When seen in its proper context, compared to the magnitude of the problems—demographic, economic, political, social, cultural, and religious—that now… - Albert Memmi

I arrived in France, and found myself up against the legend which was current in left-wing Parisian salons: the Jews had always lived in perfect harmony with the Arabs. I was almost congratulated for having been born in such a land where racial discrimination and xenophobia were unknown. It made me laugh.

We would have liked to be Arab Jews. If we abandoned the idea, it is because over the centuries the Moslem Arabs systematically prevented its realization by their contempt and cruelty. It is now too late for us to become Arab Jews.

Like Palestine for the Palestinians, Israel is a national fact, the response to an untenable condition and a collective desire, with its own imaginary, binding it, rightly or wrongly, to this earth. This is how the United Nations viewed the situation when it determined the constitutions of the two sovereign states.