Quotes for the day: Friday, February 08, 2008
June 4, 1983, Imam Khomeini of Iran.
"I warn the governments of the Islamic countries…They should know that Israel, as I have said again and again and as you have heard time and again, will not be satisfied with these agreements. It sees the Arab governments from the Nile to the Euphrates as usurpers, and sooner or later with the help of America it will put its malicious plan into action if, God forbid, it should find the opportunity and if the Arab governments do not awaken from their deep slumber. Is it not a source of shame for the Muslims and the governments of the Islamic countries that America, from the other side of the world, can govern their destinies and through the usurping infidel, Israel, can ensnare and ruin them all?"
Hassan Nasrallah, interview with Bin-Jiddu on July 22, 2006
Today, I do not expect anything from certain Arab rulers. Now if you ask me about what I expect from the nation, I know that if you examine the hearts of all people in the Arab and Muslim nations, they are with us. They may sit in front of television screens, cry, and show emotions. If they hear good news, they may stand up, clap, and show joy; if they hear sad news, they may cry and feel sad; and if they have the chance to show genuine emotions, they would do so. I have no doubt about this. I am even certain that some sons, daughters, and wives of some Arab rulers are with us. But I tell the Arab rulers, I do not want your swords and I do not even want your hearts. To say it in Lebanese slang, the only thing I want from you is leave us alone. Sit on the fence and have nothing to do with us. You have said what you said, thank you, go and rest. Today, there is a war that was imposed on Lebanon whose aim is to liquidate everything called resistance and resistance men in Lebanon and punish Lebanon for the defeat it inflicted on Is rael. In fact, the war on Lebanon aims at liquidating the Palestinian cause. Everybody knows that the wide-scale uprising in Palestine erupted following the victory in Lebanon.
Theodor Herzl - openning address to First Zionist Congress
But it is not solely from this point of view that Zionism may reckon upon the sympathy of the nations. You know that in some lands the Jewish problem has come to mean calamity for the government. If it sides with the Jews, it is confronted by the ire of the masses; if it sides against the Jews, it may call disagreeable economic consequences down upon its head because of the peculiar influence of the Jews upon the business affairs of the world. Examples of the latter may be met with in Russia. But if the government maintains a neutral attitude, the Jews find themselves unprotected by the established regime and rush into the arms of the revolutionaries.
2006 UN address by His Excellency Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad
The roots of the Palestinian problem go back to the Second World War. Under the pretext of protecting some of the survivors of that War, the land of Palestine was occupied through war, aggression and the displacement of millions of its inhabitants; it was placed under the control of some of the War survivors, bringing even larger population groups from elsewhere in the world, who had not been even affected by the Second World War; and a government was established in the territory of others with a population collected from across the world at the expense of driving millions of the rightful inhabitants of the land into a Diaspora and homelessness. This is a great tragedy with hardly a precedent in history. Refugees continue to live in temporary refugee camps, and many have died still hoping to one day return to their land. Can any logic, law or legal reasoning justify this tragedy? Can any member of the United Nations accept such a tragedy occurring in their own homeland?