“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home”
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About this quote
The underlying principle is that a place belongs to the people who already live and build their lives there, and that one group's suffering grants no right to displace another. Righting a wrong by creating a fresh injustice, on this view, only moves the harm rather than ending it.
When to use it
- A company that eases one team's crowding by evicting another from its offices, and reaps years of resentment.
- A city solving a housing shortage by pushing out long-standing tenants instead of building more homes.
- Redrawing a shared community garden to favor newcomers while uprooting families who tended the plots for years.