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Palestinian Political and
Religious Leaders
When the Palestinian leadership faces
Western media, they tend to focus on Israeli "aggression". When
they talk to their own Arabic media, a different story arises. Look
through the following quotes and see if you think these are people that want
peace. For a very thorough examination of Arabic media, see Anti-Semitism
in the Arab World. For more quotes, see the ZOA
website.
Yasser
Arafat - Palestinian 'President'
Eulogy to a Palestinian
official,
June 15
1995
"The oath is firm to continue this
difficult Jihad (holy war), this long Jihad, in the path of martyrs, the path of
sacrifices"
al-Ayyam, November 16 1998
"The Palestinian Rifle is ready and we will aim it if they try to prevent
us from praying in Jerusalem... the "Generals of the Stones" are
ready".
Organization of the Islamic Conference
(OIC), Qatar, May 26, 2001
-
Palestinians are "irrigating the land with their blood" in the
struggle for "Palestine".
- Israel
is using "depleted uranium, poison gases, and radioactive material"
against the "homes, farms, and factories" of the Palestinians.
-
Israel is employing the "most modern weapons of murder, destruction and
annihilation."
-
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has "received the architectural designs to
build a synagogue in the courtyard of the Haram al-Sharif as a basis for
building the Temple... "
Guardian Unlimited, June 30 2001
"I am not looking for Hamas
or for Islamic Jihad or any other parties, because we respect all these parties
and there is a union between all of us."
Private speech entitled
"The Impending Total Collapse of Israel", Stockholm, Sweden, January
30, 1996
"We Palestinians will take
over everything, including all of Jerusalem....All the rich Jews who will get
compensation will travel to America....We of the PLO will now concentrate all
our efforts on splitting Israel psychologically into two camps. Within five
years we will have six to seven million Arabs living in the West Bank and in
Jerusalem....You understand that we plan to eliminate the State of Israel and
establish a purely Palestinian State....I have no use for Jews; they are and
remain Jews."
PA
Television, to a delegation of Arab leaders, January 26, 2002
"Yes,
brothers, with our souls and blood we redeem you, O Palestine. This is
the decision of the people of exceeding strength. This is a sacred bond. We are
up to this duty. You know I am saying this because I know our people. I know
what it means that in the midst of this economic crisis, yet none of them
complained. However, they said: Allah is great! Glory to Allah and his prophet!
Jihad, jihad, jihad, jihad, jihad!"
Egyptian Orbit TV, April 18, 1998
The Oslo accords are comparable to
"when the Prophet Mohammed made the Khudaibiya agreement...we must learn
from his steps...We respect agreements the way that the Prophet Mohammed
respected the agreements which he signed." Mohammed in fact breached the
agreement, pillaging Mecca and killing many of its citizens with whom he had
come to the "peace" agreement.
Al Ayyam, January,
1998
Regarding the Oslo agreement: "Since
the decision of the Palestinian National Council at its 12th meeting in 1974,
the PLO has adopted the political solution [later known as the Strategy of
Stages - ed. note] of establishing a National Authority over any territory from
which the occupation withdraws."
For more quotes from Yasser
Arafat, click here.
Abdul
Aziz Shaheen- PA Minister
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida,
January 4, 1998
"The Oslo accord was a preface for
the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinian Authority will be a preface for
the Palestinian state, which in turn will be a preface for the liberation of the
entire Palestinian land."
Nabil Sha'ath - Palestinian Cabinet Minister
Nablus, January 1996
"We decided to liberate our homeland step-by-step... Should Israel
continue - no problem. And so, we honor the peace treaties and non-violence...
if and when Israel says "enough"... in that case it is saying that we
will return to violence. But this time it will be with 30,000 armed Palestinian
soldiers and in a land with elements of freedom... If we reach a dead end we
will go back to our war and struggle like we did forty years ago"
ANN
television, October 7 2000
"No one believed him (Arafat) when he used to say it... [but] The choice is
not at all between options of negotiation and fighting: you can have
negotiations and fight at the same time...the Palestinian people fight with
weapons, with jihad, with Intifada and suicide actions... and it is destined to
always fight and negotiate at the same time."
