The Palestinians in Their Own Words

Palestinian Quote Sheet #43

On support for violence:

“All options are open, including the armed struggle if necessary.”

— Amin Maqbul, member of the Fatah Higher Council, at a Nablus rally. Fatah is Yasser Arafat’s mainstream faction of the PLO. (Al-Quds, 20 March 1997)

“The only option in this situation is to continue the uprising since this is the only language which Israel understands.”

— Farouk Kaddumi, Head of the PLO Political Department (Al-Hayat, 2 April 1997)

The Council congratulates “all the holy martyrs resulting from the noble wave of opposition to the Israeli Government’s settlement activity.”

— From a statement issued by the Palestinian Legislative Council on 27 March 1997, just 6 days after a suicide bombing in a Tel Aviv cafe which killed three Israelis (Ma’ariv, 28 March 1997)

“I don’t think that stones are violence. It is peaceful to throw stones.”

— Marwan Barghouti, Secretary General of Fatah and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (The Jerusalem Post, March 26, 1997)


This is the forty-third in a series of quote sheets prepared by

IRIS (Information Regarding Israel’s Security)


To Quote Sheet #42 | To a text file of all quote sheets | To Quote Sheet #44