Israeli–Palestinian conflict

TheIsraeli–Palestinian conflictis an ongoing military and political conflict aboutlandandself-determinationwithin the territory of the formerMandatory Palestine.Key aspects of the conflict include theIsraeli occupation of the West BankandGaza Strip,thestatus of Jerusalem,Israeli settlements,borders, security, water rights, thepermit regime,Palestinian freedom of movement,and thePalestinian right of return.

What do the Palestinians have to do to the Holocaust to pay the price? This is one question we asked. ~Bashar al-Assad

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. "~Bashar al-Assad

Quotes

• There are two interrelated obstacles to permanent peace in theMiddle East:Some Israelis believe they have the right to confiscate and colonize Palestinian land and try to justify the sustained subjugation and persecution of increasingly hopeless and aggravated Palestinian and Some Palestinians react by honoringsuicide bombersas martyrs to be rewarded in heaven and consider the killing of Israelis as victories.
  • Jimmy CarterinPalestine Peace Not Apartheid(2006)

• Israel will never find peace until it is willing to withdraw from its neighbors’ land and to permit the Palestinians to exercise their basichuman 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.
  • Jimmy CarterinPalestine Peace Not Apartheid(2006)

• I know the difference between the world as we wish it to be and the world as it is. The world as it is, is a divided Palestinian people, a place that allows rockets to be launched from apartment buildings, a place for amosquesare weapon storage sites, a place whereschoolchildrenare taughthate-- that's the world as it is.
  • Lindsey Graham,Speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee,delivered 22 March 2010

• There are monsters among us. Every day I read about an American “plan” to either invade some place new or to otherwise inflict pain to convince a “non-compliant” foreign government how to behave. [...] Just as often, one learns about a new atrocity by Israelis inflicted on the defenselessArabsjust because they have the power to do so. Last Friday inGazatheIsraeli armyshot and killed four unarmed demonstrators and injured 300 more while the Jewish state’s police invaded a Palestinian orphanage school in occupied Jerusalem and shut it down because the students were celebrating a “Yes to peace, no to war”poetryfestival.Peaceis not in the Israeli authorized curriculum.
  • Philip Giraldi,"Monsters Walk the Earth. Why These Three Countries Are the Real Troika of Evil",The Council for the American Interest(June 27, 2019)

• The history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the history of two societies in extreme distress: anyone who speaks only of the anguish of the Israelis is not telling the whole truth, nor is anyone who speaks only of the misery of the Palestinians...More than anything, we must understand that this was not a battle ofstrengthagainst strength, but ofweaknessagainst weakness; throughout the wholeArab-Israeli conflict,each side has felt itself to be far weaker than its opponent, and acted accordingly. We must understand that there was no "Jewish justice," asGolda Meirsaid in one of her less sterling moments, nor was there "Arab justice," a claim that also has proponents; rather, there were two deep traumas, on which a completely new life, a different world, new hope must be built.
  • Shulamith Hareven"No One Asked the Medics" inThe Vocabulary of Peace: Life, Culture, and Politics in the Middle East(1995)

• I find that no other question so much reminds me ofF. Scott Fitzgeraldand his aphorism about the necessity of living with flat-outcontradiction.Do I sometimes wish thatTheodor HerzlandChaim Weizmannhad never persuaded either theJewsor thegentilesto create a quasi-utopianfarmer-and-workerstate at the eastern end of theMediterranean?Yes. Do I wish that the Israeli air force could find and destroy all the arsenals ofHezbollahandHamasandIslamic Jihad?Yes. Do I think it ridiculous thatVienneseandRussianandGermanscholarsanddoctorsshould have vibrated to the mad rhythms ofancientso-calledpropheciesrather than helping tosecularizeandreformtheir own societies? Definitely. Do I feel horror and disgust at the thought that a whole new generation ofArabPalestiniansis being born into thedispossessionand/oroccupationalready suffered by their grandparents and even great-grandparents? Absolutely, I do.
  • Christopher Hitchens,"Can Israel survive for another 60 years?,"12 May 2008, Slate.com

• I came here tonight to talk about the agreement and security that are broad consensus within Israeli society. This is what guides our policy. This policy must take into account the international situation. We have to recognize international agreements but also principles important to the State of Israel. I spoke tonight about the first principle - recognition. Palestinians must truly recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. The second principle is demilitarization. Any area in Palestinian hands has to be demilitarization, with solid security measures. Without this condition, there is a real fear that there will be an armed Palestinian state which will become a terrorist base against Israel, as happened in Gaza. We do not want missiles onPetah Tikva,or Grads on the Ben-Gurion international airport. We want peace.
  • Benjamin Netanyahu,Speech atBar-Ilan University,as quoted in"Full text of Netanyahu's foreign policy speech at Bar Ilan" inHaaretz(June 14, 2009)

