# Arafat's Arabic
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arafats-arabic/103459
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 13, 2002, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arafats-arabic/103459 "2002-04-13T18:20:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@barton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barton)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2002, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arafats-arabic/103459/1 "2002-04-13T18:20:11Z")
Not knowing a lick of Arabic, I have no idea if this was actually said in Arabic:
[http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&ncid=716&e=1&u=/ap/20020413/ap\_on\_re\_mi\_ea/israel\_palestinians\_3241](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&ncid=716&e=1&u=/ap/20020413/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians_3241)
Anyone Arabic-speakers out there know if this is an accurate translation? There is the constant accusation that Arafat says one thing in English and another in Arabic - I imagine the translators working for the White House determined it was close enough, as Powell has rescheduled his meeting with the man - but I’d like to hear it from someone else than the AP.
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2002, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arafats-arabic/103459/2 "2002-04-14T04:30:42Z")
Okay, so, the Yahoo/AP link has it as:
> [@](#):
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> “We are condemning strongly all the attacks which are targeting civilians from both sides and especially the attack that took place against Israeli citizens yesterday in Jerusalem.”
[CNN.com](http://CNN.com) has a “partial translation” of the [statement](http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/04/13/palestinian.statement/index.html) (they don’t say where they got it from) as:
> [@](#):
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> "President Arafat and the Palestinian leadership condemn all kinds of terrorist activity, coming from the deep principle against using violence and terrorism against civilians as a means to achieve political gains.
>
> "Starting from this principle, which we have upheld since 1988 when we signed the Oslo agreement at the White House and which we repeated several times, including on the 16th of December, 2001.
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> "We did not receive any Israeli response on the declaration of the 16th of December. Instead what we got was Israeli military escalation, suffocating siege and continued occupation for our people, our refugee camps, our cities, our villages and complete destruction of our infrastructure.
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> “We strongly condemn violent operations that target Israeli civilians, especially the last operation in Jerusalem. We also strongly condemn the massacre and the killing Israel occupation forces have and are still committing against Palestinian civilians and refugees in the city of Nablus and the Jenin refugee camp and the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem and other Palestinian territories over the past two weeks.”
The BBC has the “full text” of the [statement](http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1928000/1928029.stm), in their own “BBC Monitoring” translation\*, as:
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> President Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership express their condemnation of all terrorist acts against civilians, whether they are Israelis or Palestinians and whether this terrorism is sponsored by a state, group or person.
>
> This is based on the firm principle of rejecting the use of violence and terrorism against civilians or as a means of achieving political aims.
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> We have embraced this position since 1988. We expressed it on signing the Oslo accord at the White House and reiterated it several times, including in what we announced on 16 December 2001 and thereafter.
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> We however received no Israeli response, but rather a military escalation, a choking siege, a continued occupation of our people, camps, cities, and villages, and a comprehensive destruction of our infrastructure.
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> On this basis, we strongly condemn the violent operations that target Israeli civilians, especially the recent operation in Jerusalem.
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> We also strongly condemn the massacres the Israeli occupation forces have been committing for the past two weeks against the Palestinian civilians and refugees in the city of Nablus and Jenin Camp, against the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and in other Palestinian areas.
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> We urge the international community, the Security Council and Mr Colin Powell, who is on an international mission for peace, to become acquainted with these massacres and bloodbaths plaguing our people due to the Israeli occupation and also to the Israeli Government’s determination to squash our people’s quest for freedom and independence with military force, tanks, aircraft, missiles, shells and machine guns.
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> We, on behalf of the Palestinian people, reiterate anew our commitment to the option of a just peace between the two peoples and two countries, a peace that would bring security to the Israelis and independence and freedom in an independent state for the Palestinian people.
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> For it is only peace, and not occupation, military force, massacres and terrorist acts, particularly those committed against civilians, that can bring security to all. The latter can bring neither security nor peace to either the Israelis or the Palestinians.
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> We have to work all together, especially after the Security Council resolutions, the international resolutions, and the statements made by President Bush and his secretary of state, and the US-Russian-European-UN committee in Madrid, and in light of the tour made by Colin Powell and his presence among us to stop this war, secure an immediate Israeli withdrawal, start an immediate implementation of the Tenet understanding and Mitchell report, begin immediate negotiations on the basis of the Arab summits, the Saudi initiative adopted by the Arab summit in Beirut, and protect our Christian and Islamic holy places.
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> We emphasize the importance of the presence of an international peace force to ensure the implementation of the above mentioned resolutions and initiatives.
All three translations say “strongly condemn”, which is what Powell was looking for, I guess.
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> “BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.”