Palestinians Quotes & Sayings

Hamas is ISIS, and ISIS is Hamas. They're branches of the same tree. People who wantonly rocket our cities and want to conduct mass killings. And when they can, they murder children, teenagers, shoot them in the head. Throw people from the sixth floor, their own people ... They're the enemies of peace, they're the enemies of Israel, they're the enemies of all civilized countries. And I believe they're the enemies of the Palestinians themselves. — Benjamin Netanyahu

Wishful thinking won't make the Palestinians an Israeli peace partner, no matter how much President Barack Obama pressures Israel to make concessions; caustically mocking Putin's worldview won't make it any less real or mitigate the Russian threat. — Ben Shapiro

I got a number of very thoughtful responses to the email I sent out last night, most of which I don't have time to respond to right now. Thanks everyone for the encouragement, questions, criticism. Daniel's response was particularly inspiring to me and deserves to be shared. The resistance of Israeli Jewish people to the occupation and the enormous risk taken by those refusing to serve in the Israeli military offers an example, especially for those of us living in the United States, of how to behave when you discover that atrocities are being commited in your name. Thank you. — Rachel Corrie

The missile that downed the Malaysian plane, they say, is a Russian-made missile. But the weapons that are used in the barbarism in the barbaric act against the Palestinians were made by the West, and nobody is blaming them. Nobody talks about it; not even the U.N. Security Council can pass a resolution against Israel! — Yahya Jammeh

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

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

I don't think for example that the Indians look at [ what is right and whats wrong ] that way [the Palestinians do]. There are a billion, 200 million people in that part of the world. Why? They suffer from terror. People that do not suffer from it don't understand what I'm talking about, you know? — Shimon Peres

I do not apologize for the takeover of the region by the Jews from the Palestinians in the same way I don't apologize for the takeover of America by the whites from the Red Indians or the takeover of Australia from the blacks. It is natural for a superior race to dominate an inferior one. — Winston Churchill

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. — Helen Thomas

Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish. — Mitt Romney

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

The history of the world is like: He kills me, I kill him, only with different cosmetics and different castings. So in 2001, some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis. And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. — Woody Allen

As long as the Palestinians send terrorists onto school buses and to nightclubs to blow up people, Israel has no choice but to build the fence. — Chuck Schumer

Viewing Israelis and Palestinians from a psychological perspective, they would both be seen as victims of abuse; that is how they both understandably feel, and it's how they both understandably behave. The Jewish psyche is in victimized reaction to the Holocaust, and the Palestinian psyche is in victimized reaction to the Israelis. — Marianne Williamson

Five million Palestinians have not had a home for 60 years. It is amazing really: You have been paying reparations for the Holocaust for 60 years and will have to keep paying up for another 100 years. Why then is the fate of the Palestinians no issue here? — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Indeed, the UNGA has acquired perhaps its most obvious significance as a protest forum for dissatisfied would-be nations (such as the Palestinians since 1970s). — Jussi M. Hanhimaki

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

I'm not trying to defend Israel. What I'm telling my nation is that Israel is just like any other state, and I want them to get out of the illusion that Jewish people are evil, and that all they want is to kill Muslims and Palestinians. I want them to understand that their biggest problem is not Israel. — Mosab Hassan Yousef

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. — Walter Russell Mead

By focusing once and for all on helping the Palestinians build a free society, I have no doubt that an historic compromise between Israelis and Palestinians can be reached and that peace can prevail. — Natan Sharansky

And when I'd be reporting in Israel, Palestinians would say, the Jews they're not like us, and the Jews would say the same things about the Palestinians, they don't want what we want. And I never bought it as a reporter and I don't buy it as a novelist. I think, you know, the sound of somebody crying for their lost child sounds the same. — Geraldine Brooks

These are all good things, I said. But no one knows where your country is or who you are. You don't have a familiar ethnic cuisine; your diaspora , from what I understand, is mostly in Southern California, three time zones removed from the national media in New York; and you don't have a recognizable, long-simmering conflict like the one between the Israelis and the Palestinians, where people in the richer nations can take sides and argue over at the dinner table. The best you can do is get the United Nations involved, as in East Timor. Maybe they'll send troops."
"We don't want the United Nations" Mr. Nanabragov said. "We don't want Sri Lankan troops patrolling our streets. We're better tan that. We want America. — Gary Shteyngart

