Dr. Mustafa Barghouti said in this video when he was asked about Hamas targeting civilians:

It's not true. I think Hamas mainly attacked military establishments and installations and most of the people they they have arrested and taken as war prisoners are military people. I do not accept attacking any civilian. I do not accept that Israelis attack our civilians. Look at what Israeli planes are doing now in Gaza. They are bombarding houses. They're bringing down to earth whole apartments, whole buildings, high buildings are brought down to the ground. We already are reporting and receiving reports about families who are killed. Nine people in one family, 10 people in another family including children. I do not want any civilian to be hurt either by Palestinians or by Israelis but the question is how to end that? Will it end by attacking the Gaza Strip another time? Israel has already conducted five Wars on Gaza. One of them lasted 51 days. They destroyed everything. This did not stop Hamas, did not stop resistance. There is one way to stop any violence and that is to end the Israeli occupation and that the United States be fair. They cannot say that Israel has the right to defend itself but we the Palestinians don't have the right to defend ourselves. Let me remind you of the case of Shireen Abu Akleh, who was not only Palestinian but also American. A very peaceful journalist; she was shot to death by an Israeli sniper. Was anybody indicted? Was anybody taken to court? No! 52 other journalists were also killed. Our first aid providers are shot. Our doctors are shot.

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti said in this video:

Do you condemn that Israel has been occupying us since 1967? Do you condemn that Israel has been practising ethnic cleansing against Palestinian people for 75 years? Do you condemn that Israel has evicted 70% of the Palestinian people from their land, erasing to the ground 520 Palestinian towns and Villages? Condemn that and then I'll answer. Until you condemn the atrocities that are happening in Gaza; three war crimes, the war crime of ethnic cleansing. I am a person of nonviolence. I never accept the killing of any child whether Palestinian or Israeli. I don't accept the killing of the 30 children they say were killed on the 7th of October, but you should also agree with me that you do not agree with killing 12,000 Palestinian children! 12,000! Do you know what that means? children were killed by Israeli bombardment and they have been occupying us since 1967.

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti said in this video:

The US and Britain created Israel. They created it to be the base of imperialist and colonial interests in the region. They created it to preserve American interests in the region. They also created it to be a threat force to the surrounding countries in the region. Their goals are: control of oil, control of energy resources, and control of the strategic location. Israel, for them, was the best ally. At the beginning, they claimed that they were doing this to confront the Soviet Union and the other countries. Today, they want to impose it as a method for economic, strategic, and political control.

Israel was established on the basis of Balfour's agreement which Britain issued in 1917. But Balfour's agreement is not excluded from the American-Anglican movement which supported this approach. They even used Jewish mythology to justify the establishment of the State of Israel in this way. Therefore, the relationship between the US and Israel is an organic relationship, not a temporary alliance relationship. Because they look at it as two sides: The first side is that it is a base to preserve their military, political, and strategic interests. Secondly, they consider it a project of occupation and settlement to take over the place of the Palestinians and take their land.

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti said in this video:

The Oslo Agreement was the greatest genius idea in the history of Israel because it guaranteed the continuation of the occupation without having Israel pay for the costs of the occupation. I mean that the First Intifada was costing Israel huge costs. They got rid of the Intifada because the stoppage of the uprising was part of the agreement. They got rid of that ongoing blood which they could not afford. They gave the Palestinians an illusion.

There were many mistakes in the Oslo Accord:

• The first one was what Dr. Haider Abdel Shafi warned it is not permitted to sign any agreement with Israel without stopping the occupation. The Palestine Liberation Organization agreed to sign the agreement without stopping the settlement. As a result, we had 121,000 settlers in 1993. Today, we have 750,000 settlers. In other words, the occupation and Judaization process did not stop. How can you sign an agreement without stopping the settlement?
• The second point is that there was a non-contradictory recognition. The Palestinians recognized Israel and Israel only recognized the organization and not the Palestinian state. It recognized the organization as a representative of the Palestinians and did not recognize the Palestinian state.
• The third mistake was that the organization agreed to sign a transitional agreement without determining the ultimate goal, as was required by the official agreement in Madrid and Washington. We used to say that before we talk about the details and the stages, we should first determine the ultimate goal and stop the occupation of all the occupied territories. After that, we will study how to reach that goal. However, without determining the ultimate goal, the organization lost the initiative. There was a transitional period of six years after which the research for the ultimate solution should begin, which included Jerusalem, the settlers, the refugees, the borders, security, and water. What happened was that Israel took the agreement and stopped the negotiations.
• The other major mistake was that in the second stage of the agreement, they agreed to divide the West Bank into three parts, A, B, and C. A was an area under the control of the Palestinian Authority, while B was under civilian control. However, the majority of the land, 60%, remained under the control of C, which means it is under the control of Israel. As for now, Israel took control even over A. This was after the last war.

As a result, the Oslo agreement was one of the biggest historical mistakes made by the Palestinian Authority. Because it was based on two delusions. The first delusion was that the Zionist movement was ready to find a solution with the Palestinians, while in reality, it was not. The second delusion was that the United States could be an honest mediator. It's not honest and it's not a moderator. On the contrary, Netanyahu came to power to destroy the Oslo agreement. They got rid of the intifada, and then they wanted to destroy the Oslo agreement. He made every effort to postpone the negotiations. Since 2014, there has been no meeting between the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. All of this is over.

The liberation movement got tricked into wanting recognition at any cost. The contradiction began then between the liberation organization, the bureaucratic system and the liberation organization: the liberation movement. The interests of the bureaucratic system that manages the organization conflict with the interests of the liberation movement. This became worse when the Palestinian Authority was established. Because the bureaucratic system that was established with the Palestinian Authority took over the organization. Instead of the authority being a member of the organization and a reference point to the organization, the organization became a small expense item in the Palestinian Authority's budget.

