Raja Shehadeh > Quotes

“At around the same time, while in Cairo, Yasser Arafat, the PLO chairman, declared that the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank was “a joke”; later, in Algeria, he declared, “This project aims at liquidating Palestinian organizations.”
― Raja Shehadeh, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir

“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?

“As time passed, my father and other Palestinian leaders realized that King Abdullah was not working towards the return of the refugees but planned to keep them as citizens of Jordan, relieving Israel of the problem of refugees returning to their former homes. Israel could then take these homes and lands without paying compensation.”
― Raja Shehadeh, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir

“Although Jaffa was almost entirely evacuated, leaving only some 2,000 of its 75,000 residents in the city, the more resilient inhabitants of Lydda and Ramle – the two cities that were also within the boundaries of the Arab state according to the partition plan – had held on. They had armed themselves and were ready to defend their cities against the Jewish fighters. But as the Israeli army rearmed itself that summer and gained in strength, Lydda and Ramle soon realized that they could not stand their ground without help from an Arab army. From May 18 to 28 the 4,500-strong Arab Legion fought a fierce battle for Jerusalem which ended with them in control of the Old City. This gave my father hope. It was a unique instance of an Arab army winning a victory over the new Israeli forces. Disappointment, though, was soon to follow. During the four-week truce from June 11 to July 9 that was arranged by Count Folke Bernadotte, the UN envoy, Israel rearmed with weapons from the USA and the Eastern bloc. Meanwhile, under strong US pressure, Britain stopped supplying arms to Jordan. Then, in the next round of fighting, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Glubb decided to withdraw his forces from the area that had been designated part of the Palestinian state under the partition plan. This left the cities of Lydda and Ramle undefended and allowed the Israelis to force the inhabitants to leave at gunpoint.”
― Raja Shehadeh, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir

“The way things are going, it doesn't seem likely that I will live to see the end of this tragic story either. But then I listen again to the birds in my garden and wonder what I can do to make it happen, and so I continue to write.”
― Raja Shehadeh, When The Bulbul Stopped Singing: A Diary of Ramallah under Siege

“On top of all of this, now we have orders issued from abroad denying those under occupation the right to speak and give their opinions. By God, how can there be honorable living when the right to think and speak is denied?”
― Raja Shehadeh, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir

“My father left Jaffa that April certain that in the worst case, even if other parts of Palestine were lost to the Jewish state, Jaffa would return to Arab hands. According to the UN partition plan, the city was in the Arab section, where the proposed Arab state was to be established alongside the Jewish state.”
― Raja Shehadeh, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir

“That night my father, along with all the other leaders of the plan to return to Jaffa, was arrested under the British regulations by Glubb’s men and put behind bars. The mass return was foiled. This was one of the first betrayals by King Abdullah of Transjordan, but it would not be the last.”
― Raja Shehadeh, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir

“When will we be able to get our money back?” He didn’t have an answer. Not only did the refugees lose their homes and property after the Nakba, but Israel also prevented the repatriation of money that they had deposited in local branches of foreign banks in Israel. This left many of them totally destitute.”
― Raja Shehadeh, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir

“The mission of Jordan is the safeguarding of what is left of Palestine until the appropriate time for its recapture arrives.”
― Raja Shehadeh, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir

“There was the relentless, ongoing devastation of the landscape brought about by the changes Israel was making through the building of settlements and the infrastructure of roads, water and electricity that accompanied”
― Raja Shehadeh, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir