Speaking during the opening of the two-day conference for the Saving Jerusalem and Support for the Palestinian People, the heads of the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance movements and senior Shiite and Sunni clerics stressed the role that clergymen could play in promoting the Palestinian cause.

Hizbullah’s Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah spoke about “the need for honest fatwas,” and also the threat of “killing the essence of the resistance.”

“This threat can only be overcome with the help of the ulema all around the Muslim world,” Nasrallah said.

Over the last two decades, resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine have been recognized as groups “qualified for victory,” Nasrallah said, citing their suicide operations and unceasing willingness to undertake resistance activities.

Nasrallah argued that the main character of a “mujahid” is his strong belief in God and his will to die in his name. “This belief creates inside of him an unimaginable ability to tolerate pain,” he said.

“When voices hired by leading news televisions and satellite channels come and say that suicide attacks are against religion, that they are not a form of martyrdom, and that standing in the face of Israel under the prevailing circumstances will lead to destruction of the nation, they shake the belief of resistance fighters,” he said.

“We are not asking for political fatwas that justify the strategic decisions that we have already adopted. We are only asking for honest fatwas,” Nasrallah said.

The head of Hamas’ politburo, Khaled Mashaal, invited clergymen across the Muslim world to “arouse the nation” to interact and support the resistance. He also stressed the importance of talking about suicide operations and their status regarding the concept of jihad.

Mashaal also underlined the necessity of finding a Muslim definition for terrorism “in the face of the American and Zionist definition of the term” and expressed his hope that international events would not shake Arab and Islamic values, goals and principles. “The resistance will continue, it is our destiny, and our strategic alternative,” Mashaal said.

As for the regional peace process, Mashaal said it was insufficient to merely reject the settlement and announce the failure of the negotiations. He found it necessary to assess the peace process “as a reaction to those who are still trying to promote it and the insistence of the Arabs to support it and to give it a chance.”

“The project (to establish a political settlement with Israel) has torn our people apart, destroyed our national unity, and turned a part of our people into servants of Israel’s security,” Mashaal said.

He said the peace option has weakened a part of the political leadership of the Palestinian people, “many of whom have become professional beggars.”

Senior Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah invited clergymen to educate Muslims about the essence of the Palestinian cause, because “the Islamic world lacks awareness and cultural appreciation of this issue.”

Discussing the history of the Palestinian issue, Fadlallah said that the problem with Arabs is that they always react rather than have their own plan. He lamented their disorganization in the face of the Zionist project, which was carefully designed 100 years ago.

“The international game began, and Zionism started interfering in the Arab and Islamic world, instigating sectarian friction and introducing the fever of military coups and ideologies,” Fadlallah said.

Over the last 50 years, the Arabs chose to act within small circles that eventually crippled them and induced them to fight wars against each other and boycott one another, Fadlallah said.

Iranian cleric Sayyed Ali Akbar Mohtashami, invited ulema to promote the creation of a fund for the support of Palestine. He also criticized the American bias toward Israel as well as America’s actions in the United Nations.

“Many countries and organizations have been urging the United Nations and the Security Council, since the beginning of the uprising, to send supervisors to the occupied land and to put an end to the massacres taking place there. This has repeatedly been vetoed by the United States,” he said, asking rhetorically whether the US was a member of the UN or controlled the world body.

Mohtashami also said the international community was well aware that Palestinian resistance was a legitimate right, “a right also stipulated by the UN charter.”

Sheikh Yehia Ismail Ahmad, secretary-general of the Azhar Ulema, invited all Muslims and Arabs to join forces and criticized Washington’s handling of the Palestinian issue.

Ahmad said that while many Palestinian mothers are not able to find anyone to cry with them over the loss of their sons and daughters in the conflict, former US President Bill Clinton recently issued a statement to mark the loss of his dog.

Speaking on behalf of the Syrian Mufti Ahmad Kaftaro, Sheikh Raja Dib invited Arabs and Muslims to overcome their differences and to cooperate in order to reach victory. “Our world is witnessing a peculiar situation where the colonial media describes the resistance of unarmed citizens as terrorism,” Dib said.