Palestinians Quotes

A final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians has to be based on a program of exchange of territory and populations.

Palestinian children deserve the same right to be free in their own land as Israeli children in their land. A two-state solution will finally bring Israelis the security and normalcy to which they are entitled, and Palestinians the sovereignty and dignity they deserve.

Hebron is a bone of contention between Israeli settlers and the Palestinians in part because Abraham is buried there, in the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

First of all, I think the Saudis are deeply concerned about the collapse of negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the resumption of conflict.

The Palestinians need more help from the Arab countries. Since 1967, the world has learned that there is not going to be real progress in the region until Palestine gets something back that they had.

The Palestinians have yet to demonstrate a commitment to the rule of law.

The Palestinians should have understood by now that what they haven‘t gotten today they won’t be given tomorrow.

The Zionists indeed learnt well from the Nazis. So well that it seems that their morally repugnant treatment of the Palestinians, and their attempts to destroy Palestinian society within Israel and the occupied territories, reveals them as basically Nazis with beards and black hats.

Turkey knows the importance of its ties with Israel; it knows it’s in the same moderate camp with Israel, the moderate Palestinians and other Muslim countries, and the threat to Turkey is not from us.

The Palestinians must understand that this is our home, to which we have returned, and we also have to understand that this is the homeland of all those born to it.

The main aim of the Palestinians is to destroy the state of Israel.

Arab youth are taught to wonder, ‘Since the Holocaust was a European affair, why are the Palestinians being forced to pay for the creation of Israel?’

A popular intifada is most beneficial for the Palestinians.

Israel defines Palestinians more than anything else.

Jerusalem doesn’t belong only to Israelis and Palestinians, Muslims and Jews, but to the world.

I think it is absolutely inevitable that Palestinians will, and have to, have their own state.

Look at the Palestinians with the huge, huge percentage of unemployed. What does that breed? Anyone who‘s unemployed in the world, you feel there’s no meaning and there’s a risk that you drift over to something desperate. Yes, we have to tackle the social problems as well.

Hamas does not represent the national aspirations of the Palestinians. It represents extreme Islamic ideas, which they share with Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria.

There are many Palestinians, to be diplomatic, who believe there is no way to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, first of all, and there are a lot of people that believe there is no way to recognize Israel at all.

I don’t understand if it was, like, Palestinians were here, then it was called Israel, and that’s the problem, or they never had their land. Everyone just goes back and forth. So it seems like everyone can just have a piece… call the whole thing something else.

Any political process has to secure an improvement in the Palestinians’ quality of life and education. Attempts to bring about a political arrangement before securing peace to the Israelis and economic improvement for the Palestinians are likely to fail.

Anybody that’s ever been to Israel and to Palestine knows that you can’t look at a person and tell if they’re Israeli or Palestinian. You can assume. But I’ve seen Palestinians who look Swedish, and I’ve seen Israelis who are black.

The security and the future of Jordan is hand-in-hand with the future of the Palestinians and the Israelis.

The establishment of Israel was accompanied by much pain and suffering and a real trauma for the Palestinians.

I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music.

As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel, it is going to be either non-Jewish or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.

Who can guarantee that if we allow the Palestinians to establish a state, we won’t find rockets there as well, half a mile from the airport or 10 miles from Tel Aviv?

I’m not representing anyone – not Israelis, not Palestinians – I’m just a storyteller trying to raise more questions than give answers.

I get messages from Palestinians and from Iranians… everyone is, like, the same.

Peace should provide security. It should be durable. I’m ready to go far in making painful concessions. But there is one thing I will never make any concessions on and that’s the security of the Israeli citizens and the very existence of the state of Israel. The Palestinians are losing time.

In my photography, I always lean towards the underprivileged because that’s where I came from. When I went to the wars, I attempted to go and stand by those who were being trodden on. By that, I mean people like the Palestinians. When I go to India, I see really the poorest people, and I tend to be drawn to them.

Peace with the Palestinians will open ports of peace all around the Mediterranean. The duty of leaders is to pursue freedom ceaselessly, even in the face of hostility, in the face of doubt and disappointment. Just imagine what could be.

I think it is essential for Israel’s survival as a Jewish and democratic state that we end the status quo. The preferred way to end the status quo would be on the basis of a two-state solution. We don’t want the Palestinians to be citizens of Israel, nor do we want them to be subjects.

I wrote that President Bush is passing on to President-elect Obama two wars and an economic debacle. I call it a depression. And he is arming Israel against the Palestinians in every way in Gaza.

