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Latest comment: 4 months ago by Ficaia in topic Tangential/belong elsewhere

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Israel page.

I've deleted the quotes made by Hamas representative in Lebanon. I fail to see the relation between quotes from a terror organization spokesman to the state of Osrael. I believe quotes in the name of a country (if possible) should at least be from formal documents or politicians, hance I've deleted the quotes from the army Captain. Please do not change it back.

—This unsigned comment is by 89.0.55.186 (talk • contribs) .

More than half of the quotes on this page are irrelevant or very, very highly biased. I've tried taking them down. Sourcing "Israel: an Apartheid State" or quoting Hamas members or radical clerics numerous times, talking about Israeli soldiers emptying clips into children, should be sending up red flags. I've tried to take some of it down, but it keeps getting put up again. But this is ridiculous.

—This unsigned comment is by 68.198.99.236 (talk • contribs) .

Using MEMRI as a source is a bad idea. They are not the least bit reliable. I've kept the quotes, but moved them to unsourced. // Liftarn

yea this is pretty ridiculously biased against israel

Quote disputation

[edit]
Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Just how seriously do we want this site to be taken? It cannot be taken seriously if it contains "quotes" of a controversial political nature that cannot be easily verified. Thus, the "quote":

"This story about the danger of extermination has been a complete invention and has been blown up a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territories. Mordechai Bentov, cabinet minister, cited in Le Monde, June 3, 1972"

...will be suspected of being pure propaganda, unless there is a reasonable way of verifying that it did indeed appear in Le Monde on the date specified. Otherwise anyone could add the following (fictitious) quote:

"We will fight the Zionist state in the media by fabricating quotes in order to demonize the Zionist leaders, and thousands of people will believe us, because they will know no better. It will be more effective than firing a thousand rockets into the heart of Tel Aviv." Yasser Arafat, Meeting of the PLO Secretariat, Tunisia, July 15, 1983 (from the official minutes).

...and who will be able to disprove that it is authentic? All controversial political quotes must be easily and clearly verifiable or they should be removed. [Ehad Ha'am, Dec 19, 2009]


All of the quotes in this article have citations, which is great. However, I think it is important to be extra-sure that these quotes actually appear in the source material. I have seen so many fabricated quotes about the conflict from both sides that I am weary (sourced quotes about Jews drinking the blood of Palestinian children, etc). Online, I cannot find any sources without an agenda for any of these quotes. Some people say they are true and some say they are not [1]

A lot of these quotes also seem to reflect the "Jews are out to control the world" message. This is controversial, to say the least, and I think it would therefore be in everybody's best interests if we can find a way to verify these quotes, even if we just put links to for-pay newspaper databases.


Is there a way that we can make these quotes more verifiable? 138.16.19.131 04:47, 10 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

I commented out two quotes with easily verifiable sources (links were provided). Btw, we have an entire section called "Unsourced". // Liftarn 12:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Unsourced

[edit]
  • Among ourselves, it must be clear that there is no place in the country for both peoples together. With the Arabs we shall not achieve our aim of being an independent people in this country. The only solution is Eretz-Israel, at least the west part of Eretz-Israel, without Arabs . . . And there is no other way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries. Transfer all of them, not one village or tribe should remain . . .
    • Joseph Weitz, entry in his diary for 1940 (quoted in his article: ‘A solution to the Refugee Problem: An Israeli State with a small Arab Minority’, published in Davar, 29 September, 1967.
  • I gathered all of the Jewish mukhtars, who have contact with Arabs in different villages and asked them to whisper in the ears of some Arabs that a great Jewish reinforcement has arrived in Galilée and that it is going to burn all of the villages of the Huleh. They should suggest to these Arabs, as their friends, to escape while there is still time . . . The tactic reached its goal completely. The building of the police station at Halsa fell into our hands without a shot. The wide areas were cleaned . . .
    • Yigal Allon, Ha Sepher Ha Palmach, Vol. 2, p. 268, 1948.
  • ...as uncontrolled panic spread through all Arab quarters, the Israelis brought up jeeps with loudspeakers which broadcast recorded 'horror sounds'. These included shrieks, wails and anguished moans of Arab women, the wail of sirens and the clang of fire-alarm bells, interrupted by a sepulchral voice calling out in Arabic: ‘Save your souls, all ye faithful: The Jews are using poison gas and atomic weapons. Run for your lives in the name of Allah'.
    • Leo Heiman, Israeli Army Reserve Officer who fought in 1948. Marine Corps Gazette, June 1964.
  • Because we took the land this gives us the image of being bad, of being aggressive. The Jews always considered that the land belonged to them, but in fact it belonged to the Arabs. I would go further: I would say the original source of this conflict lies with Israel, with the Jews – and you can quote me.
    • Yehoshafat Harkabi, former Israeli Chief of Military Intelligence, in ‘Peace Won't be a Plane Ticket to Cairo,’ International Armed Forces Journal, October 1973, p.30.
  • It is unacceptable that nations made up of people who have only just come down from the trees should take themselves for world leaders . . . How can such primitive beings have an opinion of their own?
    • Yitzhak Shamir, in reference to the black African nations who voted in support of the 1975 U.N. resolution, which denounced Zionism as a form of racism, in Yediot Ahronot, November 14, 1975.
  • The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war.
  • Let us not today fling accusations at the murderers. Who are we that we should argue against their hatred? For eight years now they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their very eyes, we turn into our homestead the land and the villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.
    • Moshe Dayan, 1953, quoted by Uri Avneri in Israel without Zionists, p. 134.
  • I don't understand your optimism. Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country.
    • David Ben Gurion, 1956, quoted by Nahum Goldmann in The Jewish Paradox, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p.99.
  • We take the land first and the law comes after.
    • Mr. Palmon, Arab affairs adviser to the Mayor of Jerusalem, quoted in The Guardian, 26 April 1972.
  • We must define our position and lay down basic principles for a settlement. Our demands should be moderate and balanced, and appear to be reasonable. But in fact they must involve such conditions as to ensure that the enemy rejects them. Then we should manoeuvre and allow him to define his own position, and reject a settlement on the basis of a compromise solution. We should then publish his demands as embodying unreasonable extremism.
    • General Yehoshafat Harkabi, Ma'ariv, 2 November 1973.
  • To maintain the status quo will not do. We have to set up a dynamic state bent upon expansion.
    • David Ben Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel, The Philosophical Press, New York, 1954, p. 419.
  • During the last 100 years our people have been in a process of building up the country and the nation, of expansion, of getting additional Jews and additional settlements in order to expand the borders here. Let no Jew say that the process has ended. Let no Jew say that we are near the end of the road.
  • Palestine is a territory whose chief geographical feature is this: that the river Jordan does not delineate its frontier but flows through its centre.
    • Vladimir Jabotinsky, at the 16th Zionist Congress (1929), quoted by Desmond Stewart in The Middle East: Temple of Janus, p.304.
  • Take the American Declaration of Independence for instance. It contains no mention of the territorial limits. We are not obliged to state the limits of our State.
    • David Ben Gurion diary, 14 May 1948, quoted by Michael Bar Zohar in The Armed Prophet, p.133.
  • The Achilles heel of the Arab coalition is the Lebanon. Muslim supremacy in this country is artificial and can easily be overthrown. A Christian State ought to be set up there, with its southern frontier on the river Litani. We would sign a treaty of alliance with this State. Thus when we have broken the strength of the Arab Legion and bombed Amman, we could wipe out Transjordan; after that Syria would fall. And if Egypt still dared to make war on us, we would bomb Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo. We should thus end the war and would have but paid to Egypt, Assyria and Chaldea on behalf of our ancestors.
    • David Ben Gurion, Diary, 21 May 1948, quoted by Michael Bar Zohar in The Armed Prophet, p.139.
  • I shall not be ashamed to confess that if I had the power, as I have the will, I would select a score of efficient young men – intelligent, decent, devoted to our ideal and burning with the desire to help redeem Jews – and I would send them to the countries where Jews are absorbed in sinful self-satisfaction. The task of these young men would be to disguise themselves as non-Jews, and plague Jews with anti-Semitic slogans such as 'Bloody Jew', 'Jews go to Palestine' and similar intimacies. I can vouch that the results in terms of a considerable immigration to Israel from these countries would be ten thousand times larger than the results brought by thousands of emissaries who have been preaching for decades to deaf ears.
    • Davar, 1952, Editor Sharan, quoted by Alfred Lilienthal in The Other Side of the Coin, Devin-Adair, New York, p.47.
  • We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel . . . Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours.
    • Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces – Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.
  • We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return.
    • David Ben Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar's Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.
  • I have the hope and a prayer that the State of Israel will flourish as a Jewish state within secure and recognized borders in peaceful co-existence with its neighbors and with all the Moslem States, and that this peaceful co-existence will bring security, prosperity and happiness to the people of Israel and to the people of the Middle East of all faiths.
  • We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'
    • Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.
  • There are some who believe that the non-Jewish population, even in a high percentage, within our borders will be more effectively under our surveillance; and there are some who believe the contrary, i.e., that it is easier to carry out surveillance over the activities of a neighbor than over those of a tenant. [I] tend to support the latter view and have an additional argument: . . . the need to sustain the character of the state which will henceforth be Jewish . . . with a non-Jewish minority limited to 15 percent. I had already reached this fundamental position as early as 1940 [and] it is entered in my diary.
    • Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department. From Israel: an Apartheid State by Uri Davis, p.5.
  • Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours . . . Everything we don't grab will go to them.
    • Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.
  • Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment . . . Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.
    • Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine, Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry.
  • We will establish ourselves in Palestine whether you like it or not . . .You can hasten our arrival or you can equally retard it. It is however better for you to help us so as to avoid our constructive powers being turned into a destructive power which will overthrow the world.
  • I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel.
    • Haim Saban explaining how to make your political donations go further in NYT, September 5, 2004.
  • I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations … They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern."
    • John Adams (From a letter to F. A. Van der Kemp [Feb. 16, 1808] Pennsylvania Historical Society)
  • I am in the West, but my heart is in the farthest East...Oh, how I would give up all the goodness of Spain, just to see the dust of Your ruined sanctuary!
    • On yearning for Israel, Yehuda Halevi, Spanish Poet, "Libi BeMizrach"
  • We would not become unworthy of the grace that God grants us to be able to die willingly and gloriously as free men, a happiness that those who cherished the hope of being invincible have never known.
    • Eliezer Ben Yair, commander of the last independent garrison in Israel on the eve of its capture, 73 AD. Quoted in F. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, VII, 34
  • In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.
    • David Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister from an interview at CBS News on October 5th, 1956
  • It is permissible to destroy everything.
  • This story about the danger of extermination has been a complete invention and has been blown up a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territories.
    • Mordechai Bentov, cabinet minister, cited in Le Monde, June 3, 1972

