Abdullah Yusuf Azzam Quotes
The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It's likely that your plan is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations never concede; they fight. You won't get anything by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to defeat you. I am not sure we'll succeed, but we'll try. We were able to drive out the Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it's too late to talk of peaceful solutions.
Just like Spain and Persia, the Arabs by fighting lost not only more land, but also lost the respect of most of the non-Muslim War. The conscious decision to choose an irrational strategy that would cause loss of life, land and respect has none-the-less repeatedly been chosen by the Arab culture. much to its detriment. Azzam is one of the few Arabs to admit this to the non-Islamic World.
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, Egyptian Diplomat, Arab League Secretary-General, Statement to Israeli Negotiators, September 16, 1947
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
14 Arab Armies in a coordinated attack on the 1 day old Israeli state, intended to massacre all the Israelis as demonstrated by this quote. Note that this kind of extermnination intent was advertised with pride. To everyone's surprised, the Jewish defenders not only beat back the viscious attacks but enlssarged their terroitory by capturing strategic sites from which the attacks had been launched. Many people credit to the Israely victory to the fact that they were litterally fighting for their lives. Defeat would have meant death for them and their families. The Arab armies, in contrast, were fighting for land that other Arabs claimed that should have been theirs. The willingness to stand and fight for this goal did not match the self preservation that motivated the Israelis--especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust killing 6 million Jews in WWII.
There are some who argue that the quotation was made earlier and was not meant as an incendary call for massacre of Israelis. It well may be that in his original thinking, he was predicting what would happen if the State of Israel was created, basing his thoughts on historical artrocieties of the past. And many think he was concerned about that possible outcome and was trying to avoid it. The import of the quotation was not necessaruly to hisltorically blame Assam for the point of view but to simply establish that there were many Arab voices calling for victories of history where there were massacres in the Middle East. And there were those who took Azzam's quotation and broadcasted it on Arab radio, calling for the very massacre that Assam may have been warning about. Note that this notion of Jewish massacre and extermination was also picked up 60 years later and called for by the President of Iran.
The highest court in New York.
This appears to be the first American utterance of a longstanding doctrine of foreign policy.
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam also known as the Father of Global Jihad was a Palestinian Sunni Islamic scholar and theologian and founding member of al-Qaeda. Azzam preached both defensive and offensive jihad by Muslims to help the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet invaders.
