#palestinians

The Palestinians are facing a historic junction at which they will have to decide whether they want to remain stuck in a corner of extreme fundamentalism, which will cut them off from the entire world, or whether they are ready to take the necessary steps. My role is to assist in building this process. ↗

— Ehud Olmert

#building #corner #cut #decide #entire

Success is not assured, but America is resolute: this is the best chance for peace we are likely to see for some years to come - and we are acting to help Israelis and Palestinians seize this chance. ↗

— Condoleezza Rice

#america #assured #best #chance #come

The Palestinians are not willing to do anything, they're not willing to make the strategic decision to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorist organizations. ↗

— Silvan Shalom

#decision #dismantle #infrastructure #make #organizations

Peace should provide security. It should be durable. I'm ready to go far in making painful concessions. But there is one thing I will never make any concessions on and that's the security of the Israeli citizens and the very existence of the state of Israel. The Palestinians are losing time. ↗

— Ariel Sharon

#citizens #concessions #durable #existence #far

First of all, I think the Saudis are deeply concerned about the collapse of negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the resumption of conflict. ↗

— Brent Scowcroft

#between #collapse #concerned #conflict #deeply

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. ↗

— King Abdullah II

#about #been #buy #does #hamas

I went to interview some of these early Jewish colonial zealots—written off in those days as mere 'fringe' elements—and found that they called themselves Gush Emunim or—it sounded just as bad in English—'The Bloc of the Faithful.' Why not just say 'Party of God' and have done with it? At least they didn't have the nerve to say that they stole other people's land because their own home in Poland or Belarus had been taken from them. They said they took the land because god had given it to them from time immemorial. In the noisome town of Hebron, where all of life is focused on a supposedly sacred boneyard in a dank local cave, one of the world's less pretty sights is that of supposed yeshivah students toting submachine guns and humbling the Arab inhabitants. When I asked one of these charmers where he got his legal authority to be a squatter, he flung his hand, index finger outstretched, toward the sky. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#belarus #colonialism #god #guns #gush-emunim

All questions of right to one side, I have never been able to banish the queasy inner suspicion that Israel just did not look, or feel, either permanent or sustainable. I felt this when sitting in the old Ottoman courtyards of Jerusalem, and I felt it even more when I saw the hideous 'Fort Condo' settlements that had been thrown up around the city in order to give the opposite impression. If the statelet was only based on a narrow strip of the Mediterranean littoral (god having apparently ordered Moses to lead the Jews to one of the very few parts of the region with absolutely no oil at all), that would be bad enough. But in addition, it involved roosting on top of an ever-growing population that did not welcome the newcomers. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#israel #israeli-palestinian-conflict #jerusalem #jews #mediterranean-basin

To me the notion that Palestinians are actually Jews is, I think, quite revelatory and very radical and a possible bridge that has been ignored, I think, in this entire controversy and there's ample evidence to support it. ↗

— Lawrence Wright

#ample #been #bridge #controversy #entire

On balance, my life has been a constant stream of blessings rather than disappointments and failures and tragedies. I wish I had been re-elected. I think I could have kept our country at peace. I think I could have consolidated what we achieved at Camp David with a treaty between Israel and the Palestinians. ↗

— Jimmy Carter

#balance #been #between #blessings #camp