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The speaker of those words is one Ziad Zaranda, the Gazan whose fiancée, Yusra Azzami, 20, was murdered because the couple were seen walking by the sea and Hamas operatives decided this act was so immoral, she deserved to die.

The young couple's tale is fraught with implications for Palestinian political and social life, but I focus on Zaranda's statement that Hamas is worse than Israel because it fits a theme I have researched for some years and have just gone into print with. Titled "The Hell of Israel Is Better than the Paradise of Arafat," the longish article provides what may be the first-ever compilation of pro-Israel statements by Palestinians, then draws some conclusions from this recurring pattern.

But history does not stop with the publication of an article, so I shall continue to collect such statements, by Palestinians and other Muslims, and post them here as they reach me. (April 13, 2005)

May 25, 2003 update: Ismail Abu Shanab, a senior political leader of Hamas, criticized Palestinian self-rule to an American reporter while at in his home in Gaza City: "When the Israelis were here, we lived our lives better than now, in every way. Believe me. Look how the streets of Gaza are not clean,"

Dec. 22, 2005 update: "I think that Iran is more dangerous to Iraq than Israel because of the assassinations that the Iranians have been doing. I think Israel would have been more merciful," says Added Hamid Hashim, 30, an Iraqi Sunni, referring to recent killings of prominent Sunnis. "I hated Israel before the war, but now I hate Iran even more."

His is one of several quotes collected by Nancy A. Youssef in an article, "Many Sunni Muslims diverting anger from Israel to Iran." She finds a reassessment underway since the results of Iraq's national assembly election on Dec. 15 show that Shiite Muslim candidates, many of them backed by the Iranian government, would dominate the new parliament. "Sunni Muslims have begun to ask: Is Israel really Iraq's enemy, or is it neighboring Iran? … privately many said Israel has not done anything lately to harm them; Iran has."

Mustafa Mohammed Kamal, 58, a retired schoolteacher observes that Iranian interference in the election "was very clear and that makes Iran the number one enemy of Iraq. The Iranians have many supporters in Iraq. Israel is an enemy, but they are not as egregious."

Mithal al Alusi, who has long called for stronger ties with Israel, finds Iraqis are warming to a stronger relationship with Israel. "They are afraid of Iran's extremist political system. … We don't have border problems with Israel. We don't have historical problems with Israel."

June 14, 2006 update: "The Israelis are better than you," shouted a Palestinian Authority employee at a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, distressed at not having been paid for some time.

Aug. 23, 2006 update: After a horrible bus crash in Egyptian territory near the Sinai resort town of Nueiba, in which ten Israeli Arabs and another tourist were killed, the Egyptian authorities performed in their usual feckless way, leaving the wounded untended by the roadside for three hours, then taking them to a local clinic, and delaying their evacuation to Israeli hospitals. Some of the injured Israeli-Arab tourists commented that they would never visit Egypt again and Nadi Hilu, a female Arab member of Israel's parliament called on all Israelis to cancel their travel plans to Egypt in protest.

May 28, 2007 update: One Palestinian remarks, about two-thirds into a news video: "Now, most of the people here, in this area, they say, 'We pray that Israel will come back and rule us again'."

June 1, 2007 update: C. Jacob of the Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI) published "We Are Facing a Second Nakba'- Reactions in the Palestinian Press to the Hamas-Fatah Clashes," with a section titled "Columnists: People in Gaza Long for the Return of the Israeli Occupation." In reads as follows:

Papers reported that some people in Gaza even want the Israelis to return to the Strip. Faiz Abbas and Muhammad Awwad, journalists for the Israeli-Arab weekly Al-Sinara, wrote: "People in Gaza are hoping that Israel will reenter the Gaza Strip, wipe out both Hamas and Fatah, and then withdraw again... They also say that, since the [start of the] massacres, they [have begun to] miss the Israelis, since Israel is more merciful than [the Palestinian gunmen] who do not even know why they are fighting and killing one another. It's like organized crime, [they said]. Once, we resisted Israel together, but now we call for the return of the Israeli army to Gaza." [20]

Al-Hayat Al-Jadida columnist Yahya Rabah wrote: "When the national unity government was formed, I thought, 'This will be a government of national salvation.' If a government that includes Fatah, Hamas, other factions and independents associated with [various] factions has not been able to save the day, it means that no one can, unless Israel decides that its army should intervene. Then it will invade [the Gaza Strip], kill and arrest [people] - but this time not as an occupying [force] but as an international peace-keeping force. Look what we have come to, how far we have deteriorated, and what we have done to ourselves." [21]

Palestinian journalist Majed Azzam wrote: "We should have the courage to acknowledge the truth... The [only] thing that prevents the chaos and turmoil in Gaza from spreading to the West Bank is the presence of the Israeli occupation [in the West Bank]... [as opposed to] its absence from the Gaza Strip." [22]

Bassem Al-Nabris, a Palestinian poet from Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, wrote: "If a there was a referendum in the Gaza Strip [on the question of] 'would you like the Israeli occupation to return?' half the population would vote 'yes'... But in practice, I believe that the number of those in favor is at least 70%, if not more - [a figure] much higher than is assumed by the political analysts and those who follow [events]. For the million and a half people living in this small region, things have [simply] gone too far - in practice, not just as a metaphor. [It did not begin] with the internal conflicts, but even earlier, in the days of the previous Palestinian administration, which was corrupt and did not give the people even the tiniest [ray of] hope. The fundamentalist forces which came into power [after it] also promised change and reform, but [instead, people] got a siege, with no security and no [chance of] making a living... If the occupation returns, at least there will be no civil war, and the occupier will have a moral and legal obligation to provide the occupied people with employment and food, which they now lack." [23]

Oct. 16, 2007 update: Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert just raised the idea that Israel might cede some heavily Arab areas of eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority; "Was it necessary to annex the Shuafat refugee camp, al-Sawahra, Walajeh and other villages and state that this is also Jerusalem? I must admit, one can ask some legitimate questions on the issue." In response, Mark MacKinnon found that "Some Palestinians prefer life in Israel: In East Jerusalem, residents say they would fight a handover to Abbas regime," the title of his article in today's Globe and Mail.

After 40 years of living under Israeli occupation, two stints in Israeli prisons and a military checkpoint on the same road as his odds-and-ends shop, one would think Nabil Gheit would be happy to hear an Israeli prime minister contemplate handing over parts of East Jerusalem to Palestinian control. But the mayor of Ras Hamis, a Palestinian neighbourhood on the eastern fringe of this divided city, says that he can't think of a worse fate for him and his constituents than being handed over to the weak and ineffective Palestinian Authority right now. "If there was a referendum here, no one would vote to join the Palestinian Authority," Mr. Gheit said, smoking a water pipe as he whiled away the afternoon watching Lebanese music videos. "We will not accept it. There would be another intifada [uprising] to defend ourselves from the PA."