A Quote by Uri Avnery
You must get Israelis to understand the feelings and the hopes and the traumas of the Palestinians. You have to get the Palestinians to understand why Israel is behaving the way it does: What is the legacy of the Holocaust, what are the fears of average Jewish people?
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There is no way Israel will deal with the Palestinians if the Palestinians do not understand the suffering of the Jewish people.
Why is Netanyahu pushing war? Among several reasons, demonizing Iran reduces pressure on Israel to negotiate seriously with the Palestinians. Many Israelis prefer building Jewish settlements on Palestinians' land instead. Moreover, Israel's rulers oppose any development-such as an Iranian-U.S. detente-that could diminish Israel's U.S.-financed hegemony in the region. War with Iran would be a catastrophe all around. Netanyahu and his hawkish American allies-the same people who gave us the disastrous Iraq war and ISIS-must be repudiated.
I'm not trying to defend Israel. What I'm telling my nation is that Israel is just like any other state, and I want them to get out of the illusion that Jewish people are evil, and that all they want is to kill Muslims and Palestinians. I want them to understand that their biggest problem is not Israel.
Palestinians don't really believe in a state of Israel. They, unlike a majority of Israelis, who have come to the conclusion that they can live with a two-state solution to be determined by the parties, the majority of Palestinians are still very reluctant, and they need to be pushed to get there.
It seems Palestinians can't win. The language of peace negotiations has always been predicated on a representation that Palestinians are violent and that is why Israel behaves as it does.
We are quite convinced, and we say this to the Palestinians, that violence is not going to solve the problem of Israel and the Middle East. We say that to the Israelis. We say it to the Palestinians.
I am personally committed to helping Israelis and Palestinians achieve a peace agreement. With determination, compromise, and the belief that peace is possible, Israelis and Palestinians can make a deal.
Palestinians have been banned since forever. And nobody - and it's an unhuman act, and it's a - for me, it's a crime issue. So, nobody has punished Israel ever since they were banning Palestinians. And so, Israel right now feels the power that they can just move on with it, and now they are trying to ban other people that are not Palestinians.
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.
Palestinians need to stop the incitement. They need to stop that kind of activity. But at the same time, there is a need to see the broader conflict here and understand that there has to be some kind of ultimately negotiated political track that's going to resolve the difference between Palestinians and Israelis.
You need a visualization of the outside obstacle and what can be better than a wall. For the Palestinians it means a division from each other, because the wall didn't separate Palestinians from Israelis, it separated them from themselves. This is the reality, and the wall is a kind of jail to the Palestinians.
Some friends of Israel believe that the Palestinians will never, in their hearts, accept a Jewish state in Palestine. Yet Germans and French, Chinese and Japanese, Mexicans and Americans have overcome their once insurmountable differences. Palestinians and Jews also have much to gain from peaceful coexistence.
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.
Arab youth are taught to wonder, 'Since the Holocaust was a European affair, why are the Palestinians being forced to pay for the creation of Israel?'
By focusing once and for all on helping the Palestinians build a free society, I have no doubt that an historic compromise between Israelis and Palestinians can be reached and that peace can prevail.
There are many Palestinians who believe there is no way to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. They call for the right of the return of refugees to Israel - something which is unacceptable for the consensus in Israel and which strikes at the very heart of this issue.
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