Every time an Arab leader truly wanted peace, they got it. If the Palestinians truly want peace, we will make peace. — Benjamin Netanyahu

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

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. — Ariel Sharon

I cannot go to elections with an open stomach. If you want to negotiate we have to conclude it before the elections. I cannot just start the negotiations [with Palestinians] saying we are ready to do this and that and not having any reply. — Shimon Peres

You're going to end up with a government in Egypt that is concerned about the precious Palestinians, the same way we ought to be concerned about both precious Palestinians and precious Jews. — Cornel West

And the Zionists have used the Holocaust as a weapon to deny the rights of the Palestinians and to cover-up the crimes of Israel. — David Duke

People should know that Palestinians don't live for themselves alone. They live for each other. What I do for myself and my children, I also do for all my family. We are a community. — Izzeldin Abuelaish

Jews know the Palestinians. And they know they're not really different. And they know they are from the same background. And they know if they coordinated that they could be an economic success and a real basis for a rebirth in the Middle East. — Russ Feingold

A solution of two national states - a Jewish state, Israel; an Arab state, Palestine. The Palestinians are our closest neighbors. I believe they may become our closest friends. — Shimon Peres

Israelis must be encouraged to defeat the Palestinians. — Daniel Pipes

It was not the right-wing Russians or the gun-toting settlers who carried out the Nakba. The Nakba is the legacy of Zionism's putatively socialist wing. It was the grandfathers and mothers of the "enlightened public" of today's Israel who literally drove tens of thousands of indigenous Palestinians into the sea in 1947-48 all along the Mediterranean coast, or who marched them at gunpoint to Ramallah. — Max Blumenthal

I invite President Assad to come to Jerusalem and to speak with me, with our parliament, with whomever he wants to speak in Israel and in the territories among the Palestinians. — Yitzhak Rabin

If we see to it that the Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians have jobs, we will actually be securing our own future. — Stef Wertheimer

A Concordance of Leaves is an epic poem of the indomitable yet fragile human spirit. Philip Metres brings Palestine and Palestinians into English with rare luminosity. One feels echoes of Oppen's succinct tenderness in the depiction of the numerous characters of this work. Without other, there is no self. And that other is the stranger who must be loved. Concordance is, after all, a wedding poem-leaves and pages in search of a certain passage toward harmony. — Fady Joudah

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. — Hans Blix

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

Palestinians are not victims in need of aid, they are an occupied & oppressed people in need of freedom. — Remi Kanazi

The Palestinians were deliberately forced into refugee camps by their fellow Muslims and not permitted to integrate in any way into the society of their unwilling hosts. Their own people didn't even try to help them; instead they prevailed upon the United Nations and gullible Western charities to supply the refugees' needs. They have been kept in these camps for more than sixty years - like an unhealed wound by their own people - just to be used as political pawns by Muslim negotiators to charge their plight as "Israeli aggression. — Hal Lindsey

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. — Queen Rania Of Jordan

The Israelis should understand that it is in their long-term interest to have a democratic Egypt as a neighbor, and that it is prudent to acknowledge the legitimate interests of the Palestinians and to grant them their own state. — Mohamed ElBaradei

The Bush Administration's failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world. — Barack Obama

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. — Condoleezza Rice

The United States is for a two-state solution. The United States wants to see the Israelis and Palestinians come together. — Bill Richardson

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

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?' — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

It's for the Palestinians to decide who will lead them. — Ami Ayalon

Hey, here's a way to stop suicide bombings give the Palestinians a bunch of missile-firing Apache helicopters and let them and the Israelis go at each other head to head. Four billion dollars a year to Israel four billion dollars a year to the Palestinians they can just blow each other up and leave the rest of us the hell alone. — Michael Moore

I think that what happened is that we grew up with the Holocaust within us. It turned us into harsh, emotionally incapable people who have become blind to what they are doing to other people. A lot of times, Holocaust abuse justifies terrible things done to the Palestinians. And you have to realize that what is going on is terrible, and that we are responsible, and we have to take responsibility - even if we are not completely responsible. — Eytan Fox