Unsourced

[edit]
  • Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.
  • Israel is still the only country in the world against which there is a written document to the effect that it must disappear.
    • Menachem Begin, on the PLO Charter, which calls for the elimination of Israel.
  • No more wars, no more bloodshed. Peace unto you. Shalom, salaam, forever.
    • Menachem Begin, on signing the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Washington, D.C., March 26, 1979.
  • Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us
  • In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.
  • Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!
    • Golda Meir, at a dinner honoring West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, as reported in The New York Times (10 June 1973)
  • Israel was not created in order to disappear – Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.
  • I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel, within secure borders.
  • I will continue to believe that Israel’s security is paramount.
  • Our forces saved the remnants of the Jewish people of Europe for a new life and a new hope in the reborn land of Israel. Along with all men of good will, I salute the young state and wish it well.
  • I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it – not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.
  • Harry S. Truman
  • We will stand up for our friends in the world. And one of the most important friends is the State of Israel. My administration will be steadfast in support Israel against terrorism and violence, and in seeking the peace for which all Israelis pray.
  • Our society is illuminated by the spiritual insights of the Hebrew prophets. America and Israel have a common love of human freedom, and they have a common faith in a democratic way of life.
  • The only thing chicken about Israel is their soup.
  • I’m always in favor of Israel responding strongly when it’s threatened. At the same time, a response to a response doesn’t really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual-motion machine.
  • My commitment to the security and future of Israel is based upon basic morality as well as enlightened self-interest. Our role in supporting Israel honors our own heritage.
  • But there is a difference here: When Jewish children are murdered, Arabs celebrate the deed. The death of an Arab child is no cause for celebration in Israel.
    • Theodore Bikel
  • America and Israel share a special bond. Our relationship is unique among all nations. Like America, Israel is a strong democracy, a symbol of freedom, and an oasis of liberty, a home to the oppressed and persecuted.
    • William J. Clinton
  • This resolution simply says Israel has the right to defend itself. This includes conducting operations both inside its borders and in the territory of nations that threaten it, which is in accordance with international law.
  • The United States and Israel have a unique relationship based on our mutual commitment to democracy, freedom, and peace. Therefore, just as our commitment to these principles must be steadfast, so must our support for Israel.
  • The aggressive, unprovoked acts of violence against Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas are revealing. It is clear they don’t want peace, but rather seek the ultimate destruction of Israel ... Since its first day as a nation, Israel has lived under a cloud of aggression from militant extremists and hostile neighboring governments ... Each and every day, Israel’s very existence is at stake.
  • I believe that the people of Israel are the chosen people of God.
  • I defend Israel’s right to exist, to defend themselves, to not let themselves be exterminated a second time.
  • Soldiers of Israel, we have no aims of conquest. Our purpose is to bring to naught the attempts of the Arab armies to conquer our land ... Israel cannot afford to stand against the entire world and be denounced as the aggressor.
  • 9/11 was a deliberate, carefully planned evil act of the long-waged war on the West by Koran-inspired soldiers of Allah around the world. They hated us before George W. Bush was in office. They hated us before Israel existed. And the avengers of the religion of perpetual outrage will keep hating us.
    • Michelle Malkin
  • 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.
    • Charles Schumer
  • I never thought I’d live to see the day that an American administration would denounce the state of Israel for rebuilding Jerusalem.
    • Mike Pence
  • And by the way, a piece of news, Israel is the one country in which everyone is pro-American, opposition and coalition alike. And I represent the entire people of Israel who say, ‘Thank you, America.” And we’re friends of America, and we’re the only reliable allies of America in the Middle East.
  • I think that a strong Israel is the only Israel that will bring the Arabs to the peace table.
  • First of all, Arafat is wrong. Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, will never be divided, and will remain the capital of the State of Israel, the capital of the Jewish people, for ever and ever.
  • But so far, you know who’s been violating the nuclear nonproliferation pact day and night? Those who signed it. Iran, Iraq, Libya and Iran violates it while calling for Israel’s destruction and racing to develop atomic weapons to that end.
  • So I think we should stay focused on the real problem in the Middle East. It’s not Israel. It’s these dictatorships that are developing nuclear weapons with the specific goal of wiping Israel away.
  • You know, I think, I think the Palestinians are trying to get away without negotiating. They’re trying to get a state to continue the conflict with Israel rather than to end it. They’re trying to basically detour around peace negotiations by going to the U.N. and have the automatic majority in the U.N. General Assembly give them, give them a state.
  • Well, this is an unfortunate part of the UN institution. It’s the – the theater of the absurd. It doesn’t only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi’s Libya chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights; Saddam’s Iraq headed the UN Committee on Disarmament.
  • My first name, Benjamin, dates back a thousand years earlier to Benjamin – Binyamin – the son of Jacob, who was also known as Israel. Jacob and his 12 sons roamed these same hills of Judea and Sumeria 4,000 years ago, and there’s been a continuous Jewish presence in the land ever since.
  • I often hear them accuse Israel of Judaizing Jerusalem. That’s like accusing America of Americanizing Washington, or the British of Anglicizing London. You know why we’re called ‘Jews’? Because we come from Judea.
  • The central premise behind Oslo was that if Arafat were given enough legitimacy, territory, weapons and money, he would use his power to fight terror and make peace with Israel.
  • When the President of Iran talks about removing Israel from the face of the Earth and is building nuclear bombs with a range of 3000km, you have to be worried.
  • Growing up in Israel, how can I not be an optimist? When you remember what Israel was 50 years ago and you see Israel now, one of the most successful countries in the world, stable, democratic, with an enormously stable economy despite everything that has happened in the global economy in the last few years, how can I not be an optimist?
  • I never thought that Syria and Israel should engage in a violent confrontation because I don’t think that there is any particular interest for any of us to do it.
    • Ehud Olmert
  • Israel always has to be in a position to defend itself against any adversary and against any threat of any kind.
    • Ehud Olmert
  • Peace is important for Israel.
    • Ehud Olmert
  • Israel will not tolerate a situation in which Iran has effective control of non-conventional weapons that can be used directly against the state of Israel ... Iran is a major threat to the well-being of Europe and America just as much as it is for the state of Israel.

