The following is a translation of the speech delivered by Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah in a conference on the intellectual dimensions of Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei's character. The conference, which was attended by several intellectuals from different parts of the world of Islam, started in Beirut on June 6, 2011.
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First of all, I would like to thank all those who have organized or attended this conference.
Personally, I have known Imam Khamenei since 1986, the year in which I got familiar with many of his thoughts, his views, his intellectual principles, his methods of analysis, his views of different events, his method of leadership and management, his decisions and his moral characteristics.
With the information that I have acquired regarding different dimensions of his personality, I can say that Imam Khamenei is a great leader in terms of piety, leadership and knowledge of fiqh and Islamic jurisprudence, a leader who has a comprehensive, deep and dignified view of things and his view is based on firm intellectual principles. He is aware of the problems and the needs. He knows the facilities, and he knows the solutions that are in line with the principles. Therefore, with his comprehensive view, he interacts with all the events, developments and issues in a deep and clear way. In all his meetings with people from different backgrounds, you see a well-informed leader who knows the details and presents expert views.
We are speaking about a great and exceptional figure. Many people in the Islamic Ummah do not know anything about him. There are few people who are familiar with his character. We know how little he is appreciated in the Islamic Ummah and even in Iran. Even the most prominent dimension of his character - namely, his leadership and the political dimension of his character - is hardly appreciated. You are faced with a figure who has been besieged by enemies, and his friends do not appreciate him the way they should.
Our responsibility is to introduce this great Imam to members of the Islamic Ummah so that they can benefit from the existence of such a leader, such a religious scholar and such an intellectual in this world and the next. This is while the Islamic Ummah is faced with challenges which did not exist in the past decades and centuries. And this is the responsibility of this crucial and highly sensitive conference.
In the conference which was held in Madrid in 1991 - during which global equations were transformed - the region and the world went through a lot of changes. The US government announced that it was determined to push ahead with the compromise.
At that time, many people started to think that we were very close to a compromise [with Israel]. There was this general conclusion that the Americans would impose a compromise on us. In that situation, Imam Khamenei had a different view. His view went against the general conclusion. He said that the conference would not produce any results, that the compromise would not go through and that America would not be able to impose a compromise. Today after the passage of 20 years, we hear the people who took part in the peace talks and some of the people who attended the conference in Madrid speaking about two decades of disappointment, despair and confusion which resulted from the peace talks.
Everybody remembers the transformation or the great progress which resulted from the talks between Israel and Syria in the year 1996. During the talks, Yitzhak Rabin expressed his readiness to retreat to the borders before June 4th 1967. In those conditions, it was believed in the region that compromise would definitely happen, that the issue had been settled and that only the details had to be worked out. Therefore, certain people were telling us that our efforts would prove futile.
They were encouraging us to abandon resistance in a situation in which resistance was growing exponentially. They were telling us that the issue had been settled and that we did not need to sacrifice any more lives. There were even some people who were telling us to come to terms with the compromise which they thought was definite. They even asked us to revise our ideas not only about our nature as a resistance movement but also about our name and organizational structure and our political plans.
But at that time, Imam Khamenei told us clearly that he thought the talks would not produce any results and that the compromise between Israel and Syria would prove impractical. He recommended that we continue and even increase our resistance and jihad so that we could achieve victory. He told us to ignore the theories and claims. After he returned to Lebanon, Rabin was shot dead by a Zionist when delivering a speech, and Shimon Peres replaced him.
At that time Hamas and Islamic Jihad suffered such severe blows that some people started to believe that Palestinian resistance movements were no longer capable of carrying out any operations. But martyrdom-seeking operations in Quds and Tel Aviv shook the foundations of the Zionist regime. Then the situation became turbulent in the southern part of Lebanon, and the Sharm el-Sheikh Summit was arranged. The heads of many countries came together in Sharm el-Sheikh to defend Israel and to condemn the so-called terrorism. They explicitly mentioned the names of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. They adopted certain decisions to contain these so-called terrorist movements. Later on in April 1996, the furious battles took place after which Netanyahu returned to power and the compromise went back to the initial dead end.
