Whoever has [weapons] - go ahead and do it. I say this out in the open. If
you have weapons, go ahead. I'm with you, and I will help you. Anyone who
has weapons can go ahead.

MEMRI: January 14, 2018 Clip No. 6371

Mahmoud Abbas: The PLO Should Reexamine Its Agreements with Israel; We Will
No Longer Accept the U.S. as Mediator
https://www.memri.org/tv/mahmoud-abbas-plo-should-reexamine-agreements-with-israel-we-will-not-accept-america-as-mediator/transcript

In an address to the PLO Central Council on January 14, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas said that the Central Council "is required to
reexamine the agreements between the PLO and the Israeli government." He
responded to U.S. President Trump's recent tweets threatening to cut
Palestinian aid by saying: "To hell with you! When have we ever rejected
negotiations?" "We will not accept America as a mediator with Israel," Abbas
said. In his lengthy address, broadcast by the Palestinian Authority TV
channel, Abbas gave a historical review, in which he claimed that
conspiracies to settle the Jews in the Middle East had begun in the 17th
century with Oliver Cromwell, and continued throughout the centuries, and
that the Zionist movement "constitutes a colonialist enterprise

that has nothing to do with Judaism."



Mahmoud Abbas: This is a watershed moment. This is a dangerous moment. Our
entire future is on the line. If Jerusalem is gone, what will you do next?
Establish a state with Abu Dis as its capital? This is what they are
offering us now. Abu Dis and whatever... It's over. We are here, and we
shall stay here. We shall not repeat the mistakes of the past. We shall not
repeat the mistakes of 1948 and 1967. We shall stay here regardless of the
occupation and the settlements. We shall not leave this country. This is our
country. This has been our land since the days of the Canaanites. By the
way, our Canaanite forefathers... The Torah says... and I do not want to go
into history or geography... From the days of the Canaanites and to this
day, [our forefathers] have not left this land. They were here before our
patriarch Abraham. We were. Since before our patriarch Abraham...

[...]

We have tried to raise the issue of the 100-year-old Balfour Declaration.
Some people have rebuked us for this: After 100 years you bring this up
again? Yes. We brought it up after 100 years, and we still do. We will
continue to talk about it until Great Britain apologizes, pays reparations,
and recognizes the State of Palestine. But the issue goes back long before
that, my brothers. The late Egyptian intellectual Abdel-Wahab El-Messiri was
among the most important people who talked about the Zionist movement and
Judaism. His encyclopedias and volumes are well known throughout the Arab
world. He describes that entity as follows: 'The functional nature of Israel
means that it was evoked by colonialism in order to fulfill a specific
function, and thus it constitutes a colonialist enterprise that has nothing
to do with Judaism.'

[...]

This did not begin 100 years ago. It did not begin with the Balfour
Declaration. According to my humble knowledge – and I may be wrong and it
actually began way before that... It began in 1653, when Cromwell ruled
Britain. Cromwell staged a coup against the king and became the head of a
republic in 1653. This was 300 years prior to the Balfour Declaration. He
came up with the idea of transferring the Jews from Europe to the Middle
East, to this region, because they wanted this region to become an advanced
post to protect the interests and the convoys coming from Europe to the
East. This is a well-known story, and there's no need to repeat it – the
East India Company and all that... He asked Holland, which owned the largest
fleet in the world, to transfer the Jews, but the project was unsuccessful.
This was in 1653.

Cromwell was followed by Napoleon Bonaparte, who, in 1799, failed before the
walls of Acre. Pay attention. He failed before the walls of Acre. He could
not overcome the walls of Acre. We've been 'heavyweights' for ages, not just
now. He said that a Jewish state must be established in Palestine, but his
enterprise failed too. Then Napoleon III, in 1860, called for... Between the
two Napoleons, Churchill's grandfather, may he rest in peace... In 1840,
Churchill's grandfather voiced the same call, but was unsuccessful. Then
there was a very strange and peculiar call. In 1850, the American consul in
Jerusalem... The American consulate and its archives are located in
Jerusalem. Warder Cresson. His name was Warder Cresson.

There was a group of Jews in front of the Western Wall in the Old City, and
he said to them: 'What if I give you settlements outside [the city walls]?'
They said to him: 'Man, we're here to worship. This has nothing to do with
us.' 'We'll arrange houses and settlements for you' he said, but they
rejected the offer. Consequently, the U.S. government decided to send
Christians to Palestine. The U.S. government did not send Jews. Many of us
think that America had nothing to do even with World War I. America has been
playing its games since back then.

[...]

The [American Christians] were brought here, but refused to live in this
place. 'What is this country? It's a backward country under Ottoman rule,'
they said. They kept insisting, until the U.S. government sent a ship to the
port of Jaffa, and it took all of them back to America.

[...]

And then came Theodor Herzl. For your information, Theodor Herzl called for
assimilation. He was into theater and songs and had nothing to do with this.
Because of the Jewish Question, which was widespread in Europe, and not in
our parts... The Jews were persecuted because of their social function, and
not because of their religion. So Herzl was calling for conversion to
Catholicism, until there was a story with a French officer called Dreyfus,
in 1893.

[...]