Ehud Olmert

  • Many of the Europeans who want Israel to go away don’t even know why they do. Nearly a third of those interviewed concede they have no idea what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about. It’s enough to know that Israelis are Jews.
    • Suzanne Fields
  • You still can’t find Israel on a map of the Middle East in a Palestinian schoolbook.
    • Suzanne Fields
  • The moral equation strongly tells everyone who understands freedom, who understands morality, that Israel is engaging in a just war in defense of its people and its freedom.
    • George Pataki
  • Israel is a country that respects freedom – freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and freedom of worship.
    • George Pataki
  • Christianity emerged from the religion of Israel. Or rather, it has as its background a persistent strain in that religion. To that strain Christians have looked back, and rightly, as the preparation in history for their faith.
    • Kenneth Scott Latourette
  • I have been defending Israel’s right to exist, and to defend itself against terrorism, for many years-on college campuses, in television appearances and in debate.
  • Every dollar that we send in State Department aid or humanitarian aid that saves us from having to get involved with very expensive military actions is a good investment. And frankly, helping Israel fight terrorism in the Middle East is much cheaper than us fighting it here on our shores.
  • 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
  • Iran has long sponsored terrorists who carry out homicide bombings in Israeli cities. However, it is a mistake to believe the danger Iran poses is directed at Israel alone.
    • John Doolittle
  • In 1975 I was among a group of blacks who formed the Black Americans in Support of Israel Committee.
    • David Dinkins
  • If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.
  • The State of Israel has faced obstacles and challenges to its very survival, with conventional military attacks leading the way to suicide bombers who have killed innocent Israeli men, women, and children.
    • Jerry Costello
  • Through these adversities, Israel has endured with continued strength, conviction, and faith.
    • Jerry Costello
  • Under Hitler it was the entrepreneurial and professional classes who were the first victims of Nazi boycotts and exclusion. Today it is Israel, the most powerful symbol of Jewish national resurgence in two millennia.
    • Jack Schwartz
  • Israel has an important principle: It is only Israel that is responsible for our security.
  • Israel’s willingness to cooperate closely with the U.S. in protecting American interests in the region altered her image in the eyes of many officials in Washington.
    • Yitzhak Rabin
  • And if we are honest we have to make a distinction between a democratic Israel that wants to live in peace and the terrorists who want Israel wiped out. The Israelis were told to give up land for peace; they gave up the land, but got no peace.
    • J. D. Hayworth
  • If you live in Israel and you see the way life is there and then you go abroad and see the way Israel is reported on, the way that Israel gets reported on night after night is simply pictures of bombings or military actions.
    • Douglas Feith
  • But Hezbollah now has reared its ugly head in a way that threatens the entire free world. And they want, by their own charter and definition, the destruction of Israel and Christians. That is the truth. That is in their charter.
    • Zach Wamp
  • Hamas, also elected to governmental leadership in Palestine, includes the jihadists, people who have declared war on the United States of America and its ally, Israel.
    • Zach Wamp
  • If we pulled out of Iraq tomorrow, Islamic jihadism is on the rise. And they continue, as we see in Lebanon, to seek to destroy the State of Israel and seek to drive America back and bring us to our knees. We must stand tall and straight.
    • Zach Wamp
  • The Iranian regime gives financial support to terrorist organizations all over the world, denies the Holocaust, and calls for the wiping the state of Israel from the map, while developing long-range missiles and trying to obtain nuclear weapon.
    • Moshe Katsav
  • I am proud to be the president of the state of Israel.
    • Moshe Katsav
  • Our Christian conviction is that Christ is also the messiah of Israel. Certainly it is in the hands of God how and when the unification of Jews and Christians into the people of God will take place.
  • We would like to have friendly regimes with enough broad participation of their populations to maintain long-term stability, so that we would have not only access to the region’s wealth, but we would be able to ensure the security of our good friend Israel.
    • Frank Carlucci
  • The U.S. and Israel probably lead the way in terms of venture investment in technologies companies focused on the security paradigm. That is quite encouraging.
    • John W. Thompson
  • In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
  • Israel has created a new image of the Jew in the world – the image of a working and an intellectual people, of a people that can fight with heroism.
    • David Ben-Gurion
  • There is no truth which the prophets press more steadily upon Israel than that all their national life lies in the sight and on the care of God.
    • George A. Smith
  • The United States is a strong and ardent ally of Israel. The fact of the matter is that friends can disagree. I think what’s important is that world leaders are able to sit down with one another, have frank conversations and move forward.
    • Valerie Jarrett
  • Most students have thoughts about emigrating to Israel. A significant number go on aliyah. We are proud of our Israel programs, which come at a considerable cost to the university.
  • Unprovoked attacks on Israel’s borders, murdering Israeli soldiers, taking Israeli hostages and showering rockets targeting and killing Israeli civilians are not furthering any legitimate goal.
    • Alcee Hastings
  • Israel is the canary in the mine. What happens to Israel will eventually happen to America itself.
  • Overwhelmingly, Israel’s political and military establishment want the rest of the world to act diplomatically or otherwise to stop Iran. But if that doesn’t happen, then the impulse toward the use of force will become quite strong.
  • As a result of the historic catastrophe in which Titus of Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Israel was exiled from its land, I was born in one of the cities of the Exile.
    • Shmuel Y. Agnon
  • I have also written a book about the Giving of the Torah, and a book on the Days of Awe, and a book on the books of Israel that have been written since the day the Torah was given to Israel.
    • Shmuel Y. Agnon
  • Israel’s capital will never again be a divided city, a city with a wall at its center, a city in which two flags fly. This city, will, in its entirety, absorb immigrants, welcome pilgrims and be the eternal capital of Israel forever.
    • Yitzhak Shamir
  • We have said that Israel has had a very bad history with the United Nations, and whoever cares for himself in Israel distances himself from that Organization.
    • Yitzhak Shamir
  • The driving force for the Arabs is hatred of Israel. Hatred of the Jewish people.
    • Yitzhak Shamir
  • There are plenty of opportunities for common grounds that we need to explore and strengthen. The Hispanic community has a strong affinity for our relationship with Israel.
    • Robert Menendez
  • The truth about Hamas and Islamic Jihad is that they don’t prevent Israel from existing or even flourishing, they prevent Palestine from coming into existence.
  • I’m absolutely convinced of that. Israel is the representative of the United States in that part of the world. Its policies are so integrated with American policies that they use the same language.
  • The Palestinian Authority refuses on an ongoing basis to take the necessary steps to prevent terrorists from getting into Israel.
    • David Baker
  • As Israel prepares to enter, my position is well known. It is one that I have taken at previous Olympics. It is wrong that the IOC refuses to have a minute’s silence for Israeli athletes that were slaughtered in Munich.
    • Brian Williams
  • I’ve always thought that if Israel really wanted to solve the problem, they’d just start tomorrow and push right to the Jordan River, and anything in their way goes. They don’t need America or someone else to help.
    • Bruce Dern
  • I’ve always been supportive of the right of Israel as a state, and I’ve always fought against anti-Semitism, even in my own community.
    • Harry Belafonte
  • Israel is one of the easiest places to play ball. When I say easy I am referring to the easy lifestyle an athlete has while in Israel. It’s very easy to get around the country, because it’s so small.
    • Michael Kennedy
  • Not only must Americans admire Israel, there can be no doubt that we have an interest in, and special responsibility for, that valiant nation.
    • George Ball
  • Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Arabs can be elected to the parliament in a democratic election.
    • Adam Michnik
  • The most important sign in Matthew has to be the restoration of the Jews to the land in the rebirth of Israel.
    • Hal Lindsey
[edit]
Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments3 people in discussion

People who visit WikiQuote come here for the quotes, those who want basic information go to Wikipedia. Every WikiQuote article is already connected via a link to Wikipedia.

So, why remove links to WikiQuote articles and replace then with with links to Wikipedia? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:13, 23 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I agree that links to related Wikiquote articles are a good idea; the way to do that is to put such links under "See also." The introductory section of an article is to give information about the topic, in this case, Israel. Links in the introductory section are to help clarify confusing aspects of the topic. HouseOfChange (talk) 20:33, 23 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Actually, it has been standard practice to link to WQ pages if appropriate (meaning that we don't need to link every word, but when there is a page worthy of linking, it is good to do so) and if they exist - if not, then link to WP pages. And there isn't really a problem with having such a link in the intro as well as in a See also section - the use of one does not preclude the other. ~ UDScott (talk) 20:59, 23 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
@UDScott: Although I don't think the one-quote WQ page Gaza is "a page worthy of linking," I yield to consensus that a link to it in the lead should replace a link to the relevant en-wiki article. HouseOfChange (talk) 22:16, 23 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Tangential/belong elsewhere

