Today three-quarters of the Palestinian people are displaced: there are 5 million Palestinian refugees throughout the world.

The victory of Hamas is not only based on the corruption of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas has a vision and a program, and this is the reason why the Palestinian people chose Hamas. However, there is no doubt that the corruption helped Hamas's victory.

In addition to removing our democratically elected government, Israel wants to sow dissent among Palestinians by claiming that there is a serious leadership rivalry among us. I am compelled to dispel this notion definitively.

I hope that Americans will give careful and well-informed thought to root causes and historical realities, in which case I think they will question why a supposedly 'legitimate' state such as Israel has had to conduct decades of war against a subject refugee population without ever achieving its goals.

Anybody who asks for democracy to be introduced should respect the results of democracy.

When I said a few weeks ago that our people would eat cooking oil and olives if necessary, I didn't mean that there really would be only oil and olives. What I meant was that our people have the necessary patience to endure the current difficult situation. Palestinians would rather do without certain food items than their national rights.

I know that many in Europe are unhappy with their governments' policies toward the Palestinians.