Wednesday, August 31, 2011

There are things that are said with mathematical precision and infallible logic. And who is more qualified than Bertrand Russel to do just that

















"The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was "given" by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East".

"Message from Bertrand Russell to the International Conference of Parliamentarians in Cairo, February 1970." Reprinted in The New York Times, Feb. 23, 1970.

3 comments:

  1. <span>"The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was "given" by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless.</span>

    Who can really convincingly argue that this is false?

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  2. Most Israelis and Americans do. Not convincigly but they do. Over here, I know 2 of them. Anan and most certainly fleming.

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  3. Not that these 2 matter but they're symptomatic of a larger audience.

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