When I first went to Israel, I saw soldiers pushing Palestinians around and thought, ‘I can’t stand this’. Then I’d meet somebody in a bar saying what wonderful people the Palestinians are and what mamzers the Jews are, and I’d think, ‘Hang on’. It should be hard to make up your mind on any serious subject.

Both peoples, both nations, deserve a nation-state of their own. Palestinians, if they wish so, will go to the Palestinian state; Jews, if they so wish, can go to the Jewish state. And we’ll have to have security and demilitarization agreements between us.

When I visited Jerusalem and the West Bank back in 2008, I was shocked by how individual Palestinians and whole Palestinian communities were treated by the Israeli government. From the illegal settlements to daily humiliations at checkpoints, the evidence of gross injustice and the human suffering it brings is indisputable.

It seems Palestinians can’t win. The language of peace negotiations has always been predicated on a representation that Palestinians are violent and that is why Israel behaves as it does.

The Palestinians are the only nation in the world that feels with certainty that today is better than what the days ahead will hold. Tomorrow always heralds a worse situation.

Palestinians also have a right not to have their homes demolished because an occupying power refuses to grant them a permit. Palestinian children should not be shot at or arrested in the middle of the night and interrogated by the Israeli military while terrified and isolated.

I didn’t go into politics out of concern for the Palestinians but out of concern for Israel.

We have agreed with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to cease all acts of violence against the Israelis and against the Palestinians wherever they are. Tranquility and quiet that will be witnessed and in our land, starting today, is the beginning for a new era.

As prime minister, I was the Israeli leader who walked the greatest distance in his offers to the Palestinians.

You know, as a child of Palestinian immigrants, again, every corner of my district is a reminder of the civil rights movement, and I bring that lens, and I try to – you know, many of the Palestinians, they have called me, reached out to me via social media.

If there is ever to be an end to the conflict, the Palestinians must recognize the Jewish people’s right to a homeland and the existence of an independent Jewish state in the homeland of the Jewish people.

It is because I recognize the brutality with which my own multi-branched ancestors have been treated that I can identify the despicable, lawless, cruel, and sadistic behavior that has characterized Israel’s attempts to erase a people, the Palestinians, from their own land.

My priority will remain supporting those courageous individuals and organizations, among both Israelis and Palestinians, committed to bringing peaceful coexistence to the region.

I’m not going to tell the Palestinians how to arrange themselves. If they want to have their own entity and their own parliament as they do today, that’s fine. If they want to connect to Jordan, which has a very big Palestinian population, and vote in the Jordanian government, that’s fine.

The way forward in the Middle East, as it has been around the world and throughout history, is communication. There must be direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, mediated by the United States.

The Arab states don’t seem to do a good job of providing for their own people, so I am not sure why they would suddenly develop an ability to help the Palestinians.

It sometimes seems that the only plan the Israeli government has for the Palestinians is for them to sit quietly while Israel does whatever takes its fancy, equipped with its army, with laws it promulgated, and with courts it established.

Fostering the conditions for peace, security, and prosperity for both Israelis and Palestinians is a core American interest.

Palestine isn’t a state when it concerns statehood. When it comes to warring, it’s a state, yes? The Palestinians, they live in a country, for the purpose of war.

The moment has come, as we enter the teenies, to forget the idea of a Palestinian state existing side by side with a Jewish state, and to argue and agitate instead for the only remaining, viable and democratic option: a single, secular and binational state for Israelis and Palestinians.

If they wanted to end the violence and war between them and if they wanted Jews and Palestinians to live in peace, Jews and Palestinians, then they should consider this solution: one democratic state, free from weapons of mass destruction, and with the return of the Palestinian refugees.

The project to settle Palestinians here will be never be approved during my tenure regardless of the price.

The only way to security for Israel and a humane life for Palestinians in their own land is political. No matter where the fault for past negotiating failures lies, there is no other path.

The relationship between the Jews and Arabs is necessary to help build a bridge between Israelis and Palestinians.

It is true that a large percentage of the Western world hopes that I am imprisoned or dead. But all my people, the Palestinians and the Arabs, wish me long life and freedom.

Toward the Palestinians, Israel can only give. But when dealing with the entire Arab world, Israel can get a lot.

Hamas is really a problem for the Palestinians and for Egypt more than Israel.

The Palestinians have tried everything, and by God, it’s Israel’s governments that taught us that the only thing the Israelis appreciate is force.

Israel needs to stay a Zionist country with a Jewish majority in a democratic system. Eventually, Palestinians should have some kind of independency.

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.

There’s no preventative measure between the Palestinians, between those terrorists to the state of Israel.

We would like to ease the life of the Palestinians. I prepared a new plan that we call a positive agenda.

