The following are excerpts from an interview with Saudi cleric Salman Al-Odeh. Al-Jazeera TV aired this interview on March 2, 2005:

Interviewer: On November 5, 2004, you were one of the 26 Saudi clerics who signed an open letter to the Iraqi people that fights the Jihad, in your words, in which you called it to unite, oppose the occupier and end internal conflict. Don't you see this as infringing upon the government's authority… The clerics feel they have the right to express an opinion that may contradict that of the government and its allies.

Salman Al-Odeh: I wrote this communique, which was subsequently proofread and distributed and signed by (26) people you mentioned. I cannot say it is a form of infringement upon authority. This is a natural procedure because, as far as we're concerned, we are not an official body and have to ties to any such body.

Interviewer: Is official inadequacy to blame?

Salman Al-Odeh: Of course.

Interviewer: Is this not a coup against the religious establishment who is silent and does the government's bidding?

Salman Al-Odeh: There is a vacuum, as you've said, and wherever there is a vacuum, it must be filled one way or another. There has been (official) discourse, at times even in Saudi Arabia, calling what is happening in Iraq "civil strife" and saying people have no right to fight. Everyone must understand that this opinion, which is at times presented in the media, is not the prevalent opinion, and there is at least another view, which rejects that principle and believes that it is the right of the Iraqi or Palestinian people, or any other occupied people to resist and defend its freedom and independence.

You know that terrorism, according to the criteria of the West and the East, has never been defined. even in the last conference in Riyadh, they did not define what "terrorism" is. These days, everything is defined by the Americans. No one can object to their definitions. But their definitions have not been accepted – not even by (official Saudi) conferences. Is resisting the occupier in Palestine, in Iraq, or in any other country considered terrorism? According to international law, it is not terrorism. It is legitimate and national resistance, supported by the law.