In the Final Analysis

…When are you going to stop considering that the weakness and mistakes of others are endorsed over to the account of your own prerogatives? These old catchwords are worn out, these mathematical equations are full of cheating. First you say that our mistakes justify your mistakes, then you say that one wrong doesn’t absolve another. You use the first logic to justify your presence here and the second to avoid the punishment your presence here deserves…I am decreeing that in the final analysis you’re a human being…You must come to understand things are they should be understood. I know that one day you’ll realize these things and that you‘ll realize that the greatest crime any human being can commit, whoever he may be, is to believe for one moment that the weakness and mistakes of others give him the right to exist at their expense and justify his own mistakes and crimes.
- Ghassan Kanafani, Returning to Haifa