I Am Palestinian Quotes & Sayings

A favorite Palestinian tactic was to set up a couple of cannons or rocket launchers in a Christian village, fire a few rounds into Israel, and then quickly withdraw, knowing that Israel's return fire would fall on innocent Christian civilians. — Brigitte Gabriel

In Arab capitals, the failure of the United States to stop Iran's nuclear program is understood as American weakness in the struggle for dominance in the Middle East, making additional cooperation from Arab leaders on Israeli-Palestinian issues even less likely. — Elliott Abrams

Its basic axiom is to be followed by individuals as well as great nations, by Losers and Winners alike. We have demonstrated the workability of the axiom in Vietnam, in Bangladesh, in Biafra, in Palestinian refugee camps, in our own ghettos, in our migrant labor camps, on our Indian reservations, in our institutions for the defective and the deformed and the aged. This is it: Ignore agony. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I had taken office during a raging intifada, with Yasser Arafat running the Palestinian Authority, Israeli leaders committed to a Greater Israel policy, and Arab nations complaining from the sidelines. By the time I left, the Palestinians had a president and prime minister who rejected terrorism. The Israelis had withdrawn from some settlements and supported a two-state solution. And Arab nations were playing an active role in the peace process. — George W. Bush

Indeed, there are recurrent hints in the Bible that the Israelites had feelings of guilt about taking the Canaanites' land,147 a curious adumbration of Israeli twinges about homeless Palestinian Arabs in the late twentieth century. The Israelites, however, hid any remorse in the belief that the conquest was a pious act: it is 'because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you'. — Paul Johnson

The Muslim world is deeply hurt by the campaign of violence initiated against our Palestinian brothers. — Ahmet Necdet Sezner

The people who live on the land - Israelis and Palestinians - have a right to live in security and peace. — Noam Chomsky

I was a witness to lots of death ... Saving a human life was something really, really beautiful ... no matter who they are. Not only Israeli people owe me their lives. I guarantee many terrorists, many Palestinian leaders, owe me their lives - or in other words, they owe my Lord their lives. — Mosab Hassan Yousef

The Israelis are mistaken if they think we do not have an alternative to negotiations. By Allah I swear they are wrong. The Palestinian people are prepared to sacrifice the last boy and the last girl so that the Palestinian flag will be flown over the walls, the churches and the mosques of Jerusalem. — Yasser Arafat

Unless Hamas recognizes Israel's right to exist and renounces terror, the Palestinian Authority should receive no direct U.S. assistance. — Lois Capps

The Palestinian Arabs' obsession with the Jews and rejection of all political compromise was inspired by Islamic teachings as well as by European fascism. — Sol Stern

Even if only one guerilla cub survives the prolonged struggle, I am confident that he will raise the flag of Palestine overJerusalem ... Jerusalem is destined to be the eternal capital of our sovereign, independent Palestinian state under the P.L.O. leadership. — Yasser Arafat

Of all the Islamic organizations in America, CAIR has risen to the top as the most visible, most outspoken defender of Muslims in the United States. Masquerading as a civil rights organization, CAIR has had a hidden agenda to Islamize America from the start. Its cofounder and chairman, Omar Ahmad, a Palestinian American, told a Muslim audience in Fremont, California, in 1998: 'Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.' Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR's national spokesman, is on record stating: 'I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic.' Three of CAIR's officials have already been convicted of terror-related crimes. One even worked for Hooper. He's now in prison for conspiring to kill Americans. — Brigitte Gabriel

Traveling has become such a miserable experience that no Palestinian does it, except those who absolutely have to: students attending foreign universities, patients needing care unavailable in Gaza, businesspeople attempting to pretend that their world will eventually be normal. — Izzeldin Abuelaish

The custom to put others in the line of fire is a recurring theme in Judaism. It boils down to the Levite Korahites' willingness to sacrifice their ordinary Jewish subjects in order to ensure their own survival. This should be a historic warning to modern-day Israelites: their orthodox government would not hesitate to risk the lives of the many for the sake of the survival of the few in the orthodox elite. The citizens of Israel will have to think about how to remove the systemic threat that comes from within their own ranks. — A.J. Deus

If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force ... — Ehud Barak

The compulsory transfer of the [Palestinian] Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own during the days of the first and second Temples ... We are given an opportunity which we never dared to dream of in our wildest imaginings. This is MORE than a state, government and sovereignty
this is national consolidation in a free homeland. — David

One thing America truly does stand for is a million different ways of living. But while we enjoy the lives we have, we're so privileged. We live in a world that's so far from what the Palestinian children are going through, it's unbelievable. Yet if we dare to get close to that atrocity and name it, it would shock us so badly we couldn't live in our privileged comfort zone. — Jimmy Santiago Baca