They are going to leave [Gaza], not because this is a gift from Israel. This is because they failed to confront our people, so don't describe their withdrawal from here ... as a gift for the Palestinians. This is because they are defeated here. HAMAS will never recognize the existence of a Jewish State in the region. — Zuheir Mohsen

I grieved three thousand times. Then I grieved for myself, a lonely woman without the honor given to the wives of the fallen. The reverence for their loss, for their children's loss. It was eloquent and grand. So moving and charged with solidarity ... On September eleventh, I faced the last moments of your father's life. I saw him in every person who tried to jump and every body they pulled from the rubble. And I saw myself as I was never allowed to be, consoled, understood, and loved. — Susan Abulhawa

In the calculus of western interests, there is no suffering, whatever its scale, which cannot be justified. Chechens, Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis are of little importance. — Tariq Ali

The reason why no one had spoken to [Iranians] for the last years is because they sponsored Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinians, Al Qaeda, 9/11. The last time anyone spoke to the Iranians was when Ronald Reagan said, 'I've just been elected and you better let our hostages go or you guys are absolutely screwed'. — Eric Bolling

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. — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people, — Moshe Ya'alon

September 11 was a godsend for Israel. It could now conjoin its merciless persecution of the Palestinians with Bush's War against Terror. But my impression is that it wasn't altogether successful. — Norman Finkelstein

What's going to be hard for the United States is that our policy for a long time has been a two-state solution; the Palestinians should have their own state. Now, the Palestinians are going to the U.N. and saying, 'We're having the U.N. vote to say we have our own state. Well, if that's your policy, United States of America, why are you vetoing it?' Which we will do. — Bill Maher

I know that many in Europe are unhappy with their governments' policies toward the Palestinians. — Ismail Haniyeh

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. — James Howard Kunstler

I'm sure that there are many Israelis who dream of waking up one day to find the Palestinians gone. And there are many Palestinians who dream of going to bed at night and waking up the next morning to find the Israelis gone. — Daniel Barenboim

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.

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. — River Phoenix

When you don't stop evil in its tracks when you first recognize it, you will end up with a monster force that will spread its tentacles and affect the lives of millions. Because we did not want to judge evildoers such as the Palestinians bombing innocent Israelis, the Taliban taking over Afghanistan, and Saddam Hussein gassing his own people, we have helped create the monsters we are dealing with today. Don't be afraid to stand up and lift your head and be proud of what America and Western culture stand for. America did not pull itself out of the grip of tyranny and feudalism for nothing. America as a Western culture and as a nation is a tribute to men and women and God's creation at its best. — Brigitte Gabriel

The United States that has been involved first in the Gulf War and then in the tremendously damaging sanctions against Iraqi civilians. The United States that is the supporter of Israel against the Palestinians. — Edward Said

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. — Abdallah II Of Jordan

And (HAMAS) instead offered alternative ideas on how to both confront Israel without surrendering and govern the Palestinians without corruption. — Khaled Hroub

When Israelis were indirectly involved in the massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut in 1982, the story was front-page news for weeks. When Lebanese Shiites were directly involved in killing Palestinians in the very same camps from 1985 to 1988, it was almost always back-page news - if it was reported at all. This — Thomas L. Friedman

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. — Brent Scowcroft

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

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. — Anthony Lewis

I believe that peace with the Palestinians is most urgent - urgent than ever before. It is necessary. It is crucial. It is possible. A delay may worsen its chances. Israel and the Palestinians are, in my judgment, ripe today to restart the peace process. — Shimon Peres

It's easy to hate Amon Goeth. If the Germans and their allies can turn into murderers, then we, too, can become murderers. I hope that my sons will always remember that. I hope that they will always see the Palestinians as human beings, not as enemies. — Nikola Sellmair

The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more. — Ehud Barak

Sometimes I feel as if I am read before I write. When I write a poem about my mother, Palestinians think my mother is a symbol for Palestine. But I write as a poet, and my mother is my mother. She's not a symbol. — Mahmoud Darwish

