular people are not having enough children, and this is a phenomenon that exists all over the world, not just in Israel. So, the demographic pressure, the fear of the increasing number of Palestinians, is one of the reasons why the Gaza war is being managed in this way, in the hope that they can displace about 100,000 people from Gaza and take part of the area where these million people are displaced and send them to Sinai, or Jordan, or southern Syria, or I don't know, Uganda, or I don't know where, so that they can settle and bring in Jewish settlers to live there, thus solving their demographic problem for the next 20 years. So, these are not just ideas. "No, I am expanding, and the dream of Greater Israel." No, Israel has begun to take steps in this direction. And I see this as dangerous. And if a person doesn't stop at this and say, "Okay, give them," it's not possible. It's not possible for 9 million people to constantly live with their security concerns and their expansionist ambitions, and still occupy the 500 million people living in the entire Middle East and want to organize it all according to their desires. It won't work. Just as we criticize Islamic stubbornness and Islamic extremism, we must also criticize this Jewish extremism, whose ambitions and ideas are the origin, by the way, from which all the others, the extremists, have taken their ideas. There are prophecies, and that we are the true religion, and that we are God's chosen people, whom God has chosen. We have all taken from them. So, just as we criticize the Islamic idea, we must criticize the original idea from which the Islamic idea was taken. Professor Khatib, there are several points that God enables me to gather and speak about in response to Mr. Hamed's كلام. First, the definition of freedom. You spoke about who liberates and who wants to liberate Palestine, and so on. And Mr. Sami Kayyal wrote a post a few days ago that I really liked. He says it's not strange that Hamas, Iran, and Hezbollah are the ones who want to establish a free Palestinian state, considering that they themselves believe in freedom or practice it, or it's part of their creed. If they establish it, it will be like any other Arab state, devoid of freedom. The second point is the idea we've entered into: does Israel have expansionist ambitions? Is it security-driven? And even if it's expansionist, is it ideological or imperialistic in the traditional sense? Have we Arabs not helped to create the suitable environment and the suitable conditions for these ambitions to be realized? Israel has existed for 70 years and has not taken Sinai, and it occupied southern Lebanon and retreated from it in the eighties, and now it has returned because of Hezbollah's strikes, as Hamed said, in a war it has no stake in. And Syria, too, the issue of security, and part of it is the Golan Heights because it overlooks all of Damascus and covers Israel. So, even if it expands, its motive will be security. But in the end, whether security or not, expansionist or not imperialistic, in the end, it is expansion. The second question is the idea of religious motivation in Europe. You both live in Europe. Is this really a reaction to the Islamic wave and the politicization and religiousness of politics in Arab societies and Islamic migration to the West? Or is it an attempt by the West as a people, not even politicians, to find or return to a general culture that limits the Islamic wave and its dominance in the public sphere? Please proceed. You've given me too many questions. First, I want to say something first, and I forgot or missed it: ideologies, when they clash and grow and become states, the states become the carriers of the ideology. For example, we say the Soviet Union carried the ideology of Marxist communism, and there was a group of countries called Eastern Europe that also carried this ideology. The Shiite communist ideology as a theory exists today. The books are available and circulated: Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc., all are available, but the carrier is gone. So, if today Iran, which they are attacking or fighting, manages to end it as an expansionist state, and I see that this will happen, even if not now, because there is a veto on this expansionist Shiite presence that wants to export the revolution, there is a veto, not a small veto, there is a veto on killing. Iran is almost completely destroyed. So, when this carrier disappears, where will political Islam go? Of course, ISIS went, Afghanistan was contained and they left it, saying, "You can be a parasite on your people." They considered it a state that could be neglected, Afghanistan. Gaza, too, when Hamas emerged, it was destroyed. So, if the Iranian regime truly falls, then all political Islam is in danger. We can say that it will end. Political Islam does not end as long as there are religious people who carry the religious thought. Some people come out and say, "We want to establish a state. We don't want to be content with worship. Now we will take action." Let's take Syria as an example. I don't know if Dr. Hamed agrees with me. Political Islam groups have been banned in Syria since the late seventies, since the artillery operation and then Hama, and then Hafez al-Assad launched the story of the comprehensive war. Then he issued a law in 1980, number 49, which mandates the death penalty for anyone affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood or any Islamic group. So, we have gone through a period from that time until 2023. We say that in Syria, with this regime, political Islam cannot emerge. But as