Look, I am a Palestinian elected representative from Jericho. If a Palestinian wants to sell his fruit anywhere in the West Bank, he goes to the Israeli civil administration. If a Palestinian sick person wants to leave a hospital, he goes through the Israeli civil administration. Nobody can leave or enter my constituency without Israeli permission. Israel is, in effect, resuming the occupation. — Saeb Erekat

The new crimes that the US and Israel were committing in Gaza as 2009 opened do not fit easily into any standard category - except for the category of familiarity. — Noam Chomsky

I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders - leaders not compromised by terror. — Elliott Abrams

Part of the French political class is realising that there is are large number of Muslim people coming from the ghettos who want to make themselves heard, politically, especially about foreign policy issues. Its electoral weight can bring back to the forefront the Palestinian issue. — Tariq Ramadan

I am very optimistic, and I wish that God almighty grants me success to get a qualifying time. Only then can I go to the Olympics. If this happens I will be the first Palestinian athlete to gain a qualifying time. This will be a big achievement. — Nader Al-Masri

He says I am from there, I am from here, but I am neither there nor here. I have two names which meet and part ... I have two languages, but I have long forgotten - which is the language of my dreams — Mahmoud Darwish

Well, I myself am a 100% atheist. And I am increasingly worried that the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, which dominates our entire life, is assuming a more and more religious character. — Uri Avnery

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. — Ismail Haniyeh

I am not at all sure we could ever reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians' present leadership. We shall have to wait for the next generation. The most we could expect is, perhaps, another interim agreement. A Palestinian state? A permanent settlement? I do not see that happening in the coming years. — Shaul Mofaz

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems to have been overshadowed by the upheavals in the region. I have followed events there for almost 40 years. I am convinced that what is needed for a solution is not only the willingness to negotiate in good faith but also to take into account the needs and sensibility of the negotiating partner. I, for one, just cannot believe that the value of settlements for Israel is bigger than the damage these settlements do as an obstacle to peace. — Heinz Fischer

I am not a terrorist, but neither am I a pacifist. I am simply a regular guy from the Palestinian street advocating only what every other oppressed person has advocated-the right to help myself in the absence of help from anywhere else. — Marwan Barghouti

A poem exists only in the relation between poet and reader. And I'm in need of my readers, except that they never cease to write me as they would wish, turning their reading into another writing that almost rubs out my features. I don't know why my poetry has to be killed on the altar of misunderstanding or the fallacy of ready-made intent. I am not solely a citizen of Palestine, though I am proud of this affiliation and ready to sacrifice my life in defending the radiance of the Palestinian fact, but I also want to take up the history of my people and their struggle from an aesthetic angle that differs from the prevalent and repeatable meanings readily available from an unmediated political reading. — Mahmoud Darwish

I ask her the most important question anybody has ever asked here or ever will: Did you ever fall in love with an Israeli man? "No. I couldn't." Why not? "I am a Palestinian. It is the same as a Jew falling in love with a German Nazi officer. — Anonymous

I am an American Jew and aware of the sensitivities involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. — Steven Spielberg

You have pajamas with a dead Palestinian leader's face on them."
"I am aware," Gus said, trying not to fidget as Casey essentially stared at his crotch. "They're my Yasser Arapants."
Casey choked.
Gus waited.
"Oh my fucking god," Casey mumbled to himself. "You're like ... just ... like, this person. — T.J. Klune

Here I am, a Palestinian Arab who only knows how to write in Hebrew, stuck in central Illinois, — Sayed Kashua

I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don't travel. I really don't, and if I did, I probably wouldn't visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic, I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can't help but feel that the Jews didn't really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can't really turn it back. (#92 ff.) — Isaac Asimov

I went to Iraq because I wanted to see what one year of occupation had done to Iraqi society, and I went to the West Bank and Gaza Strip because I wanted to see what three generations of occupation had done to Palestinian society. I found a lot more hopelessness and despair in Palestine. — Michael Franti

Hamas is a Palestinian political party with an aggressive militant wing. — Richard Engel

Toughness found fertile soil in the hearts of Palestinians, and the grains of resistance embedded themselves in their skin. Endurance evolved as a hallmark of refugee society. But the price they paid was the subduing of tender vulnerability. They learned to celebrate martyrdom. Only martyrdom offered freedom. Only in death were they at last invulnerable to Israel. Martyrdom became the ultimate defiance of Israeli occupation. — Susan Abulhawa

Today the Israeli government continues seizures of Palestinian land for settlements, military incursions into surrounding countries and denial of the right of Palestinians expelled by terror to return. Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, is a war criminal who should be in prison, not in office. Israel's own Kahan commission found that Sharon shared responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacres. — Ken Livingstone

Resistance in Palestine will continue until the final liberation of all the Palestinian lands. — Ahmed Yassin