The Women in Black are Israeli Jews who meet wall in Jerusalem. They meet every Friday, the Sabbath evening, and pray. They begin by singing Kaddish for all the Israelis killed in the fighting in Israel that week. When they are finished, they pause and read all the names. Then, they turn again to face the wall and sing Kaddish again, this time for all of Palestinians killed in the fighting that week, and they turn when they are finished and once again recite the litany of the names of those killed. — Megan McKenna

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

When a deeply sympathetic American president asks for concessions and compromises and appears able to cajole some from the Palestinians, which was the Clinton/Rabin and Bush/Sharon combination, Israel must respond. — Elliott Abrams

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

Deniers build their pseudo-arguments on traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes and imagery. They contend that Jews created the myth of the Holocaust in order to bilk the Germans out of billions of dollars and ensure the establishment of Israel. Once again the devious Jews have harmed innocent multitudes - Germans and Palestinians in particular - for the sake of their own financial and political ends. To someone nurtured by the soil of anti-Semitism, this makes perfect sense.

-- The Eichmann Trial, page xx — Deborah E. Lipstadt

"I will call not just on Israel, but on the Palestinians, on the Arab States, and the international community to join us in this effort, because the burden of making hard choices must not be Israel's alone." "We stand with Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. America's commitment and my commitment to the security of Israel is unshakeable." — Barack Obama

[Palestinians] are becoming religiously fanatic. Israel is becoming irrelevant. They do it for religious purpose, fanatic, they want to conquer the Middle East under the command of the Iranians. — Shimon Peres

Like all Israelis, I yearn for peace. I see the utmost importance in taking all possible steps that will lead to a solution of the conflict with the Palestinians. — Ariel Sharon

For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure ... Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist. — Barack Obama

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children. — Nelson Mandela

Israel and the Palestinians must resolve their own differences. The United States can play an important role as facilitator and guarantor. — Alan Dershowitz

I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behaviour to the Palestinians, and I want the people of the U.S. to cease acting as if they don't understand what is going on. — Alice Walker

You can't think about terrorism without thinking about Palestinian terrorism. Palestinians began international terrorism. It started with them in 1968. They used it as the first resort, not the last resort. They invented it, they perfected it, they benefited from it and they taught the world how to use it and that it would be successful. — Alan Dershowitz

Much of what has gone wrong in the pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace is due to a lack of strong leadership, primarily among the Palestinians. — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

Clearly, it is not simply exegesis that determines how we read the Bible; rather, it is our vested interests, our hopes, and our fears that largely determine our reading. And because the reach of the gracious God of the Bible is toward the other, we ought rightly to be skeptical and suspicious of any reading of the Bible that excludes the other, because it is likely to be informed by vested interest, fears, and hopes that serve self-protection and end in self-destruction. Palestinians' and Israelis' fear of the other, said to be grounded in the Bible, has been transposed into a military apparatus that is aimed at the elimination of the other. It is wholly illusionary to imagine that such an agenda is congruent with the God of the Bible who is commonly confessed by Jews and Christians. — Walter Brueggemann

Hamas does not care about the lives of Palestinians. [They don't] care about the lives of Israelis or Americans. They don't care about their own lives. They consider dying for the sake of their ideology a way of worship. — Mosab Hassan Yousef

All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra - (applause) - as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer. (Applause.) — Barack Obama

Hunting Jews has always been a European sport.
Now the Palestinians, who never played it, are paying the bill. — Eduardo Galeano

The way for the Palestinians to get a state is to go ahead and build it. — Elliott Abrams

Yes, Israel's our ally. But, are the Palestinians our enemy? No, they are not. — Brent Scowcroft

I hope that the Palestinians don't make the mistake of unleashing a new intifada. They've tried it twice before, and the consequences were bad for both sides. But I don't think the forces are there (that could carry out) an uprising against the leadership. The people that could initiate it are in Israeli prisons. And what could they hope to achieve? In the end, they're too weak to end the Israeli occupation. — Tom Segev

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. — Mahmoud Darwish

It is still difficult for many to believe that a deception of such magnitude is possible. Deceptions and false declarations have ben the standard in the politics of the powerful, and certainly are in Israel's policy toward the Palestinians from the start. — Tanya Reinhart

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. — Amos Oz

If you are asking for my point of view, I would say that the Palestinians should go back to Palestine. — Hassan Nasrallah