Ismail Haniyeh Quotes

A collection of quotes by Ismail Haniyeh.

Ismail Haniyeh is a prominent Palestinian politician who was born on January 29, 1963, in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, Palestine. He rose to prominence as a senior leader of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement.

Haniyeh began his political career in the mid-1980s when he became an active member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He played a crucial role in the development of Hamas, which was founded in 1987 during the First Intifada (Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation). Over the years, Haniyeh held various positions within Hamas and became an influential figure in Palestinian politics.

He gained global recognition when he was elected as the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority in 2006, following Hamas's victory in the legislative elections. However, his tenure was marked by internal conflicts and the Israeli blockade of Gaza, severely limiting his ability to govern effectively.

Throughout his political career, Haniyeh has been a staunch advocate for Palestinian self-determination and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. He has also been involved in numerous diplomatic efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including negotiations for reconciliation between Hamas and the rival Fatah party.

While Haniyeh's leadership has garnered support from many Palestinians, his association with Hamas and their ongoing armed resistance against Israel has also generated criticism from international actors. Nonetheless, Haniyeh remains a significant figure in Palestinian politics, advocating for the rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people.

Long before it was known to me as a place where my ancestry

Long before it was known to me as a place where my ancestry was even remotely involved, the idea of a state for Jews (or a Jewish state; not quite the same thing, as I failed at first to see) had been 'sold' to me as an essentially secular and democratic one. The idea was a haven for the persecuted and the survivors, a democracy in a region where the idea was poorly understood, and a place where as Philip Roth had put it in a one-handed novel that I read when I was about nineteen even the traffic cops and soldiers were Jews. This, like the other emphases of that novel, I could grasp. Indeed, my first visit was sponsored by a group in London called the Friends of Israel. They offered to pay my expenses, that is, if on my return I would come and speak to one of their meetings.I still haven't submitted that expenses claim. The misgivings I had were of two types, both of them ineradicable. The first and the simplest was the encounter with everyday injustice: by all means the traffic cops were Jews but so, it turned out, were the colonists and ethnic cleansers and even the torturers. It was Jewish leftist friends who insisted that I go and see towns and villages under occupation, and sit down with Palestinian Arabs who were living under house arrest if they were lucky or who were squatting in the ruins of their demolished homes if they were less fortunate. In Ramallah I spent the day with the beguiling Raimonda Tawil, confined to her home for committing no known crime save that of expressing her opinions. (For some reason, what I most remember is a sudden exclamation from her very restrained and respectable husband, a manager of the local bank: 'I would prefer living under a Bedouin to another day of Israeli rule!' He had obviously spent some time thinking about the most revolting possible Arab alternative.) In Jerusalem I visited the Tutungi family, who could produce title deeds going back generations but who were being evicted from their apartment in the old city to make way for an expansion of the Jewish quarter. J

Christopher Hitchens

Women

Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little

Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as time goes by, what is true is revealed, and what is fake fades away.

Time

Getting rid of Bin Laden is good for the cause of peace worl

Getting rid of Bin Laden is good for the cause of peace worldwide but what counts is to overcome the discourse and the methods - the violent methods - that were created and encouraged by Bin Laden and others in the world.

Peace

Anybody who asks for democracy to be introduced should respe

Anybody who asks for democracy to be introduced should respect the results of democracy.

Respect

When I said a few weeks ago that our people would eat cookin

When I said a few weeks ago that our people would eat cooking oil and olives if necessary, I didn't mean that there really would be only oil and olives. What I meant was that our people have the necessary patience to endure the current difficult situation. Palestinians would rather do without certain food items than their national rights.

Food