Mahmoud Abbas - Quotes

Quotes

• "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe, as if we were condemned to change places with them: they moved out of their ghettos and we occupied similar ones." (1976)
• "The little jihad is over, and now we have the bigger jihad - the bigger battle is achieving security and economic growth" (2005)
• "From here, our people begin the march towards establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital"
• "I renew my commitment to continuing the road he began and for which he made a lot of sacrifices, until the Palestinian flag flies from the walls, minarets and churches of Jerusalem." (2005)
• "A Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean? You can call yourselves as you like, but I don't accept it and I say so publicly."(27 April 2009)
• "We have frankly said, and always will say: If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it." (25 December 2010)
• "Zionist forces expelled the Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened. War and further expulsions ensued." (2011).
• "We go to the United Nations now to secure the right to live free in the remaining 22 percent of our historic homeland because we have been negotiating with the State of Israel for 20 years without coming any closer to realizing a state of our own."
• "It was our mistake. It was an Arab mistake as a whole."
• "Palestine now for me is '67 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is now and forever ... This is Palestine for me. I am (a) refugee, but I am living in Ramallah. I believe that (the) West Bank and Gaza is Palestine and the other parts (are) Israel."(November,2012)