MEMRI has obtained and translated a copy of the most recent speech by Osama bin Laden , purportedly offering a peace ["sulh"] treaty to European countries that withdraw soldiers from Arab countries, while still maintaining the United States as a legitimate target. The following are excerpts from the speech: [1]
'September 11 and March 11 is Your Own Merchandise Coming Back to You'
"This is a message to our neighbors north of the Mediterranean, with a proposal for a peace treaty, in response to the positive reactions which emerged there.
"What happened in September 11 and March 11 is your own merchandise coming back to you. We hereby advise you … that your definition of us and of our actions as terrorism is nothing but a definition of yourselves by yourselves, since our reaction is of the same kind as your act. Our actions are a reaction to yours, which are destruction and killing of our people as is happening in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine.
"It suffices to see the event that shocked the world – the killing of the wheelchair-bound old man Ahmad Yassin – Allah's mercy upon him – and we pledge to Allah to avenge [his murder] on America, Allah willing.
"By what measure of kindness are your killed considered innocents while ours are considered worthless? By what school [of thought] is your blood considered blood while our blood is water?
"Therefore, it is [only] just to respond in kind, and the one who started it is more to blame…"
We will Continue to Fight the U.S. and U.N.
"When you look at what happened and is happening, the killing in our countries and in yours, an important fact emerges, and that is that the oppression is forced on both us and you by your politicians who send your sons, against your will, to our country to kill and to be killed.
"Therefore, both sides have an interest in thwarting those who shed the blood of the peoples for their own narrow interests, out of vassalage to the White House gang…
"This war makes millions of dollars for big corporations, either weapons manufacturers or those working in the reconstruction [of Iraq], such as Halliburton and its sister companies…
"It is crystal clear who benefits from igniting the fire of this war and this bloodshed: They are the merchants of war, the bloodsuckers who run the policy of the world from behind the scenes.
"President Bush and his ilk, the media giants, and the U.N. … all are a fatal danger to the world, and the Zionist lobby is their most dangerous member. Allah willing, we will persist in fighting them…
'I Hereby Offer [Europe] a Peace Treaty'
"Therefore, in order to thwart opportunities for the merchants of war, and in response to the positive developments that were expressed in recent events and in the public opinion polls, which determined that most European peoples want peace, I urge … the establishment of a permanent commission to nurture awareness among Europeans regarding the justness of our causes, particularly the cause of Palestine, and that use be made of the vast media resources to this end.
"I hereby offer them a peace treaty, the essence of which is our commitment to halt actions against any country that commits itself to refraining from attacking Muslims or intervening in their affairs, including the American conspiracy against the larger Islamic world.
"This peace treaty can be renewed at the end of the term of a government and the rise of another, with the agreement of both sides.
"The peace treaty will be in force upon the exit of the last soldier of any given [European] country from our land.
"The door of peace will remain open for three months from the broadcast of this statement. Whoever rejects the peace and wants war should know that we are the men [of war], and whoever wants a peace treaty and signs it, we hereby allow this peace treaty with him.
"Stop shedding our blood in order to protect your own blood. The solution to this easy-difficult equation is in your own hands. You should know that the longer you delay, the worse the situation will become, and when that happens, do not blame us, blame yourselves…
"As for those who lie to people and say that we hate freedom and kill for the sake of killing – reality proves that we are the speakers of truth and they lie, because the killing of the Russians took place only after their invasion of Afghanistan and Chechnya; the killing of the Europeans took place only after the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan; the killing of the Americans in the Battle of New York took place only after their support for the Jews in Palestine and their invasion of the Arabian Peninsula; their killing in Somalia happened only after Operation Restore Hope. We restored [i.e. repelled] them without hope, by the grace of Allah."
[1] Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar) and Al-Arabiyya TV (UAE), April 15, 2004.
