What Does Israel Fear From Palestine? Quotes

“A lot of Israelis have begun to talk of ‘two Jewish societies’ in Israel, some even talk about ‘two Jewish peoples’ within the Israeli Jewish nation. What holds them together? The conflict, of course. The occupation. The perpetual state of war … It is not that the Israeli–Arab conflict has been forced on Israel. Rather, it’s the other way around: Israel keeps up the conflict, because it needs the conflict for its very existence.”
― Raja Shehadeh, What Does Israel Fear from Palestine?

“Your security and ours are mutually dependent, as entwined as the fears and nightmares of our children. We have seen some of you at your best and at your worst. For the occupier can hide no secrets from the occupied.[”
― Raja Shehadeh, What Does Israel Fear From Palestine?

“Uri Avneri, the veteran journalist and former member of the Knesset (Israeli parliament), then suggested that what Pardo meant was that the rift is between European Ashkenazi Jews and Oriental Mizrahi Jews. He wrote:

What makes this rift so potentially dangerous, and explains Pardo’s dire warning, is the fact that the overwhelming majority of the Orientals are ‘rightist’, nationalist and at least mildly religious, while the majority of the Ashkenazim are ‘leftist’, more peace-oriented and secular. Since the Ashkenazim are also in general socially and economically better situated than the Orientals, the rift is profound…

A lot of Israelis have begun to talk of ‘two Jewish societies’ in Israel, some even talk about ‘two Jewish peoples’ within the Israeli Jewish nation. What holds them together? The conflict, of course. The occupation. The perpetual state of war…

It is not that the Israeli–Arab conflict has been forced on Israel. Rather, it’s the other way around: Israel keeps up the conflict, because it needs the conflict for its very existence.”
― Raja Shehadeh, What Does Israel Fear From Palestine?

“Uri Avneri, the veteran journalist and former member of the Knesset (Israeli parliament), then suggested that what Pardo meant was that the rift is between European Ashkenazi Jews and Oriental Mizrahi Jews. He wrote:

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What makes this rift so potentially dangerous, and explains Pardo’s dire warning, is the fact that the overwhelming majority of the Orientals are ‘rightist’, nationalist and at least mildly religious, while the majority of the Ashkenazim are ‘leftist’, more peace-oriented and secular. Since the Ashkenazim are also in general socially and economically better situated than the Orientals, the rift is profound…

A lot of Israelis have begun to talk of ‘two Jewish societies’ in Israel, some even talk about ‘two Jewish peoples’ within the Israeli Jewish nation. What holds them together? The conflict, of course. The occupation. The perpetual state of war…

It is not that the Israeli–Arab conflict has been forced on Israel. Rather, it’s the other way around: Israel keeps up the conflict, because it needs the conflict for its very existence.”
― Raja Shehadeh, What Does Israel Fear From Palestine?

“Israel talks of the 1948 war as its war of independence. This is strange, because by doing so the country is suggesting that it gained its independence from the British. But it was the British who, in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 – over a century ago – promised the land, with its majority of Palestinian Arabs, to the Jews. The declaration stated that ‘His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people …’ And it was the British who worked throughout the British Mandate over Palestine from 1922 to 1948 to facilitate the creation of a Jewish state there in accordance with the terms of that mandate. I would suggest that the real reason why it makes this claim is that Israel was anxious to position itself within the group of decolonised nations.

The new country proceeded without delay to reinvent history in such a way as to exclude any recognition of the presence of the original non-Jewish inhabitants, not only forcing most of them out but also removing any sign of their former presence and history in the land. In support of this, Israel treated the Bible as a historical document and used it to back up the claim that the land had belonged to Jews from time immemorial, having been promised to them by the Almighty.

In other words, in 1948 there was an attempt to rewrite the entire history of Palestine: this was year zero, after which a new history would begin with the in-gathering of Jews to their historic homeland, Israel. The towns and villages from which the Palestinians were forced out were quickly demolished and a worldwide campaign was waged to seek contributions for planting trees in the forests that were established where these villages had once stood, in order to completely conceal their prior existence. In some cases new Israeli towns and kibbutzim were constructed over these ruins and Hebrew names were given to them. The National Naming Committee was a public body appointed by the government of Israel to replace Arabic names that had existed until 1948 with Hebrew ones, although traces of the Arabic names haunted the process.
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A new geography was in the making, transforming the country where Palestinians had once lived.”
― Raja Shehadeh, What Does Israel Fear From Palestine?