Meanwhile,

On October 30, 2002, President/General Arafat delivered a long-winded address to the Palestinian Legislative Council. This part of his speech was directed to the people of Israel. I do hope they were listening. Carefully.

Israelis,

What do you want to achieve from fighting, and this war?

Where are you heading? Do you want security? Well, we want to live with you side by side as neighbors, good neighbors, where no sea, ocean, river or mountains separate us; as a wall that is even longer than the Berlin Wall will not be an alternative to goodwill. The line separating us is called the Green Line so let us reach a joint understanding about the concept of security that both of us are yearning for – Security for you and for us. Is your security attainable only by eliminating our dream and our right to live in this land? Can your security be achieved only by undermining our will, oppressing our people, reoccupying our land, and deporting us from it, pursuing illegal settlement activities, denying our children access to schools, denying our mothers access to hospitals, demolishing our houses and bulldozing our fields?

Yep, that’s all we want. Security for you and for us. No sea, ocean, river or mountains, no wall between our weapons and your bodies. The peace of the brave for us and the peace of the grave for you. Don’t try to stop us. Listen. We love you, really. (Smoooch!)

We acknowledged the existence of your state on 78% of historic Palestine and accepted to establish our state on the remaining 22% of this land. So, why are you chasing and driving us out of that small land? Your government is racing against time to establish as much as it can of illegal settlements to make them thorns and spikes in the heart of our tiny state. Your government is doing all it can to prevent the emergence of our state; it nullified mutual agreements signed between us under the witness of the whole world. Why are you going this way while you are fully aware that it leads to destruction of both of us? Do you want to be in a state of war all the time? Can you persevere on this track? Or would you prefer to coexist with us as one family and achieve reconciliation between our peoples in this land, the cradle of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in which they grew and enlightened the whole world. The followers of the three monotheistic faiths – sons of Abraham - have been living there since the early dawn of history without any type of discrimination. I would like to remind you that a rich heritage of reconciliation and coexistence has prevailed throughout our history and has endured longer than the short age of our wars.

Listen! We acknowledged the existence of your state (even though we keep getting the geography wrong – no – don’t mention the 76% of “historic Palestine” that is Jordan – I forbid it – I am General Arafat – shut up!). See? We know your state is there. So just let us at it. We promise we’ll be quick, if you’ll just get out of our way. Aren’t we all brothers? You must trust us. We have a rich heritage of reconciliation and coexistence that has prevailed throughout our history and will continue that heritage just as soon as you are returned to your proper minority and subjugated status in our land. Those of you who are permitted to live, anyway.

Israeli People,

We have decided to live with you side by side as neighbors. We do not want to drive you out of this land. Our rejection of occupation does not entail rejecting you or refusing to accept to live with you. We extend to you our hand of reconciliation and a an olive branch to resume the track we started in Madrid and Oslo in order to bring occupation to an end; to establish our independent Palestinian state and to achieve an honorable peace for our two peoples, for your children and our children. Peace is our strategic option. We will not drop this option albeit the voices we hear in your side to cancel the agreements and to expel us. You ought to be fully aware that struggle for national liberation is our legitimate right – We will never concede our right to independence and freedom. Our struggle is not driven by spite or revenge. We call upon you to perceive the wisdom that no people can occupy another people and live peacefully at the same time.

We have decided. Trust us. And we have proven our true intentions to you over and over again since Madrid and Oslo. How can you doubt us? Hey! Wake up! I am General Arafat!

We appreciate the rational voices amongst you that call for an end to this conflict and the return to peaceful solutions. This unjust and unjustified war that you are waging against our civilian people has caused you to loose world opinion that was once admiring you. You have lost your economy that was once your great achievement and source of pride. You gained nothing in return. You mostly lost your image as viewed by yourself and the whole world. You have turned your army to a mere contractor assigned to demolish our houses and bulldoz our fields. Shame on you! You committed war crimes against our civilians in Jenin, Khan Younis, Rafa, Gaza and many other Palestinian cities. This should make you feel ashamed.

We appreciate the dupes and traitors among you, really we do. You are losing the propaganda war, my good friends. Everyone loves us and everyone hates you. Give up. Loose world opinion is on our side. And we’ll continue to exploit it, you know we will.

I call upon you to stop that and raise your voices loudly against these massacres that fuel hate and spite between us. Stop before it is too late; it is simply harmful to you as much, if not more, than it is to us.

It's for your own good. Listen to me! I am General Arafat! I shall now proclaim boldly!

I have announced many times before you and I would like to reiterate that to you, to my people, and the whole world that we are against all types of violence that target civilians, Palestinian or Israeli civilians. I reiterate my announcements and declare that every human being has a sacred right to life. We respect this right for Israelis and Palestinians. We condemn all terrorist acts against civilians anywhere worldwide. Such an attitude emanates from our values and ethics. It is our political and human attitude that we do not consider such acts a way to solve political problems.

Yes! Can you not see that our values and our ethics prevent us from targeting civilians? Can you not clearly discern the awesome respect for human life that is rampant among my people? Are you blind? Are you deaf? Do I care, so long as the rest of the world buys this load of crap?

We must be more frank. It is unfortunate that your government has always been escalating violence whenever we attempt to calm the situation and exert real control. Your government and army have opted to strike our security forces in order to weaken us so that they render us incapable of implementing our obligations. Do you recall what your government did when we managed to reach an agreement among our different political parties and popular movements to bring acts targeting civilians to an end? It bombed a crowded residential neighborhood under the pretext of assassinating a certain person. Such an act is solely aimed to escalate violence, and it unfortunately succeeded many times.

Please remember, and don’t ever forget. It’s, frankly, always the fault of the J-E-W-S. No matter how many of you we murder in cold blood, no matter how many of your children we blow to bits, it is you and your stubborn insistence on remaining here, where you don’t belong, humiliating us by your very existence, that is responsible for all of the violence in the Middle East. Your fault!

Your government has been working hard to make both of us fail; this is a fact. Instead of rectifying this attitude, it proceeded in its incitement and manipulation campaign against the Palestinian leadership and against me in person in order to lead you to the conclusion that there is no Palestinian partner on the other side. Why is it launching such a campaign? The answer is simply to set free the hands of your army to undermine the Palestinian Authority, the peace process and the project that I started jointly with my partner, Rabin, to achieve a historic reconciliation between our peoples.

Yes, my dear partner, Rabin, who would rather have cut off his arm than shake my hand, but what could he do? And what can he say, now, he’s dead, you know. He didn’t like me. You don’t like me. Why don’t you like me? What did I ever do to you? Rectify your attitude! Immediately! I insist! I am General Arafat! Shut up!