Sayed Kashua Quotes

Growing numbers of American Jews, even a majority now, are dissatisfied with Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and deeply worried about Israel’s ability to remain a jewish and democratic state if it continues ti effectively rule over Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The fact is that you literally, by definition, cannot have a Jewish state and a democratic state and have a whole bunch of Palestinians in it who are living under military rule while the rest of the country is living under civil rule, and they have different rights and different - it's just not a democracy.

I think it is essential for Israel's survival as a Jewish and democratic state that we end the status quo. The preferred way to end the status quo would be on the basis of a two-state solution. We don't want the Palestinians to be citizens of Israel, nor do we want them to be subjects.

The more Israel sinks into the West Bank, the more it is delegitimized and isolated, the more the world focuses on Israel's colonialism rather than Iran's nuclear enrichment, the more people call for a single democratic state in all of historic Palestine.

It's not good for Israel to govern millions of Palestinians.

I'm hopeful that Israelis can go to Ramallah whenever they want and see how the people are living.

Israel's open-ended control over millions of noncitizen Palestinians ... has strained the country's otherwise robust democracy. The festering conflict and the country's lack of defined, recognized borders have encouraged extreme nationalism and divided Israelis. Indeed, Israel's continued control over Palestinian affairs has strengthened chauvinistic, racist, and violent tendencies on the fringes of the Israeli right.

He wants a two-state solution. He doesn’t know that the two-state solution is dead: dead and buried. And then he tells us we are occupying our own land [the Palestinian West Bank]. How can we occupy what is ours?”

I want the State of Israel to remain a Zionist, Jewish and democratic state. There is nothing 'far' or 'ultra' about those ideals. I also advocate the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

I support Israel. And I have long supported a two-state solution and a democratic and secure state for the Jewish people, with a democratic and viable Palestinian state side-by-side in peace and dignity.

As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel, it is going to be either non-Jewish or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.

The idea that the State of Israel could be democracy only for its Jewish citizens is unconscionable, and we must find a way to address this.

When I visited Jerusalem and the West Bank back in 2008, I was shocked by how individual Palestinians and whole Palestinian communities were treated by the Israeli government. From the illegal settlements to daily humiliations at checkpoints, the evidence of gross injustice and the human suffering it brings is indisputable.

If you want to be a Jewish state and you want to remain a democracy, you have to have a two-state solution.

We need to see a Palestinian state.

I am an American Jew and aware of the sensitivities involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I don't know where Bush is going - yet. But, Sharon obviously - I wrote somewhere in the last several months, that Sharon has adopted, essentially, the position of the Labor Party: that the Palestinians are here to stay.

It doesn't serve an American interest. It really doesn't really serve Israeli interests - it serves the interests of the political party that's getting the votes of the settlers on the West Bank.

We do not build new Jewish communities in Samaria, Judea and Gaza. The United States has never accepted our building of communities or of the fence. Yet, I've managed to develop relations between Israel and the United States even though President Bush never supported settlements.

It is clear a Palestinian state is needed.

I believe that Palestine is an occupied land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, and this is the right of the entire Palestinian people, this land.

And if we are honest we have to make a distinction between a democratic Israel that wants to live in peace and the terrorists who want Israel wiped out. The Israelis were told to give up land for peace; they gave up the land, but got no peace.

I don't want to govern the Palestinians. I don't want them as subjects of Israel or as citizens of Israel. I want them to have their own independent state but a demilitarized state.

I would like Israel to be a Jewish state, and therefore not to annex over 2 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Israel, which will make Israel a bi-national state.

I am passionately invested in the survival of Israel and everything Israel represents. But I am extremely critical of much of its policy. I believe that the occupation must end. And if it doesn't, it will end Israel. I'm not in favor of settlements.