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Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments1 person in discussion
  • The Hamas attack... shook the Middle East and shattered many assumptions and misconceptions about the region. It’s not that Israel was shocked at the daring nature of the attack, but that Israel had long assumed that the Palestinian problem is dead and that there is no need to engage in a so-called peace process — even if managed by the U.S., the least neutral party in the Arab-Israeli conflict outside of Tel Aviv. Reflecting the belief in the death of Palestine as a question, the Biden administration was the first U.S. administration since Lyndon Johnson to not even attempt to launch a peace process regarding the Palestinian problem, demonstrating its belief that the issue is over.
    Joe Biden fully subscribed to the Jared Kushner school of thought and diplomacy, which believes Arabs don’t care anymore about Palestine and Israel can simply reach peace agreements with individual Arab states, after which Arab public opinion would follow. Little is being said about Biden adopting Kushner’s view of Middle East politics, which makes Palestine irrelevant in U.S. foreign policy in the region.
  • If you want to see the picture, you have to see whole picture, if you talked about violence, let's talk about 4000 Palestinians killed during the last five years while from Israeli side a few hundreds killed. So, if you want to talk about the violence and you called this violence "terrorism" Israel kills more, more Palestinian than Palestinian kills on Israel, Second, You have to see both sides. You talk about Hamas, what they did in Israel but don't talk about Israel and what they did in Palestinian Territories, and they commit assassinations from time to time and in public, they said "we're going to kill..." It's the whole picture. Anyway, doesn't matter what label we put, if you want to have the solution, we have to deal with the facts, not the terms. whether they are terrorists or not, this is not the problem. we have to deal with the facts, and the facts if you don't have peace, you will have more blood-letting
  • I myself tell people that Israel is the only place that Jews can live where they don't have always to be thinking about being Jewish. For, as you are aware, the practice of Judaism is, in practice, impractical for many of us Jews.
  • I am opposed to our keeping all of the West Bank. It's plain that the time has not yet come for Arabs and Jews to be together. All that I really want is to live in a Jewish State. It's a remarkable paradox: the Left is now for policies which would separate the communities while the very far Right, living right there in the occupied territories, are in reality working for integration. Left and Right have exchanged positions, turned completely around. A true paradox! But you know, all such abstractions are relative...(HC: Do you ever ponder what seems to have gone wrong here in Israel?) YA: Oh, I don't like to complain. We now have our Jewish State. The reality is far from the ideal. The Jewish people have married Israel, this land. But as in a real marriage, things have cooled down. Complaining about it sounds like an old man complaining about his age. An old couple should just live together. That's all. It is, after all, perfectly normal. We have, after all, passed the honeymoon stage, passed the romance, but this is, nonetheless, a true marriage. Such is my Zionism. I am, you see, beyond illusions. In America people, without the slightest intention of doing so, every year repeat "Next year in Jerusalem." Now that is what I call true cynicism.
  • Some of the students that come to me who are pro-Palestine – I say… don’t demonize Israelis and don’t demonize the Jewish people.
  • After I visited Israel, I understood the theology of Judaism and its mythology-better than I had before. I understood the great blackmail which has been imposed on the world not by the Jew but by the Christian. We fell for it, and the Jews fell for it. Let me put it this way. When I was in Israel I thought I liked Israel. I liked the people. But to me it was obvious why the Western world created the state of Israel, which is not really a Jewish state. The West needed a handle in the Middle East. And they created the state as a European pawn. It is tragic that the Jews should allow themselves to be used in this fashion, because no one cares what happens to the Jews. No one cares what is happening to the Arabs. But they do care about the oil. That part of the world is a crucial matter if you intend to rule the world. I'm not anti-Semitic at all, but I am anti-Zionist. I don't believe they had the right, after 3,000 years, to reclaim the land with Western bombs and guns on biblical injunction. When I was in Israel it was as though I was in the middle of The Fire Next Time.
    • 1970 interview in Conversations with James Baldwin (1989) -- trimmed
  • As the Liberty sat within eyeshot of El Arish, eavesdropping on surrounding communications, Israeli soldiers turned the town into a slaughterhouse, systematically butchering their prisoners... This and other war crimes were just some of the secrets Israel had sought to conceal... An essential element in the Israeli battle plan seemed to have been to hide much of the war behind a carefully constructed curtain of lies... Into this sea of deception and slaughter sailed the USS Liberty, an enormous spy factory loaded with the latest eavesdropping gear... the ship was a tired old second world war vessel crawling with antennae, and unthreatening to anyone - unless it was their secrets, not their lives, they wanted to protect... the Israeli navy and air force had conducted more than six hours of close surveillance of the Liberty off the Sinai and must have positively identified it as an American electronic spy ship. They knew she was the only military ship in the area. Nevertheless, the order was given to kill her and at 12.05 pm, three motor torpedo boats from the port of Ashdod, about 50 miles away, departed. Israeli air force fighters, loaded with 50mm cannon ammunition, rockets and napalm, followed. Without warning, the Israeli jets - swept-wing Dassault Mirage IIICs - struck. On board Liberty, Lieutenant Painter observed that the aircraft had "absolutely no markings", their identity unclear.
  • According to NSA documents - classified top secret... some senior officials in Washington wanted above all to protect Israel from embarrassment over the USS Liberty incident. "Captain Vineyard had mentioned during this conversation," wrote Tordella, "that consideration was then being given by some unnamed Washington authorities to sink[ing] the Liberty in order that newspaper men would be unable to photograph her and thus inflame public opinion against the Israelis... "
  • A lesson we ignore at our peril is that oppression undermines not only the rights, dignity, and lives of the oppressed but eventually the security of the oppressors as well. The apartheid system that’s been suffocating Palestinians for so long is now also undermining the safety of Israeli civilians.
  • Since 2007, Gazans have lived under siege, prohibited from leaving their open-air prison by a high-security militarized wall and platoons of Israeli soldiers. For the last 16 years, starting long before the latest escalation, access to most goods was banned. Gazans couldn’t even get construction materials to repair the homes, hospitals, water treatment facilities, and places or worship that Israel bombed repeatedly — in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2021. Israel often denied emergency medical permits to leave the Strip, leaving many Gazans to die without care. Electricity was already limited. A 72-year-old woman in Gaza told a reporter last January, “It is hard to imagine, but we used to experience 24 hours of electricity each day in Gaza; now we are lucky if we get six.” Now there is none. Water was already unavailable except through expensive purchases from Israeli water companies. And food has long been scarce — by the age of two, 20 percent of Gaza’s children are already stunted. On October 9, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called for a “total siege” of Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas — it’s all closed,” he said. For Gaza’s already impoverished and malnourished population, that’s not just collective punishment — it’s genocide ... If we’re serious about preventing violence, we need to change the conditions from which this brutality sprang. Sending more bombs, warplanes, guns and bullets won’t solve the problem.
