Quotations
- Quotation from Moshe Dayan “It lies upon the Israeli army to carry out the fight with the object of erecting the Israeli Empire” — Feb. 12 1952
Israel's Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs on February 12, 1952 on Radio Israel. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “A danger that Israel will be s state without a nation” — 1952
In 1951–52, Ben-Gurion realized that Israel was made up of communities with no shared history that did not constitute a nation. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “It lacks the most basic and primary concepts of civilization” — Nov. 27 1950
Referring to Yemeni Jews in a letter to the first Israeli Chief of Staff, Yigael Yadin. - Quotation from Yosef Weitz “Given the massive immigration from the Orient … There are indeed grounds for anxiety” — Sep. 19 1950
Director of the KKL/JNF, expresses in his diary his racist fear of Oriental Jews. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “The ingathering of the exiles brings us the rabble” — Apr. 1950
At a meeting of the army high command, explaining that the Jewish 'rabble' must be 'rebuilt'. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “These Arabs should not reside here” — 1950
At a Mapai party meeting in late 1950, Ben Gurion expressed his desire to take advantage of a war to remove the Palestinian minority from Israel. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “We do not fit the general pattern of humanity” — 1950
In a speech in 1950 exalting the exceptionalism of the "Jewish people”. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “Return to Zion and to the Bible is a supreme expression of the rebirth ...of the Jewish people” — 1950
In a writing showing his total identification between "spirituality" and nationalism. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “Our supreme quality, our intellectual and moral advantage” — 1950
In a speech to young Israelis. - 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 Albert Hyamson “The moral … rights of the tenants, who had been resident on that land all along, were ignored” — 1950
Influential Zionist who became Commissioner for Migration in Palestine in 1921, described in 1950 the situation he experienced in the 1920s. - Quotation from Collectif “There must be as few Arabs on as few lands as possible” — Dec. 26 1949
Text of the (Israeli) Refugee Resettlement Agency about the Palestinians who remained on the soil of Palestine, now Israel. - Quotation from Zalman Lifshitz “Just as the Bedouin of the Negev ... so also are the names not rooted there” — Jul. 29 1949
Chairman of the Committee created eleven days earlier to erase the Arab toponymy of Palestine. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “I doubt if there is any Jewish community which has more thieves than the Polish ones” — Jul. 13 1949
During a session of the "Knesset Committee for the Constitution, Law and Justice", he called Moroccan Jews "savages", but soon recovered as follows. - Quotation from Yitzhak Gruenbaum “By bringing Yemenites, 70% of whom are sick, we are doing no good” — Jul. 1949
Member of the Knesset, during the debate on the emigration of Yemeni Jews, in a speech mimicking the Nazi discourse on "lice-bitten Jews". - 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 Yaakov Zrubavel “Perhaps these are not the Jews we would like to see coming here” — June 5 1949
Head of the Middle East Department of the Jewish Agency, talking about Oriental Jewish immigrants. - Quotation from Yosef Weitz “Solved by itself by the return to the villages of the [land’s] owners” — May 27 1949
One year after the expulsion of the Palestinians, the head of the KKL/JNF acknowledges that the expelled Palestinians are the rightful owners of the land, but urges the government to prevent any return. - 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 Chaim Weizmann “Viz ; the Jews take over the country” — 1949
Chaim Weizmann, the main Zionist lobbyist during the First World War, explained in March 1915, in a letter to the editor of the Manchester Guardian, his plan to use Great Britain as a protector for the development of the Zionist settlement in Palestine. - Quotation from Arthur Koestler “One nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third” — 1949
Writer, commenting on the "extravagance" of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 (extravagance approved by Koestler). - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “Israël did no expel even one Arab” — 1949
In all his dialogues with western interlocutors. - Quotation from David Horowitz “The immigrants are in some ways taking the place of the Arabs” — 1949
Director General of the Ministry of Finance of Israel, in consultation with Ben Gurion. - Quotation from Chaim Weizmann “Balfour, Churchill ... believed in the Bible ... we Zionists represented a great tradition” — Jan. 1 1970
Chaim Weizmann, the main Zionist lobbyist in Great Britain during the First World War, recalls, in connection with a polemic against anti-Zionist Jews, that the English Protestant leaders sympathize with the myth of the jewish "return". - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “We will not let the Arabs back” — Dec. 18 1948
