A prominent Arab writer believes the strategic game in Syria will witness the defeat of imperialism and that new forces will rise in the international arena soon.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Saeb Shaath, author and Middle East expert, to further discuss this issue.

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The following is a transcript of the interview.

Press TV: Hamas’ resistance of occupation is at the heart of its strategies. Is there another way when it comes to Israel?

Shaath: Resistance is the only way for the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, as [Ismail] Haniyeh, the Prime Minister himself, said today. They gambled on the root of negotiations.

And before them, the Egyptian, [Anwar] Sadat, the president at the time, gambled on Camp David. And we’ve seen Egypt as a former regional power reduced to a destroyed country which is now with its own revolution trying to rebuild itself.

So, negotiations with Israel has proved all along, historically, is the wrong root to take , since the Zionist project is there, not to coexist with the Arabs peacefully.  Zionists don’t believe in the two-state solution. This Zionist government and even the left wing, and “Kadima” as well, they believe in greater Israel on all-historic Palestine dominating the Middle East.

Their ideology is based on Zionist Jewish power to intimidate the entire Muslim world, the Arabic world, to rule them, and to keep the Western media focused on ‘the dark side of Muslims’, as they want to describe it. And Israel’s function is to control.

Negotiations are proven gamble that didn’t pay off. The resistance is the only way. We noticed in the year 2006 when the resistance in Lebanon led by Hezbollah defeated the Zionists, and kicked them out of Lebanon as well following the year – 2000 defeat of Zionists in Lebanon as well .

We noticed then the revenge on the Lebanese people that the Zionist war machine committed in trying to destroy the civil infrastructure in Lebanon, since they couldn’t direct a blow at the resistance who defeated them who made their soldiers cry which we witnessed live on TV.

So resistance is the only way, resistance in its all forms – military form and civil form.

Press TV: …We could also mention about Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich saying that the Palestinians are an invented people. We’re going to leave that for another News Analysis.

Do you think that Hamas has become stronger in the wake of the uprisings and revolutions in the Arab countries?

Shaath: Yes. Hamas got stronger. Hamas and the Palestinian resistance, in its own right, were a part of the inspiration for the Arab masses all over the Arab world.

But let me comment on that American politician [Gingrich] who is trying to just win the election on the account of the Palestinians. This man himself, in the year 2000 and before that, was sitting with Arafat and trying to study the economical development projects supported by the United States to the West Bank and Gaza.

That shows you the American politicians are hypocrites, liars, they will do anything to please their Zionist masters who are controlling their spectrum of politics in the United States of America. And this point was raised sharply among the Occupy Wall Street movement and the 99 per-cent when they said those guys don’t represent us, and they are right in saying that.

Going back to the question about Hamas, the problem I see here which Hamas needs to study very well with the Arab revolutions is with some religious groups especially the Muslim Brotherhood factions in Egypt or Tunisia who are looking at the lesson,  when Hamas won the election in occupied Palestine. They were denied to rule by the West – the United States and the Arab reactionary forces.

They are trying to appease the United States of America, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, when Dr. Al-Rayyan, one of the Politebureau members of the Muslim Brotherhood, said the movement will not deal with Camp David or have any objections to the Camp David agreement, which means the recognition of the state of Israel.

The same thing with [Rached] Ghannouchi, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia, when he went to meet the Americans to reassure them of the intentions of the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia, he said there is nothing in the Tunisian constitution which will stop them from recognizing Israel, something to that extent.

To me, this is a slippery road. Hamas has to watch very clearly what these brothers are doing and to advise them strongly to adhere to the resistance. Since Hamas is adhering to the resistance, Hamas from experience has witnessed and seen that nothing can move in the Arab world without the struggle and the resistance.

Press TV: What are you cautioning? Are you saying that Hamas shouldn’t give in to maybe a door that’s opening up when, for example as you mentioned, Ghannouchi saying that, I believe you said, they are going to recognize Israel, that Hamas shouldn’t fall into that way of thinking?

Shaath: Exactly, because those guys, Ghannouchi and the old guards of the Muslim Brotherhoods, I see them as part of the fabrics of the Cold War – the ideological Cold War with the Soviet Union in which the United States of America and its imperialism and reactionary Arab regimes used them at the time, to counter the socialist and the Pan Arab nationalist ideologies in the Middle East.

Now the time and the scenery has changed. We are in one camp: resistance American domination of the Arab world OR be with the United States of America. You cannot play it too smart.

The people in the Arab world, with their revolutions, tried to get sovereign over their own states, not to be enslaved by the United States of America. The revolution was directed at the United States of America and its puppets like Mubarak, Ben Ali, and the rest.

So, don’t serve them and redirect the revolution to serve the enemy. This is the thing which Hamas has to focus on and to advise its own brothers in Tunisia and Egypt  about.

Press TV: What about the argument that Israel’s existence is actually based on the threats that’s incurred to them? And, of course, Israel thinks Hamas is a threat to them, saying the argument that goes that Israel lives on this or else it wouldn’t gain the international support behind them. Do you agree with that argument?

Shaath: No, I don’t. Since the goal of the creation of Israel during the establishment of the world order after the Second World War, was to create that functional state-‘Israel’ as a military base for the imperialist forces.

Then it was the British Empire, now it’s the United States of America whom inherited the British Empire.

And that functional state role to guarantee their  control over  the Arab world and control of the trans-international transportation routes in the Mediterranean as well.

They understand that an imperialist power doesn’t control that area, cannot sustain its power for a long period. Now, these days we’re going to see a shift. And I expect that shift to materialize more clearly during the coming March.

With the rising conflict between the Western powers led by the United States of America and its reactionary forces in the Arabic states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the rest of them, the battle ground will be around Syria and Iran.

In here, we witness the resistance camp that in the year 2006 defeated Israel. And Hamas is a part of that resistance camp, and will stay entrenched in that resistance camp since its needed and knows it is needed in the upcoming battle against the domination of the United States of America over, the Arab world.

Now it’s China, Russia and other countries – like India and Brazil [who are] lending support to China Russia – in defeating the domination of the United States of America in the Arab world.

So, we will witness, especially in Syria, the strategic game unfolding and we’ll witness the defeat of the imperialist power, and we will observe the rising of new forces on the international arena soon enough.

Press TV: You mentioned Syria, but let’s see if there isn’t going to be a war in Gaza…

I have to tell you, 24 years ago it was Hamas that came into the scene and adopted this ideology that has been called resistance. And we, in our conversation today, just touched on how the countries in the Middle East who were going through the uprisings have grasped that, the parallels. How do you see the future then in terms of the West, i.e. the US or any other Western countries such as the Mid-East Quartet countries that are involved, are they going to be able to understand it, to move the so-called Middle East process forward?

Shaath: The West, especially the elites in the West who are controlled by the multi-national corporates, from the United States of America to Western Europe, will never support any kind of just-peace in the Middle East.

They want to guarantee the supremacy of their tool functional state – the Zionist entity. That is their interest. That’s the way they see how they can control the Arab world.

And the function-state ‘Israel’, the Zionist entity, is doing its job in sustaining the reactionary regimes in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and some others, like Mubarak before. They are not going to change course from that.

But the people understood they are being lied to by the dictatorships in the Arab world, they lost their liberties and they lost their freedom to those dictators under the cover of fighting Zionism to liberate Palestine.

They discovered they were used to sustain Zionism by their dictatorships, not to fight it. So, they are no longer accepting that position, and the tide is change.

source and video : Press TV