soon as the regime weakened and a revolution broke out, and areas went out of its control, Islam emerged. Political Islam, when did it truly appear in Syria? It appeared after the revolution began, a year or more later, because the first year of the revolution, or less than a year, did not have an explicit Islamic character. They were entering within the revolution, infiltrating. Then came foreign support and the money that was spent. This Islamic trend in the revolution, of course, led to a civil war, and this civil war ended with the rise of Al-Qaeda, led by al-Jolani, to power, and you know the rest. So, here I want to say about philosophy as well. Dr. Hamed said that the peoples who want to develop must have philosophy, psychology, sociology, worldly sciences. Once I saw a video of Al-Qunibi, one of the theorists of political Islam, who said, "By God, brothers, if you burn the books of philosophy in the fireplace, they will be more useful to you than reading them." Where is the completion? The completion of the حديث is that I made a short video telling him that if we read philosophy, we wouldn't be listening to you. You would have no place. If our people were reading philosophy, they would have found you to be an insignificant person. I don't mean Al-Qunibi himself, but rather someone who comes with stale, backward goods from thousands of years and tries to convince you of them. If these people were reading psychology, philosophy, and sociology, they wouldn't listen to you. Now, here is the issue, of course, Mr. Sami Kayyal. I love and respect him very much, and I always read his work with interest. He is indeed an excellent man. So, we send him our greetings. Regarding Israel, there are expansionist dreams among the Israeli right, true. But I also say that we created Israel. We created it all by our attempts to eliminate it from existence or throw it into the sea, etc. We make its security concerns expand, and it takes areas from us. Anwar Sadat, in 1973, the Egyptian army, I say the great army, is what hurt Israel and made it make peace with him. If it hadn't hurt it, it wouldn't have made peace with him. Even in the idea that was circulated that Sadat, before 1973, offered the Americans the idea that I want to reconcile with Israel, and they told him, "Perhaps they won't accept you." Why? Because what did you do to them for them to reconcile with you? Look, even the Americans themselves. Henry Kissinger's words, indeed. They know that this Israeli system gives nothing except through force. Its existence has been based on force since 1948 until now. Israel's existence was and remains based on force, and more force, and violence, and more violence towards anyone who approaches us. Now, Dr. Hamed says that when he was in Lebanon, he saw that the strikes were filled with rage. Yes, with rage. From 1923 until now, all the strikes that Israel has carried out, whether in Gaza, Lebanon, or Syria, are with rage and in a terrible manner. We are not saying that they are conciliatory or peaceful, but I hold the original parties responsible. You are always complacent. He gives an example, "Look, he strikes someone like Yahya Sinwar on October 7th. He calculated that Israel would retaliate. He built shelters, hospitals, places for people to hide before the Hamas attack." They have been ruling the Gaza Strip for more than 20 years. Why have they built tunnels and shelters for the fighters? Why are ordinary people being hit? So, we hold ourselves responsible, and primarily, that Israeli. You, as peoples, this region does not consider you an enemy. You expect the enemy to be merciful, humane, and not approach you, and say, "Your command, sir." This is not expected. What is expected is violence, rage, and more violence. And more strikes. So, even in the end, the last sentence I want to say is: if we reach a stage where we understand that we have no project for a country, no project for a state, no project for building a homeland, in the end, the Iranians, the Israelis, the Americans, the Russians, and whoever else you want, will play with us. Iraq, from 2003 until today, has not been able to establish a state like the anxiety because there is no principle of citizenship. Today, a large part of the Iraqis are saying, "Iran is being hit, and we are with Iran, and so on." What do you want? What do you have to do with it? This Syrian who cannot find a gas cylinder, and cannot find a sandwich to eat, and so on, is saying, "I want to liberate. I want to fight." Yes, I am with Iran, and the Arab rulers are traitors, and we must all stand with Iran. Even when Iran hit them and killed them, and he hated it, and yesterday Netanyahu assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, some of them were distributing sweets in celebration of Hassan Nasrallah's assassination. Now they have all sided with Iran. The reason is this emptiness: a people, people who have no idea of the country, the idea of the state, the idea of preserving Sykes-Picot, the agreement that the victors drew up between Britain and France, and it drew our borders, and it brought Israel because in 1916, the Balfour Declaration, the famous promise of Balfour, was realized in 1948. It was the result of World War I. The existence of Israel, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq, all their borders were drawn in those days. We do not preserve our borders, nor do we preserve our state. And as soon as France left Syria, we began to disrupt Syria's security, and officers began to carry out coups, and eventually led to comprehensive tyranny in the days of Hafez al-Assad, and now we