Sky News has spoken to Khalid Mashaal, the leader of Hamas, who lives in exile in Syria to avoid assassination by Israel.

This is the transcript of his interview with Tim Marshall.

TM: Tim Marshall, Sky News Foreign Affairs Editor
KM: Khalid Mashaal, President of Hamas.

TM: In 1948 you lost, in 1967 you lost, in 1973 you lost, in the first intifada you lost, in the second intifada you lost, now Gaza is a giant prison camp, you're going to keep losing, and yet now you're saying, I won't recognise it, even though that's a barrier towards one day coming towards an agreement, what is going to make you win if you keep on losing?

KM: This logic is not correct, maybe it applied to Arabs before the 1970s but after the 70s the Arabs said to the International Community that UN resolutions offered ways to solve the problem . The Arabs accepted international intervention but this didn't go anywhere. It's not fair to blame the Palestinian people - we have to blame the Arabs.

TM: Do you accept you have lost. I give you the examples again. 1947, 67, 73, the first intifada, second intifada. You keep losing.

KM: We didn't lose as a result of not recognising Israel or accepting their rules and conditions or the American rules and conditions. We lose because of the Arab weakness.

We didn't have enough power to stop the Israeli occupation. All the people around the world get freedom by using resistance with weapons. Why should only Arabs put their weapons away and beg Israel and the international community?

TM: But you will never have enough military power to confront them. You will never have it and you will throw away people's lives in suicide bombings. You will kill 20 people and you will lose hundreds.

KM: Look at the Israel situation now. The Palestinian resistance forced the Israelis to withdraw from Gaza. Also the Lebanese resistance forced Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon.

Only resistance could force the occupation to withdraw. I want to give you an example. (Prime Minister) Began withdrew from Sinai as a result of the October war.

Suicide Bombings

TM: Can I go back to this idea that up until now the Arabs have not been strong enough and they do not always support you militarily to take on Israel. How will you ever be militarily strong enough?

KM: I want to tell you that the Palestinian people have difficult choices. The road to peace was not fruitful as has been proven. Israel has no other choice than to deal positively with Arab initiatives. We have nothing left to do except fight. Even if we only have primitive weapons.

TM: Nothing is left to them and there'll be even less left to them if you keep sending what many people believe are brainwashed people to blow themselves up. Killing small children and then invited the retribution that then comes.

KM: First of all we do not brainwash anyone.

Every Palestinian spontaneously feels that his land is occupied. That Israel is killing children and women, demolishing their homes, taking their land, building the wall, the settlements, that journalism favours Israel, and digging under the al Aqsa mosque.

So the Palestinian finds himself going directly to fight for the resistance. This is his duty.

As the French fought the Nazis, and in the American revolution, as the Vietnamese people fought, as did the South African. This is ordinary behaviour it doesn't need brainwashing.

TM: You send people to sit next to small children on buses to blow them up. I don't see the moral equivalence there. You kill small children deliberately, not as an accident, deliberately.

KM: We don't kill anyone deliberately. The suicide bombings began after Israel killed people at the Hebron mosque in 1994. Israel killed during prayers in the Mosque and as an ordinary reaction the Palestinian people started defending themselves. As a response to the Israeli crimes.

I want to tell you there was no suicide bombing before in Israel.

Why did Israel not stop their occupation? You will notice that two weeks ago Israel killed many children and yet there was no response from the International Community. But any Palestinian behaviour is condemned by the International Community.

This is a kind of hypocrisy. It's a kind of weakness in the International Community.

This is a kind of duplicity. Is it fair?

TM: It's 2008, can you make an offer that you would only have action against military personnel.

KM: We renew our offer to Israel to let the civilian people from the two sides be free from our conflict. Israel should respond to this offer.

This is an offer which we would like to renew. The problem is on the Israel side.

Rocket Attacks

KM: The rockets are an ordinary reaction towards the Israeli occupation and their Apache Helicopters and F16 jets.

TM: You have a military wing sir which act like the military which target your enemy. Don't just fire a rocket into a kindergarten.

KM: We didn't attack a kindergarten. We have primitive weapons. I ask the international community and the Americans to give us more advanced weapons so we can shoot more accurately.

Shalit

TM: Now, Corporal Shalit is very important to the Israelis, is this man alive?.

KM: The 11 or 9 thousand Palestinian prisoners are important to us. In spite of that there is a big difference.

TM: Yes but I asked you a question about that and you are changing the subject.

KM: Yes I will answer you. But there are two differences.

The first. Gilad Shalit is a captive who was taken by the military. He was fighting us while the majority of the Palestinian prisoners are civilians from the Palestinian Parliament. They are civilian and political leaders not military leaders.

The second. Gilad is still alive and we are treating him in a good way while the Israelis treat our prisoners badly and everyone knows that.

Gaza Breakout

TM: Did you order the blowing of the hole in the wall between Gaza and Egypt?

KM: Crossing the border was ordinary behaviour after long months of a hard siege. The children were left starving. There are a lot of people who died.

TM: People have access to explosives do they? And they can do an operation to blow a hole.

KM: There is a military leader, we don't interfere with their work.

TM: Did you get the opportunity to send any squads through while you had the hole in the wall?

KM: I'm the Political President of the party.

There is a military leader to the party and he is responsible for the military decisions. The military side has the right to get the weapons or even make the weapons to face Israel - Which is always empowered by America.

TM: I take that as a yes?

Hamas Fatah Talks

KM: We invite Mr Mahmoud Abbas to come to Gaza to talk directly without any conditions.
To work together to find a solution to the problems in Gaza and the West Bank.
To get back our Palestinian union and find the reasons for our problems and to solve the security problem.

Holocaust

KM: We don't want to harm any religion in the world.
We don't deny the holocaust.
But, we believe the Zionists have exaggerated the numbers to get sympathy from other nations.
But, there is Palestinian suffering caused by Israel.

The Future

KM: In spite of the gloomy picture and that the balance is with Israel, we believe the future is for the Palestinians and we are going to win even if the power is not with us now.

All the liberated nations have won over occupation.

There's no future for occupation and settlement.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1311184,00.html

I am hoping soon that there is another Revisionist Conference to wake the masses up. Several of them.