The top Sunni Muslim authority in Lebanon called Thursday on the Palestinians to pursue their uprising against Israel and insisted on making a difference between resistance and terrorism.
Dar el-Fatwa "hailed the steadfastness of the militant Palestinian people and declared its backing for continuing the blessed intifada, which allowed the nation to regain confidence in itself and its capabilities to achieve victory."
The Sunni body, which groups Lebanon's Sunni muftis, denounced in a statement the September 11 terror attacks on the United States as an "aggression against human, moral and religious values."
But Dar el-Fatwa said that "this act cannot be attributed to any religion. It cannot be attributed ... to Muslims, or to Islam, because Islam as everyone knows is a religion of compassion before anything else."
"The word terrorism ... needs a clear and exact explanation because there is a need to differentiate between absolute violence that it solely for the purpose of evil and destruction" and between resistance and self-defense.
On September 21, Lebanon's Shiite and Sunni leaders had expressed shock at the terror attacks but voiced their opposition to joining the US coalition against terror -- BEIRUT (AFP)
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