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“I know she is crying. Her tears fall on the wrong side, into the bottomless well inside her.”
― Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin

“Toughness found fertile soil in the hearts of Palestinians, and the grains of resistance embedded themselves in their skin. Endurance evolved as a hallmark of refugee society. But the price they paid was the subduing of tender vulnerability. They learned to celebrate martyrdom. Only martyrdom offered freedom. Only in death were they at last invulnerable to Israel. Martyrdom became the ultimate defiance of Israeli occupation. "Never let them know they hurt you" was their creed”
― Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin

“أَيَمْرضُ حُلْمٌ كَمَا يَمْرَضُ الحَالِمُون؟ خَريفٌ خريفٌ. أيُولَدُ شَعْبٌ عَلَى مِقْصلَهْ؛
يحِقُّ لَنَا أنْ نَمُوتَ كمَا نَشْتَهِي أنْ نَمْوت، لِتَخْتَبِىء الأرضُ في سُنْبُلَهْ”
― محمود درويش, ورد أقل

“Do you know, Mother, that Haj Salem was buried alive in his home? Does he tell you stories in heaven now? I wish I had had a chance to meet him. To see his toothless grin and touch his leathery skin. To beg him, as you did in your youth, for a story from our Palestine. He was over one hundred years old, Mother. To have lived so long, only to be crushed to death by a bulldozer. Is this what it means to be Palestinian?”
― Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin

“I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
So that I could break the rule
I learnt all the words and broke them up
To make a single word:
Homeland..”
― Mahmoud Darwish

“[Israel's military occupation is] in gross violation of international law and has been from the outset. And that much, at least, is fully recognized, even by the United States, which has overwhelming and, as I said, unilateral responsibility for these crimes. So George Bush No. 1, when he was the U.N. ambassador, back in 1971, he officially reiterated Washington's condemnation of Israel's actions in the occupied territories. He happened to be referring specifically to occupied Jerusalem. In his words, actions in violation of the provisions of international law governing the obligations of an occupying power, namely Israel. He criticized Israel's failure "to acknowledge its obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as its actions which are contrary to the letter and spirit of this Convention." [...] However, by that time, late 1971, a divergence was developing, between official policy and practice. The fact of the matter is that by then, by late 1971, the United States was already providing the means to implement the violations that Ambassador Bush deplored. [...] on December 5th [2001], there had been an important international conference, called in Switzerland, on the 4th Geneva Convention. Switzerland is the state that's responsible for monitoring and controlling the implementation of them. The European Union all attended, even Britain, which is virtually a U.S. attack dog these days. They attended. A hundred and fourteen countries all together, the parties to the Geneva Convention. They had an official declaration, which condemned the settlements in the occupied territories as illegal, urged Israel to end its breaches of the Geneva Convention, some "grave breaches," including willful killing, torture, unlawful deportation, unlawful depriving of the rights of fair and regular trial, extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. Grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, that's a serious term, that means serious war crimes. The United States is one of the high contracting parties to the Geneva Convention, therefore it is obligated, by its domestic law and highest commitments, to prosecute the perpetrators of grave breaches of the conventions. That includes its own leaders. Until the United States prosecutes its own leaders, it is guilty of grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, that means war crimes. And it's worth remembering the context. It is not any old convention. These are the conventions established to criminalize the practices of the Nazis, right after the Second World War. What was the U.S. reaction to the meeting in Geneva? The U.S. boycotted the meeting [..] and that has the usual consequence, it means the meeting is null and void, silence in the media.”
― Noam Chomsky

“أترين هذه الشريحة؟ حين كنت أضع المربى فوق الزبدة تذكرتُ أخي الصغير.. كان يعتقد دائما أنّ وضع المربى فوق الزبدة هو نوع من قلّة الذوق، فأنت إمّا أن تأكل زبدة أو تأكل مربى و لا يجوز أن تأكلهما معا لأنّك، عند ذاك تكون قد عبّرتَ عن احتقار لكرامة الزبدة أو لكرامة المربى..

