Denis McDonough Quotes
Palestinian children deserve the same right to be free in their own land as Israeli children in their land. A two-state solution will finally bring Israelis the security and normalcy to which they are entitled, and Palestinians the sovereignty and dignity they deserve.
McDonough, Denis. "Remarks by the Chief of Staff at J Street National Conference." Obama White House Archives, The White House, 23 Mar. 2015.
This statement is at first hard to comprehend in that the Arab League is made up nations not one of which guarantees much less allows its citizens any modicum of freedom. However, the notion of freedom for many Muslim nations at the time was that individuals have obligations and duties while groups and nations are entitled to group freedom. Thus this Prime Minister of an autocracy with no freedom guaranteed any of its citizens can call for freedom for the Palestinian people as a group of Iraq as a nation. The concept is different than that of Western, industrialized democracies.
Wilson was a descended from a line of fundamentalist Presbyterian Ministers who believed firmly that God ordained the Holy Land for the Jewish People. Even though the WWI peace was the main topic of the Versailles Treaty negotiations, because the Turks made the poor judgment to ally themselves with the Germans and the Ottoman Empire was to be broken up. There was much lobbying by Zionists of many countries and many Arab groups even then.
Denis Richard McDonough is an American government official serving as the 11th and current United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs under President Joe Biden since 2021.
