Reply #6: Part of Arundhati Roy's "Come September" speech addressed this issue: [View All]

[dixiegrrrrl]

"In 1937, Winston Churchill said of the Palestinians, I quote,
"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

That set the trend for the Israeli State's attitude towards the Palestinians.

In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said, "Palestinians do not exist."

Her successor, Prime Minister Levi Eschol said, "What are Palestinians? When I came here (to Palestine), there were 250,000 non-Jews, mainly Arabs and Bedouins. It was a desert, more than underdeveloped. Nothing."
Prime Minister Menachem Begin called Palestinians "two-legged beasts."
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called them "grasshoppers" who could be crushed.
This is the language of Heads of State, not the words of ordinary people."

link to full speech, which is as powerful now as it was in 2002.

Transcription of Arundhati Roy reading and
Ms. Roy and Howard Zinn in conversation
Lensic Performing Arts Center
Santa Fe, New Mexico
18 September 2002

http://nmazca.com/verba/roy.htm