Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There are roughly 22,000 Palestinians working side by side with what you call settlers in factories and malls in the West Bank. If you work together, you start understanding each other.
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?'
I believe the Israelis have been wronged, but they also have a lot to apologize for. And I believe the Palestinians have been wronged, but they have a lot to apologize for, as well.
Every administration has this idea to talk tough to Israel and make nice to the Arabs and the Palestinians, and that's the way to bring about peace. It's counter-productive - it's actually the opposite.
I would like Israel to be a Jewish state, and therefore not to annex over 2 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Israel, which will make Israel a bi-national state.
If the Palestinians will one day decide to wake up and join a diplomatic process that is being carried out with the support of countries in the region, with international support - welcome. But I'm not waiting.
My view is to try and not demonize the Palestinians. I'm not denying that there are Palestinians who fire rockets and do terrible things; I know that that happens. But to get a fundamental solution, you have to have hope on both sides.
Palestinians also have a right not to have their homes demolished because an occupying power refuses to grant them a permit. Palestinian children should not be shot at or arrested in the middle of the night and interrogated by the Israeli military while terrified and isolated.
Jordan is the only Arab state that has provided citizenship to Palestinian refugees and integrated them. But something has to be done about the Palestinians living in refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon.
In the interest of full disclosure, let me state that I hate Hamas. They embody everything that I, as a human being, am fighting against: oppression, religious rule, and patriarchy. They empower Israel while dividing the Palestinians.
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.
Peace with the Palestinians will open ports of peace all around the Mediterranean. The duty of leaders is to pursue freedom ceaselessly, even in the face of hostility, in the face of doubt and disappointment. Just imagine what could be.
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.
Most of the approaches to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, have been directed at trying to resolve the most complex problems, like refugees and Jerusalem, which is akin to building the pyramid from the top down.
No doubt Israel and America have made mistakes in the Middle East. Certainly, Israel was born at the price of considerable dislocation and suffering on the part of the Palestinians. And yes, there will never be a satisfying answer for this.
You want a political culture that works to create conditions under which an economy can thrive? Since signing the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, Israel has spent two decades working to unshackle its economy from its socialist roots, with remarkable results.
I think it is essential for Israel's survival as a Jewish and democratic state that we end the status quo. The preferred way to end the status quo would be on the basis of a two-state solution. We don't want the Palestinians to be citizens of Israel, nor do we want them to be subjects.
The Israelis and the Palestinians don't know each other. They live right there, but they've become strangers. And it makes it much more difficult to make peace with a person you really don't know, and that's an obstacle in itself.
The western mantra is that Israel seeks negotiations without preconditions, while the Palestinians refuse. The opposite is more accurate.
Toward the Palestinians, Israel can only give. But when dealing with the entire Arab world, Israel can get a lot.
The reason for the blockade on Gaza was not to punish the Palestinians but to continue to delegitimize Hamas.
The Palestinians have tried everything, and by God, it's Israel's governments that taught us that the only thing the Israelis appreciate is force.
The Fayyad cabinet may well be the best the Palestinians ever get. But whatever its good qualities, there is no democracy.
It is because I recognize the brutality with which my own multi-branched ancestors have been treated that I can identify the despicable, lawless, cruel, and sadistic behavior that has characterized Israel's attempts to erase a people, the Palestinians, from their own land.
We have to serve God or guarantee the safety of the Jews. And this can be done by them accepting the Palestinians, recognizing the Palestinians, accepting that fact that they should live with the Palestinians in one state, together. Unfortunately, the Jews are fighting or struggling against their own friend - the Arabs.
What you have in the Middle East is tension not between Jews and Arabs, not between Israelis and Palestinians, but between the radical wing and the moderate people.
The establishment of Israel was accompanied by much pain and suffering and a real trauma for the Palestinians.
It is in Israel's interest not to govern the Palestinians but for the Palestinians to govern themselves in their own state.
There's no preventative measure between the Palestinians, between those terrorists to the state of Israel.
Doesn't the world see the suffering of millions of Palestinians who have been living in exile around the world or in refugee camps for the past 60 years? No state, no home, no identity, no right to work. Doesn't the world see this injustice?
Why doesn't anyone remember that the Palestinians already had four real opportunities to establish their state, yet each time they preferred to revert to terrorism?
Through Hamas, Iran has been able to buy itself a seat on the table in talking about the Palestinian issue. And, as a result, through Hamas it does play a role in the issue of the Palestinians, as strange as that should sound.
There is nothing that I'd love to do more than negotiate with Palestinians. This is my desire. This is my dream. This is my mission.
There's 2 million Palestinians that govern themselves. They have their own parliament, their own government, their own elections, their own tax system. I don't want to govern the Palestinians; no one does. They already govern themselves.
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.
The mortal mind alone cannot devise an answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because the true answer lies on a level of consciousness that's beyond our mortal thinking. Quite simply, when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, we need a miracle.
You can set up whatever negotiations or structure you want, but until the Palestinians are willing to accept the fact, as the majority of Israelis do, that there should be two states between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, we won't have peace.
Let the Palestinians run their affairs: create a situation in which no Israeli soldier will have to maintain public order, whether in Gaza or the West Bank. Let's give it to the Palestinians, as long as there is security for us. No more occupying another people.
I saw it with my own eyes: Israelis and Palestinians, arm in arm, walking off together and clearly pricing how you could get your truck to the top of the line or get it through at all. It was an absolutely transparently corrupt system at the border - you had to buy your truck's way across. I thought it was a disgrace.
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.
The Israeli government has proved over the past year its commitment to peace, both in words and deeds. By contrast, the Palestinians are posing preconditions for renewing the diplomatic process in a way they have not done over the course of 16 years.
I think the Obama administration, whether it's in his first term or second term, is totally committed to the search for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and we greatly appreciate the president's effort, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the first administration, now Secretary of State John Kerry.
The crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and elsewhere, particularly Lebanon, are so shocking that the only emotionally valid reaction is rage and a call for extreme actions. But that does not help the victims. And, in fact, it's likely to harm them.
Who can guarantee that if we allow the Palestinians to establish a state, we won't find rockets there as well, half a mile from the airport or 10 miles from Tel Aviv?
Hamas does not represent the national aspirations of the Palestinians. It represents extreme Islamic ideas, which they share with Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria.
What kind of people will these ghettos of Palestinians produce? What form of morality, national consciousness and hope will people be left with after so many years of stifling occupation and a sense of hopelessness?
Arab states continue to send the Palestinians gifts of extravagant rhetoric and countless Arab League resolutions - but not much cash.
Any political process has to secure an improvement in the Palestinians' quality of life and education. Attempts to bring about a political arrangement before securing peace to the Israelis and economic improvement for the Palestinians are likely to fail.
The relationship between the Jews and Arabs is necessary to help build a bridge between Israelis and Palestinians.
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.