Thread by @radicaltheory

edward said:

“the question of palestine’ has irritated and penetrated the general awareness in a new and possibly propitious way, although palestinian self-determination was first voted on affirmatively at the united nations in 1969.”

“(general assembly resolution 2535b expressed grave concern ‘that the denial of [palestinian] rights has been aggravated by the reported acts of collective punishment, arbitrary detention, curfews, destruction of houses and property, deportation and other repressive acts...”

“against the refugees and other inhabitants of the occupied territories,’ and then went on to ‘reaffirm the inalienable rights of the people of palestine.’”

“one year later, resolution 2627c recognized ‘that the people of palestine are entitled to equal rights and self-determination, in accordance with the charter of the united nations.’)”

“despite these unambiguous determinations, the palestinians remain so specialized a people as to serve essentially as a synonym for trouble—rootless, mindless, gratuitous trouble.”

“they will not go away as they ought to, they will not accept the fate of other refugees (who have, apparently, simply resigned themselves to being refugees and therefore are contented as such), they cause trouble.”

“i refer to the plain and irreducible core of the palestinian experience for the last hundred years: that on the land called palestine there existed as a huge majority for hundreds of years a largely pastoral, a nevertheless socially, culturally, politically, economically...”

“identifiable people whose language and religion were (for a huge majority) arabic and islam, respectively. this people—or, if one wishes to deny them any modern conception of themselves as a people, this group of people—identified itself with the land it tilled and lived on...”

“(poorly or not is irrelevant), the more so after an almost wholly european decision was made to resettle, reconstitute, recapture the land for jews who were to be brought there from elsewhere.”

“so far as anyone has been able to determine, there has been no example given of any significant palestinian gesture made to accept this modern reconquest or to accept that zionism has permanently removed palestinians from palestine.”

“such as it is, the palestinian actuality is today, was yesterday, and most likely tomorrow will be built upon an act of resistance to this new foreign colonialism.”

“the inverse resistance which has characterized zionism & israel since the beginning: the refusal to admit, & the consequent denial of, the existence of palestinians who are there not simply as an inconvenient nuisance, but as a population with an indissoluble bond w/ the land.”