Selected Quotes - Israel/Palestine

“The reason that Israel has been able to appropriate Palestine unto itself with American aid and support is that Israel controls the explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At least 90% of Americans, if they know anything at all of the issue, know only the Israeli propaganda line. Israel has been able to control the explanation, because the powerful Israel Lobby brands every critic of Israeli policy as an anti-semite who favors a second holocaust of the Jews.”
- Paul Craig Roberts, 2007
(See: Carter's Inconvenient Truths)

The world sees a great and ongoing injustice. They want a just Israel. They see an Israel that occupies and is clearly unjust, and they believe they should do something. We should thank them for this from the bottom of our hearts.
- Gideon Levy, 2006
(See: With a Little Help from Outside)

"The public almost automatically associates Jews and Israel. The press continues to refer to "the Jewish State." Israeli politicians often speak "in the name of the Jewish people." Yet the Zionist movement and the creation of the State of Israel have caused one of the greatest schisms in Jewish history.
- Yakov M. Rabkin, 2006
(See: A threat from within: New book describes a century of Jewish opposition to Zionism)

"It is not only the political unacceptability of Israel's Occupation which makes the call for sanction urgent and obligatory, it is the massive violations of Palestinian human rights, of international law and of numerous UN resolutions that the Occupation entails. If Israel as the Occupying Power is not held accountable for the intolerable situation within its ability, indeed, within its responsibility to end, the entire international system of justice is rendered meaningless and empty. And that is what makes the Occupation an international issue. If Israel succeeds in defying the Fourth Geneva Convention and making its Occupation permanent, if an entire population is literally locked behind walls and its right of self-determination trampled, then the ability of human rights to win out over an international order founded on power politics and militarism is jeopardized. We all have a stake in ending the Occupation"
- Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, 2005
(See: Sanctions Against the Israeli Occupation: It's Time)

“Yesterday’s South African township dwellers can tell you about today’s life in the Occupied Territories... More than an emergency is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail... If apartheid ended, so can the occupation. But the moral force and international pressure will have to be just as determined. The current divestment effort is the first, though certainly not the only, necessary move in that direction.”
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his work against apartheid in South Africa

“The so-called ‘Palestinian autonomous areas’ are bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system.”
- Nelson Mandela

"I have tried to impress on the PLO leadership, and every Palestinian or Arab I have met, that the quest for a protector in the White House is a complete chimera, since all recent presidents have been devoted to Zionist aims, and that the only way to change US policy is through a mass campaign on behalf of Palestinian human rights, out-flanking the Zionist establishment and going straight to the American people. Uninformed and yet open to appeals for justice as they are, Americans are capable of reacting as they did to the ANC campaign against apartheid, which finally changed the balance of forces inside South Africa."
- Edward Said, 2002
(See: America's Last Taboo)

“I imagine that if I were a Palestinian of the right age, I would, at some stage, have joined one of the terror organizations.”
- Ehud Barak, Israeli general, and Prime Minister 1999 - 2001

"If Jews in France were required to carry identification cards designating them Jews (even though French citizens), could not acquire land or buy or rent homes in most of the country, were not eligible for service in the armed forces, and French law banned any political party or legislation calling for equal rights for Jews, would France be widely praised in the United States as a "symbol of human decency" (New York Times) and paragon of democracy? Would there be a huge protest if France, in consequence of such laws and practices, was declared by a UN majority to be a racist state?"
- Edward S. Herman, 1994

“What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.”
- Moshe Dayan, Israeli general, 1956
(See: Israeli Apartheid and Terrorism)

“For over 20 years Israel has expanded by force of arms. After every stage in this expansion Israel has appealed to “reason” and has suggested “negotiations”. This is the traditional role of the imperial power, because it wishes to consolidate with the least difficulty what it has already taken by violence. Every new conquest becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression. The aggression committed by Israel must be condemned, not only because no state has the right to annexe foreign territory, but because every expansion is an experiment to discover how much more aggression the world will tolerate.”
- Bertrand Russell, 1970
(See: Bertrand Russell's Last Message)

“No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate?”
- Bertrand Russell, 1970
(See: Bertrand Russell's Last Message)

Further reading:

The Middle East Conflict - A selection of resources for those looking for a solution to the Middle East crisis based on peace, justice, and human rights.

Connexions Links    -    Connexions Directory A-Z Index    -    Connexions Library

    Periodicals & Broadcasters Online    -    Volunteer Opportunities    -    Publicity & media relations resources

Connexions
Phone: 416-964-1511
E-mail:
www.connexions.org