We urge you to understand the Palestinian reality, and not to rush in and impose conditions and demands that ignore this reality and increase the suffering of the people.

Which Israel should we recognize? The Israel of 1917; the Israel of 1936; the Israel of 1948; the Israel of 1956; or the Israel of 1967? Which borders and which Israel? Israel has to recognize first the Palestinian state and its borders and then we will know what we are talking about.

Doesn't the world see the suffering of millions of Palestinians who have been living in exile around the world or in refugee camps for the past 60 years? No state, no home, no identity, no right to work. Doesn't the world see this injustice?

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.

The Palestinian people do not beg the world for a state, and the state can't be created through decisions and initiatives. States liberate their land first and then the political body can be established.

I ask the American administration not to participate in any resolution that will double the suffering of the Palestinian people. I am convinced that the American people would not want to see the Palestinians suffer the way they do.

Tens of thousands have been killed or wounded by the Israeli army since 1967. During 2006, the number of Palestinians killed reached 650. Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, more than 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel - about 40% of the male population.