Fun With Moammar: Speaking Truth to Power

From his speech to the Arab League summit, broadcast 29 March, 2008:

People here talked about the pre-1967 borders. To tell you the truth, this is astonishing. Whatever happened to the [Palestinian] cause we had before 1967? Were we lying to ourselves or to the world? . . . Does Palestine consist of only the West Bank and the Gaza Strip? If so, it means that the Israelis did not occupy it in 1948. They left it to you for 20 years, so why didn’t you establish a Palestinian state? Wasn’t the Gaza Strip part of Egypt and the West Bank part of Jordan? The Jews left them to you for 20 years — from 1948 to 1967. If that is Palestine, why didn’t you establish a state there? . . . This is strange. It is illogical. It doesn’t make sense. What is this? There is no God but Allah. By Allah, this is unacceptable . . .

We [Arabs] are the enemies of one another, I’m sad to say. We all hate one another, we deceive one another, we gloat at the misfortune of one another, and we conspire against one another. Our intelligence agencies conspire against one another, instead of defending us against the enemy. We are the enemies of one another, and an Arab’s enemy is another Arab’s friend. If only we used such ferocity against the enemy.

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