Then Prime Minister, during a meeting with Yosef Weitz and Ezra Danin. - Quotation from Hannah Arendt “The emergence ...of the Herut, closely akin … to the Nazi and Fascist parties” — Dec. 1948
Commenting, with Albert Einstein and twenty-six others, on the creation of Herut, the party of Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and ancestor of the Likud of Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu. - Quotation from Albert Einstein “The emergence ...of the Herut, closely akin … to the Nazi and Fascist parties” — Dec. 1948
Commenting, with Hannah Arendt and twenty-six others, on the creation of Herut, the party of Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and ancestor of the Likud of Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu. - Quotation from Menachem Begin “They would repudiate everything we did and pretend that we were dissident elements” — Nov. 1948
Leader of the terrorist organization Irgun, declaration in the United States during his visit to the United States at the end of November 1948. - 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 Folke Bernadotte “The right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from which he has been dislodged” — Sep. 16 1948
On the eve of his assassination by LEHI, a revisionist terrorist group that has a museum in Tel Aviv, Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations mediator in Palestine, recalled this “basic justice.”. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “We would not have taken on this war merely for the purpose of enjoying this tiny state” — Aug. 16 1948
Develops his visions in an interview with Times Magazine (read in full!). - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “It turns out that most of the Jews are thieves” — Jul. 24 1948
In an inconsequential statement two months after the proclamation of Israel, just before he became the leader of the thieves. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “Why are there so many Arabs? Why didn't you expel them” — Jul. 19 1948
On his first visit to Nazareth. - Quotation from Yitzhak Rabin “The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age” — Jul. 12 1948
As the general leading "Operation Dany", an ethnic cleansing operation to expand the Jewish state, giving the order to implement the expulsion order given the same day with a simple wave of the hand. - Quotation from Yitzhak Rabin “Ben Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said, "Drive them out!"” — Jul. 12 1948
Commenting in his service book of July 12-13, 1948 on the way Ben Gurion gave the order to expel the Palestinians from Lydda. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “I will oppose their return also after the war” — June 16 1948
Barely a month after the proclamation of Israel, Ben Gourion, before ten ministers, declared Israel's definitive opposition to the return of refugees to their homes. - 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. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria” — May 24 1948
In his personal notes. More drunk with power than ever after a meeting with his counsellors, he is already anticipating 1967. - Quotation from Collectif “The State of Israel … will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants” — May 14 1948
Day of Israel's proclamation of independence. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “We appeal … to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace” — May 14 1948
Excerpt from the text of the declaration of independence read by Ben Gurion on the afternoon of May 14, 1948, calling for "preserving peace" while hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were killed or expelled. - Quotation from Hannah Arendt “The land that would come into being would be something quite other than the dream of world Jewry” — May 1 1948
Hostile to territorial Zionism, warns that after the Arab-Israeli War... - Quotation from Yosef Weitz “Their inhabitants are afraid and flee like mice” — Apr. 21 1948
At the same time as he participates in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the KKL/JNF leader cherishes the idea that the expellees will identify with the expellers. - Quotation from Roscher Lund “The Jews, by virtue of the large reserve ... have an incalculable advantage over the Arabs” — Apr. 20 1948
Norwegian UN expert in Palestine, giving Zionists his assessment of the military situation at the beginning of the Nakba. - Quotation from Eliezer Bauer “When adult males were discovered hiding...-they were killed” — Apr. 14 1948
Describing how members of several kibbutzes killed the unarmed peasants of Abu Zureiq without a second thought. No investigation was ever decided upon and the number of Palestinians massacred remains unknown. - Quotation from David Ben Gurion “War will also bring in its wake a great change in the distribution of the Arab population” — Apr. 6 1948
Speaking to the Zionist Action Committee, said that the war and the depopulation of the Palestinians will not stop at the borders of the partition plan.