are in religious tyranny. And we are still saying, "God bless Iran. Iran is hurting America." If it hurts America, what have you benefited from? Tell me. If it hurts America, Israel, or America, Israel hurts Iran. What are you? What have you gained? Reconsider yourself. Say, "What is this?" This is what I want to say. Excellent. Mr. Hamed, your friend Wafi Henry says that it's strange that no one has demonstrated against the Iranian-American negotiations in Islamabad, but they demonstrated against Lebanon or Lebanese officials who held direct talks with Israel. This also goes to the heart of the issue: religious affiliation is higher than national affiliation. And in this case, even Hezbollah is Lebanese in the end, but its ideological or sectarian affiliation leans towards Iran. Is this also in the process of disappearing with the disappearance of Hezbollah's weapons or Hezbollah's status as a political party with a dissenting opinion only? Or is it founded in Islamic identity, whether Sunni or Shiite, forever? Well, Hezbollah is fundamentally an Iranian project. Without the Iranian Revolution, there would have been no Hezbollah, or at least not in this form or with this momentum. So, Hezbollah is a child of the Iranian project and a child of the Lebanese civil war, where the Shiites found someone to stand with them, arm them, instead of standing with them, building hospitals and schools for them, and developing their lands. They did with them what they did with Gaza. Instead of improving life in Gaza through economic projects and construction, they spent billions on them to build tunnels to commit suicide in. So, the same idea. Hezbollah is a purely Iranian project. It has been clear since the days of Hassan Nasrallah, when he was young, that Lebanon is part of the Wilayat al-Faqih state. And Lebanon as a whole, to be clear, not just the Shiite areas in the south and the Bekaa. There are, you know, this point has been known for a long time. And Lebanon's crisis is its fragmentation between multiple loyalties, and its decision has never been in its government or among its people. There is always a guardian for every sect, and that guardian decides on its behalf or imposes a certain decision on it. In this last war, in particular, there was almost a consensus. No, this time, Hezbollah will definitely not be reckless and make the same mistake. It must learn from what happened in Gaza, where Iran continued to support, help, and build tunnels in Gaza, but when the real bombing and strikes came, there was no protection, no air cover to protect Hamas and the poor Palestinians. The same thing in Lebanon. Lebanon was destroyed in the last war, and no one knows where the money for reconstruction will come from, because the Gulf states said, "We will not pay a penny because every war that comes, we will be held accountable for the expenses." And then Hezbollah comes and doesn't listen to anyone, goes to war, and then gets destroyed. So, Hezbollah itself began to rely on this system since the days of Saad Hariri, because his relationship with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states was good, that the Gulf states would eventually be the ones to do the reconstruction. In fact, reconstruction benefited Hezbollah because it intervened in projects, collected protection money, and arranged all these matters. A comparison with Gaza. The same thing that is happening in Gaza. The same thing that is happening in Gaza. So, we all, I was there during the first war and the second war. I saw it and said, "This time, surely, we were all betting. No, it's impossible. Not with this stupidity that he will come and throw two rockets in the celebration and get destroyed and broken like this. Surely, he won't do that." No, it turns out that this is the danger of the ideological project. I do this with a vision of time that differs from the world's vision of time. I have a vision of military and political strategy that differs from the world's vision of strategy because I am waiting for the Mahdi to emerge from the cellar. So, this logic, that I fully believe that I am following in the footsteps of Hussein, and no matter what defeats I suffer, victory is inevitable. This is what makes political Islam incapable of surrender. Fascism was defeated and surrendered and changed its course with military defeat, but political Islam, Mr. X, does not die. The phoenix rises from the ashes every time because it relies on the memory of the fish of the people and relies on the fact that our peoples are emotional peoples and can be deceived with a few words and slogans. And that if you shoot down a missile on Israel or bomb an American plane, you are a hero of heroes, and history will close its pages. I don't want anything more than that. I shot down a plane for the Americans, so I am a hero of heroes, and I have won. And since we are talking about terminology and regulating terminology, what is victory? What is defeat? These are things that have clear definitions worldwide. We have victory as something I feel I have won, so I have won. I still have three soldiers and two chickens, so I have won. And the other, because he destroyed some buildings for him and burned some cars for him and killed 15 soldiers for him, so I have won, and I have lost thousands, tens of thousands, my entire economy is destroyed, and my entire army is destroyed, but I am still victorious because my enemy did not achieve 100% of his goals. If he achieved 85%, he is still defeated. So, what was your goal? My goal is that he does not achieve 100% of his goals. And here comes the unsolvable equation: I have won because he has not yet controlled the Strait of Hormuz. My dear, what is the price? The price is the destruction of Iran, Lebanon, and Yemen. No, the most important thing is that he does not come and control the Strait of Hormuz. He will come in a little while, and he will control the Strait of Hormuz. He will say, "But he has not controlled it 100%. I still have a part of the strait that I control. Ships pass through the other part, and so on, and I can hurt him from time to time. I can bomb a ship." So, it doesn't end because he has a state of nihilism and a state of historical amnesia or historical dementia. He sees illusions, he sees people emerging from cellars, and he sees angels fighting with him, and it's all in his imagination. And in the end, even after the entire land burns, he will say, "Are you better than Hussein? Hussein was besieged, and it was a small group, and so on, and so on. So, sit with us and wait for your uncle the Mahdi to emerge at the end of time, and your sustenance is from God. And martyrdom is a beautiful thing. You are killed, and a martyr is followed by 10 others who want to imitate him, and so on. Mr. X does not die and continues to flow. You asked a question to Professor Khatib that you had asked me before, and the answer was not complete. In another part, does the West return to religion in its discourse and emotional manipulation because of the rise of political Islam only, or for other reasons? No, there are many reasons, and wait for my upcoming book, which will be entirely about the return of religion to the whole world. Of course, Islam is not the center of the world. The rise of Islam, especially political Islam and armed Islam, has certainly played a role in encouraging these forces. They say, "Well, we also have religion, and we know how to go back to the memory of the Crusades." And the US Secretary of Defense puts this cross of the Crusades and writes "Volt" and so on. These are all reactions because this is the son of the Iraq War, and what he saw in the Iraq War. No, there are other reasons, of course, because this phenomenon is a global phenomenon. It exists in China. Even Hussein himself has begun to revive religious sentiment, and a very aggressive return to Hinduism in India, taking on other frightening forms in Asia. So, yes, there are certainly reasons. The rise of Islam is one of them in the West. The rise of China and the pre-imperial collapse in the West. The pre-imperial collapse in the West. There is a sense that the rug is beginning to be pulled out from under the West economically and in terms of global leadership. And America is trying to save what it can with Trump's acrobatic moves, like going to take Venezuela's oil, strangling China, taking Iran's oil, tightening the noose on China, and doing this and that. But all of this, the West feels, is a matter of time. Demographically, on one hand, and economically, on the other, the West no longer has the juice or the power to truly lead. It will remain a global power, but not the sole power. So, this feeling of collapse is beginning to affect the ordinary citizen before the politician. The era of the white man is about to end as the master of the world or the sole master of the world. So, this also makes us think, "What is this?" The desire to return, like the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, gave rise to the Hassan al-Banna movement and the Mawdudi movement as reactions. And just as the collapse of the German and Habsburg empires gave rise to Nazism, and the fall of the Russian Empire gave rise to Bolshevism and communism in its political form. So, these are also reactions. Of course, globalization and the state of insecurity and fear of the future that is engulfing the world in light of artificial intelligence, which you cannot imagine what the world will look like in four or five years. So, this causes the world to have anxieties. It causes the ordinary human to feel that they no longer have value, that no one listens to them anymore, and that the machine will take their place and their jobs. So, this makes people afraid and makes them return to things that are familiar or learned from history, which are the rules. And the second thing that makes the return to religion in the West, specifically, take an unnatural form compared to previous decades, in my analysis and in my book, is that postmodern ideas have dismantled the Western identity system and dismantled all the things that modernity built upon and made them things that people can understand. The concept of the state, the concept of the family, the concept of meaning, the concept of rationality, the concept of science, the concept of the family, the concept of culture, the concept of gender. This is after the ideas of postmodernism and post-colonialism. They have dismantled all of this. When you dismantle the concept of masculinity, the concept of the nation-state, the concept of meaning and culture, and even question science itself, saying that science is just a power structure. So, you are undermining the scientific methodology that was the common denominator that people used to understand each other. When you tell him that there is no such thing as a man and a woman, that it's all subjective feelings and social constructs, and so on. So, this has created a counter-movement that says, "Let's go back to before modernity." Not to modernity itself. We don't want to burn your book, but this is a huge coverage of the idea of political hegemony or the return to religious motivation as an active factor in the public sphere, especially the