  • Israel has fought one battle after another, clinging to survival in the decades after its people were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. But the story of self-determination and Arab-Israeli conflicts spills out far beyond the borders of the Middle East. Israel wasn’t just the site of regional disputes—it was a Cold War satellite, wrapped up in the interests of the Soviets and the Americans.
    The U.S.S.R. started exerting regional influence in a meaningful way in 1955, when it began supplying Egypt with military equipment. The next year, Britain and the U.S. withdrew financing for Egypt’s Aswan High Dam project over the country’s ties with the U.S.S.R. That move triggered the Suez Crisis of 1956, in which Egypt, with the support of the USSR, nationalized the Suez Canal, which had previously been controlled by French and British interests.
  • What has been lost during these decades throughout the Islamic world is the view of the man and woman on the street and children in the madrasahs that United States is an honest broker for peace. Having worked throughout the Islamic world for over 35 years, it is a tragedy that this has occurred, but when successive Presidents and other high ranking officials ask Israel not to expand settlements yet hardly voice a “public squeak” of opprobrium let alone some real expression of disapproval (such as a curtailment of military assistance, rescinding favorable trade provisions, etc.) when Israel continues to do so, what is the Islamic World to think about the even handedness of U.S. policy?
  • Israel will never find peace until it is willing to withdraw from its neighbors’ land and to permit the Palestinians to exercise their basic human and political rights... The current policies are leading toward an immoral outcome that is undermining Israel’s standing in the world and is not bringing security to the people of Israel.... These same premises, of recognizing Israel, acceptance of all past agreements, and the rejection of violence, will have to be accepted by Hamas and any government that represents the Palestinians. The long-term prospects are not discouraging... an overwhelming majority of Palestinians and Israelis support peace for Israel based on the acceptance of Israel of its international borders with some modifications, with justice and peace for the Palestinians. An early exchange of the three Israeli soldiers for some of the 10,000 Palestinian prisoners will expedite the peace process.
  • Whereas Western figures consistently claim that the radical Right national-religious movement does not "represent Judaism", the other, equally authentic side to the Judaic ‘story’ is the obverse.
What are the reasons for this shift? Part of it, has to do with the increased influence of national-religious sentiment as the Occupation grew into a broad-based subculture of Israeli society. The settler movement is more than simply the aggregate of those living in settlement homes: It includes an intellectual and educational framework; a vision of Zionism as Greater "Israel" - or of what Chaim Gans calls, “proprietary Zionism” – i.e. one which sees the land -- from the river to the sea -- belonging exclusively to the Jews.
  • It is outrageous that the state of Israel uses the carceral technologies developed in relation to US prisons not only to control the more than eight thousand Palestinian political prisoners in Israel but also to control the broader Palestinian population. These carceral technologies, for example, the separation wall, which reminds us of the US-Mexico border wall, and other carceral technologies are the material constructs of Israeli apartheid.
    • Angela Davis Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (2015)
  • We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is a Jewish state here. In considerable areas of the country we bought lands from the Arabs. Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist; not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahalal arose in the place of Mahalul, Gevat — in the place of Jibta, Sarid — in the place of Haneifs and Kefar Yehoshua — in the place of Tell Shaman. There is no one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.
  • I urge Israel to cease demolitions and evictions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, in line with its obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law. All settlement activities, including evictions and demolitions, are illegal under international law. A revitalized peace process is the only route to a just and lasting solution...Only through renewing our commitment and redoubling our efforts towards a negotiated solution can we bring this cruel violence and hatred to a definitive end.
    • António Guterres, Secretary-General’s Remarks to the General Assembly Meeting on the Situation in the Middle East and Palestine, United Nations Secretary-General, Statements (20 May 2021)
  • Israel is wrongly described as the Middle East’s only democracy — for whom? Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian attorney and citizen of Israel, spoke to “Democracy Now!” from Haifa, explaining, “about 16% of the people who are eligible to vote are Palestinians who are citizens of Israel. Look at the vast remainder of people that Israel controls … in the West Bank, in the Gaza Strip or in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem. Close to 6 million individuals who are ineligible to vote in Israeli elections, and yet are being governed by Israel”...Justice and security for Palestinians will only enhance security for Israel. Stifling speech, blocking travel and violating human rights won’t bring peace. A negotiated settlement will.
  • Israeli society has always been very practical, very goal-oriented. A certain kind of egotism, self-centeredness goes with this a lack of empathy. The first of the new settlers who came here came voluntarily, like yourself. People tend to forget the difference between this and the postwar, more practical aliya. In order to start again in this land, the idealists wanted to forget, to obliterate their past. But when you amputate your past, you pay a price. Part of that is the failure of empathy.
  • (HC: What is your feeling about the current role of women in Israeli society?) SH: For myself, I have always done just what I wanted. I do have a sense that in Israel this is really less of a problem than in the United States. After all, in periods of emergency our women have always carried a heavy responsibility and functioned in most capacities in what still is, in some ways, a pioneer country. That makes it very hard to deny us appropriate roles. Moreover, it springs right from the Jewish family tradition of women serving as breadwinners while their husbands study. I know that Israeli society is famous for being rather macho. But my experience is that any woman who has something to say is listened to.
  • On June 8, 1967, an Israeli torpedo tore through the side of the unarmed American naval vessel USS Liberty, approximately a dozen miles off the Sinai coast. The ship, whose crew was under command of the National Security Agency, was intercepting communications at the height of the Six-Day War when it came under direct Israeli aerial and naval assault...
    The Six-Day War between Israel and its neighbors Jordan, Syria, and Egypt was a conflict that the United States chose to stay out of... The countries directly involved were left to fend for themselves in what proved to be an overwhelming military and territorial victory for Israel — one that doubled the fledgling country’s size in less than a week.
    Though the United States refused to intervene on behalf of its ally, it was nevertheless eavesdropping on Israeli military communications during war. There, according to Bamford, lies the rub: Over the course of Israel’s remarkable territorial acquisition and military victory, it allegedly committed a war crime by slaughtering Egyptian prisoners of war in the city of El Arish in the northern Sinai.
  •  