When Herzl arrived in Palestine, he saw people, human beings, citizens. So
he said: 'We should erase the Palestinians from Palestine, so that it will
become a land without a people for a people without a land. 'This is the
origin of the slogan "a land without a people for a people without a land."
This is the origin of the slogan coined by Herzl. This was immediately
followed by a very important story with British PM Campbell-Bannerman, in
1805-1807...



Off camera voice: The 1900s...



Mahmoud Abbas: Right, sorry. Bravo, you're following... At that time, there
were secret meetings of the foreign and defense ministers of all European
countries except Germany, with Campbell-Bannerman. The bottom line, in a
nutshell, was that European civilization was on the verge of collapse. It
was getting old. The region poised to inherit European civilization The
region poised to inherit European civilization Who? The south and east of
the Mediterranean Sea. That's us.



[…]



[Campbell-Bannerman said:] To prevent this, we must keep these countries
divided, backward, and engulfed in infighting. Take a look at us today:
divided, backward, and engulfed in infighting. It is as if they were talking
about us today. As a quick remedy to prevent this region from succeeding
European civilization, the Campbell-Bannerman report suggested planting,
east of the Suez Canal, a people that is foreign to the locals but friendly
with us, and let it be the Jews.



[…]



When the Partition Resolution was declared, the State of Israel was
established, but our state was not. Don't ask me why. I don't know.



[…]



When they occupied 78% of Palestine, they were only 650,000 Jews. What were
they to do? They said: We need Jews. But the Jews refused to come.
Ben-Gurion did not want to bring the Jews of the East.



[…]



He would say: "I hate them. They look like Arabs. They look like Arabs, and
I don't want them. It will take three or four generations for anything to
come of them. I don't want them." But when he saw how vast the [newly
occupied] land was, he was forced to bring in Jews. The Arab Jews did not
want to come either - not from Iraq and not from Yemen. From Yemen, in 1949,
TWA airplanes... TWA was owned by... By Somalia? By whom? TWA took 50,000
Jews from Yemen to Israel. It was called "Operation Magic Carpet." That was
its code name. But these 50,000 were not enough, and they turned to Iraq. In
Iraq, there was a huge reservoir of Jews, a wealth of Jews. So they reached
an agreement with Nuri Al-Said, Allah's mercy upon him, and with Tawfiq
Al-Suwaidi, Allah's mercy upon him too... They reached an agreement that
they would strip the Jews of their nationality, and force them to leave.
Thus, 150,000 Iraqi Jews were driven out and sent to Israel. They did not
make do with this. They gathered the Jews from all the Arab countries -
Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon - and did not leave
anyone behind. They transferred them all to Israel.



[…]



The Oslo Accords, of course... Now, I say that Oslo... Israel... There is no
Oslo anymore. Israel has brought the Oslo Accords to an end. So among the
resolutions that we need to take is the issue of the Oslo Accords. Where are
we going from here?



[…]



I don't want to see [Trump] on Twitter again, saying: We won't give the
Palestinians any money because they reject negotiations. To hell with you!
When have we ever rejected negotiations?



[…]



We will not accept America as a mediator with Israel. After what they did to
us... A believer does not get bitten by the same snake twice, and we have
been bitten a hundred times already.



[…]



I am not ashamed to repeat it a hundred - no, a thousand - times: I support
only peaceful popular resistance, of the kind with which we confronted the
occupation in the past month or so, since the Trump initiative was launched.
Believe me, peaceful popular resistance is stronger and more effective than
any other kind.



[…]



We have signed 83 protocols with 83 countries to fight terrorism, and we are
all for fighting terrorism. But along comes the "great" Congress and says
that the PLO is terrorist, and that it wants to shut down the PLO offices.
They issued 27 resolutions that we are terrorists. To hell with you! We are
fighting terrorism together.



[…]



We are proud that whenever people talk about ISIS, they say that there are
5,000 members from this nationality, 2,000 from that nationality, and 3,000
from a third one, but they cannot find even five Palestinian ISIS members.
Brother, we're done with this. We're done, but you continue to fight us. We
don't want anybody to fight us. We have learned our lesson, and that is why
the culture of peace has spread everywhere.



[…]



The Arab Spring is neither Arab nor a spring. If you like it, fine, and if
you don't like it, that's fine too. It came from America. Put your trust in
Allah.



[…]



We always and forever adhere to negotiations as the path to reach a
political settlement with Israel. We don't want war. We will not call for a
military war with Israel. Whoever has [weapons] - go ahead and do it. I say
this out in the open. If you have weapons, go ahead. I'm with you, and I
will help you. Anyone who has weapons can go ahead. I don't have weapons. I
want the peaceful political path to reach a settlement. I see that there are
only a few supporters of peace here. All the others are into war. The
Americans are always telling us that we must stop paying salaries to the
families of the martyrs and the prisoners. We categorically reject this
demand. Under no circumstances will we allow the families of the martyrs,
the wounded, and the prisoners to be harmed. These are our children, our
families. We are proud of them, and we will pay them before we pay the
living.

[…]



Therefore, the Central Council is required... I am asking as a citizen... It
is required to reexamine the agreements between the PLO and the Israeli
government.



[…]
...



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