connection of the white man and Western civilization to the Christian religion. So, he uses it to support the white man, not necessarily to support religion as a culture or spiritual meaning. My friend Khaled Abd al-Rahman, who will not be able to attend because you touched upon Hamed's idea of the meaning of defeat and victory, shared this video. It's from the fifties or sixties, I don't know, from an old Egyptian play, about the meaning of war or victory in war, in the voice of Antarah al-Absi. I will play a part of it, not all of it, due to time, and let's see. My enemy fell before me, and we strike until the two swords break together. He wrestles with me, takes my finger in his mouth, bites me, and I give, and he almost throws me to the ground, and I almost scream from pain. But I cling to my patience and say, "My soul, I will never scream from pain." So, why doesn't he scream? Let him scream before me. And behold, my adversary screams before me, then leans on my leg, begging. Ah, so it's not about victory or achieving goals or gaining benefits, but he screams before you. What about the rest of the بيت? It's exactly like that. The most beautiful thing about this in Antarah's بيت is Mahmoud Darwish, who said, "Your arm fell, so pick it up. It fell from you, so pick me up. And strike your enemy with me." It's also the same idea. That is, "Sacrifice me, it doesn't matter. Long live the homeland." This is good for theaters. This is beautiful talk for theaters. Or a justification for defeat. Professor Khatib, we are nearing the end of the episode. I want to ask you: we talked about Muhammad saying that political Islam will remain. Political Islam is an idea, and an idea does not die. But what if we propose and say, "Political Islam is an idea that must die"? The second thing: is the impact on political Islam after, let's say, Iran is defeated or the regime changes, and religious rule is no longer dominant? So, is the political defeat of political Islam a prelude to the defeat of excessive religiosity in the street in general? You know, your friend Muhammad Daoud, you love him. Professor Khatib Badla and Hamed, of course, always say that this is not religion; it is an Arab occupation from 1400 years ago that imposes all its dominance on the street. Is this political defeat a cultural defeat, meaning that religion will return to its place in places of worship? Please proceed. First, regarding the issue of the invasion that Dr. Muhammad spoke about, I am discussing the matter that when we were discussing the idea of expansion, "Yes, Israel is expansionist." Well, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar said, "When we clung to our religion, we had a foot in Andalusia and a foot in China." Is this not expansion? This is reaching the people of Mecca in the first year, 1450 years ago, to Syria, Egypt, Iraq, North Africa, Andalusia, and then to other places in the following years. I don't know how you consider it expansion when others expand. You become the general principle. For example, when someone says, "I am against tyranny," are you against the tyranny of the Assad family or tyranny in general? If it is the tyranny of ISIS or Jabhat al-Nusra, then fine, let them kill us. Iranian tyranny, fine, let them kill their people. He says, "Oh, Trump is a tyrant." Trump has not killed a single American. He wouldn't dare kill anyone. Nor has Netanyahu dared to kill an Israeli. You say he is a tyrant when he fights abroad. Yes, he fights abroad with force and violence. I am not defending him, but you are unifying terminology, as Dr. Hamed said. Unify the concept, unify your position towards them. Either be against the enemy. Who is the enemy? They told us that your enemy is Israel, and it is the only enemy. There is a story by Zirq Mirhan that an Iraqi dissident fled to Jordan and settled there. He is an intellectual. He goes to buy newspapers and goes to the newspaper vendor and says, "Saddam Hussein has slaughtered us and so on and so on." The vendor says, "But Saddam attacked Israel." So, he considers that he should not talk about anything else. He attacked Israel because it is the primary and ultimate enemy. So, he attacked Israel. Why? Because the first and ultimate enemy is Israel. He attacked Israel, oh my God, before that. Yes, and there is no need to talk about others. So, after a few years, or after some time, Saddam executed four Jordanian workers or merchants or something. Yasser Arafat intervened, and his uncle intervened. This same man changed his position on Saddam Hussein. Why did he execute them? The dissident said, "But he attacked Israel." The vendor said, "If he attacked Israel, then... so now he has canceled that too." This issue that he raised, that democracy, when he spoke about Hungary, that democratic societies can renew themselves. This indeed gives us hope that the rise of religious tendencies in America and Europe, and so on, makes us hope again in democracy to balance this rise. Because democracy is a soft power, but it is a good power. It improves, it progresses. We, but the problem for us, for our peoples, is that we are too late. We are very late because until now we have not spoken about citizenship. There is an example I always give: in 1921, after France occupied Syria, it conducted a census and said, "Everyone present on Syrian land at the time of the census will be considered Syrian and given Syrian identity." This principle is very good. This is a principle of citizenship. That is, "My dear, we were previously scattered, and the Ottoman Empire, and so on, and now we have become a state. We want to create something called the Syrian state. So, everything present is now Syrian." Have we been able to preserve this principle during the 26 years of French occupation and resistance, and the desire to expel them? Why? Because they are the enemy. They are not Muslim, nor are they of our religion. Why are all these wars happening in our countries? Why do we have...
