HISTORY TO THE RESCUE

www.MiddleEast.Org - MER - Washington - 15 April 2004:   At this time of such utter despair not only because of the policies of the United States and Israel in the Middle East, but because of the crusading-like zeal and arrogance, as well as the increasingly apparent ignorance, of the American President, remembering what others of far greater stature, vision, and courage have said over the years is heartening.  Here are of few such historic quotes -- some profound, some courageous, some truth-telling -- all from the "Famous Quotes in History" section of MER.



If we cannot find ways of peace and understanding, if the only way of establishing the Jewish National Home is upon the bayonets of some Empire, our whole enterprise is not worthwhile, and it is better that the Eternal People that has outlived many a mighty empire should possess its soul in patience...   It is one of the great civilizing tasks before the Jewish people to enter the promised land, not in the Joshua way, but bringing peace and culture, hard work and sacrifice and love, and a determination to do nothing that cannot be justified before the conscience of the world.' -- Judah Magnes, Chancellor, Hebrew University - Jerusalem, 1929


Sharon is a 'war criminal' who ordered his troops to use methods of barbarism against the Palestinians...  It is time to remind Sharon that the Star of David belongs to all Jews and not to his repulsive government.   His actions are staining the Star of David with blood. -- Gerald Kaufman, veteran Labour MP and Britain's most prominent Jewish parliamentarian - London, April 17, 2002


I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at roadblocks.  It reminded me of what happened to us in South Africa, where they battered us and heckled us, and they took joy in humiliating us.   My heart aches.   Have my Jewish friends forgotten their own history?  Have they turned their backs on their own profound religious traditions? -- Desmond Tutu, former Archbishop of Cape Town and chairman of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission - April 14, 2002


Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages.  You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist.   Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman.  There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population. -- Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion in Haifa - April 4, 1969.


The Jews, I find are very, very selfish.  They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as [Displaced] [Persons] as long as the Jews get special treatment.  Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes. -- President Harry Truman - private 1947 diary


'Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French.  It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home....they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them ... nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. -- Mahatma Ghandi, 1938

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