Fatah official: I "oppose negotiations"

Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV host: "Tawfiq Al-Tirawi, the truth is, we're talking today about the July Victory (i.e., the Second Lebanon War). You said that you're opposed to the current negotiations. What other option do the Palestinian people or Palestinian leaders have apart from negotiating? Do they have other options?"
Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Al-Tirawi: "Of course. Look, brother, despite all the circumstances, someone who wants to lead a nation under occupation must always create options, and make all the existing calculations. There are many options we could turn to, beginning with resistance by political confrontation, [resistance] by stones, and ending with armed struggle and everything in between. I wish to say that given the current balance of power and the current factors, the principle of armed struggle should not be abandoned, nor should the principle of resistance [be abandoned]. I would also like to say to all who say that the Fatah Movement has cast away the rifle: This is not true.
In the political guidelines [determined] in the sixth Fatah Conference [August 2009] held in Bethlehem, the Fatah Movement approved all the resistance options, including the armed struggle. Nonetheless, sometimes there are circumstances, factors and situations when the time is perhaps not right for this type of struggle. Maybe in other months a different type of struggle will be suitable. The important thing is for the struggle to remain, and for us to be engaged in constant activity against this occupation, until it ends... The other point I would like to say is that the Israelis say that Beit El and Ma'ale Adumim are Israeli areas, but we also haven't forgotten that Haifa, Jaffa, Acre and Nazareth are Palestinian and will remain Palestinian forever... The last war in 2008 (i.e., Israel's Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip from December 2008-January 2009 with the aim of stopping Hamas' launching of rockets into Israel.) and the bombing of Tel Aviv (i.e., reference to Hamas and Islamic Jihad's rockets hitting near Tel Aviv in 2012), I salute the Islamic Jihad, because the Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa [Martyrs'] Brigades and all the Palestinian resistance brigades, their role was more central than the Hamas Movement's role...
[Hamas leader] Khaled Mashaal said in an official statement: 'We authorize Mahmud Abbas to negotiate for a period of one year,' while I, your humble servant sitting before you, named Tawfiq Tirawi, oppose negotiations and I am from the Fatah Movement and am proud to be from the Fatah Movement. Don't come and say 'They [Fatah] sold the [Palestinian] cause and gave it away, etc.' I'm telling you, there is not a single Palestinian who could sell or barter one grain of Palestine's soil, all of historic Palestine. We are under occupation and we will resist.
By resisting, the resistance forces were victorious in Lebanon and in several countries, and we say here: We will win, Allah willing, with different forms of resistance - popular resistance, resisting the occupation through political confrontation, resisting it on the international level, as well as armed resistance at any time. We can act in this positive manner for our cause and for our land, Allah willing."
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