“In the course of the years, Israeli settlements have been established in the Gaza Distric and the areas of Judea and Samaria… The status of these settlements derives from the status of the territory, which is held in ‘belligerent occupation’... When the petitioners settled in Gaza Strip and northern Samaria, they did so in full knowledge that they were settling in territory held by Israel in belligerent occupation…” (Israeli government before Supreme Court, Spring 2005).
“My conclusion is that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” (Theodor Meron, the legal counsel of the Israeli Foreign Ministry in 1967).
“The preeminent obstacle to peace is Israel’s colonization of Palestine.” (Jimmy Carter, March 2006).
“It’s like a meeting with a dietician. We have to make them much thinner, but not enough to die.” (Dov Weissglas/ advisor to the Israeli Premier explaining the logic behind Israel’s refusal to transfer the tax revenues that it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, March 2006).
“I do not believe you can have a million starving Palestinian and have peace,” (James Wolfensohn, March 2006).
“… an unfettered flow of people and goods between Gaza and West Bank is needed to link the two territorial elements of the Palestinian economy, and to lay the basis for viable statehood. A functioning link would create a larger effective internal market, help trigger price and income convergence between Gaza and the West Bank and provide a pathway for the economy of the West Bank to a future seaport in Gaza.” (The World Bank Group, December 2004).
“If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country… We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?” (David Ben-Gurion, 1956).
“The IDF… is turning into a killing machine whose efficiency is awe-inspiring, yet shocking.” (Haartez, March 2003).
“This is much worse that apartheid,… The Israeli measures, the brutality, make apartheid look like a picnic. We never had jets attacking our townships. We never had sieges that lasted month after month. We never had tanks destroying houses.” (Ronnie Kasrils describing following his visit to the oPt in 2004).
“Committee staff delegations have been unable to understand how currently routed barrier in Jerusalem – which rips asunder the existential poles of Christian belief, Nativity and Resurrection, encloses 200,000 Palestinians on the Jerusalem side of the barrier – will improve the security of Israel’s citizens. The fact that the barrier is to be lines with settlements discloses political goal irreversible in nature, contrary to Israel’s declarations.” (Congress of the United States, Committee on International Relations, Staff Report – May 2006) .
“[The] formula for the parameters of a unilateral solution are: To maximize the number of Jews; minimize the number of Palestinians; not to withdraw to the 1967 border and not to divide Jerusalem.” (Ehud Olmert, 5 December 2003) .
“The Court is not convinced that the construction of the wall along the route chosen was the only means to safeguard the interests of Israel against the peril which it has invoked as justification for that construction.” (International Court of Justice, July 2004).
“You don’t simply bundle people onto trucks and drive them away…I prefer to advocate a positive policy, to create, in effect, a condition that in a positive way will induce people to leave.” (Ariel Sharon, 24 August 1988) .
"Apparently the [Israeli] public is accepting a situation in which military activity in Palestinian towns is accompanied by indiscriminate killing." (Haaretz editorial writer, 29 January 2004) .
"… it's utterly hypocritical for Israelis to wonder aloud why Palestinians don't pursue a non-violent strategy. One obvious reason is that, whenever they have, Israel brutally represses it." (Norman G. Finkelstein, 11 September 2003) .
"The Israeli government seemingly cultivates this fear of existential threat." (Amira Hass, 24 March 2004) .
“Settlements can be built, but there is no need to talk about it and come out dancing every time a building permit is given. Let them build but without talking.” (Ariel Sharon, 22 June 2003) .
"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, 23 October 1979) .
"If I was an Arab leader I would never make [peace] with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country." (David Ben Gurion, The Jewish Paradox, 1978, p. 99) .
"How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to." (Golda Meir, 8 March 1969) .
"It is thanks to the disengagement that we can make certain that… the major Israeli population centers in Judea and Samaria will remain an integral part of the State of Israel and will have territorial contiguity with Israel in any final status agreement.”(Ariel Sharon, May 24, 2005, Speech to AIPAC conference) .
“We decided what our priorities were - we are withdrawing from the Gaza Strip - an area where there was no chance of establishing a Jewish majority, and which would clearly, in any final agreement, not be part of the State of Israel. At the same time, we are directing the majority of our efforts to areas which are most crucial to ensuring our existence - the Galilee, the Negev, Greater Jerusalem, the settlement blocs and the security zones.”(Ariel Sharon, June 30, 2005, Address to the Caesarea 2005 Conference) .
"The United Nations is under no more of a legal obligation to maintain Zionism in Israel than it is to maintain apartheid in South Africa." (William Thomas Mallison, 1986) .
"Zionist colonialism inhabits the space between two extinct models -- those provided by South Africa and French practice in Algeria. It is not a blend of the two, but rather a distillation of the worst in each." (Azmi Bishara, 8 January 2004) .
“The Court has reached the conclusion that the construction of the wall by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is contrary to international law…” (International Court of Justice, July 2004).
“The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process . . . . Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda . . . . All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress." (Dov Weissglas, October 2004).
“It would be better to drown these prisoners in the Dead Sea if possible, since that’s the lowest point in the world.” (Avigdor Lieberman, 7 July 2003) .
“No settlement can be just and complete if recognition is not accorded to the right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from which he has been dislodged…” (UN Mediator for Palestine, Count Folk Bernadotte, 1948) .
“Ariel Sharon keeps goats and sheep. He puts a fence around them and closes them in with a gate. He decides if they come in or go out. This is now what he is doing to us.” (Palestinian from Sur Bahir).
“If we are evacuated, we’ll return the night after and establish 10 new outposts.” (Yehoshua Mor-Yosef, 10 June 2003).
"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, 15 November 1998) .
"We consider these settlements to be contrary to the Geneva Convention, that occupied territory should not be changed by establishment of permanent settlements by the occupying power." (President Carter, 13 June 1980) .
"The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." (Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949) .
"While politicians talk about peace, Israeli settlements continue to expand rapidly on Palestinian land. Settlements have nearly doubled during the Oslo period- -- under both Labour and Likud governments." (Anthony Arnove & Ahmed Shawki, 20 August 2001) .
"We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves." (Chairman Heilbrun, October 1983) .
"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, April 1983).
"It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist." (Golda Meir, 15 June 1969) .
"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 geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." (Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969).
"I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa."(Archbishop Desmond Tutu, during Christmas visit to Jerusalem, December 25, 1989) .
Did you Hear?
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