"They [Jewish settlers] arrived in a desolate, sparsely populated region and drained the swamps, irrigated the desert, grew crops and built cities. They introduced industry, libraries, hospitals, art galleries, universities -- and the concept of individual rights."

-- Yaron Brook & Peter Schwartz
"Israel Has a Moral Right to Exist"
June 23, 2002

"When Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, spoke of 'a people without a land' looking for 'a land without a people', he was not aware of the presence of an Arab population in Palestine or its future evolution."

-- Shimon Peres
"Why Israel Needs a Palestinian State,"
La Monde Diplomatique, 1998

"The term Zionism, named after Zion, the hill in ancient Jerusalem upon which the royal palace of King David was built, was coined by Nathan Birnbaum in 1893. It was applied to the Jewish nationalist movement that aimed to create a Jewish state or national center in Ottoman Palestine, the historic homeland of the ancestors of Jews. Until then the aspiration to return to Zion had been couched in religious terms and expressed in the liturgy. The movement gained ground among the Jews of Europe in the nineteenth century, when the political emancipation of the Jewish communities and their assimilation into the mainstream culture failed to secure them full acceptance."

-- Dilip Hiro
The Essential Middle East / A Comprehensive Guide "Zionism"
Carrol & Graf edition, 2003

"I believe that zionism is racism, because in building Israel, the zionists were revising history, embracing the notion of racial superiority, an ideology that has empowered them to discriminate, with all of its associated social ills, injustices, and moral bankruptcy."

-- Rabee' Sahyoun
"Why Zionism Is Racism,"
Media Monitors Network commentary, 5/8/01

"Negating Zionism, by claiming that Zionism equals racism, denies the Jews the right to identify, understand and imagine themselves -- and consequently behave as -- a nation. Anti-Zionists deny Jews a right that they all too readily bestow on others, first of all Palestinians."

-- Emanuele Ottolenghi
"Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism,"
Guardian editorial, 11/29/03

"To criticize policies of the Government of Israel - or of any country - is legitimate, even vital; indeed as a democratic state many Israelis do just that. But there is profound difference between criticizing a country, and denying it's right to exist. Anti-Zionism, the denial of Jews the basic right to a home, is nothing but antisemitism, pure and simple."

-- Michael Melchior
From Israel's key statement at the U.N.'s World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa
09/03/01

"People of goodwill can disagree politically -- even to the extent of arguing over Israel's future as a Jewish state. Equating anti-Zionism with anti-semitism can also, in its own way, poison the political debate."

-- Brian Klug
"No, anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism"
Guardian, 12/03/03

"Had it not been for the pressures exerted on the Arabs of Palestine by the Zionist movement, the very concept of a Palestinian people would not have developed; and Palestinians quite accurately understand their society's essential, existential status as the direct result of Jewish political rejuvenation and settlement."

-- Baruch Kimmerling & Joel S. Migdal
The Palestinian People: A History, p. xxvii
Harvard University Press, 2003

"Important though Zionism was in the formation of Palestinian identity -- as the primary 'other' faced by the Palestinians for much of this century -- the argument that Zionism was the main factor in provoking the emergence of Palestinian identity ignores one key fact: a universal process was unfolding in the Middle East during this period, involving an increasing identification with the new states created by the post-World War I partitions."

-- Rashid Khalidi
Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, p.47
Columbia University Press, 1997

"A de facto Jewish homeland already existed in parts of Palestine, and its recognition by the Balfour Declaration became a matter of binding international law when the League of Nations made it part of its mandate."

-- Alan Dershowitz
The Case for Israel, p.33
John Wiley & Sons, 2003

"The 1917 Balfour Declaration and the UN's 1947 Partition Decree were both exercises in ultra vires, which means surpassing one's authority, and powers."

-- Fouad Abdel-Moneim Riad
"The Battle for a Moral World"
Al-Ahram, 05/22/02

"Israel has a right to exist...to exist in safety within internationally recognized borders."

-- Kofi Annan
In a speach to the Arab League
United Nations 3/28/01

"Our position is that even if the Zionist State [Israel] is the size of a postage stamp it has no right to exist."

-- Imam Achmad Cassiem
National Chairperson of the South African Islamic Unity Convention
05/23/02

"The tragedy of European Jewry became a source of strength for Zionism. The moral case for a home for the Jewish people in Palestine was widely accepted from the beginning; after the Holocaust it became unassailable. The poet Robert Frost defined a home as the place where, if you have to go there, they have to let you in. Few people disputed the right of the Jews to a home after the trauma to which they had been subjected in Central Europe...

On the one hand, the Holocaust confirmed the conviction of the Zionists that they had justice on their side in the struggle for Palestine; on the other, it converted international public opinion to the idea of an independent Jewish state."

-- Avi Shlaim
The Iron Wall, 23-24
W.W. Norton & Company, 2001

"In Europe... anti-Semitism climaxed in the Holocaust. For anyone to deny the horrendous experience of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust is unacceptable. We don't want anybody's history of suffering to go unrecorded and unacknowledged.

