A. "The resistance"
"Liberating Palestine, all of Palestine, is an obligation, a privilege, an
objective and a goal. It is the responsibility of the Palestinian people and of
the Islamic nation...the jihad and the armed resistance are the true and correct
way to liberation and to the restoration of our rights. There are different
types of struggle - political, diplomatic, public, legal, etc. - but they are
worthless without the resistance. This missile [Mashaal points to the model] is
a symbol of the fact that policy is a product of the resistance. A true
statesman is a product of the rifle and the missile."
B. "Palestine from the river to the sea"
"Palestine - from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea, from the
north to the south [i.e. all of Israel] - is our land and our right and our
homeland; there will be no surrender of even the smallest piece of it. Palestine
was and still is Arab and Islamic. Since Palestine is ours, and it is the land
of the Arabs and Islam, it is unthinkable that we would recognize the legitimacy
of the Israeli occupation of it.
There is no legitimacy for the occupation
and no legitimacy for Israel, no matter how much time passes. Palestine belongs
to us and not to the Zionists. Let me emphasize that we adhere to this
fundamental principle: we do not recognize Israel or the legitimacy of the
occupation or anything that's happened in Palestine - the occupation, the
settlements, Judaization, hijacking [our] history, falsifying [our] character
...all of that is nullified. The Palestinian resistance will crush it and sweep
it away, be it Allah's will."
"The West Bank, Gaza, the 1948 territories [Israel] - these are Palestinian
lands, they are all Palestine. Not one part will be separated from any other
part, and whoever thinks that Gaza can be separated from the West Bank is
mistaken. Gaza and the West Bank cannot surrender Haifa, Jaffa, Beersheba and
Safed [Israeli cities]."
C. Jerusalem
"Jerusalem is our eternal capital. We cling to her and we will liberate her
inch by inch, quarter by quarter, stone by stone - Jerusalem and all the other
places holy to Islam and to Christianity. Israel has no right to Jerusalem."
D. Common platform with Fatah, based on "resistance"
"I am happy to see the diversity here among the leadership and the diversity
in Fatah's flags...We are prepared to reach political agreements - on the
Palestinian and on the Arabic level - on political platforms that are compatible
with our political platform...we must not let any national plan come at the
expense of our fundamental principles concerning the land, Jerusalem, the right
of return, and the resistance...Let us reassess, draw conclusions, look for the
options open to us, use our bargaining chips and bet on the resistance - the
resistance that will continue to be the backbone of our plans."
E. On the PA's political moves
"Listen well, colleagues in the factions and forces: first liberation, then a
state; a real state is a product of liberation and not of negotiations. There is
no alternative to a free Palestinian state, with genuine sovereignty over all of
Palestine's territory."
F. The refugee question
"The right of return of all the refugees, the uprooted and the expelled, to
Palestinian land - in Gaza, in the West Bank, in the 1948 territories [Israel] -
the right of return is sacred to us, and we will not give it up...In this
context I would like to say that this is an unshakable principle of Hamas. There
will be neither a permanent settlement for refugees nor an alternative homeland.
There is no substitute for Palestine..."