This is the reason for the internal Palestinian crisis and the reason for the division. What led to the division was the Oslo Accord. The Oslo Accord created the original division in the Palestinian sphere. People became with Oslo or against Oslo. We were very careful about this. Dr. Haidar Abdel Shafi, Dr. Edward Said, Mr. Ibrahim Al-Dakkaq, and I were against Oslo and we were aware of its dangers. This is the reason for the establishment of the Palestinian National Initiative. These four people, along with 500 other people, established the Initiative to reject the Oslo Accord.

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti said in this video:

What was proposed in Camp David was just talking about an independent government. The terms were not clear and do not forget who was leading Israel at that time, Menachem Begin, one of the most far extremists. And all the story of Camp David was a kind of trade. One of its main points is to give up on the Palestinian side. Therefore, the Palestinians saw in it a sad exit for Egypt from the battlefield with Israel. Therefore, of course, there was an objection to the Camp David Agreement at that time, a big objection.

I think that if we go back in history, it was better for the Arabs and the Palestinians to stay with us in one line and not to allow Israel to separate them one by one.

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti said in this video:

It was on the 21st of March 1968. It was a great victory because the Arabs were out of a great defeat by Israel when the three Arab states were defeated in six days. By the way, what the occupation army lost in confronting the resistance in Gaza in the current war (2024) is more than they lost in the 1967 war, which made them occupy three times the area of the Israeli entity.

That is because back then in 1967, there was no real battle. It was shocking, of course, how Israel was able to defeat three Arab armies. They used deception and many methods, but they succeeded in this aggression and created a new reality which guaranteed the occupation of Sinai, the wrath of the Golan Heights, and of course all of the West Bank and Gaza.

Then in 1968, there was a deep feeling of defeat and anger and the resistance movement began to grow. Although the Fatah movement began in the 1950s and its first operations were carried out earlier but the transformation took place in the battle of Al-Karama, because it was the first battle in which the Palestinian and Jordanian sides defeated Israel. A year later, Yasser Arafat was elected president of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti said in this video:

The Palestinian-Palestinian conflict and the internal division are caused by two things. Both are not ongoing right now. The first reason is the Oslo Accords (check the answer to the question Was the Oslo Agreement / Accords a mistake?. The disagreement on the Oslo Accords and the disagreement on the national approach. The supporters of the Oslo accords believe in the negotiations and some of them still believe in the middle solution with the Zionist movement, while Israel presents evidence every day to reject any idea of a middle solution. In my opinion, after what happened and after what Israel and Netanyahu did to destroy the Oslo Accords and the expansion of the settlement to 750,000 settlers, and after his continuous declaration that he will not allow the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, the reason for the political conflict vanishes, because those who believe in the Oslo accords have no one to talk to, there is no room for negotiations. Therefore, those who insist on the continuation of the Oslo Accords are wrong. Today, national unity must be established on a different program, a national struggle to overthrow the occupation, apartheid, and the racist separatist regime, as well as all of the occupation systems. So the division on the program has practically disappeared, even though some still hold on to their Oslo accords illusions in the Palestinian Authority.

The second reason for the division is the conflict over the authority in Gaza and the West Bank. This reason has also disappeared because there is no authority left. Israel has eliminated every authority. The authority in the West Bank has become an authority without authority and under the occupation, and Gaza is undergoing re-occupation as we see today. Therefore, what do we argue about? There is no reason for the division in the program because there is now no room for a program except for the national resistance and struggle. And for the authority, there is no authority because it is all under the occupation.

Therefore, in my opinion, there is no reason for the continuation of the division. Now, everyone should unite in a united national front. I mean a united national leadership for the Palestinians. The liberation Organization can be the backbone or platform of this united national leadership so that all the forces are included, including the Hamas movement and the Islamic Jihad movement, and so that there is no longer an individual decision from any party or party. I mean a united national leadership where everyone participates. For example, we have been members of the Liberation Organization since 2015 but we are not in the leadership of the Liberation Organization, we are marginalized from the leadership of the Liberation Organization. What should happen is a united leadership that includes everyone and agrees on a vision and a national program of joint struggle and resistance. It is possible that a temporary national unity government in the current situation to prevent the separation of Gaza from the West Bank to prevent the Israeli conspiracy to re-occupy Gaza and impose a convoy of agents to work under the supervision of the Israeli occupation to separate Gaza from the West Bank and to close the road in front of the United States and Israel in a policy of “divide and conquer”. Why do I say a temporary national unity government? Because, of course, in the current stage, it is difficult to run elections while the war is ongoing. After things calm down and we end this aggression, InshaAllah, and the reconstruction process begins, a temporary government in a period of no more than a year may call for elections. We will achieve what we should have done in 2011, which is to hold free and democratic elections and give the Palestinian people the right to choose their leadership in a democratic way. When people elect, they do not only elect people, they elect a method, a political program. In my opinion, there is no good program for the Palestinian people but a national resistance, struggle program.

I proposed that in front of the leadership of the brothers of the Fatah Movement and in front Brother Abu Mazen and the brothers of the Hamas Movement and others. I believe that there is a kind of coalition of a large number of the Palestinian forces on this vision now. The divisions still exist but the reasons no longer exist. But there are external interventions and some external interventions try to deepen the division in the Palestinian sphere. This hurts us. We must maintain the independence of the Palestinian national decision regardless of any external interventions to ensure that we have a unified national leadership.

I do not know what the disagreement is. Today, the Palestinian people are exposed to a second Nakba. There is no justification or reason to continue an internal conflict when we are in a real battle that threatens the lives of all Palestinians, not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank.