ROSE:
This is former president Bill Clinton. Hamas was perfectly well aware of what would happen if they started raining rockets on Israel. They fired a thousand of them. And they have a strategy to force Israel to k** their own civilians so the rest of the world will condemn them. That's President Clinton; not an Israeli, a man who worked hard to create peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
MESHAAL:
With all due respect to Mr. Clinton, unfortunately, the world doesn't want to blame the Israelis. Why do you call for security for Israel and why do you call for lifting the siege and stopping the occupation on the Palestinians? Why don't you give the right to live for the Palestinians as the other nations? This is actually the last occupation in the world.
ROSE:
Let me ask you this: do you believe you can solve this by violence? Do you believe you can solve this with a military power? Is this going to end because one side is militarily going to defeat the other?
MESHAAL:
In our culture, as Arabs/m**ms, we have a prophet saying. The prophet (peace be upon him) said, "The prophet had two choices and he followed the easiest choice." That means we ought to follow the easiest path; the better path. As a Palestinian, I want to be liberalized, I want a state, without occupation. In America, [do you think] the American Revolution [...] was peaceful? Did you not kick the British out? The nations, if they have the peaceful window, ? will be better, because we don't like to k** our sons and daughters. But if we don't have the peace, then the resistance is legitimate. So the word has two choices: they need to help us peacefully reach a state, or we will expel this occupation from our lives.
ROSE:
So, unless the world will take Israelis out of the West Bank, and Gaza, you will expel them militarily? You believe you can do that?
MESHAAL:
I do believe this, as I see you now. It is a conviction. Why? Because time and time again, the history of nations says that peoples have the upper hand over the occupation. I have will. I can die because of Israel. I cannot live with the occupation. Occupation is the worst thing that you can even imagine. So every single Palestinian can die for the next generations to live in peace and freedom.
ROSE:
Some also ask, why are you here and not in Gaza? That if, in fact, you are the voice in Hamas, you should be in Gaza with the people of Gaza. That's the place for you.
MESHAAL:
Yes, this is a very reasonable question. I'm from West Bank. I was expelled, and millions were compelled to live outside their own country. It is natural for me to be there, but the occupation doesn't allow me to do so. You have hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in America and they long to go back to Palestine. Although they are ? citizens, Palestinians long for their home country. That's why we insist on the return of the refugees: for me and others to return.