Subscribe Today
Subscribe to receive daily or weekly MEMRI emails on the topics that most interest you.
Request a Clip
Media, government, and academia can request a MEMRI clip or other MEMRI research, or ask to consult with or interview a MEMRI expert.
Abu Ali Shahin, Fatah Supreme Council, was interviewed on Al-Manar (Lebanon) TV on November 13, 2004. A portion of his interview follows:
Al-Shahin: The official Arab regimes are all in a period of extraordinary bankruptcy. Perhaps this period of bankruptcy has continued since the founding of the Arab League in March 1945. Today we see that the official Arab regimes are characterized by unparalleled fear that is unjustified. It's unjustified. These regimes are characterized by cowardice, and do not want... They are more cowardly than Kraft cheese [a pun in Arabic]... The Arab regimes from the Gulf to the ocean... None of the [Arab leaders] except President Husni Mubarak is capable of sending Arafat someone or picking up a phone. They are shameful Arab regimes. Yasser Arafat led a revolution, a revolution of a barrel of gunpowder alongside a barrel of petrol. It was a miracle. But when Yasser Arafat saw that the USSR, his main ally together with the socialist system, collapsed without a single shot being fired upon it-- this empire had reached its end and reverted to being called Russia-- Yasser Arafat understood this great international game. He made a 180-degree turn and followed the line of the official Arab regimes. He accepted Oslo--Madrid and after it Oslo, and the results of Oslo. He accepted the disaster, but the disaster did not accept him.
Interviewer:You mean that afterwards they stopped cutting him slack...
Al-Shahin:: They basically...In Palestine we have a saying, "She's hated, and worse still, she gave birth to a daughter." Yasser Arafat was hated, and he gave birth to a daughter called Oslo. The [regimes] make even lesser demands than those of Oslo. The values on their barometer Are much lower than those on Arafat's Oslo barometer. Despite that, each of them behaves as if he were Saladin, Gamal Abd Al-Nasser and Muhammad Ali-- A triple mixture that is only interested in blood vengeance and in destroying the Zionist project. But the truth is very different. Now Arafat is gone. Some people hope that his successor will be...
Interviewer: More moderate--
Al-Shahin: An Israeli-made or American-made project. I say to everyone that the most moderate man in the history of the contemporary Palestinian movement is Yasser Arafat. The most pragmatic man in the contemporary history of the Palestinian national movement in Yasser Arafat. Yasser Arafat holds an angel in one hand and the devil in another, and plays with both. Now Yasser Arafat's time is over, and whoever follows cannot be Yasser Arafat. Now neither America or can find anyone who would be moderate towards them. Today America needs Yasser Arafat more than ever. ...Theodor Herzl was an Austrian. He was born in Vienna. He was born to an Austrian father and an Austrian mother. But he has the right to have his bones buried in Jerusalem. Theodor Herzl...On the other hand, Yasser Arafat, whose mother and father were Palestinians with Palestinian roots, have no right to be buried in Jerusalem?! This is oppression! This is repression! These are the human rights that are trampled under the boots of Zionism and imperialism. One of these days we will carry Yasser Arafat ... not in my generation, but in the generation of my sons or in the generation of my grandsons or the grandsons of my grandsons, or their grandsons or the grandsons of their grandsons... They will carry his bones on their shoulders, and on their necks, and we, the sons of the Palestinian people and the Arab nation, will carry him... I am not talking emotionally...We will carry him from Ramallah to Jerusalem, by foot, in order to bury him in this place, in the cemetery of martyrs.
Al-Shahin: The official Arab regimes are all in a period of extraordinary bankruptcy. Perhaps this period of bankruptcy has continued since the founding of the Arab League in March 1945. Today we see that the official Arab regimes are characterized by unparalleled fear that is unjustified. It's unjustified. These regimes are characterized by cowardice, and do not want... They are more cowardly than Kraft cheese [a pun in Arabic]... The Arab regimes from the Gulf to the ocean... None of the [Arab leaders] except President Husni Mubarak is capable of sending Arafat someone or picking up a phone. They are shameful Arab regimes. Yasser Arafat led a revolution, a revolution of a barrel of gunpowder alongside a barrel of petrol. It was a miracle. But when Yasser Arafat saw that the USSR, his main ally together with the socialist system, collapsed without a single shot being fired upon it-- this empire had reached its end and reverted to being called Russia-- Yasser Arafat understood this great international game. He made a 180-degree turn and followed the line of the official Arab regimes. He accepted Oslo--Madrid and after it Oslo, and the results of Oslo. He accepted the disaster, but the disaster did not accept him.
Interviewer:You mean that afterwards they stopped cutting him slack...
Al-Shahin:: They basically...In Palestine we have a saying, "She's hated, and worse still, she gave birth to a daughter." Yasser Arafat was hated, and he gave birth to a daughter called Oslo. The [regimes] make even lesser demands than those of Oslo. The values on their barometer Are much lower than those on Arafat's Oslo barometer. Despite that, each of them behaves as if he were Saladin, Gamal Abd Al-Nasser and Muhammad Ali-- A triple mixture that is only interested in blood vengeance and in destroying the Zionist project. But the truth is very different. Now Arafat is gone. Some people hope that his successor will be...
Interviewer: More moderate--
Al-Shahin: An Israeli-made or American-made project. I say to everyone that the most moderate man in the history of the contemporary Palestinian movement is Yasser Arafat. The most pragmatic man in the contemporary history of the Palestinian national movement in Yasser Arafat. Yasser Arafat holds an angel in one hand and the devil in another, and plays with both. Now Yasser Arafat's time is over, and whoever follows cannot be Yasser Arafat. Now neither America or can find anyone who would be moderate towards them. Today America needs Yasser Arafat more than ever. ...Theodor Herzl was an Austrian. He was born in Vienna. He was born to an Austrian father and an Austrian mother. But he has the right to have his bones buried in Jerusalem. Theodor Herzl...On the other hand, Yasser Arafat, whose mother and father were Palestinians with Palestinian roots, have no right to be buried in Jerusalem?! This is oppression! This is repression! These are the human rights that are trampled under the boots of Zionism and imperialism. One of these days we will carry Yasser Arafat ... not in my generation, but in the generation of my sons or in the generation of my grandsons or the grandsons of my grandsons, or their grandsons or the grandsons of their grandsons... They will carry his bones on their shoulders, and on their necks, and we, the sons of the Palestinian people and the Arab nation, will carry him... I am not talking emotionally...We will carry him from Ramallah to Jerusalem, by foot, in order to bury him in this place, in the cemetery of martyrs.
Latest Clips
