Quotations

• Quotation from Asher Ginsberg “I did not manage to see even one man living solely from the fruit of his land” — 1891
  In his book The Truth from Palestine (renamed A truth from the Land of Israel in 1953), commenting on his first visit to Palestine in 1891.
• Quotation from Collectif “In short, they will not accept us, even as their slaves” — 1890
  From a Bedouin tribe on the lands of what became Rehovot, in a petition addressed to the Istanbul government.
• Quotation from Asher Ginsberg “Title missing” — 1890
  Realizing that real Zionism is going to the front lines of war, both internally and externally.
• Quotation from Nathan Birnbaum “In the uniqueness of race, the uniqueness of the nation is enfolded” — 1886
  Inventor of the concept of Zionism, from which he distanced himself after 1898.
• Quotation from Eliezer Ben Yehouda “The thing we must do now is ...to conquer the country, covertly, bit by bit” — Jul. 1882
  Promoter of modern Hebrew, speaking about the expansion of Jewish settlements.
• Quotation from Leo Pinsker “Judeophobia is a psychic aberration ...transmitted for two thousand years it is incurable” — 1882
  German-speaking Polish Jewish doctor, supporter of integration and then of the Zionist idea, exposing anti-Semitism as a hereditary defect.
• Quotation from Laurence Oliphant “Compelled to turn for the locality of the colony to Palestine, and for the colonists to the Jews” — 1880
  Writer and politician, dedicating his book to "Her Royal Highness" Queen Victoria "as a token of deep gratitude for the sympathy and cordial interest shown by Her Royal Highness in the author's efforts to promote the Jewish settlement of Palestine ".
• Quotation from Anthony Ashley Cooper “And has not England a special interest in promoting such restoration” — 1876
  Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, English statesman, in an address to the British Parliament in 1876.
• Quotation from Henry Dunant “... agricultural colonies, with the help and labor of those of their Eastern co-religionists...” — Jan. 1 1970
  In 1866, Henry Dunant, Calvinist and founder of the Red Cross, recommended to Emperor Napoleon III the creation of a settlement society in Palestine for Eastern European Jews. The project never got off the ground. Dunant attended the First Zionist Congress of 1897.
• Quotation from Abraham Lincoln “Restoring the Jews” — 1863
  Déclare en réponse à un homme d’église canadien, Henry Wentworth Monk :.
• Quotation from Moses Hess “The Jewish race is a basic one and reproduces itself in its integrity” — 1862
  Considered as the first Jewish political Zionist, claims the existence of an "indelible" racial difference.
• Quotation from Anthony Ashley Cooper “The ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews” — Jul. 30 1853
  Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, English statesman, one of the founders of Christian Zionism, in a letter to British Foreign Minister George Hamilton Gordon.
• Quotation from Abba Kovner “We will be marching in the stream of the invaders’ blood.” — Jul. 1848
  This type of call to massacre came from Abba Kovner, who unsuccessfully attempted to organize a revolt in the Jewish ghetto of Vilnius (Lithuania) in 1942-43. In 1945, with the help of the Zionist "Jewish Brigade", he organized a group, "Nakam", which aimed, also unsuccessfully, to indiscriminately kill a large number of Germans under the motto "that's what they deserve". In 1948, he left for Palestine, where, as head of education for the Givati brigade, he poured out his anti-Arab hatred (citation) against the Egyptians who had belatedly come to the aid of the Palestinians expelled by the Nakba. Abba Kovner is celebrated by Israel as a poet and national hero.
• Quotation from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon “They must be sent back to Asia or be exterminated” — Dec. 26 1847
  Proudhon, an anarchist best known for his “Property is theft!” fomula, was also an anti-Jewish racist, privately advocating ‘solutions’: “Asia” (Zionism) or extermination, the two choices later retained by Nazism.
• Quotation from Mordechai Manuel Noah “The whole territory…will be occupied by enterprising Jews.” — 1845
  Mordechai Noah, diplomat, journalist, playwright and slaveholder, can be considered the first influential Jewish American Zionist. In 1819, he received the support of the second American president, John Adams (see quote). Following Britain's crushing of Egypt for control of the Middle East (1840), he speculated on Jewish colonization. This would not begin until 42 years later.
• Quotation from Emily Temple “Acre seems to have fallen down like the walls of Jericho” — Dec. 3 1841
  In 1841, Lady Palmerston saw the destruction of Acre by the British navy as a first step towards the “restoration” of the Jews, in line with a colonialist reading of the Bible.
• Quotation from Henry John Temple “Under our protection, they would… bring with them much wealth.” — Nov. 25 1840
  Lord Palmerston, then Foreign Secretary, drew the consequences of British military successes against Egypt, from Beirut to Gaza: Palestine was to be opened up to Jewish colonization.
• Quotation from Henry John Temple “It would be of manifest importance to the Sultan to encourage the Jews to return” — 1840
  For more than 60 years, Henri John Temple served british imperial interests. He shows little regard in « jewish » interests but insists on « return » as a means to check Egypt and increase the Sultan financil status. Here in a letter to the British Ambassador in Constantinopolis.
• Quotation from Alexander Lindsay “Waits for the return of her banished children” — 1838
  Scottish aristocrat known as an art historian and collector, in a book where he develops an authentic pre-Zionist discourse.
• Quotation from Anthony Ashley Cooper “The ancient city of the people of God is about to resume a place among the nations” — 1838
  Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, English statesman, on the occasion of the opening of a British embassy in Jerusalem (in reference to Luke 21-24).
• Quotation from Charles Fourier “Nothing is easier to bring about in six months under the protection of all the monarchs” — 1835
  Regarded as a utopian socialist, taking up biblical myths to promote a strongly anti-Semitic Zionism.
• Quotation from François-René de Chateaubriand “These legitimate masters of Judea ” — Apr. 20 1819
  Chateaubriand, an ultraroyalist conservative writer and diplomat, gives alms to the Catholic myth of the exile to the Jews of Jerusalem, and hopes for a military adventure of the Holy Alliance.
• Quotation from John Adams “I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation” — Mar. 15 1819
  Second President of the United States (from 1797 to 1801), in a letter to a Jewish traveler of the time, Mordechai Noah, wanted a "restoration" of the Jews in Judea with a view to their conversion.
• Quotation from Thomas Brightman “Shall they return to Jerusalem” — 1615
  A clergyman and influential Bible commentator, he was one of the early Protestant progenitors of the Zionist project.