400 years under Ottoman rule, and we had no brother. We didn't say we wanted to get rid of this rule. No one in our country considered Ottoman rule, they didn't consider it an occupation at all. The formation of the Muslim Brotherhood party in 1928 was a reaction to the end of the Caliphate. We cry and wish that there would always be a Muslim occupier for us, and we tell him, "Brother, welcome." This might be the secret that makes most of our political factions support Iran now, even though Iran's evils are known to everyone. This is my intervention. I don't know if there's anything I haven't answered. Remind me. You are muted. I think secularizing public life is something you might not have covered enough. Instead of the political sphere, but we can get back to you on that in the next round. Hamed, the same question, by the way, about the death of political Islam politically and its cultural and public impact. This is an important point. Also, what do you advise the Arab intellectual? Because now there is a confusion, it's difficult to know the difference between the leftist, the Nasserist, the Islamist, the Brotherhood, the Shiite, the Sunni, the conservative, and the Ba'athist. In that they stand with Iran against American hegemony and the Zionist war, if you want to call it that. So, I don't know if this is a flaw, an intellectual convergence, or just a coincidence of thoughts. Please go ahead. You said something that hit the nail on the head, that political Islam is an idea, and some ideas must die. They must die from the logic of evolution, from the logic of development. There were ideas in Christianity itself in the Middle Ages that died because they proved incapable of leading society to a peaceful society. If religion had a positive role, it must be to instill peace in people's hearts and help achieve societal peace and security. This is what the West tried to do after World War II, after the political ideologies that were political religions, like communism and fascism, had deeply penetrated. They said we need a dose of religion for societal peace, to use it, but with a role in society, not to completely exclude it. And I agree with this. I am not against religion playing a role in society if that role is constructive and not authoritarian. Religion should play the role of advisor, the role of corrector. For example, I see the role of the Pope of the Vatican in criticizing the current war and Trump's style of waging war as constructive and important, and it must come from religious institutions. So, this is good, and we need to hear advice from religious institutions. But the Pope of the Vatican has no decision-making power, cannot send weapons, and should not have weapons at all. So, this is the logic: religion must return to this place. Christianity was able to reach this place because its design from the beginning allows it. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." Jesus did not draw a sword, did not kill anyone, did not take a jizya from anyone. Therefore, as an ideal and as advice, you can refer to it and say, despite all the problems you might criticize, and which I also criticize in Christianity, in the end, you say the structure and the ideal of this religion allow for this. Islam has the problem we all know: it arose with the same imperial spirit, the spirit of "After the Battle of Uhud, we were defeated, but we will return and win the Battle of the Confederates again." This is also the spirit of "no surrender," because every defeat is like the Battle of Uhud, and after it comes another battle in which we will win. The intellectual's role is not to assimilate. The intellectual's role is to resist everything that numbs the people, numbs society, and misleads them. And religious discourse, in both its Shiite and Sunni versions, is misleading and numbing discourse. So, the intellectual, in essence, must stand and say, "I am on the other side of this discourse, and I must confront this discourse and show people the contradictions of this discourse." Many people, since I started my project, have told me, "You are harsh in your criticism of religion, you are harsh in your criticism of texts." I tell them, "My dear, I don't do this to hurt people's feelings. I do this because these texts are the basis for practices that are ruining us politically, socially, economically, the rights of women, the rights of human beings, and all of this is being trampled because of these texts." So, as an intellectual, I cannot stand by and give them the opinion of the majority. The intellectual's role must always be on the other side of the majority opinion, not to go with the flow of the majority. And this is one of the things I respect about Professor Khatib: he does not go with the flow of the majority. The intellectual's role is to confront the majority, not with the absolute truth, but with his truth. "This is how I think." But the problem of the Arab intellectual is that often he thinks in one way, lives in another way, and speaks in a third way. So, this unity must be achieved: the way of thinking and the way of life must be one, and what I say in secret, I must say in public and present it to people. Don't come and pat me on the back in the inbox and say, "You are so