Quotes from the forefathers of Zionism

The following unaltered quotes were made by the very founders and implementers of Zionism. The main emphasis here is that these statements came from the very people who have defined and shaped the Zionist ideology.

The founders

"There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future... Zionist colonization must either be terminated or carried out against the wishes of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, be continued and make progress only under the protection of a power independent of the native population - an iron wall, which will be in a position to resist the pressure to the native population... This is our policy towards the Arabs..."

[Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism (precursor of Likud), The Iron Wall, 1923.]

"iron law of every colonizing movement, a law which knows of no exceptions, a law which existed in all times and under all circumstances. If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison for the land, or find some rich man or benefactor who will provide a garrison on your behalf. Or else - or else, give up your colonization, for without an armed force which will render physically impossible any attempt to destroy or prevent this colonization, colonization is impossible, not difficult, not dangerous, but IMPOSSIBLE!... Zionism is a colonization adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important... to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot - or else I am through with playing at colonizing."

[Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir, Lenni Brenner (London, Zed Books, 1984), p.78.]
[Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Iron Law, Selected Writings (South Africa), p.26.]

"Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."

[Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine, Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895]

"Between ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples together in this country. We shall not achieve our goal if the Arabs are in this small country. There is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries - all of them. Not one village, not one tribe should be left."

[Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department in 1940. From "A Solution to the Refugee Problem"]

"There are some who believe that the non-Jewish population, even in a high percentage, within our borders will be more effectively under our surveillance; and there are some who believe the contrary, i.e., that it is easier to carry out surveillance over the activities of a neighbor than over those of a tenant. I tend to support the latter view and have an additional argument:...the need to sustain the character of the state which will henceforth be Jewish...with a non-Jewish minority limited to 15 percent. I had already reached this fundamental position as early as 1940 [and] it is entered in my diary."

[Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department. From Israel: an Apartheid State by Uri Davis, p.5.]

"If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?"

[David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister) quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.]

“We must expel Arabs and take their places."

[David Ben Gurion, future Prime Minister of Israel, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.]

"We must do everything to insure they (the Palestinians) never do return... The old will die and the young will forget."

[David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar's Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.]

"The present map of Palestine was drawn by the British mandate. The Jewish people have another map which our youth and adults should strive to fulfill -- From the Nile to the Euphrates."

[Ben Gurion, first Prime Minister of Israel]

"...we should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Transjordan, and Syria... The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai."

[David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff - Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.]

"A Christian state should be established [in Lebanon], with its southern border on the Litani river. We will make an alliance with it. When we smash the Arab Legion's strength and bomb Amman, we will eliminate Transjordan too, and then Syria will fall. If Egypt still dares to fight on, we shall bomb Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo... And in this fashion, we will end the war and settle our forefathers' account with Egypt, Assyria, and Aram"

[David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff - Noam Chomsky, A Fateful Triangle, Published 1999]

"...if people become accustomed to the large figure and we are actually obliged to accept the return of the refugees, we may find it difficult, when faced with hordes of claimants, to convince the world that not all of these formerly lived in Israeli territory. It would, in any event, seem desirable to minimize the numbers...than otherwise."

[Israeli official Arthur Lourie in a letter to Walter Eytan, director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry (ISA FM 2564/22). From Benny Morris, "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-49", p. 297.]

"It lies upon the people's shoulders to prepare for the war, but it lies upon the Israeli army to carry out the fight with the ultimate object of erecting the Israeli Empire."

[Moshe Dayan (Israel Defense and Foreign Minister), on February 12 1952. Radio "Israel."]

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."

[Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969.]

Successors

The previous quotes have resulted in many other radical statements that followed with the succession of authority:

"Rabin's description of the conquest of Lydda, after the completion of Plan Dalet. 'We shall reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters'"

[Uri Lubrani, PM Ben-Gurion's special adviser on Arab Affairs, 1960. From "The Arabs in Israel" by Sabri Jiryas.]