On the other hand, there's a great difference between acknowledging Jewish oppression and using that as a cover for the oppression of another people.

One has to be able to distinguish between what happened to the Jews in World War II, and in Europe in the centuries of open and institutionalized anti-Semitism, and what people feel about the terrible practices of military occupation and dispossession in Palestine."

-- Edward Said
Culture and Resistance, p. 178
South End Press, 2003

"An umbrella body, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was set up in early 1964, to enable Palestinians to play their part in liberating Palestine and determining their own future... The PLO's importance increased in the aftermath of the defeat suffered by the Arab states in the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War. A change in the charter in 1968, which declared armed struggle to be the only way to liberate Palestine, paved the way for the affiliation of radical groups.

In 1969 Yasser Arafat, leader of Fatah, the largest of the parties affiliated to the PLO, became its chairman, replacing Yahaya Hamuda, who had taken over from Ahmad Shuqairi after the June 1967 war. Following the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973, the PNC adopted the idea of a Palestinian state in the Occupied Territories as a transient stage for the liberation of all mandate Palestine in June 1974. Later that year the Arab League recognized the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people and granted it membership in the League."

-- Dilip Hiro
The Essential Middle East / A Comprehensive Guide
Carroll & Graf, 2003

"In general, the current Palestinian situation is constantly changing and progressing towards the establishment of a state and the building of a Palestinian democracy. These changes will affect the PLO, but there is no doubt that, at least for some time, the PLO will continue its role as a very important Palestinian structure for the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories, in the refugee camps, and throughout the world."

-- Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations
"Palestine Liberation Organization: Introduction"
(retrieved 2005)

"The United States is on record supporting the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for a Palestinian state."

-- U.S. President George W. Bush
Radio address on 04/06/02

"Legitimate rights [of the Palestinians] do not include the right to establish another Arab state, especially as we know that such a state would eventually be established upon the ruins of the state of Israel."

-- Ze'ev B. Begin
"The Likud Vision for Israel at Peace"
Foreign Affairs, 1991

"As the world watched in wonder, on Thursday, September 9 [1993], Norwegian foreign minister Johan Joergan Holst carried a letter from [PLO Chairman] Arafat to [Israeli Prime Minister] Rabin recognizing Israel, renouncing violence, and pledging support for repeal of clauses objectionable to Israel in the PLO charter. Rabin, for his part, signed a letter recognizing the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and accepting the PLO as a negotiating partner. On Monday, September 13, 1993, in a stunning event on the White House lawn in Washington, the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government for the Palestinians was signed by [Israeli] Foreign Minister Peres and PLO representative Mahmoud Abbas, with Warren Christopher and Russian foreign minister Andrei Kosyrev adding their signatures as witnesses, while President Clinton, Arafat, and Rabin looked on."

-- Ian J. Bickerton & Carla L. Klausner
Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 263-264
Prentice Hall, 2002

"Oslo began with bright optimism on both sides for conciliation -- 65-75 percent of West Bank / Gaza Palestinians and Israeli Jews expressed support of the initial accord -- and ended in dejection, recriminations, and violence. The hopelessness that followed the breakdown of the talks at Camp David in July 2000, where American President Bill Clinton had assembled Barak and Arafat and their high-powered teams, and of several subsequent sets of talks in the moths after Camp David [Clinton Parameters & Taba Talks] stemmed from the inability to secure their signatures on the dotted line of a final status agreement...

Despite the cornerstones laid by the Oslo process for eventual Palestinian-Israeli coexistence and the normalization of Palestinian society -- the unveiling of the pro-compromise majorities on each side, mutual acceptance, the renunciation of violence as a permanent strategy, recognition by each side of the other's primal fear, the creation of multiple channels working toward coexistence, and the establishment of Palestinians' first-ever self-government -- the twenty-first century opened with a reversion to brutal violence, unmitigated hatred, and mutual demonization."

--Baruch Kimmerling & Joel S. Migdal
The Palestinian People: A History, p. 315-316, 355
Harvard University Press, 2003

"Years of accumulated mistrust and loss of faith in the peace process, political circumstances in Israel and among the Palestinians, the history of prior agreements, perceptions of the United States' role, the relationship (or lack thereof) between Barak and Arafat, the mechanics of the negotiations -— all these contributed to a situation in which each side's actions were interpreted by the other in the most damaging way."

-- Robert Malley & Hussein Agha
"Camp David: An Exchange"
New York Times 09/20/01

"The Israeli/American destruction of Oslo was only a matter of time. There was never any good faith on the part of the Israeli government and the United States government when it came to negotiating a just Middle East peace settlement with the Palestinians going all the way back to the preparatory work for the convocation of the 1991 Madrid Conference by the Bush Sr. administration. American bi-partisanship at work directed against Palestine and the Palestinians."

