National (Zionist) interest first and foremost
- Quotation from Fleur Hassan-Nahoum “There are laws that some people may consider as favoring Jews” — May 7 2121
Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, justifying the evictions of palestinian families of Sheich Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. - Quotation from Sheldon Adelson “Israel isn’t going to be a democratic state — so what?” — Nov. 9 2014
Casino magnate, donor to several U.S. Zionist organizations, friend of Trump and Natanyahu, in a conference in Washington. - Quotation from Eli Yishai “I sound like a racist, a benighted man or a xenophobe” — May 31 2012
Israeli Interior Minister, in a call to protect the "Zionist dream" against migrants. - Quotation from Ariel Sharon “It’s as if we were in Algeria” — Dec. 27 2001
Relating a phone call to French president Jacques Chirac, as related to journalist Alain Louyot in December 2001. - Quotation from Abba Eban “Condemn us to start a preventive war” — 1970
Giving an extensive justification to any war of aggression. - Quotation from Moshe Dayan “Who needs a Jewish Vatican” — June 7 1967
Responding to the Chief Rabbi of the army Shlomo Goren who had called to blow up the Dome of the Rock. - Quotation from Levi Eshkol “The costal area [Gaza] will never be returned to Egypt” — June 1967
Then Prime Minister of Israel, speaks of Israel's intention to take permanent control of Gaza. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “Hitler … caused damage to the Jewish state, whose coming he did not foresee” — 1954
Weighing, in retrospect, in his own way, the harm caused to the Jews by the genocide of the Jews of Europe. - Quotation from Walter Eytan “My main purpose was to begin to undermine the protocol of 12 May” — June 13 1949
Co-Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explaining in June 1949 the deception to get Israel admitted to the UN. - Quotation from Yitzhak Gruenbaum “NO! and I say again, NO! Not one cow here for ten thousand Jews in Germany” — Feb. 18 1943
Chairman of the Rescue Committee of the Jewish Agency, in an address to the Zionist Executive Council. - Quotation from Yitzhak Gruenbaum “Let them say that I am anti-Semitic” — Jan. 18 1943
Chairman of the Rescue Committee of the Jewish Agency during World War II, addressing the Zionist Executive Committee in response to Rabbi Ishe Meir Levin d'Agudat Yisrael. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “The catastrophe of the European Jewry is not, in a direct manner, my business” — Dec. 1942
Fewer Jews in Europe? It is annoying for the Zionist colonization…. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “At the beginning of the war… the establishment of a Jewish state” — Sep. 12 1939
Twelve days after the outbreak of World War II, Ben Gurion indicated what the Zionist objective in this war would be: to establish a Jewish state. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “For me, Zionist considerations take precedence over Jewish sentiments” — Sep. 11 1939
Speaking before the executive committee of Histadrut against the recruitment of Jews into the allied troops. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “We shall fight the White Paper as though there was no war” — Sep. 1939
Pronounced by Ben Gurion at the beginning of World War II. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “If Palestine will not absorb them another territory will. Zionism is endangered” — Dec. 17 1938
Letter to the Zionist Executive expressing the fear that Palestine might not be the only solution to the rescue of European Jews. - Quotation from Arthur Ruppin “I believe in the transfer of entire villages” — June 12 1938
Leading Zionist planner at a Jewish Agency executive meeting. - Quotation from Chaim Weizmann “The old ones will pass. They will bear their fate or they will not. They are dust” — 1937
Before the 20th Zionist Congress of 1937, referring to his testimony before the Peel Commission. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “Zionism ... cannot initiate an irresponsible battle against Hitler” — Aug. 27 1935
Writing about the boycott of Nazi Germany in the Davar daily newspaper. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “Our movement has always stood for the socialist idea” — Aug. 7 1931
Exalting his notion of a national workers' socialism, two years before National Socialism took power in Germany. - Quotation from Vladimir Jabotinsky “We Jews have nothing in common with what is called the Orient, thank God” — 1926
Father of the revisionist movement, explaining (like most of the colonists of the time) that the Jews have nothing to do with the East. - Quotation from Vladimir Jabotinsky “An iron wall which the native population cannot breakthrough” — Nov. 4 1923
Leader of the so-called "revisionist" fascist movement, dotting the i's and crossing the t's on how to move forward with the colonization of settlements. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “We are conquerors of the land facing an iron wall” — Dec. 1922
At the 3rd convention of Ahdut Ha'avoda in Haifa in December 1922. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “I don’t know what Arab will agree that Palestine should belong to the Jews” — June 1919
Addressing the Va'ad Zmani (temporary executive body of the Yishuv), asserting the incompatibility of Zionism with its Arab environment, while denying that the land is Arabic. - Quotation from Chaim Weizmann “We have never based the Zionist movement on Jewish suffering in Russia or in any other land” — May 20 1917
Then president of the English Zionist federation, talks about the effects that the fall of tsarism and anti-Jewish oppression in Russia could have on the preparations for the Balfour Declaration (during the period before the October Revolution). - Quotation from Moshe Sharett “We have come to conquer a country from people inhabiting it” — Feb. 12 1914
Future second Prime Minister of Israel, later described as a "moderate", in a letter sent from Istanbul to his friends in Tel Aviv. - Quotation from Yitzhak Ben-Zvi “Contradiction should be resolved by relinquishing the socialist principle in favour of the national” — 1912
Future 2nd President of Israel, speaking about the left-wing split of the Poale Zion group, which supported the class struggle.