Imam Khamenei was speaking about the victory of the resistance movement. He would constantly say that he believed in the ultimate victory of the resistance movement. His faith was rooted in religious beliefs. After the year 1996, he would say that Israel was caught in a quagmire. He used to say that Israel could neither make any progress and occupy Lebanon again, nor could it retreat or preserve its situation. Therefore, we need to wait and see what happens, but everything depends on the performance of the resistance movement. Towards the end of the year 1999, an election was held in Israel to elect a prime minister. The main rivals were Barak and Netanyahu. Barak announced that Israel would retreat from Lebanon in July. The situation in Syria and Lebanon was such that Barak would not retreat. And Barak tried to bargain security advantages from the Lebanese government during the time of Hafiz al-Assad in return for the promise of retreat from Lebanon, but he failed and the resultant situation made it impossible for him to retreat. We thought when it was time for him to keep his promise, he would say that has tried and failed to obtain the guarantee and that he has been unable to retreat. At that time, we members of the resistance movement thought that Israel would not retreat. Then we met with Imam Khamenei and explained our opinion, but he had a different view and said that our victory in Lebanon was around the corner. He said that our victory was closer than what we thought. His comments went against the analyses and available information at that time. According to the available information, Israel did not even appear to be ready to retreat, but His Eminence told us that we had to prepare ourselves for the great achievement and that we had to determine our position for the stage following the retreat. It was for this reason that we did not ignore the possibility of a retreat by Israel. We had fully prepared ourselves for the retreat.
The decision to start the 33-day war had been made on an international level. Israel was the country that carried out this war with the support of certain Arab governments. The goal of the war was to destroy the resistance movement in Lebanon. All of you saw the oppression and brutality of Israel during that war. In that situation, any comment regarding the possibility of a victory for the resistance movement or even any comment regarding the survival of the resistance would sound crazy. This was because the resistance with its limited facilities and Lebanon as a small country were in a situation in which the entire world had turned against them, waging a brutal war against them.
In such a situation, when I was in the southern part of Beirut, I received a voice message from Imam Khamenei. This was while the buildings in southern Lebanon were being bombarded. The message would be several pages if it were written down, so I will only mention a few important points. In that message, Imam Khamenei told us, "My dear brothers, this war is like the Battle of the Trench in which Quraysh, Jews of Medina and all the tribes united to besiege the Messenger of God with all their power and decided to eradicate Islam and its faithful followers. This war is like the Battle of the Trench, and everybody will be frustrated. But rely on God, and I would like to tell you that you will definitely achieve a victory. I would even say that when the war ends with a victory for you, you will turn into a power and no other power will be able to stand up against you."
In those conditions, especially during the early days of the war, who could have predicted such an outcome?
After the September 11 attacks, we saw how everybody was frightened and many people thought that our region would enter an era in which America would establish direct hegemony over our region and that this hegemony would continue for one or two hundred years. Some people likened the resultant war to the Crusades. I travelled to Iran, and I met with Imam Khamenei. I asked his opinion. The comments that His Eminence made went against everything that had been promoted in the region. We remember that at that time many governments and political groups in the region were re-assessing their situation and fate assuming that America would establish hegemony over the region. Even some government officials of Iran used to come to me and say that we had to come to terms with the new realities and that we had to negotiate a compromise with the US. But Imam Khamenei adopted a different strategic position and told me, "You should not be worried. America has reached the peak, and we will be witness to its decline from now on. And after invading Afghanistan and Iraq, America's decline has already started. They are heading towards a precipice, and this is the beginning of the end of America and its goals in the region. You should act on the basis of this assumption." His Eminence also said, "America is unable to defend its interests in the region by using the regional regimes and by deploying its army and its fleets. America has been forced to bring all its fleets to the region. This is a sign of America's weakness, and it shows that the regional rulers do not know anything about their peoples who rely on the culture of jihad and resistance. For this reason, what is happening is not a cause for concern. Rather, what is happening is a source of hope."
I can say that during the past year our Ummah was faced with the most challenging war in its history. America and its allies used all their power and facilities to dominate the region and overthrow the resisting governments. During this time Imam Khamenei was the leader of the most difficult war, a war which required a lot of wisdom, courage and thinking. And many dimensions of this war have remained unknown so far.
Imam Khamenei believes that Israel is in decline. He believes that this regime will be annihilated in the not so distant future. He believes that the annihilation of this regime is around the corner. His Eminence believes that the compromise will not produce any results. the process of compromise, the Palestinian uprising and Everything that is happening in Palestine and in the region are indicative of the fact that today we are faced with new generations of the Palestinian people who have more faith than ever before in returning to their homeland.
We can verify what Imam Khamenei says about Israel by considering the retrogression of America, the achievements of the resistance movement and the experiences gained from the July War and the war on Gaza. And we can conclude that, by Allah's favor, Israel will be heading towards annihilation in the near future. And this is the right view which is based on this leader's appropriate understanding of the existing realities.
At the end, I would like to point to the activities of the Palestinian youth near the borders of the occupied Golan Heights. The steadfastness and movement of these youth against the enemy is a clear message showing the existence of this determination in the Islamic Ummah. And these youth removed the mask of the US government again, a government that is trying to hijack the Arab revolutions, but the recent events showed once again that America fully supports Israel. By disclosing the truth behind America's claims of support for human rights and freedom, the pure blood of these youth shows the political and historical awareness which was created and consolidated by Imam Khomeini and Imam Khamenei.