Many Palestinians have been living for decades in camps, disconnected from the environment in which they grew up, wallowing in poverty, in neglect, alienation, bitterness, and a deep, unrelenting sense of humiliation.

I fought against Palestinians. I saw them.

In the litany of issues that separate the two Americas – one more conservative and one more liberal, increasingly as opposed and intractable and opaque to each other as the Palestinians and Israelis – none is so fierce, precise, inviolable and confounding to the other side as guns.

Arab states continue to send the Palestinians gifts of extravagant rhetoric and countless Arab League resolutions – but not much cash.

There is no way Israel will deal with the Palestinians if the Palestinians do not understand the suffering of the Jewish people.

Arafat’s whole life has been governed by struggle and a cause. Everything he has done as leader of the Palestinians is to always leave his options open, never close a door.

Israel will not and should not leave until it is clear that the West Bank can be policed by Palestinians and that the region will not be a source of terrorism against Israel, as Gaza and South Lebanon became when Israel left there.

Maintaining control indefinitely over millions of Palestinians will inevitably lead to a demographic nightmare and cannot be sustained if Israel is to remain true to its founding principles.

Stability cannot occur without a Palestinian Spring through the full implementation of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination on their land.

The claim that Israel seeks to annihilate the Palestinians is simply a lie. Israel seeks to stop rocket attacks and tunnel invasions, and as long as Hamas is dedicated to those actions, they can expect a forceful Israeli reaction.

Israelis would mostly breathe a sigh of relief if Palestinians were to disappear.

We need to separate the two peoples: Israeli Arabs are part and parcel of Israel, and Palestinians should be separate, as part of a two-state solution.

Palestinians want Israel to return back into boundaries, the width of which is 12 km., that can be cut into pieces within minutes.

Israel should share its great wealth with its neighbors, like the Palestinians, in areas like governance and investment as well as the building of institutions.

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.

What I’m working is for peace on ground between Israelis and Palestinians through business, through economy, through quality of life.

In my opinion, Israel has the right to its security in as much as the Palestinians have the right to resist occupation. Israel has the power in this perpetual stalemate, as it also has the power to break it and begin a meaningful peace process.

I want to separate from the Palestinians. I want them to have their independent, separate state on a contiguous territory, and I want Israel to exist, of course, as a Jewish state in its own territory, as an independent state in its own territory. The Palestinian state, the Israeli state, separate. This is my dream.

If you have Palestinians who have no hope, who don’t have a job, who’ve used up all their resources, the notion of getting rid of violence is a dream.

The Palestinians want a state, but they have to give peace in return. What they’re trying to do in the United Nations is to get a state without giving Israel peace or giving Israel peace and security. And I think that’s, that’s wrong. That should not succeed. That should, that should fail.

My view is to try and not demonize the Palestinians. I’m not denying that there are Palestinians who fire rockets and do terrible things; I know that that happens. But to get a fundamental solution, you have to have hope on both sides.

Even the pyramids might one day disappear, but not the Palestinians longing for their homeland.

Obama wants to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the same thing we want.

What you have in the Middle East is tension not between Jews and Arabs, not between Israelis and Palestinians, but between the radical wing and the moderate people.

The Palestinians have arrived at the conclusion that nothing can be achieved using terror.

What kind of people will these ghettos of Palestinians produce? What form of morality, national consciousness and hope will people be left with after so many years of stifling occupation and a sense of hopelessness?

The Arabs could have peace tomorrow if sufficient numbers of Palestinians were not content to be used as cannon fodder in fruitless assaults on Israel, even as the surrounding Arab powers distract the Arab masses with the red herring of Israel while retarding their countries with their repression and corruption.

If there was genuine desire on the Israeli side, even without a solution, it would be possible to solve a large percentage of the problems between Israelis and Palestinians by means of simple statements from the Israelis.

Terrorism exploded after the Camp David talks broke down in 2000 because the Palestinians’ leader at the time, Yasser Arafat, supported it.

The Obama administration has been unable to call Jerusalem the capital of Israel because the Palestinians want to claim it as their capital in a future state.

I would like Israel to be a Jewish state, and therefore not to annex over 2 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Israel, which will make Israel a bi-national state.

I’m on the board of directors for Peace Now, which works tirelessly between the Palestinians and the Israelis to create peace in the Middle East and we’ve never been closer.

I cannot penetrate the soul of Arafat. I cannot know in advance whether, behind all the masks, he’s the kind of leader who can reach an agreement or whether he wants to be the Moses of the Palestinians, staying in front of the river and not crossing into the promised land.