I am convinced that our people are now on the way to establishing a Palestinian state. The agreement signed in Cairo is the first step in establishing the state, and therefore it should be implemented. — Yasser Arafat

Susan Abdallah, a Palestinian, knows the recipe for making a terrorist:
Deprive him of food and water.
Surround his home with the machinery of war.
Attack him with all means at all times, especially at night.
Demolish is home, uproot his farmland, kill his loved ones.
Congratulations: you have created an army of suicide bombers. — Eduardo Galeano

My point was that removing Saddam should not have been our highest priority. Fighting terrorism should have been our number one concern, followed by the Palestinian peace process. — Brent Scowcroft

We will not commit suicide because of pressure from the international community. A Palestinian state is not possible at the moment. I would rather fight and try to explain the situation in the Middle East to the world than to agree to steps that harm my country to satisfy the international community. — Ayelet Shaked

Pharisaism became Talmudism ... But the spirit of the Ancient Pharisee survives unaltered. When the Jew ... studies the Talmud, he is actually repeating the arguments used in the Palestinian academies. From Palestine to Babylonia; from Babylonia to North Africa, Italy, Spain, France and Germany; from these to Poland, Russia and eastern Europe generally, ancient Pharisaism has wandered ... — Louis Finkelstein

But I was amazed at how organized the Palestinian election authority was, how competent they were in setting up their polling places and the poll workers they had. — Joe Biden

We need to see a Palestinian state. — Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi

If the corrupt Jordanian monarchy were overthrown, it would be the ideal opportunity to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because the West Bank and Jordan could then be united. There is already a Palestinian majority in Jordan, and there is enough room for everyone there. That would be the best revolution I could imagine. — Tom Segev

The beginning point at both conferences must be that everything is a woman's issue. That means racism in a woman's issue, just as is anti-Semitism, Palestinian homelessness, rural development, ecology, the persecution of lesbians, and the exploitative practices of global corporations. — Charlotte Bunch

Israel has to accommodate the Palestinian demands and aspirations for ending occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. That is the only answer. The Israeli aggression on Gaza does not bring peace to Israel. We know that. We want end of occupation. — Benjamin Netanyahu

So when I went to school, I studied a Jordanian curriculum. We never studied anything about Palestine or its history. We never saw a Palestinian map. We studied the history of Jordan, of China, of Germany, of England - I remember learning about all the families who ruled England - but nothing connected to our history, nothing connected to our geography, nothing connected to our culture. — Cate Malek

In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement. — Christopher Hitchens

I also believe that US backing for Israeli policies of expansion of the Israeli state and oppression of the Palestinian people is the major cause of bitter division and violence in the world. — Clare Short

The 1948 war's diplomatic maneuvers and military campaigns are well engraved in Israeli Jewish historiography. What is missing is the chapter on the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Jews in 1948. As a result of that campaign, five hundred Palestinian villages and eleven urban neighborhoods were destroyed, seven hundred thousand Palestinians were expelled, and several thousand were massacred.2 Even today, it is hard to find a succinct summary of the planning, execution, and repercussions of these tragic results. — Noam Chomsky

And it may be that history, as Michel Foucault tried to convince us, is a list of discrete, disconnected processes whose joint impact is not linked to any one of them but to their fusion into one big explosion. In that case, history is not just a linear movement of endless American support for Israel against, and at the expense of, the Palestinian cause but a more distorted, curved line of ups and downs that indicate possible changes in the future. Moreover, a concerted effort to bring about such a change is a worthy goal - inside and outside the United States. But what we have this year is the ominous call at the 2006 AIPAC convention for the United States to attack and invade Iran.38 — Noam Chomsky

In the frameworks of a peace agreement, a government under my leadership would agree to make real territorial concessions but will not compromise our security borders. We want there to be less friction. We want to remove outposts to help the Palestinian population. We will not reoccupy the Palestinian population. — Benjamin Netanyahu

Every Palestinian family feels the effects of the international embargo. But the more the pressure on the government grows, the more support we receive, both from the Palestinian street and from the Arab and Islamic world. — Ismail Haniyeh

For decades, the plight of the Palestinian people has been exacerbated by internal corruption, a lack of effective investment, and the political cynicism of the Arab states, who often did not have the best interests of the Palestinians at heart. — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

Russia can play an important role in removing the occupation, ending the aggression and achieving national (Palestinian) rights. — Khaled Mashal

The Palestinian Arabs will have their autonomy, we will have our security. We shall live together. — Menachem Begin

In short, Arab leaders committed to the destruction of Israel invented the concept "Palestinian people" in order to justify their interminable war against Israel. — Meir Levi, David

Arabs and their allies are conducting a total war against Israel. A total war means a war of lies. The PA [Palestinian Authority] promotes lies; lying in Islam is permitted. — Manfred Gerstenfeld