Top 97 Quotes & Sayings by Yasser Arafat

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 Palestinians, whose national cause guards the gates of Arab-Israeli peace, look forward like their Arab brethren to that comprehensive, just, and lasting peace based on 'land for peace' and compliance with international legitimacy and resolutions.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

I would like to congratulate my partners in peace - Mr. Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Mr. Shimon Peres, the Israeli Foreign Minister - on being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

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

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

We totally and absolutely renounce all forms of terrorism.

The Palestinian Rifle is ready and we will aim it if they try to prevent us from praying in Jerusalem.

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.

I call on Russia and the United States of America, the cosponsors of the peace conference, to help the peace process take bigger steps by contributing to the process and helping to overcome all obstacles.

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.

Though I am not a chief of state, I must work twice as hard as one because I have to both administer a bureaucracy and run a revolution.

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

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.

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.

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.

This is my homeland no one can kick me out.

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

All our moves are based on four general principles: continued use of the rifle, no waiving of historical rights, no peace, and no negotiations... Whatever form of government is established in the territory when the shadow of occupation passes away, whenever I address my fighters and revolutionaries, I shall say: 'Let our rifles be aimed at the beloved land, the land of the homeland, the land of Palestine.

What Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories.

We are not the Red Indians.

You are the generation that will reach the sea and hoist the flag of Palestine over Tel Aviv.

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

Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you.

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 shall never stop until we can go back home and Israel is destroyed... The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromises or mediations... the goal of this violence is the elimination of Zionism from Palestine in all its political, economic and military aspects... We don't want peace, we want victory. Peace for us means Israel's destruction and nothing else.

The Palestinian state is within our grasp. Soon the Palestinian flag will fly on the walls, the minarets and the cathedrals of Jerusalem.

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

It is true that we are under occupation, but we are not the weaker party. We are the military force which Israel failed to defeat.

In order to obtain the goal of returning to Palestine, all of us sometimes have to grit our teeth. But it is forbidden that this harm the continued struggle against the Zionist enemy. Cooperation and understanding between the P.L.O. and the rejectionist organizations is what will lead to the speedy retreat of Israel from the occupied territories in the first stage, until the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. Only a state like that can then continue the struggle to remove the enemy from all Palestinian lands.

I want to tell Carter and Begin that when the Arabs set off their volcano there will be only Arabs in this part of the world... Our people will continue to fuel the torch of the revolution with rivers of blood until the whole of the occupied homeland is liberated, the whole of the homeland is liberated, not just a part of it.

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

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.

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.

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

Jerusalem is the capital of the Palestinian state.

Peace for us means the destruction of Israel.

I'm a man of history. My vision is guiding me, my clear vision. It is not by chance that the currents of peace are increasing daily inside Israel.

I can't let it pass when you say: "You are the weak party." No, I am not the weak party. I am the man who is making the war. I am the man who is making the peace.

Not to forget, you are speaking with General Yasser Arafat. It's true that I am an engineer. But also I am a general. And I am religious. I believe that no one can approach me except God.

We will make the lives of the infidels hell - millions of martyrs marching on Jerusalem.

When American administration will find that their interest is to follow up with the international conference and to find peace in this area, they will search not only for me, but for any Palestinian to speak with him. And they will say, "We have five million Arabs in the United States. We can't avoid them."

Did you follow what [General Yehoshafat] Harkabi wrote? Formerly of the Israeli military intelligence service. Remember him? Did you follow what he wrote? He said that it was for the sake of the existence of Israel that we have to accept the rights of the Palestinians to have their independent state.

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

I am looking to have a place under the sun for our new generations to live in peace far away from repression, from terrorism, to live as human beings freely in this free world. That is what I am looking for. I am not asking for the moon. I am asking for the United Nations legality to be implemented.

We will not bend or fail until the blood of every last Jew from the youngest child to the oldest elder is spilt to redeem our land!

Our basic aim is to liberate the land from the Mediterranean Seas to the Jordan River. We are not concerned with what took place in June 1967 or in eliminating the consequences of the June war. The Palestinian revolution's basic concern is the uprooting of the Zionist entity from our land and liberating it.

Still, the American administration is following blindly the Israeli advisers in your policy, while they are pushing you to more and more disasters.

Find what strength you have to terrorize your enemy and the enemy of God.

[Adolf] Hitler succeeded once upon a time to conquer all the big powers within two or three years and occupied all Europe, North Africa, and arrived at the gates of Moscow. This is not the real power. Real power is something completely different.

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

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

Even if only one guerilla cub survives the prolonged struggle, I am confident that he will raise the flag of Palestine overJerusalem... Jerusalem is destined to be the eternal capital of our sovereign, independent Palestinian state under the P.L.O. leadership.