-- Francis A. Boyle
"Obituary for the Oslo Accords R.I.P. Sept. 13, 1993 - Sept. 28, 2000"
Counterpunch 07/03/02

"The basic assumption that has been shared by the Americans, the Europeans and the Israeli center-left for years: that Oslo created a rational order in the Middle East based on give-and-take, which in the future would lead to an acceptable compromise... In retrospect, this turned out to be a mistaken assumption. It turned out that for Arafat it was a huge camouflage net behind which he fomented, and continues to foment, political pressure and terrorism in different dosages in order to undermine the very idea of two states for two nations."

-- Shlomo Ben-Ami
"End of a Journey"
Haaretz, 05/07/04

"In 2000 turning his back on the Oslo process, Arafat rejected yet another historic compromise, that offered by Barak at Camp David in July and subsequently improved upon in President Bill Clinton's proposals (endorsed by Barak) in December. Instead, the Palestinians, in September, resorted to arms and launched the current mini-war or intifada."

-- Benny Morris
"Peace? No Chance"
Guardian, 02/21/02

"The latest national [Israeli] myth is that of the generous offer that Ehud Barak is said to have made to Arafat at Camp David, only to be confronted with a flat rejection and a return to violence [Al-Aqsa Intifada]. There is a broad national consensus behind this myth, including the left and the peace camp, but popular support is not the same as evidence."

-- Avi Shlaim
"A Betrayal of History"
Guardian, 02/22/02

"Perhaps three-quarters of the Jews in the West Bank and Gaza could be considered economic settlers. Many of them moved to the West Bank for benefits unattainable inside the pre-1967 borders of Israel: space, tax breaks, and mountain air. They are reliable supporters of right-wing parties, but many of them are secular in their outlook.

The remainder of the settlers, fifty thousand or so, came to the territories for reasons of faith... Many of them are along Route 60, the main north-south highway that runs near the mountain spine of the West Bank. This is the heart of the land known in the Bible as Judaea and Samaria -- the part of ancient Israel most thickly crowded with sites that figure in Jewish history. It is also the part of the West Bank most densely populated by Arabs."

-- Jeffrey Goldberg
"Among the Settlers"
The New Yorker 05/31/04

"All measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel's policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East."

-- United Nations
Security Council Resolution 465
1980

"Israel possesses legal rights with respect to the West Bank and Gaza Strip that appear to be ignored by those international observers who repeat the term 'occupied territories' without any awareness of Israeli territorial claims. Even if Israel only seeks 'secure boundaries' that cover part of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, there is a world of difference between a situation in which Israel approaches the international community as a 'foreign occupier' with no territorial rights, and one in which Israel has strong historical rights to the land that were recognized by the main bodies serving as the source of international legitimacy in the previous century."

-- Dore Gold
"From 'Occupied Territories' to 'Disputed Territories'"
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 01/16/02

"The Israeli people also must understand that... the settlement enterprise and building bypass roads in the heart of what they already know will one day be part of a Palestinian state is inconsistent with the Oslo commitment that both sides negotiate a compromise."

-- Bill Clinton
"Farewell Address to the Middle East"
01/07/01

"Habitually described as a 'major obstacle to peace,' the settlement issue can be resolved by using a careful hand to redraw just 5 percent of the West Bank map — and by summoning the ample political will required to see the process through."

-- David Makovsky
"The Five Percent Solution"
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2003

"Truth be told, those responsible for the fence are Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Their terror produced the impulse for the fence. If violence were not a threat, the fence would not be necessary."

-- Dennis Ross
"When is a Fence not a Fence?"
Wall Street Journal , 08/04/03

"The Plan [Israeli wall / fence] stretches for the most part well within the occupied territory [the West Bank]. This wall is not primarily about the defense of Israel's territory."

-- Sir Arthur Watts
"Jordan Argues Israeli Barrier Is a Threat"
Associated Press, 02/24/04

"It is generally thought that Jerusalem is the most difficult problem that the peace-makers have to deal with. The centrality of the issue of Jerusalem derives...from emotional and religious sensitivities. The complexity of the issue is the result of three factors: [1.] the city is holy for adherents of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, namely, it is sacred for many millions of people; [2.] it is the subject of conflicting national claims of two peoples Israelis and Palestinian Arabs; and [3.] its population is very heterogeneous. A solution to the conflicts about Jerusalem is a sine qua non for the achievement of a viable and durable peace in the area."

-- Ruth Lapidoth
Israel Law Review
(Vol. 28, Nos. 2-3, Spring-Summer 1994)

"The Israeli position [on Jerusalem] is based on its religious, historical and political claims to the holy city. Since King David established the city as the capital of the Jewish state circa 1000 BCE, it has served as the symbol and most profound expression of the Jewish people's identity as a nation."

-- Anti-Defamation League
"Jerusalem, the Israeli Position"
1997

"For centuries, Jerusalem has been the geographical, political, administrative and spiritual center of Palestine. It is, in all regards, the symbol of Palestinian nationality and identity."

-- Palestine Ministry of Information
"The Palestinian Official Position"
Accessed on 11/4/2005