Above all, no return of the Palestinians
- Quotation from Michal Katorza “A large portion of JNF Parks are … where palestinian villages used to stand” — 2008
KKL/JNF leader in charge of park signage, recognizing the function of parks, well known to Palestinians. - Quotation from Yitzhak Pundak “We had to destroy them, otherwise we would have had Arabs here” — May 21 2004
Brigadier General, explaining 56 years after the events that it was nothing more than ethnic cleansing. - Quotation from Gideon Ezra “The state of Israel does not intend … to permit a creeping right of return” — Jul. 29 2003
Minister without portfolio in the Sharon government, in a select committee, commenting on the law prohibiting the reunification of Palestinian families. - Quotation from Menachem Brinker “If the right of way back of refugees … then I’d prefer to give up any agreement” — 1996
Academic and co-founder of "Peace Now", showing the limits of so-called "left-wing" Zionism. - Quotation from Yitzhak Rabin “Conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees” — Mar. 16 1983
Explaining his method of ethnically cleansing the occupied territories without the world shouting. - Quotation from Bertrand Russell “No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country” — Jan. 31 1970
Message to the International Conference of Parliamentarians in Cairo (Feb. 70), written just before his death (excerpt). - Quotation from Moshe Dayan “All our settlements are built on the ruins of Palestinian villages” — Apr. 1969
Talking to students of the Haifa Technion about the Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948. - Quotation from Maurice Samuel “We needed the maximum number of Jews, in shambles, everywhere and everywhere” — 1953
Zionist writer known for a famous racist "anti-goy" statement "You Gentiles" (1925) speaks of the "opening of the floodgates" to populate Israel as soon as possible after the ethnic cleansing of 1948. - Quotation from Arthur Lourie “Convince the world that not all of these formerly lived in Israeli territory” — 1950
Personal secretary of Chaim Weizmann who became Consul General in New York, in a letter to Walter Eitan, Israeli Foreign Ministry, proposes to minimize the number of refugees. - Quotation from Moshe Sharett “The refugees will find their place in the diaspora … The majority will become the dregs” — 1950
Second "moderate" President of Israel. - Quotation from Harry Truman “I am rather disgusted with the manner in which the Jews are approaching the refugee problem” — Apr. 11 1949
President of the United States, in response to Mark Ethridge, President of the Palestine Conciliation Commission, in an inconsequential manifestation of mood…. - Quotation from Martin Buber “We will have to face the reality that Israel is neither innocent, nor redemptive” — Mar. 1949
Jewish philosopher, addressing David Ben Gurion in March 1949. The translation indicates 'diaspora' when it is about exile. - Quotation from Judah Magnes “Refugees should never be made use of as a trump in the hands of politicians” — Oct. 1948
Former president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Reportedly pronounced shortly before his death on October 27, 1948. - Quotation from Moshe Sharett “But they do not return. And this is our policy: they do not return” — June 16 1948
2nd "moderate" president of Israel. - Quotation from Yosef Weitz “His opinion is that we must act ...as to transform the exodus of the Arabs into an established fact” — May 28 1948
KKL-JNF leader in a meeting with newly appointed Foreign Minister Moshe Shertok (Sharett) to formalize the "transfer committee" to make the expulsion of Palestinians irreversible.