PLO's Political Department Head, Farouq Al-Qaddumi, participated in a conference of foreign ministers of Islamic states held in Qatar and gave an interview to the London Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat on December 12. Following are excerpts of the interview:
"Sharon is the last bullet in the Israeli rifle. If Sharon is defeated, the rapid countdown [to the end] of Israel will begin, because that country was established through historical coercion and will find its end as the USSR and Yugoslavia did."
Qaddumi accused Israel of trying to cause a Palestinian civil war, and added, "The Palestinian resistance is continuing, but we must assure, first, the success of the resistance; second, [we must] prevent damage to Palestinian security. Also, we should try to reduce the number of Palestinian casualties."
"Resistance is not a conventional war. It is a war based on the element of surprise, in time and place [sic]. In this war, one incites the public for 20 hours, and fights for perhaps two hours."
Asked whether he was calling on Hamas and the Islamic Jihad to stop their operations, Qaddumi replied: "Four factions have suspended their resistance operations for a while. As I said, guerilla war is like commerce. As Mao Zedong said, we trade when trade is profitable and stop when it's not."
Qaddumi was asked about the September 11 attacks on the U.S. He said:
"We condemned this terrorism, but these events will be a lesson to the U.S. This was the first time that Arabic names entered every American household. These incidents made America reexamine its foreign policy in order to seek the causes of terrorism." [1]
[1] Al-Hayat (London), December 12, 2001.