Let the Palestinians run their affairs: create a situation in which no Israeli soldier will have to maintain public order, whether in Gaza or the West Bank. Let’s give it to the Palestinians, as long as there is security for us. No more occupying another people.

I don’t know where Bush is going – yet. But, Sharon obviously – I wrote somewhere in the last several months, that Sharon has adopted, essentially, the position of the Labor Party: that the Palestinians are here to stay.

The Israelis have suffered a great deal, we must condemn suicide bombers, and we must never say that the plight of the Palestinians justifies this terrible thing.

You cannot like the word, but what is happening is an occupation – to hold 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation. I believe that is a terrible thing for Israel and for the Palestinians.

Our response has been, ‘Well, let’s then make an effort to get the Israelis and the Palestinians to sit around the table.’ That hasn’t happened. So we only have ourselves to blame for this crisis.

Bill Clinton somehow managed to be revered and adored by both the Palestinians and the Israelis. Obama has managed to be looked at suspiciously by both.

I believe the Israelis have been wronged, but they also have a lot to apologize for. And I believe the Palestinians have been wronged, but they have a lot to apologize for, as well.

There are many Palestinians who believe there is no way to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. They call for the right of the return of refugees to Israel – something which is unacceptable for the consensus in Israel and which strikes at the very heart of this issue.

There cannot be peace in the Middle East without giving Palestinians their full rights.

Everyone assumes America must play the leading role in crafting some settlement or compromise between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But Jefferson, Madison, and Washington explicitly warned against involving ourselves in foreign conflicts.

We see and hear about Israelis and Palestinians only when they are defined by the global media as ‘occupiers,’ ‘terrorists,’ and ‘victims.’ But we forget that they are fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and neighbors and doctors and shop-owners and farmers and students.

You want a political culture that works to create conditions under which an economy can thrive? Since signing the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, Israel has spent two decades working to unshackle its economy from its socialist roots, with remarkable results.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me state that I hate Hamas. They embody everything that I, as a human being, am fighting against: oppression, religious rule, and patriarchy. They empower Israel while dividing the Palestinians.

Genuine supporters of Palestinians’ rights are fighting for equality, justice and freedom, aims that are in diametric opposition to any form of antisemitism.

It’s not for the president to determine the arrangements between Israel and the Palestinians, and the Arab world, but to be the bridge between opinions and to facilitate dialogue and understanding.

Success is not assured, but America is resolute: this is the best chance for peace we are likely to see for some years to come – and we are acting to help Israelis and Palestinians seize this chance.

I think the U.S. leaders should do more to support our Israeli allies and the Palestinians to find peace.

On balance, my life has been a constant stream of blessings rather than disappointments and failures and tragedies. I wish I had been re-elected. I think I could have kept our country at peace. I think I could have consolidated what we achieved at Camp David with a treaty between Israel and the Palestinians.

I know that many in Europe are unhappy with their governments’ policies toward the Palestinians.

Jordan is the only Arab state that has provided citizenship to Palestinian refugees and integrated them. But something has to be done about the Palestinians living in refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon.

I believe that in the long run, separation between Israel and the Palestinians is the best solution for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There’s a myth that in Arab countries, they all like Palestinians. They don’t. On the contrary.

The mortal mind alone cannot devise an answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because the true answer lies on a level of consciousness that’s beyond our mortal thinking. Quite simply, when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, we need a miracle.

We have no desire to permanently rule over millions of Palestinians, who double their numbers every generation. Israel, which wishes to be an exemplary democracy, will not be able to bear such a reality over time. The Disengagement Plan presents the possibility of opening a gate to a different reality.

I can’t on my own change the regime in South Africa or teach the Palestinians to learn to live with the Israelies, but I can start with me.

I feel that we don’t have the luxury of asking whether or not the Palestinians and Israelis can achieve peace. I think we have to just ask the question of when and how.

It’s necessary for Israelis and Palestinians to make the compromises that are required to get the direct talks back on track.

Through Hamas, Iran has been able to buy itself a seat on the table in talking about the Palestinian issue. And, as a result, through Hamas it does play a role in the issue of the Palestinians, as strange as that should sound.

It’s preferable for the Palestinians to become citizens of the state than for us to divide the country.

I’ve always been interested in justice. I think what is happening to the Palestinians represents the ultimate injustice. I also hate bullies and the effect of them, the way people side with them out of fear. The Israelis are the schoolyard bullies, with England and the United States siding with them.

Israel fits into the zeitgeist of our era. It is true that there are demographic threats to its existence. That is why a separation from the Palestinians is a compelling imperative.