Yasser Arafat Quotes
We said we are ready to establish our independent state in any part from which the Israelis withdraw or which is liberated. Any part. The moment they withdraw from Gaza, I will establish my state there in Gaza.
Arafat, Yasser. Interview by Charlie Rose. Charlie Rose, PBS, 13 Nov. 1995.
This was an interview with Reuters News Agency in English. Arab leaders often make English Statements to the Western Press which are completely contradictory to what they say to their Arab constituents and followers. In this case he seems to acknowledge that Hamas and he do not deny the right of Israel to exist and accepts that nation per se. Yet at the same time Meshaal has never made this statement in Arabic and has made no gesture to change the Hamas Charter which calls for the destruction and elimination of Israel or to criticize the Hamas other leaders and followers who constantly call for “Death to Israel” and the destruction of the Jewish state. See {585395} for an eloquent statement of the practice of Arab leaders and politicians.
The mandatory power was Great Britain which had been “mandated” to maintain order in Palestine. The British were leaving Palestine and under the Balfour Declaration—See {594001} –they were to provide a homeland for the Jewish people. The General Assembly then voted overwhelmingly by this declaration that Palestine should be partitioned into an Arab State and a Jewish State--Israel. When the British left, however, some of the Palestinian Arabs together with the combined armies of the neighboring Arab states attacked the fledgling Jewish state, and to their surprise were beaten by the Israelis. This was the first of the Arab-Israeli wars as some Arabs have never accepted this UN Resolution and have continued to destroy the state of Israel.
at the First World Zionist Congress, 1897
In the complicated and arcane Middle East, substantial majorities of Israelis and Palestinians both favored a two state solution, thus creating a Palestinian State out of the West Bank and Gaza. However, the Hamas terrorist organization won the majority of seats in the Parliament and formed the “government” of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas opposed Israel’s right to exist at all, as that position as well as virulent Anti-Semitic threats to all Jews in the world. Many called for Hamas to change their charter and crease their opposition to the right of Israel to exist. The President of the Palestinian authority called for new elections but Hamas refused. Thus Blair and other diplomats the world over were in a very difficult situation.
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, popularly known as Yasser Arafat (Arabic: ياسر عرفات, romanized: Yāsir ʿArafāt) or by his kunya Abu Ammar (Arabic: أبو عمار, romanized: ʾAbū ʿAmmār), was a Palestinian political leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004 and President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1994 to 2004. Ideologically an Arab nationalist, he was a founding member of the Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until 2004.
