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Yasser Arafat Quotes

Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian political leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1969 to 2004 and President of the Palestinian National Authority 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.

Arafat was born to Palestinian parents in Cairo, Egypt, where he spent most of his youth and studied at the University of King Fuad I. While a student, he embraced Arab nationalist and anti-Zionist ideas. Opposed to the 1948 creation of the State of Israel, he fought alongside the Muslim Brotherhood during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Returning to Cairo, he served as president of the General Union of Palestinian Students from 1952 to 1956. In the latter part of the 1950s he co-founded Fatah, a paramilitary organisation seeking the disestablishment of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian state. Fatah operated within several Arab countries, from where it launched attacks on Israeli targets. In the latter part of the 1960s Arafat's profile grew; in 1967 he joined the PLO and in 1969 was elected chair of the Palestinian National Council . Fatah's growing presence in Jordan resulted in military clashes with King Hussein's Jordanian government and in the early 1970s it relocated to Lebanon. There, Fatah assisted the Lebanese National Movement during the Lebanese Civil War and continued its attacks on Israel, resulting in it becoming a major target of Israel's 1978 and 1982 invasions.

From 1983 to 1993, Arafat based himself in Tunisia, and began to shift his approach from open conflict with the Israelis to negotiation. In 1988, he acknowledged Israel's right to exist and sought a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In 1994 he returned to Palestine, settling in Gaza City and promoting self-governance for the Palestinian territories. He engaged in a series of negotiations with the Israeli government to end the conflict between it and the PLO. These included the Madrid Conference of 1991, the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2000 Camp David Summit. In 1994 Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize, together with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, for the negotiations at Oslo. At the time, Fatah's support among the Palestinians declined with the growth of Hamas and other militant rivals. In late 2004, after effectively being confined within his Ramallah compound for over two years by the Israeli army, Arafat fell into a coma and died. While the cause of Arafat's death has remained the subject of speculation, investigations by Russian and French teams determined no foul play was involved.Arafat remains a controversial figure. The majority of the Palestinian people view him as a heroic freedom fighter and martyr who symbolized the national aspirations of his people. Conversely, most Israelis came to regard him as an unrepentant terrorist, while Palestinian rivals, including Islamists and several PLO leftists, often denounced him for being corrupt or too submissive in his concessions to the Israeli government. Wikipedia  

✵ 24. August 1929 – 11. November 2004
Yasser Arafat photo
Yasser Arafat: 18   quotes 3   likes

Famous Yasser Arafat Quotes

“Today I come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and the freedom fighter's gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat, do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”

Yasser Arafat

1970s, Speech to UN General Assembly (1974)

“This is my homeland; no one can kick me out.”

Yasser Arafat

As quoted in The Daily Iowan (11 September 2003), Yasser Arafat's reply to Ariel Sharon's threat to expel him from the occupied territories.
2000s

“all our moves are based on four general principles: continued use of the rifle, no waiving of historical rights, no peace, and no negotiations… Whatever form of government is established in the territory when the shadow of occupation passes away, whenever I address my fighters and revolutionaries, I shall say: ‘Let our rifles be aimed at the beloved land, the land of the homeland, the land of Palestine.”

Yasser Arafat

Statement from Wafa, Beirut (9 June 1974) as quoted in Journal of Palestine Studies (1974), p. 224.
1970s

“The Israelis are mistaken if they think we do not have an alternative to negotiations. By Allah I swear they are wrong. The Palestinian people are prepared to sacrifice until either the last boy and the last girl raise the Palestinian flag over the walls, the churches and the mosques of Jerusalem.”

Yasser Arafat

In a speech given on 6 August 1995, at a party to celebrate the birth of his daughter, reported in Haaretz (6 September 1995) and in The Jerusalem Post (7 September 1995).
1990s

“Let it collapse, it will be the fault of Israel and the Americans.”

Yasser Arafat

Edward G. Abington, a former State Department official who is now a Washington consultant to the Palestinian Authority regarding the future of the Palestinian Authority http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17536-2004Feb29.html (2004-02-29) -->
2000s

“I want to tell Carter and Begin that when the Arabs set off their volcano there will be only Arabs in this part of the world… Our people will continue to fuel the torch of the revolution with rivers of blood until the whole of the occupied homeland is liberated, the whole of the homeland is liberated, not just a part of it.”

Yasser Arafat

Quoted in the Associated Press (12 March 1979).
1970s

Yasser Arafat Quotes about people

“All religious wars are about people arguing over who has the biggest invisible friend.”