brave, Hamed, and I shake your hand, bravo!" I receive messages of this kind from prominent intellectuals, prominent media figures, prominent artists, and top-tier actors. "I shake your hand, and you are something I am, you know, amazed by your courage and all that," and then he goes and backs down in any interview and speaks in a way that flatters religious discourse, almost because he also has series, a program, and so on. So, he can't say, "No, this is not the concept of culture for me at all." Therefore, religious discourse must be deconstructed in all its dimensions. The idea that religion has a specific place in society, in people's hearts, in mosques, in churches, and does not exceed this place, must be spread. It has the role of a sincere advisor, but not the role of a controller, a monitor, or a legislator. These are things that should be self-evident, on the basis of which nations have built their civilizations, whether Western, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, or Thai. This is not just a Western experience; African peoples have already known this and started doing it, like Benin and Senegal. So, you, as an intellectual today, because you have imperial hatred for America or Israel, cannot say that anything that hurts Israel or America is good. But if your suffering will be multiplied because of this, no. I understand the intellectual who tells you, "I don't want America now in this war to have an easy time, to quickly and easily enter and take Iran's oil and control it, because this will make someone like Trump and those who come after him, the hawks around him, act like thugs in the world. They will go anywhere and say, 'I want your oil. You have lithium, I'll take it from you. You have oil, I'll take it from you because I am in a conflict and race with China, and you don't matter to me. You are a fifth-class citizen to me.'" No, I understand the intellectual who says, "I want America to stumble a bit in this mission so that it doesn't start doing this as a way of life and a way of crisis management in the whole world." I understand something. Therefore, I say that the attrition happening between America and Iran might have something not bad. It has something bad in the short term: the world is suffering economically, and the peoples are certainly harmed in the entire region and in the whole world. But perhaps there is a slight positive thing: that these two learn some manners, that throwing missiles is not easy, and when Iran fires a missile, the price will be doubled, and it will know this, feel it, and suffer. And America will also suffer, and the idea of entering and taking a country's oil will not work and will not be the solution. And Israel will calm down, and, you know, maintain its security and all that, and make a peace treaty with Lebanon, I wish, and it would be a precedent of its kind. Perhaps amidst all this destruction, something positive will emerge, at least for the neighboring countries and the countries we love, and the countries will stabilize a bit. And also, a warning message is not bad for Ahmed Al-Shar'i, who is sitting there dreaming of the return of the Umayyads, and the people around him reading religious anthems, that they should also see that the same thing might happen to them if they persist in their religious discourse and their dealings with minorities. So, in the end, I am trying to extract the positive from all that is happening. If the intellectuals stand up and say, "Let's be honest with ourselves about the mistakes we have made." We have been complaining for years. "America did this, Israel did that." No, my dear sir, and I have said this a million times: neither America hears you nor Israel cares about you. Your opinion doesn't matter to them. So, keep your opinion about Israel and America to yourself for a while. When I am in a society like Germany, I speak there because it might make a difference. But you are in a country that hates Israel, hates America. How will this discourse benefit you other than to create national euphoria and dive into the masses like Michael Jackson used to do with his audiences? No, you must confront your audience and tell them where our mistakes are. Our mistakes are in thought, our mistakes are in strategy, our mistakes are in dealing, our mistakes are in enmity and the concept of enmity and crisis management. Where are our intellectual mistakes? Where are our religious mistakes? Where are our ideological mistakes? Will we continue forever dancing between Arab nationalism and political Islam, both of which are self-destructive projects in the end? Every project based on these two ideas had the self-destructive virus within it. Try something else, my brother. Perhaps God will bless you, and you will live. Perhaps you will stop the hatred that fills your heart for this whole world. I am not telling you not to criticize empires. I do that. But I criticize German policy while I am in Germany, preserving German democracy through discussion, through being part of the discussion, and through listening to the other side, perhaps it will convince me of something. This is what I ask of intellectuals: stop being trapped in an ideology, whether Arabism or Islamism. Stop flattering the masses. Stop lying to yourselves. Stop fabricating terms like dignity, patriotism, and faith. Everything you see around you has nothing to do with faith, dignity, resistance, or victory. We are defeated peoples, defeated by ourselves before being defeated by an external enemy. We are defeated by retreating into a past we glorify, which is one of our problems. We seek refuge