Refugees Quotes
More Refugees Quotes
Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen.
Golda Meir— Speech to the Knesset, reported in Ner (October 1961)
Serbs out, Nato in, refugees back.
— 1999 Summing up the Nato objective in Kosovo,7 Jun.
Referring to Palestinian refugees: "We must do everything in our power to ensure that they never return."
david ben-gurion— Address at the Mapai Political Committee (7 June 1938) as quoted in Feuerlicht, Roberta, 1983 .
It is especially shocking that such a tragedy can go on, year after year, with the rest of the world paying so little attention to it. My Christmas message to Colombian refugees and to the millions of displaced people in Colombia is that the world has not totally forgotten them.
angelina jolie— "UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie and actor Brad Pitt make holiday visit to Colombian refugees in Costa Rica" (25 December 2006)
If the refugees return to Israel – Israel will cease to exist.
gamal abdel nasser— As quoted in A Mandate for Terror : The United Nations and the PLO (1989), by Harris O. Schoenberg, p. 239
I returned to the Holiday Inn — where they have a swimming pool and air-conditioned rooms — to consider the paradox of a nation that has given so much to those who preach the glories of rugged individualism from the security of countless corporate sinecures, and so little to that diminishing band of yesterday's refugees who still practice it, day by day, in a tough, rootless and sometimes witless style that most of us have long since been weaned away from.
hunter s. thompson— Gonzo Papers, Vol. 1: The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time (1979)
Real war was the thousands of Chinese refugees dying of cholera in the sealed stockades at Pootung, and the bloody heads of Communist soldiers mounted on pikes along the Bund. In a real war no one knew which side he was on, and there were no flags or commentators or winners. In a real war there were no enemies.
j. g. ballard— p. 6 (Empire of the Sun (1984))
The "line of the day" among administration spokesmen, confronted by masses of destitute and terrified refugees and solid reports of the mass execution of civilians, is to say that "we expected this to happen." They did? (They never told anyone.) If they want to avoid being indicted for war crimes themselves, these "spokesmen" had better promise us that they were lying when they said that.
christopher hitchens— "Bloody blundering: Clinton's cluelessness is selling out Kosovo", , 5 April 1999 : On the Kosovo War
It cannot be surprising that, as resistance within Cuba grows, refugees have been using whatever means are available to return and support their countrymen in the continuing struggle for freedom. Where people are denied the right of choice, recourse to such struggle is the only means of achieving their liberties.
john f. kennedy— John F. Kennedy: "Message to Chairman Khrushchev Concerning the Meaning of Events in Cuba," April 18, 1961. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
The answer is to let Israel say it will recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, release the prisoners, and recognize the rights of the refugees to return to Palestine. Hamas will have a position if this occurs.
ismail haniyeh— Interview with Washington Post. "We Do Not Wish to Throw Them Into the Sea". Washington Post. February 26, 2006