Yasser Arafat

Many unsourced variations are attributed to Arafat.[citation needed] The actual origin is Richard Jeni.
Misattributed
Source: http://www.gdargaud.net/Humor/QuotesReligion.html

“The difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist lies in the reason for which each fights. For whoever stands by a just cause and fights for the freedom and liberation of his land from the invaders, the settlers and the colonialists cannot possibly be called terrorist, otherwise the American people in their struggle for liberation from the British colonialists would have been terrorists; the European resistance against the Nazis would be terrorism, the struggle of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples would also be terrorism, and many of you who are in this Assembly hall were considered terrorists.”

Yasser Arafat

1970s, Speech to UN General Assembly (1974)

“What Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories.”

Yasser Arafat

As quoted in "The Palestinians, Alone" by Efraim Karsh in The New York Times (1 August 2010) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/opinion/02karsh.html?_r=1&hp.
2000s

Yasser Arafat Quotes about peace

“Peace for us means the destruction of Israel. We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations… We shall not rest until the day when we return to our home, and until we destroy Israel.”

Yasser Arafat

Quoted in The Times, UK (5 August 1980).
1980s and 1990s

“We shall never stop until we can go back home and Israel is destroyed… The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromises or mediations… the goal of this violence is the elimination of Zionism from Palestine in all its political, economic and military aspects… We don’t want peace, we want victory. Peace for us means Israel’s destruction and nothing else.”

Yasser Arafat

Quoted in the Washington Post (29 March 1970)
1970s

“Did you follow what [General Yehoshafat] Harkabi wrote? Formerly of the Israeli military intelligence service. Remember him? Did you follow what he wrote? He said that it was for the sake of the existence of Israel that we have to accept the rights of the Palestinians to have their independent state. I’m a man of history. My vision is guiding me, my clear vision. It is not by chance that the currents of peace are increasing daily inside Israel. Many of the Israelis begin to understand and discover the realities and the facts. They can’t demolish five million Palestinians. They can’t annihilate them. We are not the Red Indians.”

Yasser Arafat

In an interview published in "The New York Review of Books" (11 June 1987).
1980s and 1990s

Yasser Arafat Quotes

“This child, who is grasping the stone, facing the tank, is it not the greatest message to the world when that hero becomes a martyr? We are proud of them.”

Yasser Arafat

On Palestinian Authority Television (15 January 2002).
2000s

World

“The PLO will now concentrate on splitting Israel psychologically into two camps… We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. Jews will not want to live among Arabs. I have no use for Jews. They are and remain Jews. We now need all the help we can get from you in our battle for a united Palestine under Arab rule.”

Yasser Arafat

In a speech to Arab diplomats in Stockholm; Quoted in the Jerusalem Post (23 February 1996).
1990s

Life , Help

“We will not bend or fail until the blood of every last Jew from the youngest child to the oldest elder is spilt to redeem our land!”

Yasser Arafat

In his speech "The Impending Total Collapse of Israel" at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden, January 30, 1996 as quoted in “The Legacy of Islamic AntiSemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History”, by Andrew Bostom, Prometheus Books, c.2008, pg. 682.
1990s

“Those who call us terrorists wish to prevent world public opinion from discovering the truth about us and from seeing the justice on our faces. They seek to bide the terrorism and tyranny of their acts, and our own posture of self-defence.”

Yasser Arafat

1970s, Speech to UN General Assembly (1974)

Truth , World , Justice

“Amanpour: Secretary of State Colin Powell has spoken to you, I understand. He has also spoken publicly. He called on you to rein in the violence. What do you make of that statement, and can you and will you rein in that violence?
Arafat: Are you asking me while I am under complete siege? You are a wonderful journalist. You have to respect your profession.… No, you have to be accurately when you are speaking with General Yasser Arafat. Be quiet! … You are covering, with such questions, the terrorist activities of the Israeli occupation and the Israeli crimes. Take care not to make these fatal mistakes. Thank you. Bye, bye!”

Yasser Arafat

Exchange http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0203/29/bn.26.html with CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour (29 March 2002) during Operation Defensive Shield
New millennium

Understanding , Question

“I swear to God, I will see [the Palestinian state], whether as a martyr or alive. Please, God, give me the honor of becoming a martyr in the fight for Jerusalem.”

Yasser Arafat

As quoted at OneJerusalem.org (21 January 2002)
2000s

God , Fight

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