In an earlier stage of our development most human groups held to a tribal ethic. Members of the tribe were protected, but people of other tribes could be robbed or killed as one pleased. Gradually the circle of protection expanded, but as recently as 150 years ago we did not include blacks. So African human beings could be captured, shipped to America and sold. In Australia white settlers regarded Aborigines as a pest and hunted them down, much as kangaroos are hunted down today. Just as we have progressed beyond the blatantly racist ethic of the era of slavery and colonialism, so we must now progress beyond the speciesist ethic of the era of factory farming, of the use of animals as mere research tools, of whaling, seal hunting, kangaroo slaughter and the destruction of wilderness. We must take the final step in expanding the circle of ethics.
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This exit of the settlers is one of the fruits of your sacrifices. This step is only the first step that will be completed in the West Bank and in Jerusalem. But the step has come as a result of patience and sacrifices of our people, of martyrs, of wounded, of houses destroyed. All of those have brought us the fruit we are celebrating today.
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America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. The evil is there waiting.
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We shouldn't forget how terrifying untamed landscape was to early settlers. From their perspective, mankind was put here in the New World to conquer the wilderness.
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Today we are getting part of the payoff, of your sacrifice, by seeing the last settlers leaving Gaza, ... The credit for the evacuation is for you and for the martyrs who sacrificed themselves and gave their lives for the homeland.
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Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.
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