Old Palestinian Quotes & Sayings

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

Do you know, Mother, that Haj Salem was buried alive in his home? Does he tell you stories in heaven now? I wish I had had a chance to meet him. To see his toothless grin and touch his leathery skin. To beg him, as you did in your youth, for a story from our Palestine. He was over one hundred years old, Mother. To have lived so long, only to be crushed to death by a bulldozer. Is this what it means to be Palestinian? — Susan Abulhawa

I had to admit the man looked amazing in jeans. The ancient denim clung lightly to his hips and followed the long lines of some remarkable thigh muscles. And although I made a point of not checking out his rear view, my peripheral vision was having a very good day." ~ Haven Travis on Hardy Cates — Lisa Kleypas

Back Water Blues" by Bessie Smith. This is the one most closely associated with the 1927 flood, — Tom Franklin

Netanyahu adheres to his old position: He doesn't want a Palestinian state, and he doesn't want to give up the settlements and the occupied territories. Pressure from abroad is the only way to change anything. — Tom Segev

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

Because, whenever I am melancholy you talk to me of cheerful things and cure my low spirits and so I must now do the same for you. That is what friendship is. — Susanna Clarke

His love was so intense, yet his soul held so much sorrow. I wondered if his hurt went so deep that he could never heal. — A.L. Jackson

There may even be puritanical fanatics of conscience, who prefer to put their last trust in a sure nothing, rather than in an uncertain something. — Friedrich Nietzsche

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

Jewish and Palestinian nationalism are virtually contemporaneous, and grew out of the disruptions that created new national movements from the ruins of the old empires / i. — Jack Schwartz

He looked on in silence at the proof of what Israelis already know, that their history is contrived from the bones and traditions of Palestinians. The Europeans who came knew neither hummus nor falafel but later proclaimed them authentic Jewish cuisine." They claimed the villas of Qatamon as "old Jewish homes. They had no old photographs or ancient drawings of their ancestry living on the land, loving it, and planting it. They arrived from foreign nations and uncovered coins in Palestines earth from the Canaanites, the Romans, the ottomans, then sold them as their own "ancient Jewish artifacts." They came to Jaffa and found oranges the size of watermelons and said, "Behold! The Jews are known for their oranges." But those oranges were the culmination of centuries of Palestinian farmers perfecting the art of citrus growing. — Susan Abulhawa

Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive officiously to keep alive. — Arthur Hugh Clough

Under a decades-old agreement, Palestinian refugee camps are supposed to administer and police themselves. Lebanese troops are technically not allowed to enter them. — Richard Engel