Israeli Palestinian Quotes & Sayings

Israeli lives are worth more than Palestinian ones. — Ehud Olmert

I hope that my new status will be an example of Israeli-Palestinian co-existence, I believe that the destinies of the Israeli people and the Palestinian people are inextricably linked. — Daniel Barenboim

All questions of right to one side, I have never been able to banish the queasy inner suspicion that Israel just did not look, or feel, either permanent or sustainable. I felt this when sitting in the old Ottoman courtyards of Jerusalem, and I felt it even more when I saw the hideous 'Fort Condo' settlements that had been thrown up around the city in order to give the opposite impression. If the statelet was only based on a narrow strip of the Mediterranean littoral (god having apparently ordered Moses to lead the Jews to one of the very few parts of the region with absolutely no oil at all), that would be bad enough. But in addition, it involved roosting on top of an ever-growing population that did not welcome the newcomers. — Christopher Hitchens

Jordan recognizes that east Jerusalem is the capital of the Palestinian state and Jordan rejects foreign sovereignty
Israeli sovereignty
over the holy sites — Yasser Arafat

And the PRCS [Palestinian Red Crescent Society] had not lost just one hospital: thirteen clinics and nine hospitals all over Lebanon had been destroyed in this way. Only Gaza Hospital, for a reason I was to discover three years later, was still standing. At the height of the air raids, when the Palestinians found out that every single PRCS hospital and clinic was a bomb target, they put three Israeli soldiers captured in south Lebanon on the upper floors of Gaza Hospital, and radioed a message to the Israeli Army saying that any further military action on Gaza Hospital would result in Israeli lives being lost. That saved Gaza Hospital from further destruction. — Ang Swee Chai

The sun began to set behind Bethlehem and the beams were breaking through some white and gray clouds. There was a slight and beautiful chill from the autumn air. I gave thanks for that beautiful day and for the fact that the sun does not know Palestinian from Israeli, Christian from Muslim or Jew, and Asian from American or African, and I asked myself: If the sun shines on all of us as one, how much more does the sun's Creator see and love us all as one? — Ted Dekker

I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him. — Ariel Sharon

To avoid manufactured misunderstandings, the policies of Israeli governments are not analogous to Nazism. They do not aim at the systematic extermination of the Palestinian people, in the way Nazism sought the annihilation of the Jews. — Ken Livingstone

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

I always have believed that we should not call it an Arab-Israeli issue or a Palestinian-Arab dispute or a peace negotiation. I think we should call it what it is: an occupation of Palestine, full stop. This is not a popular position in mixed company. — Talal Abu-Ghazaleh

Security is something that serves Israeli interests and Palestinian interests. You have a common threat and you have a common enemy and it's important to deal with that as partners. — Dennis Ross

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

You can't have occupation and human rights. — Christopher Hitchens

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

Agribusiness could provide an opportunity for joint Israeli-Palestinian projects, spurred on by Israeli technical expertise in this field. — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

We want to end this misery of the Palestinian people in order for us really to live with dignity as human beings in an independent state side by side with the Israeli state. — Benjamin Netanyahu

Think of the great spirits of the last 50 years: Ghandi killed, not by a Pakistani Muslim, but one of his own Hindus, who hated him because he wanted India for the Muslims, the Sikhs, for everybody; Sadat, killed by the organization that Mr. bin Laden's No. 2 heads now, not by an Israeli, but by an Egyptian. My friend Yitzhak Rabin
after a lifetime defending Israel, killed
not by a Palestinian terrorist, but an angry Israeli because he wanted to lay down arms and take up peace ... Fanatics are defined by their hatreds; free people by their humanity. — William J. Clinton

The struggle in the Holy Land is no longer Palestinian versus Israeli, or Muslim versus Jew. It is between those who seek peace and extremists who promote terror. — George W. Bush

For if life had taught her anything, it was that healing and peace can begin only with acknowledgment of wrongs committed. — Susan Abulhawa

No Palestinian, young or old, would be frightened by these Israeli tactics. — Mohammed Dahlan

I have been a long-time advocate for a just Arab-Israeli peace and for Palestinian refugees. Today, as you are aware, Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan and Iraq are being overwhelmed by those fleeing the conflict in Syria, often with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Many are severely tortured - abused women and their traumatized children whose husbands, fathers, and brothers have been killed or permanently disabled. — Queen Noor Of Jordan

Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest. — Thomas L. Friedman

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

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. — Denis McDonough

I think it was smart that you're wary of using the word "terrorism," and if you talk about the cycle of violence, or "an eye for an eye," you could be perpetuating the idea that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a balanced conflict, instead of a largely unarmed people against the fourth most powerful military in the world. — Rachel Corrie

I found that looking at the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from an outside vantage point was actually quite distancing. The history of the conflict, the personalities, the violence, the distrust, and the seeming lack of viable solutions made meaningful involvement feel impossible. What changed that, for me, was changing the vantage point. — Jason Alexander

Moreover, resolving the mother of all problems - the Israeli-Palestinian question - requires cooperation between Europe and the U.S. — Romano Prodi

The underlying problem remains the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the continuing Israeli assaults against our people. — Ismail Haniyeh

How come a Palestinian child does not live like an Israeli child? Why do Palestinian children have to toil at any manner of hard jobs just to be able to go to school? How is it that when we are sick. we can't get the medical help the Israeli kids take for granted? — Izzeldin Abuelaish

Israeli occupation exposes us very young to the extremes of our emotions, until we cannot feel except in the extreme. — Susan Abulhawa

A policy of peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine is the foundation of the tower, which will be built for the future; and visible from afar, the tower will be a non-violent symbol forever lasting peace. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Blood is everywhere..
Vultures take shelter beneath the tanks;
for the fumed sky is unsafe for their avian flight to prey on the Palestinian flesh. — Munia Khan

All the people who live in the West Bank are Israelis, they're not Palestinians. There is no 'Palestinian.' This is Israeli land. — Rick Santorum

Actually - and this was where I began to feel seriously uncomfortable - some such divine claim underlay not just 'the occupation' but the whole idea of a separate state for Jews in Palestine. Take away the divine warrant for the Holy Land and where were you, and what were you? Just another land-thief like the Turks or the British, except that in this case you wanted the land without the people. And the original Zionist slogan - 'a land without a people for a people without a land' - disclosed its own negation when I saw the densely populated Arab towns dwelling sullenly under Jewish tutelage. You want irony? How about Jews becoming colonizers at just the moment when other Europeans had given up on the idea? — Christopher Hitchens

My friends, there is no Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There is only the global war on terrorism. — Tom DeLay

Now for a good twelve-hour sleep, I told myself. Twelve solid hours. Let birds sing, let people go to work. Somewhere out there, a volcano might blow, Israeli commandos might decimate a Palestinian village. I couldn't stop it. I was going to sleep. — Haruki Murakami

Just a little piece of peace can cultivate the land of Palestine, but inhuman human won't let it do that ... — Munia Khan

If you ask me 'What is the one great move you can make to improve the Israeli economy?' of course it will be signing an agreement with the Arab world about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This will change everything. — Yair Lapid

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

He took in a premeditated breath, closed his eyes, and exhaled into the nye at his lips, playing a new tune.
It was not the sad music of waiting. Nor
was it a melody of his heritage. It was a call to the earth. To Allah. To
the country within him. — Susan Abulhawa

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

An Israeli man's life was saved when he was given a Palestinian man's heart in a heart transplant operation. The guy is doing fine, but the bad news is, he can't stop throwing rocks at himself. — Jay Leno

In a speech at Bar Ilan university, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time endorses the establishment of a Palestinian state. — Martin Bunton

The scariest thing for non-Jewish Americans in talking about Palestinian self-determination is the fear of being or sounding anti-Semitic. The people of Israel are suffering, and Jewish people have a long history of oppression. We still have some responsibility for that, but I think it's important to draw a firm distinction between the policies of Israel, as a state, and Jewish people. That's kind of a no-brainer, but there is very strong pressure to conflate the two. — Rachel Corrie

The bottom line is this: Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens
and honor its own previous commitments
by accepting its legal borders. All Arab neighbors must pledge to honor Israel's right to live in peace under these conditions. The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories. — Jimmy Carter

Remember, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, have a working relationship with the Palestinian Authority security forces, which have been incredibly professional. — Hillary Clinton

