What do we want?

We want complete and pure peace around us and across the globe. But how can we achieve that?

First: Iran must abandon its ambitions to dominate the world through the Wilayat Al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist). It must realize that its recruitment of militias — such as Hezbollah, the Houthis and all its affiliated armed factions in Iraq and elsewhere in the world — is what fuels bloodshed and takes the lives of those it refers to as the oppressed. Instead, Iran should join the caravan of development and societal progress to stand in the ranks of the rest of the world’s nations.

Second: Israel must abandon its Talmudic ambitions and cease its bloody brutality and seizure of Arab lands in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. This savagery has made Israel and its people pariahs in the world; its citizens fear visiting other countries lest they be arrested on charges of genocide against the Palestinian people. The hundreds of thousands of people who continue to roam the streets of the world’s cities to this day, denouncing the Israeli occupation of Palestine, are the greatest proof of the global community’s rejection of Israel’s bloody actions.

Third: The West must stop coddling Israel, protecting it from condemnation and denunciation in UN Security Council meetings, and supplying it with money, weapons and even volunteers. This enabling, protection and arming are precisely what cause Israel to ignore all humanitarian standards and divine laws to achieve its ambitions.

Iran should join the caravan of development and societal progress to stand in the ranks of the rest of the world’s nations.

Prince Turki Al-Faisal

Fourth: The leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries must criminalize anyone who insults or offends any individual from any GCC state on social media, whether that individual is a public figure or an ordinary citizen. GCC citizens must rise above attacking or insulting any fellow citizen of the council’s states.

Furthermore, the GCC countries must adopt a joint defense network to repel any aggression against any of them.

Enough with the attacks that the GCC states have endured. They must stand together like a solid, fortified structure to repel all envious and ambitious forces.

As the well-known proverb goes: “One hand cannot clap by itself.”

• Prince Turki Al-Faisal is the former director-general of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency and a former ambassador. He is also the founder and Trustee of the King Faisal Foundation and Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies.
• Translated from Asharq Al-Awsat