I am a Jew and want to live in a Jewish state. This is my inalienable right, the same as the right of a Ukrainian to live in Ukraine, the right of a Russian to live in Russia, the right of a Georgian to live in Georgia. I want to live in Israel. This is my dream, this is the goal not only of my life, but of the lives of hundreds of generations of my forerunners… I want my children to learn Hebrew, I want to read Hebrew newspapers, I want to go to the Jewish theater. What's bad in this? Where am I to blame? .. As long as I'm alive, I will devote all my efforts to obtaining permission to leave for Israel. And if you see fit to put me in jail, it won't change anything for me. And if I live to see my release, I will be ready to go to the homeland of my ancestors, even if for this I need to go by foot — Cited here by Yuli Kosharkovsky.

  — Kievan Jew Boris Kochubievsky, in a letter to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev after having been refused permission to leave for Israel, November 1968. For this prose, he was awarded with 3 years in a penal labor colony.
  • One of the things that scares me is the global rise of right-wing movements in the United States, Europe and Israel. The American alt-right is in dialogue with similar movements in Israel, and this might pose a danger to both Israelis and Americans.
  • For some, the symbolic gesture of unequivocally supporting Israel (morally and/or financially) has been the core and sole expression of Jewish identity. As they begin-with great resistance and probably in secrecy-to question that support, they find themselves unable to define their Jewishness, particularly if they are not observant. Other Jews, active for the first time on a "Jewish" issue by opposing Israeli government policies, are also struggling to define their Jewishness and explain their emotional involvement with a country which, until now, they never identified with. The "far away" crisis is triggering the recognition of an emptiness in the Jewish self.
    • Irena Klepfisz "Khaloymes/Dreams in Progress: Culture, Politics, and Jewish Identity" in Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches and Diatribes (1990)
  • [P]eople misunderstand Israel, and see it now in colonial, imperialist terms is because it’s a unique event in human history. The British colonization of North America, New Zealand, Australia, the Dutch in South Africa, they came to places that they had never been to. That’s colonialism. You put your people in there. You takeover. You marginalize the natives if you can. You may not succeed. In South Africa, that’s colonialism. So they see the Jews arriving in what’s called Palestine, and that’s the parallel, the only one they understand. They can’t put their heads around the fact that this is a people returning to their home. That they never gave up title to. They never gave up their longing for. It was repeated in their rituals three times a day, it wasn’t like once a year, let’s remember the homeland.
  • In recent years, the identification of many U.S. nationalist people of color with Palestinian liberation and the failure of the U.S.-Jewish community as a whole to take a firm stand against racist and colonialist Israeli policies have been added factors in obscuring places of potential alliance.
  • That’s so astonishing that we are now the fifth day after the war, and you don’t see the government. They are still preoccupied with their own political careers, with all kind of political manipulations. Nobody takes care of the situation. The army is preparing itself for a ground operation. But except of the army — I was in so many homes which were bombed, so many people who lost their beloved one. Nobody came to them. Nobody offers them any assistance.
    Israel is really falling apart, from this point of view. And the man who governed Israel for the last 15 years is the one, and the only one, to be blamed, before anyone else. This goes without saying. And I guess at six after the war, as we say, million Israelis will go to the streets, and they will have only one demand: At least, Netanyahu, go home. If not, Netanyahu, go to court and be sentenced for this irresponsible policy that you have been committing.
  • This vicious circle will not be solved by power, not be solved by tanks, and not will be — nor will it be solved by troops, only by political agreement and, above all and first of all, lifting this criminal siege, for God’s sake, after 17 years. This siege, what it was about, to guarantee the security of Israel. So, what happened out of the siege except of the suffer of — unbelievable inhuman suffer of 2 million people? What did it contribute to the security of Israel, this siege? You see the outcome.
  • The Balkans have had, in Winston Churchill’s marvellous phrase, more history than they can consume. New nations have worried that they do not have enough. When Israel came into existence in 1948, it was, despite the long connection of Jews with Palestine, a new state. With immigrants from all over Europe, and, increasingly, by the 1950s from the Middle East, building a strong national identity was essential if Israel itself were to survive. It was difficult to identify shared customs and culture. What did a Jew from Egypt have in common with one from Poland? Nor was religion a sufficient basis; many Zionists were resolutely non-religious. Although Hebrew was reviving, it had not yet produced a national literature. That gave history particular significance as a glue. In its declaration of independence, Israel called on the past to justify its existence. The land was the historic birthplace of the Jewish people: “After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration of their political freedom.” More recent history became part of the story, too. The Jews had managed to return in great numbers: “They made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community, controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country’s inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.”
  • In 1953, the Israeli Knesset passed a law to commemorate the Holocaust (Yad Vashem) and the State Education Law. Their author was the minister of education and culture, Ben-Zion Dinur, who had been active as a Zionist educator and politician long before Israel’s independence. His view of history was rooted in the need to build an Israeli consciousness. “The ego of a nation,” he declared in the Knesset, “exists only to the extent that it has a memory, to the extent that the nation knows how to combine its past experiences into a single entity.” For Dinur and those who supported him (and many both on the left and the right did not), that meant teaching Israelis that there was and always had been an Israeli nation, that it had survived the long centuries of exile, and that it had always been focused on getting back to its lost lands. Israel therefore was the heir and the culmination of a long historical process. Dinur’s view has been much criticized for leaving out religion, for example, in the definition of Jewishness and for presenting an oversimplified view of Jewish history, but it has been very influential in Israeli schools. A study of textbooks used between 1900 and 1984 found that, increasingly as time went on, Jewish history was presented in terms of the establishment of Israel, that, among Jews in exile, the Zionist dream of a Jewish state was “the strongest and oldest” movement.
  • Israel's occupation of the West Bank is illegal under international law.... "The study concludes that Israel is in gross violation of these laws and that the administration of the occupation has become illegal," Michael Lynk, the UN's former special rapporteur on Palestine, told the committee, unveiling the study. Because the occupation is illegal, the consequences should be the immediate, unconditional complete withdrawal of Israel's military forces, the withdrawal of colonial settlers, the repeal of all discriminatory laws and dismantling of the military administrative regime, he said.
  • Whether by Sweden's foreign minister condemning Israel merely for defending its citizens from terror, or France's foreign minister threatening to recognize Palestine unless Israel participates in his conference to recognize Palestine, Europe seems obsessed with Jews. Unfortunately, that obsession, characterized by the singling out and demonizing Jews while embracing their murderers, keeps European anti-Semitism thriving.
  • Especially from the 1920s onward, women's poetry in Israel has become increasingly a force to be reckoned with.
    • Alicia Ostriker Forward to The Defiant Muse: Hebrew Feminist Poems from Antiquity to the Present: A Bilingual Anthology (1999)
  • The way the people in Nicaragua can separate the people of the US from the government. And that is partly a result of a decision by the Left. It's not just a strategy decision, it's true. It's a decision which the Left made in Vietnam, which was to divide the country. A very sensible, simple thing to do, to see us as opposed to the government. True too. It did not weaken the people of Nicaragua or Vietnam. So, I've never understood why my sisters and brothers on the Left haven't been able to do the same in relation to Israel. And if they'd done it a long time ago. I think things could have been different. If they had pointed out again and again: the people and the government, I mean, the difference at that time. A big majority of the American people were not yet against the war in Vietnam when the Vietnamese said, "We know you're not the government." There were maybe nine people on assorted street corners in '62, '63, '64 and the Vietnamese were already talking like that, right? So it's not as if you would have had to say the majority of the people in Israel are against this. Enough of them were in opposition. Why it wasn't done I-I know why it wasn't done. (Why?) Anti-Semitism. [all laugh knowingly]
  • Israel never strived for a decisive victory in Gaza. While it could militarily defeat Hamas, Israel could not overthrow Hamas without risking the possibility that a more radical organization would govern Gaza. Nor did Israel want to be responsible for governing Gaza in a postconflict power vacuum.
  • Israel’s staunchest political and military ally is and always has been the U.S. The U.S. government has blocked, along with Israel, almost every U.N. resolution that sought a peaceful, equitable solution to the conflict. When Israel attacks Palestine, it is American missiles that smash through Palestinian homes. And every year Israel receives several billion dollars from the United States – taxpayers money.
  • September 11th has a tragic resonance in the Middle East, too. On the 11th of September 1922, ignoring Arab outrage, the British government proclaimed a mandate in Palestine, a follow-up to the 1917 Balfour Declaration which imperial Britain issued, with its army massed outside the gates of Gaza. The Balfour Declaration promised European Zionists a national home for Jewish people. (At the time, the Empire on which the Sun Never Set was free to snatch and bequeath national homes like a school bully distributes marbles.)

Arundhati Roy, Come September Speech, Santa Fe, NM, (29 Sep 2002)

