Yasser Arafat Quotes

We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.

In order to obtain the goal of returning to Palestine, all of us sometimes have to grit our teeth.

Confidence alone does not make peace, but acknowledging rights and confidence do. Failure to recognize these rights creates a sense of injustice; it keeps the embers burning under the ashes.

All religious wars are about people arguing over who has the biggest invisible friend.

The war of attrition against the Zionist enemy will never cease.

Peace, for us, is an asset and in our interest. It is an absolute human asset that allows an individual to freely develop his individuality unbound by any regional, religious, or ethnic fetters.

Martyrs, martyrs, martyrs,… we want a million martyrs to march on Jerusalem.

Whoever thinks of stopping the uprising before it achieves its goals, I will give him ten bullets in the chest.

As long as we have decided to coexist in peace, we must do so on a firm basis that will withstand time and for generations.

Palestine is the cement that holds the Arab world together, or it is the explosive that blows it apart.

How can I shave in the midst of guerrilla warfare? On battlefields, we have no facilities for shaving, and that was why I first grew my beard.

The Arabs are looking forward to developing their region, which the long years of war had prevented from finding its true place in today’s world, in an atmosphere of democracy, pluralism, and prosperity.

Whoever stands by a just cause cannot possibly be called a terrorist.

We started the peace process on the basis of land for peace and on the basis of U.N. resolution 242 and 338,1 as well as other international decisions on achieving the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.

I assure you, Ladies and Gentlemen, that we shall discover ourselves in peace more than we have with war and confrontation, as I am sure that the Israelis, in turn shall find themselves in peace more than they have found it in war.

We are not the Red Indians.

I come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and the freedom fighter’s gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.

Peace for us means the destruction of Israel. We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations.

Our law is a Jordanian law that we inherited, which applies to both the West Bank and Gaza, and sets the death penalty for those who sell land to Israelis.

The Israelis are mistaken if they think we do not have an alternative to negotiations. By Allah I swear they are wrong. The Palestinian people are prepared to sacrifice the last boy and the last girl so that the Palestinian flag will be flown over the walls, the churches and the mosques of Jerusalem.

The Palestinian people have no national identity.
I, Yasser Arafat, man of destiny, will give them that identity through conflict with Israel.

The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromises…

I call on all the countries of the world, especially the donor countries, to speed up their contributions so that the Palestinian people may overcome their economic and social problems and proceed with reconstruction and the rebuilding of infrastructures.

We do not want to destroy any people. It is precisely because we have been advocating coexistence that we have shed so much blood.

Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.

The victory march will continue until the Palestinian flag flies in Jerusalem and in all of Palestine.

Once in 1979, [Zbigniew] Brzezinski gave an important slogan: “Bye-bye PLO.” After two months, I was in Tehran saying to him: “Bye-bye Brzezinski.” Who can imagine that America will lose one of its strongest bases?

We totally and absolutely renounce all forms of terrorism.

It’s always convenient for certain people to heap accusations on Israel.

Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you.