كان، و أعتقد أنّه ما يزال يعتقد بأن الزبدة نوع من المأكل الذي يحتوي على كل العناصر التي تجعل منه شيئا قائما بذاته لا يجوز الاستهانة به. ”
― غسان كنفاني, عن الرجال والبنادق

“Many signs point to the fact that the youth of the Third World will no longer tolerate living in circumstances that give them no hope for the future. From the young boys I met in the demobilization camps in Sierra Leone to the suicide bombers of Palestine and Chechnya, to the young terrorists who fly planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we can no longer afford to ignore them. We have to take concrete steps to remove the causes of their rage, or we have to be prepared to suffer the consequences.”
― Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil

“Fucker, I though to myself. So irritated by a stare!
I wonder what your reaction would have been if you had lived under occupation for as many years as I had, or if your shopping rights, like all of your other rights, were violated day and night, or if the olive trees in your grandfather's orchards had been uprooted, or if your village had been bulldozed, or if your house had been demolished, or if your sister could not reach her school, or if your brother had been given three life sentences, or if your mother had given birth at a checkpoint, or if you had stood in a line for days in the hot August summers waiting for your work permit, or if you could not reach your beloved ones in Arab East Jerusalem....
A stare, and you lose your mind!”
― Suad Amiry, Sharon and My Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries

“فكر بموتك في أرض نشأت بها ... واترك لقبرك أرضاً طولها باعُ”
― إبراهيم طوقان, الأعمال الشعرية الكاملة: إبراهيم طوقان

“He could never go back to that place, it had been sealed off to him for ever, blown to the sky with explosives then flattened to the ground with bulldozers, built over with tarmac, lived on top of by other people.”
― Selma Dabbagh, Out of It

“We can't just run away. It's our land. Our people. We have a duty.”
― Selma Dabbagh, Out of It

“How was it that a man could not walk onto his own property, visit the grave of his wife, eat the fruits of forty generations of his ancestors�� toil, without mortal consequence?”
― Susan Abulhawa

“إننا نفضل رأس خازرق فوق تراب الوطن على رحاب الغربة كلها. فقد وجدناها، كلها، حراباً وفِراشها أشبه بفراش فقير هندي؛ رؤوس مسامير أو خوازيق صغيرة وكبيرة على قدر المقام!”
― إميل حبيبي, سراج الغولة: النص/ الوصية

“كلمات من ذهب !

يقول القاضي مجير الدين الحنبلي في وصف المسجد الأقصى في كتابه "الأُنس الجليل في تاريخ القدس و الخليل ":
إعلم وفقك الله أن المسجد الأقصى, ليس له نظير تحت أديم السماء و لا بني في المساجد صفته و لا سعته .. و أما صفته في هذا العصر, فهي ايضاً من الصفات العجيبة لحسن بنائه و اتقانه”
― القاضي مجير الدين الحنبلي

“لكن سؤلاً واحداً لم يجرؤ على توجيهه إلى أخته "الفيلسوفة"، خوفا من لطمة كفّ، فخنافة مع أُخته التي لا يحب أن يخانقها، أو خوفا من شيء آخر في ذاته:
هل، حين ينسحبون، سأعود كما كنت..بدون ابن عم؟!.”
― إميل حبيبي, سداسية الأيام الستة وقصص أخرى

“القدس بلد عظيمة كائنة على هضبة مرتفعة .. إنها مهوى افئدة كثير من الناس, ليس من حيث قدسيتها فحسب بل من حيث اقتصادياتها و وفرة حاصلاتها ايضاً”
― المؤرخ أوليا الجلبي 1670

“Ghetto living is more than just a feeling of confinement; it is a sense of suffocation too.”
― Susan Nathan, The Other Side of Israel: My Journey Across the Jewish/Arab Divide

“You are insistent, calling again. You want me to tell you the story of Scheherazade, who rocks the sad king on her knees as she sings him tales from wonderland. Yet you know that I am not Scheherazade, and that one of the world's greatest wonders is that I am unable to enter my country or pass through the region around it.”
― Liana Badr

“و بيت المقدس مدينة مرتفعة على الجبال يصعد اليها من كل مكان. و بها مسجد ليس في الإسلام مسجد أكبر منه”
― الاصطرخي كتاب "مسالك الممالك"

“We would do well to remember that the success of any struggle depends on the determination of its leaders and the clarity of its purpose, not the doubts of naysayers.”
― Saree Makdisi, Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation