Regional Voices: Iran, Syria, Yemen, Israel, and Palestine

“We don’t need an atomic bomb. ... And besides, it is not atomic bombs that threaten the world, but Western morals and culture declining in values.” –Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad

“Look, I respect their prowess and their struggle…I respect their ideology, even if I strongly disagree with it, on one condition! They must remain one faction among many other factions of the revolution and one component of Syrian society which has many other components.” –Abu al-Hasan, an Aleppo activist speaking about Jubhat al-Nusra

“The Americans say they hold our sons to rehabilitate them. They can return them to us and we could take care of them.” –a mother of a Yemeni detainee in Guantanamo

“The march of hatred of the Israel-haters and followers of the path of the Mufti of Jerusalem… is added proof that any agreement with the Palestinians must also include within it Israeli Arabs.” –Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman criticizing Israeli Arab participation in the annual “Right of Return” march in Wadi Ara

“How can you be patriotic if you’ve fled?” –Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on the Syrian opposition in a rare television interview

“The problem is not Fayyad and never was Fayyad…The problem is the Israeli occupation and a lack of any kind of political or diplomatic horizon.” –Awaida Ahmed Awaida, chief executive of the Palestinian Stock Exchange

“We don’t need imported charters or a new understanding of the nation’s religion…We won’t be doing our population, and our nation, any service if we pledge our allegiance to those who don’t know a thing about our reality.” – a statement by the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front, referring to the alliance between Syria’s Nusra Front and the Qaeda branch