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  • In 1937, Winston Churchill said of the Palestinians, I quote, “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.” That set the trend for the Israeli State’s attitude towards the Palestinians. In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said, “Palestinians do not exist.” Her successor, Prime Minister Levi Eschol said, “What are Palestinians? When I came here (to Palestine), there were 250,000 non-Jews, mainly Arabs and Bedouins. It was a desert, more than underdeveloped. Nothing.” Prime Minister Menachem Begin called Palestinians “two-legged beasts.” Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called them “grasshoppers” who could be crushed. This is the language of Heads of State, not the words of ordinary people.
  • In 1947, the U.N. formally partitioned Palestine and allotted 55 per cent of Palestine’s land to the Zionists. Within a year, they had captured 76 per cent. On the 14th of May 1948 the State of Israel was declared. Minutes after the declaration, the United States recognized Israel.
  • For a long time I didn’t write about Israel at all. It’s such a volatile place and people have such strong opinions and everything you write about Israel is perceived as political...
  • The report concludes by saying that some of the Israeli government policies and actions may constitute “elements” of crimes under international criminal law, including the war crime of transferring part of your own civilian population into occupied territory. “The actions of Israeli Governments reviewed in our report, constitute an illegal occupation and annexation regime that must be addressed,” said Commissioner Chris Sidoti.
  • I am deeply alarmed by developments in Gaza after Israel launched a military operation this morning targeting members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement (PIJ), said Tor Wennesland the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. Persistent drivers of conflict, including school demolitions, breed a climate of mistrust and tension between Palestinians and Israelis and undermine the prospect of achieving a political solution, he said. ... The demolition followed an Israeli court order citing safety concerns in response to a petition by a settler organization. Currently, 58 schools, serving 6,500 children, face the threat of demolition due to a lack of building permits that are almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain, Mr. Wennesland said. A child’s right to education must be respected, he said, calling on Israeli authorities to cease such demolitions and evictions, which are illegal under international law
  • The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process on Wednesday expressed deep concern over the relentless expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. During the last three months, more than 10,000 housing units were advanced...“Settlements further entrench the occupation, fuel violence, impede Palestinian access to their land and resources, and systematically erode the viability of a Palestinian State as part of a two-State solution”, the senior envoy said. “I call on the Government of Israel to cease all settlement activity and dismantle outposts immediately, in line with its obligations under international law,” he added.. Mr. Wennesland also expressed concern over escalating violence in the occupied West Bank and Israel, at levels not seen in decades.... Palestinians, including children, were killed or injured during demonstrations, clashes, security operations, and attacks, while Israelis, including members of the security forces, suffered casualties also.
  • UN humanitarians expressed deep concern on Friday for all civilians in the Gaza Strip following Israel’s order for the entire population there to leave the north, amid ongoing airstrikes and a deepening humanitarian crisis. The development follows an announcement by UN Spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, just before midnight Eastern Standard Time on Thursday, that UN representatives in Gaza had been “informed by their liaison officers in the Israeli military” that everyone living north of Wadi Gaza should relocate to southern Gaza within 24 hours. Some 1.1 million people would be expected to leave northern Gaza, Mr. Dujarric said, adding that the same order applied to all UN staff and those sheltered in UN facilities, including schools, health centres and clinics. The UN considers it “impossible” for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences and appeals for the order to be rescinded, Mr. Dujarric said. Echoing that message, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) joined the call for Israel to rescind the relocation order, which amounted to a “death sentence” for many, said WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Press Release, quoted in Gaza: UN experts decry bombing of hospitals and schools as crimes against humanity, call for prevention of genocide, (19 October 2023)

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  • UN experts today expressed outrage against the deadly strike at Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, which killed more than 470 civilians on Tuesday and trapped hundreds under the rubble. The strike reportedly followed two warnings issued by Israel that an attack on the hospital was imminent if people inside were not evacuated.
  • “The strike against Al Ahli Arab Hospital is an atrocity. We are equally outraged by the deadly strike on the same day on an UNRWA school located in Al Maghazi refugee camp that sheltered some 4000 displaced people, as well as two densely populated refugee camps,” the experts said.
  • There is an ongoing campaign by Israel resulting in crimes against humanity in Gaza. Considering statements made by Israeli political leaders and their allies, accompanied by military action in Gaza and escalation of arrests and killing in the West Bank, there is also a risk of genocide against the Palestine people
  • An estimated 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, are in desperate need of prenatal and postnatal care. The number of internally displaced people across the Gaza Strip is estimated at around one million.
  • The unlawful denial of humanitarian access and depriving civilians of objects indispensable to their survival are also a violation of international humanitarian law, the experts warned.
  • "The complete siege of Gaza coupled with unfeasible evacuation orders and forcible population transfers, is a violation of international humanitarian and criminal law. It is also unspeakably cruel,” the experts said.
  • Israel is not consistent in its new anti-apartheid attitude... they took Israel away from the Arabs after the Arabs lived there for a thousand years. In that, I agree with them. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.
    • H.F. Verwoerd, as quoted in The Empire's New Walls: Sovereignty, Neo-liberalism, and the Production of Space in Post-apartheid South Africa and Post-Oslo Palestine/Israel., by Andrew James Clarno (2009), pp. 66–67
  • Israel has given Jews something whose lack cost millions of lives: a place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. These days, however, the Israeli government seems to believe that, far from the state's existing to insure the survival of Jews, Jews exist to insure the survival of the state…Of course, if Israel is to survive it needs people. But if it can't motivate enough Jews to go because they want to be there, its problem goes much deeper than a lack of bodies. And the fact is that the social and economic consequences of the occupation and the Lebanon war have not only made Israel a place fewer Jews want to go, but a place more and more want to leave. At the same time, despite the government's professed desire for more immigration from the Soviet Union and the U.S., it is doing its best to make life in Israel unattractive to the educated, secular-minded Jews of those countries by rewarding the militant nationalism of the religious right with increasing deference to its theocratic agenda. For Orthodox fundamentalists intent on getting religious law enforced by the state and imposing traditional religious values on a predominantly secular culture, their secularist opponents are in some sense not really Jews. Rather, they are carriers of alien and subversive modern values. The worm, as it were, in the apple of the Jewish nation. The right-wing religious parties have instigated the most serious challenge yet to the concept of Israel as a haven for Jews-their campaign to amend the Law of Return, which grants Jewish immigrants automatic citizenship, to include a religious definition of who is a Jew.
    • Ellen Willis “What the Pollard Case Means to Jews” (1987) included in No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays (1992)
  • The founding of the state of Israel and its startling rise to military dominance unsettled the Arab identity. In the low condition the Arabs found themselves in, they looked upon Israel and recalled the time when the Prophet Mohammed had subjugated the Jews of Medina. They thought about the great wave of Muslim expansion at the point of Arab spears and swords, and they were humbled by the contrast of their proud martial past and their miserable present. History was reversing itself; the Arabs were as fractious and disorganized and marginal as they had been during the jahiliyyah times. Even the Jews dominated them. The voice in the mosque said that the Arabs had let go of the one weapon that gave them real power: faith. Restore the fervor and purity of the religion that had made the Arabs great, and God would once again take their side.
    • Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (2006), p 46
  • the foundation of the State of Israel which creates all sorts of contradictions and mixed emotions among a lot of longtime anarchists, who in many cases saw no alternative for Jewish survival as much as they were anti-statist, and hoped that somehow this experiment might move in that direction, that the kibbutzim in particular might help steer this new Jewish territory in a non-statist direction. Of course, that did not ultimately happen.
  • Israel has killed the two-state solution. That is why we must adopt a new strategy, and find a new partner for that strategy in Israeli society. We must kill the occupation and the [sense of] separation in the Israeli consciousness: The separation of people from one another is a question of consciousness. We must never return to this failed pattern of thinking. The future will not change if we continue to think with the same concepts of the past. The solution is a single state. If we believe we have a right to this land and the Israelis believe they are the ones who have a right to this land, we must build a new model. If both of us believe that God gave us this land, we must put history aside and begin to think about the future in different terms.
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