#palestine

Toughness found fertile soil in the hearts of Palestinians, and the grains of resistance embedded themselves in their skin. Endurance evolved as a hallmark of refugee society. But the price they paid was the subduing of tender vulnerability. They learned to celebrate martyrdom. Only martyrdom offered freedom. Only in death were they at last invulnerable to Israel. Martyrdom became the ultimate defiance of Israeli occupation. ↗

— Susan Abulhawa

#israeli-palestinian-conflict #palestine #death

A lasting solution to this problem will have an exceptionally positive influence foremost on the peoples of Palestine and Israel, as well as on the region and the international community. ↗

— Recep Tayyip Erdogan

#exceptionally #foremost #influence #international #international community

Recent action in Syria and Palestine also tell us that the awakening voices of democracy in those regions are occurring, and that those in that region are able to pursue it without being stifled by terrorists that are despotic. ↗

— Judd Gregg

#action #also #awakening #being #democracy

Hamas, also elected to governmental leadership in Palestine, includes the jihadists, people who have declared war on the United States of America and its ally, Israel. ↗

— Zach Wamp

#also #america #declared #elected #governmental

بيـدٍ أغلقُ أبوابَ جراحـي * ويدي الأخرى على باب الصبـاح نصل سفاح على حنجرتي * وعلى وجهي تهاويل الأضـاحـي قبضة الجبهة لا تـمهـلـنـي * لـحظة.. مــا بيـن ذبـح وانـذبـاح أنــا أوجـاع ملايـيـن صحت * فصحْت غضبة حـق مستبــاح من رخام الأمس دوى ألمي* يا سدود انتظري دَين اكتساحي أبذر الشمس على مستقبلي * واشج بالليل عن فضل وشاحي فاضربوا أوتاركم في وطني * إنها لعبة قش ورياح حرموا الدوح على بلبله * وأبيحوا لكمو غير المباح سأكيل الصاع بالصاعين لكم * ناقلاً ناري من ساح لساح مخلب الصقر أنا قلمته * أمس. فليكبر على حد سلاحي تتحدى زهرتي دبايةً * فاسحقوها، تزدهر كل بطاحي من محيطي لخليجي لم يزل * صاعداً يكتسح الموت جناحي وطني جنة عدني، وأنا * حارس الجنة من كف وقاح وأرى حولي رؤوساً أينعت * وانا قاطفها باسم جراحي غضبي يحرق من يشعله * غضبي القادم ريحاً بلقاح فافهموا يا سادتي، أخبركم * انني صاح، أعيد القول، صاح ألف هولاكو أنا أغرقتهم * في دياجيري، واطلعت صباحي ينتهي العدوان غيماً عابرا * وأنا أبقى، وحبي، وكفاحي. ↗

— سميح القاسم

#palestine #resistance #freedom

Resistance in Palestine will continue until the final liberation of all the Palestinian lands. ↗

— Ahmed Yassin

#final #lands #liberation #palestine #palestinian

Palestinian and Israeli leaders finally recover the Road Map to Peace, only to discover that, while they were looking for it, the Lug Nuts of Mutual Interest came off the Front Left Wheel of Accommodation, causing the Sport Utility Vehicle of Progress to crash into the Ditch of Despair. ↗

— Dave Barry

#international-relations #israel #lug-nuts #middle-east #palestine

I got a number of very thoughtful responses to the email I sent out last night, most of which I don’t have time to respond to right now. Thanks everyone for the encouragement, questions, criticism. Daniel’s response was particularly inspiring to me and deserves to be shared. The resistance of Israeli Jewish people to the occupation and the enormous risk taken by those refusing to serve in the Israeli military offers an example, especially for those of us living in the United States, of how to behave when you discover that atrocities are being commited in your name. Thank you. ↗

— Rachel Corrie

#palestine #palestinians #rachel-corrie #racism #world

Though he never actually joined it, he was close to some civilian elements of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was the most Communist (and in the rather orthodox sense) of the Palestinian formations. I remember Edward once surprising me by saying, and apropos of nothing: 'Do you know something I have never done in my political career? I have never publicly criticized the Soviet Union. It’s not that I terribly sympathize with them or anything—it's just that the Soviets have never done anything to harm me, or us.' At the time I thought this a rather naïve statement, even perhaps a slightly contemptible one, but by then I had been in parts of the Middle East where it could come as a blessed relief to meet a consecrated Moscow-line atheist-dogmatist, if only for the comparatively rational humanism that he evinced amid so much religious barking and mania. It was only later to occur to me that Edward's pronounced dislike of George Orwell was something to which I ought to have paid more attention. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#communism #dflp #dogmatism #edward-said #humanism

I am not one of those who believes—as Obama is said to believe—that a solution to the Palestinian statehood question would bring an end to Muslim resentment against the United States. (Incidentally, if he really does believe this, his lethargy and impotence in the face of Netanyahu's consistent double-dealing is even more culpable.) The Islamist fanatics have their own agenda, and, as in the case of Hamas and its Iranian backers, they have already demonstrated that nothing but the destruction of Israel and the removal of American influence from the region will possibly satisfy them. No, it is more the case that justice—and a homeland for the Palestinians—is a good and necessary cause in its own right. It is also a special legal and moral responsibility of the United States, which has several times declared a dual-statehood outcome to be its objective. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#barack-obama #benjamin-netanyahu #foreign-policy #hamas #iran