"I am not Mr. Chairman. I am His Excellency, the President of
Palestine."
- Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the P.L.O., in response to a greeting
by Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt (JerusalemPost, 17 December
1993)
"Kill a settler every day.... Shoot at settlers everywhere.... Woe
to you if you let them reach their homes safely or travel safely on
the roads.... I want you to kill as many settlers as possible....
Do not pay attention to what I say to the media, the television or
public appearances. Pay attention only to the written instructions
that you receive from me."
- Yasser Arafat, addressing his people at a public event, July
2001
"I am ready to kill for the sake of my cause; wouldn't I lie for
it?"
- Yasser Arafat
"We with the help of God will meet next time in Jerusalem, because
we are fighting in order to bring the victory to our prophets,
every baby, every child, every man, every woman, and every older
person, and all the youngsters, we will sacrifice ourselves for our
holy places, and we will establish the guard on them, and are
prepared to give 70 of our martyrs for every martyr of theirs in
this campaign, because this is our holy land. We will continue to
fight..."
- Yasser Arafat, 18 December 2001, in a speech in Ramallah
(reported in Ma'ariv,) two days after his "historical" speech, in
which he called--in Arabic (under European pressure)--for an end to
suicide bombings and for a Palestinian state living side by side
with Israel
"There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is a term the
Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country
was for centuries part of Syria."
- Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, a local Arab leader, to the Peel Commission,
1937
"Palestine was part of the Province of Syria... politically, the
Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a
separate political entity."
- The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United
Nations submitted this in a statement to the General Assembly in
May 1947
"It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern
Syria."
- Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, to the UN Security
Council
"You do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Never forget this
one point: There is no such thing as a Palestinian People, there is
no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria. You are an integral
part of the Syrian people, Palestine is an integral part of Syria.
Therefore it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the true
representatives of the Palestinian people."
- Syrian President Hafez Assad to PLO leader Yassir Arafat.
"There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians
and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for
political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian
identity.... yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity
serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state
is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel."
- Zuheir Muhsin, late Military Department head of the PLO and
member of its Executive Council (Dutch daily Trouw, March
1977)
"The interesting thing about "Palestinians" is that so few of the
West Bank Arabs thought of themselves as such before 1967. It
post-dates the founding of the PLO: Palestine had a national
liberation movement before it had a nationality. Likewise, because
the Arab League designated Yasser Arafat as a head of state, we've
spent 30 years trying to create a state for him to be head of. Most
Arab nationalities -- "Jordanian," "Iraqi" -- were invented by the
British Colonial Office in the Twenties, and, although those
languid Etonians came up with some evocative and colourful names
for their hastily concocted jurisdictions, for the most part
they're comprehensive failures as nation states. It hardly seems
worth adding another bogus polity to the list."
- Mark Steyn, National Post, April 4, 2002
"The Oslo accords were a Trojan Horse; the strategic goal is the
liberation of Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the
[Mediterranean] sea"
- Faysal Al-Husseini, Palestinian Authority Minister for Jerusalem
Affairs, in his last interview, 'Al-Arabi' daily newspaper (Egypt),
June 24, 2001
"This is Palestine from the (Jordan) river to the Mediterranean
sea, from Rosh Hanikra to Rafah (in Gaza). The gap between
Palestinian expectations and the Israeli conspiracy will inevitably
lead to a collision."
- "Our Position" issued by Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO
in PA newspaper AL HAYAT AL-JADEEDA, Dec. 19, 1998
