“Did you follow what [General Yehoshafat] Harkabi wrote? Formerly of the Israeli military intelligence service. Remember him? Did you follow what he wrote? He said that it was for the sake of the existence of Israel that we have to accept the rights of the Palestinians to have their independent state. I’m a man of history. My vision is guiding me, my clear vision. It is not by chance that the currents of peace are increasing daily inside Israel. Many of the Israelis begin to understand and discover the realities and the facts. They can’t demolish five million Palestinians. They can’t annihilate them. We are not the Red Indians.”

— Yasser Arafat

In an interview published in "The New York Review of Books" (11 June 1987).
1980s and 1990s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Did you follow what [General Yehoshafat] Harkabi wrote? Formerly of the Israeli military intelligence service. Remember…" by Yasser Arafat?

Yasser Arafat 18

former Palestinian President, and Nobel Peace Prize recipie… 1929–2004

Related quotes

“The whole question of recognizing the right of a state to exist was invented solely for Israel. People, on the other hand, have a right to exist. So the people who live on the land - Israelis and Palestinians - have a right to live in security and peace.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Interview by Ahmed Nassef, April 29, 2004
Quotes 2000s, 2004

“The Israeli people, and Prime Minister Olmert, have made clear that they are more than willing to negotiate an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will result in two states living side by side in peace and security. But the Israelis must trust that they have a true Palestinian partner for peace. That is why we must strengthen the hands of Palestinian moderates who seek peace and that is why we must maintain the isolation of Hamas and other extremists who are committed to Israel's destruction.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Speech at AIPAC. (2 March 2007) http://www2.iland.net/inews/story.php?storyid=1038226&class=iraq
2007

“What's more important for me is the brand name Lucy Aharish. The Arab sector does not pay me a salary. My national identity is that of an Arab-Israeli. I identify with Palestinian suffering, but I am not part of it. I have a different suffering here: I am not getting the rights that accrue to me as a citizen of Israel – such as better mortgage terms – because I did not do army service.”

Lucy Aharish (1981) Arab-Israeli journalist

“[On 2006 Israel-Lebanese war] ".. the net result is you have an Israeli government in disarray and a United States administration so identified with Israeli failure right now that it hurts the United States around the world."”

Andrea Mitchell

Washington Week http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/transcripts/transcript081806.html, August 18, 2006

“Arafat himself frankly expressed his 'understanding' and 'respect' of the Israeli need to maintain Jewish supremacy in an editorial he published in the New York Times. He shamelessly asserted: 'We understand Israel's demographic concerns and understand that the right of return of Palestinian refugees, a right guaranteed under international law and United Nations Resolution 194, must be implemented in a way that takes into account such concerns'. He proceeded to state that he is looking to negotiate with Israel on 'creative solutions to the plight of the refugees while respecting Israel’s demographic concerns”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

i.e., 'respecting' its Jewish supremacist concerns.
Ibid.
"The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle"

“The holocaust tragedy has been abducted by Israeli strategists, with few Jewish protests, for Israel's ideological acrobatics. As Palestinian recent history has shown, no Palestinian engagement with the holocaust will be satisfactory to Israel and its supporters. Israeli demands that Palestinians recognize the holocaust are not about the holocaust at all, but rather about the other part of the package, namely recognizing and submitting to Israel's "right to exist" as a colonial-settler racist state. The Palestinian authority has given up, but the Palestinian people should continue to resist this Zionist package deal. Their resistance is the only remaining obstacle to a complete Zionist victory, one that seeks to be sealed by Zionism's rewriting of both Palestinian and Jewish histories.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"Palestinians and Jewish History: Recognition or Submission?"

“"Death to Israel" means death to Israelis. It means death to the members of my family. Like many in Israel, a family which has long worked hard and consistently and intensively for the rights of Palestinians, Muslims and Christians alike, to live in safety and sovereignty in a country of their own. What we want for ourselves is no less just. It is, in fact, the very same: freedom to live in safety and sovereignty.”

Bradley Burston israeli journalist

About the phrase "Death to Israel", a variant of the phrase "Death to America".
What Does 'Death to Israel' Mean to You? (2011)

“You have Palestinians living in Israel with full political rights. You don’t have discriminatory laws against them, I mean not letting them swim on certain beaches or anything like that. I think it's unfair to call Israel an apartheid state. If Kerry did so, I think he made a mistake.”

F. W. de Klerk (1936) South African politician

As quoted in "South Africa's de Klerk: Israel not an apartheid state" http://www.timesofisrael.com/south-africas-de-klerk-israel-not-an-apartheid-state/#ixzz3GrpjBXBe (27 May 2014), The Times of Israel
2010s, 2014

“The US and Israel have demanded further that Palestinians not only recognize Israel's rights as a state in the international system, but that they also recognize Israel's abstract "right to exist," a concept that has no place in international law or diplomacy, and a right claimed by no one. In effect, the US and Israel are demanding that Palestinians not only recognize Israel in the normal fashion of interstate relations, but also formally accept the legitimacy of their expulsion from their own land. They cannot be expected to accept that, just as Mexico does not grant the US the "right to exist" on half of Mexico's territory, gained by conquest.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Interview by Sabahattin Atas, circa September 2003 (see also: Necessary Illusions https://web.archive.org/web/20000307213545/http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-c10-s16.html) http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200309--.htm.
Quotes 2000s, 2003

“The bottom line is this: Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens--and honor its own previous commitments--by accepting its legal borders. All Arab neighbors must pledge to honor Israel's right to live in peace under these conditions. The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories.”

Jimmy Carter book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

Source: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Yasser Arafat 18

Related quotes

Related topics