President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda, also serving as Chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) for 2024-2027, has issued a comprehensive statement addressing the tragic situation in the Middle East, appealing for principled diplomacy and a two-state solution.
In his statement, President Museveni emphasised that force should be reserved for legitimate defence and not for aggression. “Therefore, force should be for legitimate defence and not for aggression,” he stated. “We appeal and advise the actors in the Middle East to draw back from the use of force and go back to principled diplomacy.”
The President directly called upon Iran and “the Islamists” to recognise Israel. He further asserted that “Israel should implement the two-state solution.”
Museveni highlighted what he perceives as “mistake-makers” on both sides of the conflict. He criticised Iranian Islamists for their stance that “Israel is a ‘transplant’ in the Middle East and does not belong there legitimately.”
Countering this, he explained, “We told the Iranians that according to the Bible, Israel is part of that area. The Romans dispersed the Jews after Masada, who continued to suffer wherever they went in Europe, North Africa and Asia until they tried to go back to their homeland until the Zionist Movement.”
He added that it was correct that the United Nations decided to partition Palestine among the two People. He also addressed the “second group of mistake-makers are the Israelis themselves,” questioning why they have “refused the implementation of the two-state solution?” He finds it “not correct for them to say that the Palestinians do not belong there.”
President Museveni reminisced about a conversation with Mzee Benzion Netanyahu, the father of the current Israeli Prime Minister, asking him about the “7 tribes of Canaan that we read about in the Bible—the Jebusites, etc.”
He further admonished what he termed “the third mistake – makers are the Western imperialists, led by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who, in 1953, overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh because they wanted to steal the oil of Iran.” This action, according to Museveni, “created that huge resentment that produced these clerics who have their own mistaken positions.”
The Ugandan leader warned against the use of force from outside concerned countries, stating, “Mistake number four is to believe that the use of force, especially force from outside the concerned Country, is a solution. It is not and always invites reactions that may even affect the interventionists.”
He cited historical examples such as the Papacy, Metternich of Austria-Hungary, and the 14 intervention powers in the Soviet Union, all of which “failed and, sometimes, the interventionists ended up disappearing.”
President Museveni concluded his statement with a call for unity and divine wisdom. “As I conclude, I would like to use this opportunity to remind all of us, that, we are all praying People,” he stated.
“Perhaps it’s time that we all agree to pray together and consult that Creator that cares for all of us without preference. May we have the willingness to humble ourselves and pray and ask for God’s wisdom, that we may do what is right in His eyes; maybe that time has come and only He has the power, the right and the Justice to decide what is the way forward for all of us.”