('Moderate')
Faisal Husseini - PA Minister of Jerusalem Affairs
Al-Safir (Lebanon), March 21 2001
"We
may lose or win [tactically] but our eyes will continue to aspire to the
strategic goal, namely, to Palestine from the river (i.e. Jordan) to the sea (i.e. the Mediterranean). Whatever we get now cannot make us forget this
supreme truth." - by the way, this man was described as a
"moderate"
Le
Nouvel Observateur, Aug.27-Sept.2, 1998, p.46
"We
will forcefully open up our borders with Jordan and Egypt, which are currently
controlled by the Israeli army. There will be violent confrontation and death,
but this time on both sides. Are the Israelis more numerous and better equipped?
Yes, but the superiority of us Palestinians lies in the fact that we are willing
to lay down our lives, whereas for them every death is a tragedy that society
cannot bear."
Syrian
Television, September 9, 1996
"Palestine
is from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea": , Hussein was asked what the
boundaries of "Palestine" are. He replied that "all Palestinians
agree that the just boundaries of Palestine are the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean Sea. Realistically, whatever can be obtained now should be
accepted and that subsequent events perhaps in the next fifteen or twenty years
would present an opportunity to realize the just boundaries of Palestine."
Sheikh
Ikrama Sabri - PA-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem
Palestinian
Television, January 11, 2001
"No
stone of the Western Wall has any connection to Hebrew history ...
... The Jews call this the
Wailing Wall for two reasons. The first, the overt [reason] is that they cry
because they lost one of the Ten Commandments [tablets], and they lie and claim
that the Commandment [tablet] was lost in the area around Al Aqsa. This is why
religious Jews are apprehensive of entering the Temple Mount, because of the
fear that they might step on a paving stone underneath which may be the lost
commandment [tablet]. The second reason, that is not openly stated is that the
Jews cry, repent, and remonstrate before Allah that He chose Mohammed from among
the Arabs and did not choose a [prophet] from among the Children of Israel... In
Mohammed's time the Jews thought that the final prophet would be a Jew, and they
prepared themselves to receive him and they even threatened the Arabs and said
to them that ‘When the new prophet comes, we'll see what we will do to you'
and then the prophet turned up from among the Arabs and they (the Jews) became
angry and bitter that he (Mohammed) is the prophet. What they are crying about
is their protest ‘Why wasn't the prophet [chosen] from among the Children of
Israel, as they had anticipated."
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, 15 October 2000
"There is not a single stone in
Palestine that proves the [historical] Jewish existence [in the land]."
Marwan Barghouti, Fatah secretary in the West
Bank
Interview with Al Hayyat Al-Jadedah (official
Palestinian Authority daily newspaper), printed in The Jerusalem Times,
June 8 2001
"We still believe, however, that we are entitled
to use all means available to us to face the enemy."
"The Intifada came to
end occupation, not to allow for a return to negotiations."
"I believe that a return to negotiations would be
nothing but a waste of time and that seeking the mediation of the US is
useless."
"He who seeks peace with Sharon is pursuing a
mirage. There is no chance for peace with Sharon. The only way to deal with
Sharon is resistance."
Jerusalem
Times, June 2001
"The intifada
did not start because of Sharon's visit [but rather] because of the desire
to put an end to occupation and because the Palestinians did not approve of the
peace process in its previous form."
Ahmed
Qureia (Abu Ala?), Palestinian parliament
speaker
AP, June 11 2001
"We are not the Israelis' policemen to arrest our
own people" - referring to the Israeli demand that the Palestinians arrest
terrorists.
Abdel Jawad
Saleh, PA's Minister of Agriculture
Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah on Nov. 6,
1997
"The Jews seek to conquer
the world...We must expose the Zionist-Colonialist plot and its goals, which
destroy not only our people but the entire world."
Imad
Faluji, PA cabinet minister
Rally in Lebanon rally, March 3, 2001
The violence "had been planned since Chairman Arafat's return from Camp
David..."
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