On 21st December 2009, on behalf of the Middle East Monitor, I sat down in the Rouda Palace in Damascus for an exclusive and in-depth interview with Dr Bouthaina Shaaban, Political and Media Advisor to the President of Syria, about her personal views on some of the problems facing Palestinians today. In her frank and passionate discussion she made a heartfelt plea to those around the world, including women’s rights organisations and environmentalists, to pay particular attention to the crimes being perpetrated against the Palestinian people by Israel and to stand up for their human rights and dignity.

Hanan Chehata: How does the Syrian Government view aid convoys to Palestine such as the Viva Palestina convoy which arrived in Damascus last night en route to Gaza?

Bouthaina Shaaban: I think they are a great idea and I salute everyone who is giving their money, time and energy in this way; George Galloway, you, everybody who is participating, because I believe this kind of convoy to Gaza is a very important thing to do. I would like to say to everyone who donated something to the Palestinians, thank you and I would like to say to all the Arabs, to all Muslims, Christians and Jews, that the Palestinians are suffering from the latest genocide in the world. And I would like to say to mothers that Palestinian mothers do not have enough food to feed their children. I would like to say to children your peers cannot go to school; they do not have paper and pens. They cannot go to a doctor. Consider the situation of people under siege for no reason except that they want to live happily and freely on their land, while someone is stealing the land from them, taking their water, destroying their homes, schools and hospitals, and killing them in front of their families. I mean, this is really the scandal of the twenty-first century so far, the ultimate crime. And I have no doubt that if and when people really know what is happening on the ground, they will never accept the situation.  

This is not a religious conflict; the three monotheistic religions call for the worship of one God. There is only one God and the three religions believe in one God, so there is no conflict between the religions. In Syria Jews, Christians and Muslims have co-existed for centuries. It is so enriching for society, but the Israelis try to label this as a religious conflict between Jews and Muslims and invented the “War on Terror” in order to connect Muslims to terrorism in the common mind; in doing so they have succeeded in portraying the Palestinians as terrorists and so the world sees Israel as a bastion against terrorism. To the people of Europe and the West I’d like to say that it is the Palestinians who are the indigenous people in the Holy Land. They are faced with settlers who continue to steal their land, and have done for more than 60 years. Muslims practising their faith are not terrorists. The worst thing that any Muslim can do is to harm a fellow human being because Islam is the religion of mercy, of love, of affection, of living together, of peace. That’s the religion of Islam, but when Israel connected the War on Terror with what they are doing against the Palestinians, then the message was put across that Muslims are responsible for all the violence that is taking place in the world. Even if there are a few Muslims who are committing criminal acts this does not mean that all Muslims are criminals. The same is true for Christians. There are criminals who are supposed to be Christians who perpetrate crimes but we don’t say all Christians are criminals. When the IRA was bombing mainland Britain nobody called it “Catholic terrorism”. The whole Islamophobic idea of connecting Muslims with terrorism is done to convince the world that resistance fighters are terrorists. Resistance fighters are not terrorists. In countries all over the world there has been resistance against occupation at some time or another, and the Palestinians are also – quite legitimately – resisting the occupation and colonisation of their land by Israel. It is the right of the Palestinians to resist this occupation and the whole world has a legal and moral duty to stand with the oppressed and occupied, not the oppressor and occupier. The world has to get away from the propaganda of the Zionists which equates genuine resistance with terrorism.  

When I lived in London in the seventies nobody in Britain or in France referred to “Muslims”, they were Pakistanis or Arabs; Moroccans or Algerians. Nationality was the label, not religion. Post-9/11 and the start of the War on Terror we are now told that these are all Muslims and they don’t understand “our” culture, an argument that ignores – very conveniently – the fact that most Muslims in Britain, for example, have been born there and are as British as anyone else in the country. Sowing such confusion has damaged the way that the Palestine-Israel conflict is discussed, especially in the media. The media is owned by people with a specific agenda, and that does not include conveying the truth about the Palestinians and their rights; they are often anything but objective on this issue in their attempt to thwart justice. And that is all that we want, really; justice, based on an equitable application of human rights and international law.

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