Following are excerpts from speeches delivered by PLO Executive Committee secretary Yasser Abd Rabbo, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on January 22, 2009 and on Al-Arabiya TV on January 16, 2009.
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Al-Jazeera TV, January 22, 2009: "Today, Hamas Gangs Are Unleashed Like Packs of Animals on the Streets of Gaza Against Fatah Members"
Yasser Abd Rabbo: "Yesterday, we heard Khaled Mash’al talking from Damascus about new, additional preconditions for national reconciliation – the only goal of which is to hinder the achievement of reconciliation.
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"Today, Hamas gangs are unleashed like packs of animals on the streets of Gaza against Fatah members. Because the military bases and the prisons have been destroyed, they have turned Gaza schools, Al-Nasser Hospital, the radiology department at Shifa' Hospital, Al-Aqsa University, and other places, including mosques, into centers for the detention, interrogation, and torture of Fatah members and members of other national Palestinian factions.
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"Dozens of people have been shot in the leg, been beaten savagely, and had their bones broken, because they are members of the Fatah movement, which took to the streets of Gaza to confront the occupation, leaving all disagreements [with Hamas] behind, during the battle against the invasion by the Israeli occupation. This is what is happening today in Gaza.
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"This reminds me of the 'glorious exploits' of Chemical Ali in southern Iraq after the 1991 'Mother of All Wars.' When the smoke of battle cleared, he turned his gangs and his fire against the Iraqis in southern Iraq, and the massacre that ensued is known to all. Who is the 'Chemical' today in Gaza, who wants to turn Gaza into the venue of a new massacre?
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"I heard that Abu Marzouq is sanctioning the killing of Palestinians, in an interview with the Qatari Al-Sharq newspaper the day before yesterday. He said that they have [captured] collaborators, and they have already executed some, while others await their turn. What collaborators are you talking about, Mr. Abu Marzouq? Of course he has expanded the list, saying that anyone who criticizes the policy of Hamas a traitor and a collaborator, and that it is okay to kill him. Is this the promised Islamic rule, or is it a blood-soaked lie about Islam?
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"Who plunders the trucks bringing aid to the Gaza Strip, and distributes it only among the follows of its party and movement, while the children of Gaza are starving? Who is stealing the land of Gaza, dividing it into lots, and giving them to the cronies of Hamas members of the Shura Council?" [...]
Al-Arabiya TV, January 16, 2009: "[Hamas] Still Has a Backward Understanding of the Meaning of a Popular Mandate"
"[Hamas] still has a backward understanding of the meaning of a popular mandate. A popular mandate does not mean that the people places its fate in your hands for you to do as you wish – to drag it into wars and destruction, without taking anything into consideration
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"What came out of the Doha 'festival' except for speeches lecturing us, and peddling the blood of Gaza. Each of the regimes that were present there is domestically defeated for one reason or another. I don't want to get into specifics regarding each regime, but one of them carried out a military coup, another has a problem with the International Criminal Court, and the others have different problems."
