PLO Quotes
The usual people tried to claim responsibility. First the IRA, then the PLO and the Gas Board. Even British Nuclear Fuels rushed out a statement to the effect that the situation was completely under control, that it was a one in a million chance, that there was hardly any radioactive leakage at all, and that the site of the explosion would make a nice location for a day out with the kids and a picnic, before finally having to admit that it wasn't actually anything to do with them at all.
Douglas Adams
We should fully understand our religion. Fighting is a part of our religion and our Shari'a. Those who love God and his Prophet and this religion cannot deny that. Whoever denies even a minor tenet of our religion commits the gravest sin in Islam. Those who sympathize with the infidels-such as the PLO in Palestine or the so-called Palestinian Authority--have been trying for tens of years to get back some of their rights. They laid down arms and abandoned what is called violence and tried peaceful bargaining. What did the Jews give them? They did not give them even 1% of their rights.
Osama bin Laden
It is an irony of fate (or a triumph of folly) that Hamas was created, in fact, with the help of Israel itself. Much as the Americans created the al-Qaeda of Osama bin Laden in order to fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan, Israel supported the Islamic movement in the occupied territories as a counterweight to the PLO. The assumption was that pious Muslims would spend their time praying in the mosques and would not support the secular PLO, which was then considered the arch-enemy. But when the first intifada broke out at the end of 1987, the Islamists organized as Hamas (the Arabic initials of "Islamic Resistance Movement") and quickly became the most efficient underground fighting organization. However, the Security Service started to act against them only after a whole year of the intifada had passed.
Uri Avnery
[Issam al-]Sartawi and I are sitting in a small restaurant on the Boulevard St. Germain. After the main course, he excuses himself. 'I have to go to the bathroom. Keep an eye on my briefcase.' His attaché case - the kind Israelis call James Bond cases - stands under the table. After a few minutes he comes back, takes his seat and bursts out laughing. 'If I told anyone of my friends that I left a briefcase full of PLO secrets in the care of a Zionist, they wouldn't believe me', he says. 'If I tell anyone of my friends that a PLO terrorist put an attaché case under my table and went away, and I remained there, they'd think that I was crazy', I reply. We laugh and order a dessert.
Uri Avnery
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
Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 with the intention of destroying secular Palestinian nationalism.... OK, they did destroy the secular PLO and instead what they got was an Islamic fundamentalist movement that they couldn't control, that drove them out of most of Lebanon. What did they do next? They did exactly the same thing in the West Bank.
Noam Chomsky
I do think that the Lebanon War was one of the most justified of Israel's wars. Now to the facts: I hear Barak's statements on the 18 years tragedy in Lebanon. It should be remembered that our entrance to Lebanon started 25 years ago, when Yitzhak Rabin was the Prime Minister and Peres was the Minister of Defense. At the first stage, we entered south Lebanon and after a month we were already present in north Lebanon due to PLO terrorism. We reached a situation in which half of Israel's population deserted the north and moved southwardly. After the war, the north became quiet for many years [...] As early as October 1982, I was the only one who said that it's already possible to get out of Lebanon, but then I was no longer the Minister of Defense.
Ariel Sharon
[Fuad] Yassin expressed surprise; for him, the Palestinians wanted to honor Ghetto heroes because "we are still facing that kind of fascism against our people." At the ceremony itself, Yassin, accompanied by other PLO delegates, laid a wreath at the monument and asserted, "I have placed a wreath because the Jewish people were victims of Nazism and the Palestinian people are the victims of the new Nazis... the Zionists and Israel."
Joseph Massad