The end of the occupation. The right of return of the Palestinian people. These are critical dividing lines in human rights. We have to be here. No American would put up with an Israeli-style occupation of their hometown for 53 days let alone 54 years. U.S. tax dollars are funding violence against people of color inside the U.S. borders and outside the U.S. borders. — Van Jones

He looked me directly in the eye. 'So you live in America?'
'We do.' I smiled.
He stopped, opened his backpack, pulled out an empty tear gas grenade and handed it to me.
'I believe it was a present from your country.' Majid smiled. 'Tell your friends thanks. We got their grenade. — Michelle Cohen Corasanti

While we enjoy sunrise and all touch of sunlight, the other side of the world suffers from dark times, fireballs, and mourning, like a sunset that ends the day. — Aileene Mhar Jabarani

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Jihadism have nothing to do with each other. — Steven Spielberg

A peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will likely depend to a great extent on the economic development of a future Palestinian state. As I have argued before, private sector investment - especially in the West Bank - is going to prove crucial in creating the right political and social context for peace. — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

If every single Jew born anywhere in the world has the right to become an Israeli citizen, then all the Palestinians who were chucked out of Palestine by the Zionist Government should have the same right, very simple. — Tariq Ali

If a Palestinian bulldozer were ever invented (Haha, I know!) and I were given the chance to be in an orchard, in Haifa for instance,I would never uproot a tree an Israeli planted. No Palestinian would. To Palestinians, the tree is sacred, and so is the Land bearing it — Refaat Alareer

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be resolved until the human rights of the other are recognized and guaranteed. — Walter Brueggemann

If you look at military and intelligence positions from the 1950s, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has always been against American national interests. — Abdallah II Of Jordan

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

The suicide bomber who blows up Israeli children cannot transform himself into a martyr. The Palestinian problem is not an Islamic problem. — Tariq Ramadan

He is someone who is involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a fundamental way. Let's start with who Dani Dayan is. He was the former head of one of the main settler councils, the Yesha Council, which is a kind of umbrella organization for settlements in the occupied West Bank. Now, you know, for some countries this might not be an issue, but Brazil has made a point of its policies on the Israeli-Palestinian issue — Lourdes Garcia-Navarro

That can be achieved by termination of Israeli occupation to the territories according to the international resolutions related, so the Palestinian State can be establish with Jerusalem as capital for such State. — Ali Abdullah Saleh

Some say that this is the Israelis' original sin. With this I do not agree but I think we can call it Israel's immaculate misconception. — Avishai Margalit

What I, as the prime minister of the present government of Israel, started to do, is first to tackle the longest part of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. — Yitzhak Rabin

The important issue for us is bringing (people) who recognize the Palestinian people's rights and work on ending the occupation (to the Palestinian territories) and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. — Mohammed Dahlan

If the Palestinian people really wish to decide that they will battle to the very end to prevent partition or annexation of even an inch of their ancestral soil, then I have to concede that that is their right. I even think that a sixty-year rather botched experiment in marginal quasi-statehood is something that the Jewish people could consider abandoning. It represents barely an instant in our drawn-out and arduous history, and it's already been agreed even by the heirs of Ze'ev Jabotinsky that the whole scheme is unrealizable in 'Judaea and Samaria,' let alone in Gaza or Sinai. But it's flat-out intolerable to be solicited to endorse a side-by-side Palestinian homeland and then to discover that there are sinuous two-faced apologists explaining away the suicide-murder of Jewish civilians in Tel Aviv, a city which would be part of a Jewish state or community under any conceivable 'solution.' There's that word again ... — Christopher Hitchens

Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus' - blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable. — Noam Chomsky

My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town .. a German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. — Gerald Kaufman

If you really wanted to settle down the Middle East, if what you wanted was change in the Middle East, it is perfectly obvious that the first step is resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. — Molly Ivins

The issue [Israeli-Palestinian conflict], already lasting more than half a century, has brought deep suffering to the Palestinian people and remains an important reason of extended turbulence in the Middle East region. — Xi Jinping

But Arafat's devotion was to the Palestinian cause and not to the Palestinian people. [...] As a result, Arafat delayed the conflict's solution, leaving a legacy of avoidable disaster and unnecessary suffering. — Barry Rubin

Israeli Arabs have more political rights than any other Arabs in the Middle East, including their compatriots in the Palestinian Authority. — Jack Schwartz

