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Q. You will be trying to gain a homeland on the basis of 242 and 338, self- | determination and your political rights? Period?
A. Period! Yes. Clear and obvious. What are we looking for? We want a place for our bodies to be buried in and a place where our new generations, our children, can live as freely as other human beings. We want an end to daily massacres, sometimes in Beirut, sometimes inside the territories, sometimes in Nablus, in Gaza. Forty years of continuous massacres! Continuous genocide! You know that. The world knows it. It is enough.
Q. What happens if the Israelis say no to a settlement, that time is on their side?
A. O.K. Let them explain that they are not looking for peace. You can't hide behind your fingers. As for us, we are preparing ourselves for a long resistance. We have known that from the beginning. In 1968 we started the first ((training)) camp for our kids.
Q. And you are prepared to go on for another 20 years?
A. Yes. The Israelis are stupid if they carry on in their policy. The current of history is not on their side. We are with the current of history.
Q. But the current of history has had the P.L.O. going nowhere slowly, until very recently.
A. We were close to our goals twice. Once in 1977, when Sadat betrayed us by going to Jerusalem, and in 1982, when we won in the longest ever confrontation with the Israelis, and Assad betrayed us.
Q. So your principal enemies have been Arabs?
A. No. They've been responsible for some of our troubles, perhaps.
Q. As an Arab, doesn't that make you angry?
A. No. This is my nation. I can't jump out of my skin.
Q. If in 1967 you had known what you know now, that the intifadeh as an unarmed mass movement in the occupied territories has achieved more in eleven months than years of P.L.O.-Israeli fighting, would you have chosen a strategy of armed revolution?
A. The intifadeh did not come out of a vacuum. It is the result of all the years of resistance, of struggle. You can't just say "start," like to a machine.
Q. You are willing to let history render the final verdict on you?
A. Yes. You see, you cannot hide the sun with your fingers.