Equality is my right; I refuse to be simply tolerated. -- Azmi Bishara, The Palestinians of Israel
The problem is when you know the truth, it is far too much to describe, far too cruel...far too diametrically opposite what we used to think and what everyone still thinks to express. It is hard not to sound fanatic, over-wrought, biased. The lie is too big, the repression to complete, the Palestinians' lives too horrible to write about reasonably. --Alison Weir, Gaza: A Report from the Front
When the voice at the other end of the phone said "Shalom" I said "Shalom" back out of courtesy. I was left with a nasty feeling, a feeling that I had been somehow complicit. For the remaining seven calls I would respond with "Good morning/evening." When the Israeli army of occupation has been removed from the streets of Palestine, I will say "Shalom" to a Jewish visitor to the Holy Land as I would join my hands and bow my hand to an Indian one. --Adhaf Soueif, "Under the Gun: A Palestinian Journey," 54
My sympathy [for the Jews] does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine...Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home. 194 of The New Intifada