Insightful Quotes To Further Understand The Conflict

Who can challenge the rights of the Jews in Palestine? Good Lord, historically it is really your country.

– Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, Ottoman politician and Muslim scholar (1899)

…the Qur’an specifies that the Land of Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, that God Himself gave that Land to them as heritage and ordered them to live therein. It also announces that – before the end of the time – the Jewish people will come from many different countries to retake possession of that heritage of theirs. Whoever denies this actually denies the Qur’an itself. If he is not a scholar, and in good faith believes what other people say about this issue, he is an ignorant Muslim. If, on the contrary, he is informed about what the Qur’an and openly opposes it, he ceases to be a Muslim.

– Imam Abdul Hadi Palazzi

It’s in the Muslim consciousness that the land first belonged to the Jews. It doesn’t matter if the Jews were exiled 500 years or 2000 years, the Holy Land, as mentioned in Quran belongs to Moses and his people, the Jews.

– Professor Khaleel Mohammed

The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population…

– James Finn, British Consul in Palestine (1857)

There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent – not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings… A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action…We never saw a human being on the whole route… Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren… The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent. The Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee sleep in the midst of a vast stretch…wherein the eye rests upon no pleasant tint… It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land… Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes…

– Mark Twain, describing his visit to the Holy Land in The Innocents Abroad (1869)

It is manifestly right that the Jews should have a National Home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in this land of Palestine, with which for more than 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?

– Winston Churchill

The Palestinians are always coming here and saying to me, ‘You expelled the French and the Americans. How do we expel the Jews?’ I tell them that the French went back to France and the Americans to America. But the Jews have nowhere to go. You will not expel them.

– Vo Nguyen Giap, infamous Vietnamese general

In their war against Israel’s existence, the Arab governments took advantage of the Cold War. They enlisted the military, economic, and political support of the communist world against Israel, and they turned a local, regional conflict into an international powder keg.

– Yitzhak Shamir

I fully understand that any minority would prefer to be a majority, it is quite understandable that the Arabs of Palestine would also prefer Palestine to be the Arab State No. 4, No. 5, No. 6 – that I quite understand; but when the Arab claim is confronted with our Jewish demand to be saved, it is like the claims of appetite versus the claims of starvation.

– Ze’ev Jabotinsky

Israel was extraordinary in being the one socially revolutionary people in the Near East to produce a literature and to survive as a distinctive cultural and religious entity.

– Norman Gottwald, renowned professor of Biblical studies and political activist

Zionism is one of the greatest movements of the present time. All lovers of Democracy cannot help but support whole-heartedly and welcome with enthusiasm the movement to restore your wonderful and historic nation, which has contributed so much to the civilization of the world and which rightfully deserve an honorable place in the family of nations.

– Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, “Father of the Chinese Nation”

I see Israel, and never mind saying it, as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can almost be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality.

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Given the history of the attacks on Israel and the oppressiveness and aggressiveness of other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere, boycotting Israel indicates a moral blindness for which it is hard to find any explanation other than antisemitism.

– Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist

This is a fight for the homeland – it is either us or the Israelis. There is no middle road. The Jews of Palestine will have to leave. We will facilitate their departure to their former homes. Any of the old Palestine Jewish population who survive may stay, but it is my impression that none of them will survive.

– Ahmed Shukairy, former PLO chairman

… Most of my people think as I do, but they’re afraid to say so… we suffer because of our Arab brothers, but we are also dependent on them. It’s a bizarre situation because the Arab countries don’t really care what happens to the Palestinian people. The only assistance that we have ever received from any country was from the ‘Zionist enemy.’

– Muhammad Zahrab, Palestinian Arab scholar

The story of modern Israel, as many have noted, is a miracle unlike any… It is a robust and inclusive democracy, and is at the leading edge of science and technology… What hypocrites demand of Israelis and the scrutiny Israel is subjected to by them, they would not dare make of any other nation.

– Salim Mansur

If the Arabs put down their guns there would be no more fighting. If the Israelis put down theirs there would be no more Israel.

– Golda Meir

I am convinced that it is true that God created this earth, but it is also a fact that only an Israel can keep this earth from dying.

– Tashbih Sayyed, Pakistani-American scholar

Efraim Palvanov is a Canada-based  life-long writer, researcher and educator who shares authentic Jewish wisdom intertwined with science, history, philosophy, and mysticism. Rabbi Palvanov has degrees in biology and education, and currently serves as the head of the science department at Bnei Akiva Schools of Toronto. Visit mayimachronim.com, jewoftheweek.com for more thoughts like these, and check out his YouTube channel @EfraimPalvanov. For questions and comments, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..