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Look, we have existed for 4,000 years - 2,000 years in diaspora, in exile. Nobody in the Middle East speaks their original language but Israel. When we started 64 years ago, we were 650,000 people. So, you know, we are maybe swimming a little bit against the stream, but we continue to swim.

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French.

To this day the Arab influence is evident in southern Italy, northern Africa and, above all, in Spain.

A first difficulty of the Arab movement was to say who the Arabs were. Being a manufactured people, their name had been changing in sense slowly year by year. Once it meant an Arabian. There was a country called Arabia; but this was nothing to the point.

Together, for over 50 years, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia have devoted themselves to Spain.

A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations.

In Israel politics, four years is like 400 years in Europe.

I don't know Arabic. I can't speak or write it.

Arab civilizations had been of an abstract nature, moral and intellectual rather than applied; and their lack of public spirit made their excellent private qualities futile. They were fortunate in their epoch: Europe had fallen barbarous; and the memory of Greek and Latin learning was fading from men's minds.

The existence of another, competing translation is a good thing, in general, and only immediately discouraging to one person - the translator who, after one, two, or three years of more or less careful work, sees another, and perhaps superior, version appear as if overnight.