A Quote by Yousef Munayyer

The international community...cannot simply call on Palestinians to abandon violence in the face of Israeli occupation and remain silent when the nonviolent activists are politically repressed. This only reinforces the idea that the use of force reigns supreme and that Palestinians have no choice but to accept hardships at the hands of their Israeli lords.
Sadly, the same leaders who call on Palestinians to abandon violence have been silent in the face of Israeli repression. By condemning violent Palestinian resistance while remaining silent in the face of Israeli crackdowns and political arrests, they are simply endorsing violence against civilians by one side instead of the other.
Tens of thousands have been killed or wounded by the Israeli army since 1967. During 2006, the number of Palestinians killed reached 650. Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, more than 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel - about 40% of the male population.
Palestine is occupied land, and under international law, the Palestinians have the legal right to resist this occupation by any and all means. This may make busses, restaurants, discos-where Israeli military congregate, lawful targets.
You cannot like the word, but what is happening is an occupation - to hold 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation. I believe that is a terrible thing for Israel and for the Palestinians.
I hope that the Palestinians don't make the mistake of unleashing a new intifada. They've tried it twice before, and the consequences were bad for both sides. But I don't think the forces are there (that could carry out) an uprising against the leadership. The people that could initiate it are in Israeli prisons. And what could they hope to achieve? In the end, they're too weak to end the Israeli occupation.
It's possible a Palestinian state will be installed over the heads of the Palestinians. It could be part of an agreement between the Israeli government and moderate Arab states, but not one between Israel and the Palestinians.
Let the Palestinians run their affairs: create a situation in which no Israeli soldier will have to maintain public order, whether in Gaza or the West Bank. Let's give it to the Palestinians, as long as there is security for us. No more occupying another people.
Big efforts should be made to integrate Israel's Arab citizens into the fabric of the Israeli society and the Israeli economy. That's really the key to any further progress to do with the Palestinians beyond Israel's borders.
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 . . . 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.
The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security. ... Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.
The definition of terrorism has to be more precise, so that we are able to discriminate between, for example, what it is that the Palestinians are doing to fight the Israeli military occupation and terrorism of the sort that resulted in the World Trade Center bombing.
The Palestinians must be brought to an understanding that Jerusalem will always remain under Israeli sovereignty and that there is no point for them in opening negotiations about Jerusalem.
The mortal mind alone cannot devise an answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because the true answer lies on a level of consciousness that's beyond our mortal thinking. Quite simply, when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, we need a miracle.
What is... disturbing to me is that many of these pro-Israeli lawmakers sit on the House International Relations Committee despite the obvious conflict of interest that their emotional attachments to Israel cause... The Israeli occupation of all territories must end, including Congress.
What Hamas and the Palestinian people are doing is legitimate resistance against the Israeli occupation. Our resistance is confined to the territories inside Palestine and only targets the Israeli occupation. We are not blood-mongering killers who kill innocent people around the world.
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.
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