in the past to solve the problems of the present, and this past did not solve its own past problems; rather, it caused rivers of blood. This is what I ask intellectuals: speak the truth in the face of the one who directly oppresses you. The distant oppressor, no, they will not convey your voice, nor will they care about you. Look at the one who oppresses you outside your window, the one who oppresses you at the municipal office, the local council, or the mayor. Start from your surroundings, from the sphere of oppression. If you want to liberate Jerusalem, liberate your younger sister first. Liberate your brother, liberate your son by teaching him to rely on himself, to be free in his decisions, to take, to give, to understand, and to learn about the world. Do not drown him in the ideology that drowned you, whether Arabist or Islamist. Unfortunately, I must withdraw because I have a meeting. Thank you very much. I will let Professor Khatib conclude, but before you go, Hamed, I want to thank the people and tell them that for this poll, please write your answers at the end of the episode. Did it change your opinion or open a new window of light? Secondly, I call on people on all channels, Professor Hamed's channel and Professor Khatib's channel, to subscribe to both channels, because there is no benefit to any word unless it reaches the viewer. And if you want to subscribe to Al-Ghawit, I won't be bothered either. Thank you, Hamed, and I hope you have other meetings in the future. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ayman. Thank you, Professor Khatib. Thank you, Ayman. Thank you, Dr. Hamed. Thank you to everyone who followed us. I really enjoyed this episode today. Thank you. Please go ahead, Professor Hamed. Professor Khatib, you will also tell us, in the end, your advice to the Arab intellectual, and are you optimistic about a better future after this war? First of all, I do not use the word "advice." A Western writer or philosopher said that the best advice is not to take anyone's advice. That's one thing, but instead of advice, there is dialogue, clarification. For example, now, commenting on the last words spoken by Dr. Hamed regarding religion, neither Christian nor Islamic religion. We don't know it. There is nothing called religion in front of us. We have religious people, and these religious people are not uniform, they are not unified. So, I am with them, as long as they do not want to establish a state for us, to rule us. I am with them and respect them all, on the condition that each one keeps his religion and goes to his mosque or his church. We have been talking since the beginning of the episode about political Islam, meaning the one who wants to establish a state, who is coming to us, who is pulling us back, saying we want to return to our glory, to achieve the glories of... I don't know what. All of this is harmful to us, causing us destruction, and causing us further backwardness. Regarding intellectuals, there is something I said once: when you come to praise a controversial person, who was classified as a terrorist and then removed from the terrorist list, and you come and debase yourself in front of him, as if you don't know that you are better than him. Do you understand the idea? You are better than him humanly, literarily, in values, ethically, behaviorally, and historically. Your entire history is better. Why do you come and prostrate yourself and debase yourself like this and waste your dignity and yourself and so on to praise this person? There are many people who dealt with this system of Ahmed Al-Shar'i, they dealt with it by saying, "Brother, this has happened, and we are done with Assad, and we want to deal with him positively." That's fine. I am not against them. Let them try, and then they will discover on their own that this was not the right thing. But still, do not prostrate yourself. When you prostrate yourself, you give an example to people who are not intellectuals, saying, "Look, this person, despite his books, his writings, his articles, look, he is glorifying this person." This means you are giving an example that prostration, not showing your position, not valuing yourself, your history, and your dignity, is a good thing. This is not advice, but a warning. My brother, either what you have presented, written, and achieved in your life is trivial and worthless, or if it has value, you give it value. It is not permissible for you as a person to strike your entire history with such a stance. Excellent, Professor Khatib. It was a very special episode. I was very pleased with this duo or trio dialogue. There was an interaction of ideas, and participation was high, and there was interaction from the viewers. Thank you very much, and I hope to see you in future episodes and continue this wonderful effort that we see you continuing on this difficult path. And I also thank you for your initiative, and for the first time I meet Dr. Hamed, and it is a very good thing. I repeat that I do not say these things in my videos. I truly do not consider myself anything special, and I always try to appear in my natural size and not create empty heroism for myself. This is what we have. The most important characteristic I believe I possess is that I think out loud and re-pose questions. And I try to define terms and unify concepts. That's it. But someone tells me, "You are understanding, intellectual, and knowledgeable." No, I am not like that. I only think honestly. I try to be honest with people and with myself, and I respect my literary, cultural, and other history, and even my family history, and so on.