Following are excerpts from addresses delivered by Hamas leader Khaled Mash'al and Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki, which aired on Al-Alam TV and on the Al-Jazeera network on July 12, 2012.
Al-Alam TV:
Khaled Mash'al: "Our true strategic path, which is capable of bringing about the liberation [of Palestine], is resistance – and nothing but resistance.
"Brothers and sisters, a land that was plundered by force can only be restored and liberated through force and resistance. This is the law of history.
"Therefore, resistance will remain our strategic path. This is what will force the enemies to leave. We took Gaza only by force, and South Lebanon was liberated only by force. Even Egypt regained Sinai – albeit through negotiations – only after the 1973 war.
"If time had stood still in 1967, nobody – near or afar – would have given us a second thought. It is might that affords you respect."
[...]
The Al-Jazeera network:
Abbas Zaki: "I agree with everything that my brother Khaled Mash'al said. If this discussion had taken place before all the doors of peace [negotiations] had been closed, relations between us would have been like between Antonius and Brutus. However, we have paid every possible price for peace, and in return, we have faced vindictiveness and the closing of all the doors of mutual understanding and of peace.
"Therefore, we in the Fatah movement promise you that we have already embarked upon this long route, and that when we bore arms and opened fire in January 1965, we were marching along the same path as you, in the conviction that we were fighting those who occupied our lands.
[...]
"We pledge to you that resistance is a legitimate right, guaranteed by UN Resolution 3236. The Palestinians have the right to use all forms of struggle, including armed struggle.
"However, there are conditions to resistance, as brother Khaled said. It must be effective to those who employ it and costly to the enemy."
[...]