"If the General Assembly were to vote by 121 votes to 1 in favor of "Israel" returning to the armistice lines-- (pre June 1967 borders) "Israel" would refuse to comply with the decision."

[Aba Eban - the Israeli Foreign Minister. New York Times June 19, 1967.]

"How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to."

[Golda Meir, March 8, 1969.]

"There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed."

[Golda Maier Israeli Prime Minister June 15, 1969]

"The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war."

[Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Ha'aretz, 19 March 1972.]

"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."

[Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aahronot, of 14 July 1972.]

"The only solution is Eretz Israel [Greater Israel], or at least Western Eretz Israel [all the land west of Jordan River], without Arabs. There is no room for compromise on this point ... We must not leave a single village, not a single tribe."

[Joseph Weitz, Director of the Jewish National Fund, the Zionist agency charged with acquiring Palestinian land, Circa 194. Machover Israca, January 5, 1973 p.2.]

"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, 'What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out' "

[Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.]

"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population."

[Israel Koenig, "The Koenig Memorandum" - Cited in Lustick, Ian, Arabs in the Jewish State, University of Texas Press, Texas, 1980.]

"We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves."

[Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.]

"We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours."

[Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.]

"When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle."

[Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.]

"The Palestinians" would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls."

[Isreali Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988]

"Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories."

[Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, tells students at Bar Ilan University, From the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.]

"The past leaders of our movement left us a clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the Jordan River for future generations, for the mass aliya [immigration], and for the Jewish people, all of whom will be gathered into this country."

[Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Aviv memorial service for former Likud leaders, November 1990. Jerusalem Domestic Radio Service.]

"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours... Everything we don't grab will go to them."

[Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.]

"If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force...."

[Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000.]

"There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies? Not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy."

[Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001]

"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."

[Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.]

Philosophers

Great philosophers have had this to say about the tragedy of the situation:

"Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created State of Israel of the Freedom Party (Herut), a political party closely akin in its organization, method, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties."

[Albert Einstein, Hanna Arendt and other prominent Jewish Americans, writing in The New York Times, protest the visit to America of Menachem Begin, December 1948.]

"We will have to face the reality that Israel is neither innocent, nor redemptive. And that in its creation, and expansion; we as Jews, have caused what we historically have suffered; a refugee population in Diaspora."

[Martin Buber, Jewish Philosopher, addressed Prime Minister Ben Gurion on the moral character of the state of Israel with reference to the Arab refugees in March 1949]

"When we [followers of the prophetic Judaism] returned to Palestine...the majority of Jewish people preferred to learn from Hitler rather than from us."

[Martin Buber, to a New York audience, Jewish Newsletter, June 2, 1958.]

"Hitler's legal power was based upon the 'Enabling Act', which was passed quite legally by the Reichstag and which allowed the Fuehrer and his representatives, in plain language, to be what they wanted, or in legal language, to issue regulations having the force of law. Exactly the same type of act was passed by the Knesset [Israeli's Parliament] immediately after the 1967 conquest granting the Israeli governor and his representatives the power of Hitler, which they use in Hitlerian manner."

[Dr. Israel Shahak, Chairperson of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, and a survivor of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, Commenting on the Israeli military's Emergency Regulations following the 1967 War. Palestine, vol. 12, December 1983.]

These quotes were made by the founders, Presidents, Prime Ministers and political officials, so any counter quotes to illustrate any subsequent comments made by radical organisations - whether anyone officially recognizes them or not - will not really add value towards justifying these extracts.

Regardless of any argument, these quotes have had a serious impact on the livelihood of the Arab people, and one may wonder how any other race would react if it was their own land that was being considered.

Incidentally, these quotes have been presented to a number of avid Zionist supporters who have simply argued that they are out of context.

If all these quotes can actually be put into context to clarify the "misconceptions" of a "perceived truth", then it might actually change the Arab's pespectives on the intention that has lasted for more than a century because of such a profound ideology... the greater fear is that no one would be able to do so...