Palestinian Territory Quotes
14 Arab Armies in a coordinated attack on the 1 day old Israeli state, intended to massacre all the Israelis as demonstrated by this quote. Note that this kind of extermnination intent was advertised with pride. To everyone's surprised, the Jewish defenders not only beat back the viscious attacks but enlssarged their terroitory by capturing strategic sites from which the attacks had been launched. Many people credit to the Israely victory to the fact that they were litterally fighting for their lives. Defeat would have meant death for them and their families. The Arab armies, in contrast, were fighting for land that other Arabs claimed that should have been theirs. The willingness to stand and fight for this goal did not match the self preservation that motivated the Israelis--especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust killing 6 million Jews in WWII.
There are some who argue that the quotation was made earlier and was not meant as an incendary call for massacre of Israelis. It well may be that in his original thinking, he was predicting what would happen if the State of Israel was created, basing his thoughts on historical artrocieties of the past. And many think he was concerned about that possible outcome and was trying to avoid it. The import of the quotation was not necessaruly to hisltorically blame Assam for the point of view but to simply establish that there were many Arab voices calling for victories of history where there were massacres in the Middle East. And there were those who took Azzam's quotation and broadcasted it on Arab radio, calling for the very massacre that Assam may have been warning about. Note that this notion of Jewish massacre and extermination was also picked up 60 years later and called for by the President of Iran.
At the time, some Palestinian Arabs claimed exclusive rights to the territory on the grounds that Arabs had dominated the area for the longest period of time. They gave no credence to the fact that the Jews had dominated the area and it was the center of their kingdom for many years before—that Jews had constantly lived in the area of longer than the Arabs, nor did they give any credence to the fact that the Christians had conquered the area from the Muslims during the Crusades.
He repudiated all cases in which a Muslim sold land to a non-Muslim, even though in the Holy Land, Christians, Jews and Muslims have been buying and selling land there to each other for centuries. This has been going on from the time of Christ for the Christians and Jews, and the Muslims from the time of the founding of Islam in the 7th Century. Even Caliph Omar, the authority he cited, allowed and recognized sales of land to Christians and Jews and purchases from them. Rantisi and his followers have actually killed Palestinians who have sold land to Jews.
She is one of the very few people, who can seriously discuss the Arab Israeli conflict and maintain some humor. It illustrates that humor can often make a serious point more memorable.
When the Jordanian Arab Army ejected the PLO who were trying to take over Jordan by force, they killed more Palestinians than the Israelis had killed in the entire conflict with the Palestinians. The PLO then went to Tunesia which had no army to defend against them.
One of the major problems in the Palestinian Territory is that a very large proportion of the population is armed with automatic assault weapons. Minor disputes end up with deadly killings and political disputes often result in major shootouts. He argues that it is the government alone that should have the monopoly on weapons and arms.
While it is true that there is a powerful minority of Palestinians and Palestinian organizations—Hamas & Hezbollah, for example whose official position is that there must be no compromise with Israel and Jews must be killed unless they convert to Islam, there are ultra-orthodox, religious, Jewish groups who believe that all the land in dispute was given to the Jews by God and there can be no compromise. The majority of Israelis believe that there is no Palestinian leadership who can stand up to the powerful minorities. The majority of Palestinians believe that the Israeli governments will never stand up to thieir powerful minorities. The Israeli Prime Minister was trying to signal the Palestinians, that if they compromise, the Israelis will also, but neither side has a lot of credibility when it comes to land, borders, and religious identity and that is especially true of this Israeli Prime Minister, who many Israelis (and many Americans) doubt that he will compromise on the land and borders with all the Israeli settlers already inhabiting enclaves of what is, by every law (International, Israeli, and traditional Arab—with the exception of God’s law of the Old Testament—which agrees that the Israelis or the Jewish People do not have title to or control over the lands outside of Israel proper.
