Top 12 Quotes & Sayings by Ari Shavit

Anyone who has a simplistic idea about the Middle East, or about the conflict, doesn't get it - because there are no simple answers. And anyone who is messianic, in a right-wing way or a left-wing way, is wrong too. The way forward is a kind of cautious, commonsense approach - a cautious, humble hope. No fantasies.

I thought of reaching out for progressive Israelis, progressive Americans, progressive American Jews - this was probably my main mission.

Ironically, the people who do not need Israel are gradually taking over Israel, and they're actually pushing out people who so need it.

Only a few years ago did it suddenly dawn on me that my existential fear regarding my nation’s future and my moral outrage regarding my nation’s occupation policy are not unconnected. On the one hand, Israel is the only nation in the West that is occupying another people. On the other hand, Israel is the only nation in the West that is existentially threatened. Both occupation and intimidation make the Israeli condition unique. Intimidation and occupation have become the two pillars of our condition.

They must move from a psychological state of victimization to a psychological state of accepting responsibility. The Palestinians must leave behind their revolutionary adolescence and demonstrate that they have reached political maturity.

At the end of the day, with all due respect, the Jews are the ultimate victims of the twentieth century.

I think that good things will happen in the Middle East, in Israel, and to American progressive Jewry only if we work together to save a progressive Israel that progressive Americans can have affinity with again.

In 30 minutes, at high noon, more than 200 civilians are killed. Zionism carries out a massacre in the city of Lydda.

Israel is very confusing because it seems to be a Goliath, and in some ways it is, when you look at the tanks versus the Palestinian boy. But deep down, when you look at the big map and the big picture and the big history, we are really a David. We are a David with some megalomaniac ideas who thinks he's huge. But we're not. At the end of the day, Jews as a people are an endangered species. One cannot overlook this dimension.

I think we need a life-loving Palestine living by a Jewish democratic Israel.

We had good years, with no violence, in a sense we were victims of our success.

We are still a people in danger. And yet I urge us not to get addicted to it.