PLO official: Return to '67 borders is for now; future generations will fight for the rest
Official PA TV program Religion and the World:
Sheikh Yaqub Qarash, Preacher and Member of PLO’s National Council: “I say to our Palestinian people… Be sure that nothing was paid in exchange [for our prisoners’ release]. The Palestinian [national] leadership paid nothing for this other than one thing – a thing we had not done already for thirty or forty years – and that is going to foreign courts or international institutions… And I remind [you] that our real war is for the land and not for the man himself; it is for the land. They [Israel] want the land without people. If we were to go, they wouldn’t [kill] a single Martyr (Shahid) or [take a single] prisoner from among us; they want the land. And we want our land, and we contented ourselves with the minimum, which is the ’67 [borders], and we’ll let future generations explore how to fight for the rest of their rights. … Inherent to the occupation is telling the enemy ‘I have enemies’. Who are these enemies? They are your prisoners, they are kidnapped civilians. When you come and take our brother Marwan Barghouti, you take him away from our home. What has Marwan Barghouti done? Marwan Barghouti, [Israel said to him:] ‘You rejected peace,’ even though he was one of the [national] leaders who spoke of peace. It is you, Israel, [who] rejected peace. You put Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership under siege, and you cut off the roads to peace. Marwan worked with his brothers and his young men and his family. Ahmad Sa’adat, Fuad Al-Shubaki, many young men from all the organizations, What were they working for? To protect their people while you [Israel] rejected peace. You rejected peace. I say this sincerely, the one who has been rejecting peace for over twenty or thirty years is not the Palestinians. [You are] the one who puts up obstacles, who refuses peace, who wants to say there are prisoners, and there are fighters, so that he [Israel] can present himself to the West [as if] he is living in a war, [saying:] ‘Give me money. Give me weapons. I’m living in a war…’ This has become part of its economic activity, part of societal activity in Israel. Because he [the Israeli] has become someone who cannot live without being a Nazi. He cannot live without being a Nazi. I say this sincerely, the Israeli soldier and Israeli society have adopted its enemy’s (i.e., Nazi) nature. The Nazis harmed them, fought against them, and burned them. [And now] they want to burn us, to abuse us, to imprison us…”
PA TV host: “Good, honored sheikh. These were good things [to say].”
Note: Marwan Barghouti - serving five life sentences for orchestrating terror attacks against Israeli civilians. When arrested in 2002, he headed Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. After he was convicted and imprisoned, he was re-elected member of the Palestinian Authority parliament.
Ahmad Sa’adat - serving a 30-year sentence for heading the PFLP terror organization. A song at a PFLP event also praised him for planning the assassination of Israeli Minister of Tourism Rehavam Ze'evi in 2001, but he has not been tried for this crime.
Fuad Al-Shubaki - Arafat’s former deputy who spearheaded efforts to smuggle arms from Iran aboard the Karine-A.
Sheikh Yaqub Qarash, Preacher and Member of PLO’s National Council: “I say to our Palestinian people… Be sure that nothing was paid in exchange [for our prisoners’ release]. The Palestinian [national] leadership paid nothing for this other than one thing – a thing we had not done already for thirty or forty years – and that is going to foreign courts or international institutions… And I remind [you] that our real war is for the land and not for the man himself; it is for the land. They [Israel] want the land without people. If we were to go, they wouldn’t [kill] a single Martyr (Shahid) or [take a single] prisoner from among us; they want the land. And we want our land, and we contented ourselves with the minimum, which is the ’67 [borders], and we’ll let future generations explore how to fight for the rest of their rights. … Inherent to the occupation is telling the enemy ‘I have enemies’. Who are these enemies? They are your prisoners, they are kidnapped civilians. When you come and take our brother Marwan Barghouti, you take him away from our home. What has Marwan Barghouti done? Marwan Barghouti, [Israel said to him:] ‘You rejected peace,’ even though he was one of the [national] leaders who spoke of peace. It is you, Israel, [who] rejected peace. You put Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership under siege, and you cut off the roads to peace. Marwan worked with his brothers and his young men and his family. Ahmad Sa’adat, Fuad Al-Shubaki, many young men from all the organizations, What were they working for? To protect their people while you [Israel] rejected peace. You rejected peace. I say this sincerely, the one who has been rejecting peace for over twenty or thirty years is not the Palestinians. [You are] the one who puts up obstacles, who refuses peace, who wants to say there are prisoners, and there are fighters, so that he [Israel] can present himself to the West [as if] he is living in a war, [saying:] ‘Give me money. Give me weapons. I’m living in a war…’ This has become part of its economic activity, part of societal activity in Israel. Because he [the Israeli] has become someone who cannot live without being a Nazi. He cannot live without being a Nazi. I say this sincerely, the Israeli soldier and Israeli society have adopted its enemy’s (i.e., Nazi) nature. The Nazis harmed them, fought against them, and burned them. [And now] they want to burn us, to abuse us, to imprison us…”
PA TV host: “Good, honored sheikh. These were good things [to say].”
Note: Marwan Barghouti - serving five life sentences for orchestrating terror attacks against Israeli civilians. When arrested in 2002, he headed Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. After he was convicted and imprisoned, he was re-elected member of the Palestinian Authority parliament.
Ahmad Sa’adat - serving a 30-year sentence for heading the PFLP terror organization. A song at a PFLP event also praised him for planning the assassination of Israeli Minister of Tourism Rehavam Ze'evi in 2001, but he has not been tried for this crime.
Fuad Al-Shubaki - Arafat’s former deputy who spearheaded efforts to smuggle arms from Iran aboard the Karine-A.