• I urge the Israeli authorities to abide by the laws governing armed conflict, including the proportionate use of force. I call on them to exercise maximum restraint in the conduct of military operations. I likewise urge Hamas and other militant groups to stop the indiscriminate launching of rockets and mortars from highly populated civilian neighbourhoods into civilian population centres in Israel, also in clear violation ofinternational humanitarian law.Densely populated civilian areas must not be used for military purposes.
  • Antonio Guterres,Secretary-General’s Remarks to the General Assembly Meeting on the Situation in the Middle East and Palestine, United Nations Secretary-General, Statements, (May 20, 2021)

• The Arabs had lost Palestine, it was a catastrophe, anakba,as it became known. Several hundred thousand Palestinians had to flee, within the country or into neighboring countries. Palestinians felt they were being made to atone for Europe’s sin of the Holocaust by sacrificing their own land. They took the keys to their houses with them and never gave up on the idea of returning home one day. But in 1967, during six days of war, the Arabs lost more land: Gaza, theWest Bank,East Jerusalem,including the walledold citythat is home toAl-Aqsa mosque,as well asEgypt’sSinaiandSyria’sGolan Heights.Jerusalemwas under Jewish rule again for the first time in two millennia. Across theArabandMuslim world,there was disbelief, shock, and tears. Arabs had put their faith innationalismand in Egypt’s president,Gamal Abdel Nasser.Just a few years prior, in 1956, Nasser had emerged victorious froma war for control over Egypt’s Suez Canal,staring down not only theFrenchand theBritishbut also Israel. The charismatic nationalist had become a hero for millions across theArab world.How could he have lost this time? Perhaps, some people thought,Godhad forsakenMuslims;perhaps a return toreligionwas the answer.
  • Kim Ghattas,Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East(2020)

• Not there's noHolocaust,let say they exaggerated the Holocaust. We don't say many people...but they say there's Holocaust but they are exaggerating, so there's such perception of this event of this title, the Holocaust, in our region...It's not the matter how many were killed, six million or one million, or half...killing is killing, I mean how manySovietswere killed? eight million, so why didn't we talk about them? the problem is not how many were killed. How do they do use it? what do the Palestinians have to do to the Holocaust to pay the price? This is one question we asked...We know that there wasmassacre against Jewishand against others...what's going on in Palestine we see it the same way, but you don't see it the same way...
  • Bashar al-Assad,Interview with Charlie Rose,(2006)

• 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 theviolenceand you called this violence "terrorism"Israel kills more, more Palestinian than Palestinian kills onIsrael,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.
  • Bashar al-Assad,Interview with Charlie Rose,(2006)

• Israelis and Palestinians live on the same piece of land namely; Palestine that is located between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean. This is a disputed land. In 1948 the majority of the population, three quarters of the population were Palestinians. Less than a quarter of the population were Israelis. They managed to expel the Palestinians from their homes and unilaterally declared a state called Israel. This is inadmissible underinternational law.No one can legally declare a state on a disputed territory.
  • Muammar Gaddafi,The Address of Brother Leader to the Students and Faculty of Meiji University, Japan(December 15, 2009)

• We salute the Palestinian people of heroicmujahideenas well as every hero and heroine amongst the champions of self-sacrifice who confront theZionistaggression with their lives and thus foil the wrong ideas of the American administrations which have acted in alliance with their artificial Zionist creation in the crimes they perpetrate and the shame they reap.
  • Saddam Hussein,speech commemorating 82nd anniversary of theIraqi Armed Forces,6 January 2003

• TheICC’s chief prosecutor,Fatou Bensouda,said last month that there was a “reasonable basis” to open a war crimes probe intoIsraeli military actions in the Gaza Stripas well asIsraeli settlementconstruction in the West Bank...she recently toldThe Times of Israelthat accusing her of anti-Semitism was “particularly regrettable” and “without merit... I, along with my Office, execute our mandate under theRome Statutewith utmost independence, objectivity, fairness and professional integrity. We will continue to meet our responsibilities as required by the Rome Statute without fear or favor,” she said
  • ICC delays jurisdiction ruling on Israel war crimes case over document length,Times of Israel,(January 22, 2020)

• Right and wrong are the same in Palestine as anywhere else. What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party that has committed the offence and has turned a deaf ear to the victims.
  • Arnold J. Toynbee.Forward toThe Transformation of Palestine.Northwestern University Press, USA, 1971.