Gaza Unsilenced Quotes

“Awareness is Israel’s most hated and feared foe.”
― Refaat Alareer, Gaza Unsilenced

“Tomorrow there’s no school in Gaza, they don’t have any children left.”
― Refaat Alareer, Gaza Unsilenced

“Al-Saifi believes that by destroying mosques, “the occupation was erasing the historical proof and evidence of our presence in Palestine.”
― Refaat Alareer, Gaza Unsilenced

“Israel’s allegation that for Palestinians life is cheap has a long pedigree among Western imperialists. The words of General Westmoreland, quoted in the 1974 film Hearts and Minds about the Vietnam War, always stuck in my mind. Generalizing, the general opined, “The Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. We value life and human dignity. They don’t care about life and human dignity.” Westmoreland is a worthy heir to the notorious lights of European empires, the likes of the Britons Cecil Rhodes (South Africa) and Lord Cromer (Egypt), and the French Field Marshal Bugeaud (Algeria). This history of dehumanizing the “Orientals” still lurks below the surface in Western culture, despite the anti-colonial struggles and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States that made it impolitic to voice such unalloyed prejudice publicly. The need for “Orientals,” for barbarians, as a “kind of solution,” persists. Today they are the Arabs and Muslims, and the Israeli information section of the Operations Manual feeds on and into the latent racism.”
― Refaat Alareer, Gaza Unsilenced

“Honestly, the targeting of mosques on such an unprecedented large-scale reflects the barbaric and brutal nature of the Israeli occupation, and the army’s frustration and sense of failure, as it reached an impasse. It resorted to targeting civilians and places of worship, which have been guaranteed protection and immunity under all international conventions.”
― Refaat Alareer, Gaza Unsilenced

“As for those refugees from 1948, who currently make up 75 percent of the population of Gaza—they are still prevented from exercising their right, as spelled out in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to return to their homes and their lands.”
― Refaat Alareer, Gaza Unsilenced