At Camp David in 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat 94 percent of the West Bank; ten years later, Ehud Olmert offered Abbas 93.6 percent with a one-to-one land swap. — Elliott Abrams

The greatest tragedy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that everyone knows how it will end. We will divide up the region. — Yair Lapid

They had bombed and burned,killed and maimed,plundered and looted.Now they had come to claim the land. — Susan Abulhawa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed. — Golda Meir

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

When an 18-year-old Palestinian girl is persuaded to blow herself up, and in doing so she kills a 17-year-old Israeli girl, we are watching the future itself die! — George W. Bush

And in this respect, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a tragedy, a clash between one very powerful, very convincing, very painful claim over this land and another no less powerful, no less convincing claim. — Amos Oz

Whose truth do you want to know, Dr. Amin Jaafari? The truth of a Bedouin who thinks he's free and clear because he's got an Israeli passport? The truth of a serviceable Arab per excellence who's honored wherever he goes, who gets invited to fancy parties by people who want to show how tolerant and considerate they are? The truth of someone who thinks he can change sides like changing a shirt, with no trace left behind? Is that the truth you're looking for, or is it the one you're running away from? What planet do you live on, sir? ... Our cities are being buried by machines on caterpillar tracks, our patron saints don't know which way to turn, and you, simply because you're nice and warm in your golden cage, refuse to see the inferno consuming us. — Yasmina Khadra

Half the published articles on Gaza contain a standard reference to its resemblance to a vast open-air prison (and when I last saw it under Israeli occupation it certainly did deserve this metaphor). The problem is that, given its ideology and its allies, Hamas qualifies rather too well in the capacity of guard and warder. — Christopher Hitchens

The criticisms that are often presented to us by some in the conservative Jewish community about our Palestinian version are: first, that the U.S. is not in conflict with "Palestine" (quotes are theirs) and second, that Conflict Kitchen should counter the Palestinian viewpoints it presents with pro-Israeli viewpoints, otherwise we are spreading dangerous propaganda. — Jon Rubin

Resistance is a holy right for the Palestinian people to face the Israeli occupation. Nobody should forget that the Palestinian people negotiated for 10 years and accepted difficult and humiliating agreements, and in the end didn't get anything except authority over the people, and no authority over land, or sovereignty. — Marwan Barghouti

Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as 'Christ-killers', no Northern Ireland 'troubles', no 'honour killings', no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money ('God wants you to give till it hurts'). Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheadings of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the crime of showing an inch of it. — Richard Dawkins

I heard an Israeli speaking on Palestinian human rights issues, an interesting guy, and he said 'There's no military solution to terrorism. If there were, Israel would be the safest place in the world. But there's no military solution.' — Bradley Whitford

I cannot recognise either the Palestinian state or the Israeli state. The Palestinians are idiots and the Israelis are idiots. — Muammar Al-Gaddafi

In fact, the Iraqi foreign minister admitted in March 2003 that Iraqi funds were sent to families of Palestinian suicide bombers who attacked and killed innocent Israeli citizens, and also 12 Americans in Israel in 2003. — Jim Gerlach

Palestinian and Israeli leaders finally recover the Road Map to Peace, only to discover that, while they were looking for it, the Lug Nuts of Mutual Interest came off the Front Left Wheel of Accommodation, causing the Sport Utility Vehicle of Progress to crash into the Ditch of Despair. — Dave Barry

A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a region free of Iranian nukes are worthy goals that should be able to withstand public scrutiny in every Middle Eastern capital. — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

The so-called 'Palestinian autonomous areas' are bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system. — Nelson Mandela

And on the other hand, we see that the Israeli government is attacking that part of the Palestinian leader. — Rafik Hariri

Racism towards Muslims is as evil as anti-Semitism, but try to express this simple truth on a partisan Palestinian or Israeli website. — Chris Hedges

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

With the common Iranian threat bringing the Sunni Arab world and Israel closer together, an Israeli-Palestinian peace would go a long way in improving relations and rebuffing Iran's regional ambitions. — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

People who call themselves supporters of Israel are actually supporters of its moral degeneration and ultimate destruction. — Noam Chomsky

No matter what's happening in the Middle East - the Arab Spring, et cetera, the economic challenges, high rates of unemployment - the emotional, critical issue is always the Israeli-Palestinian one. — Abdallah II Of Jordan