From: Center for Policy Research <cpr>
Subject: Zionist leaders' frank statements

The following are quotations from Zionist leaders. They appear in
numerous scholarly works dealing with the Palestine question. I urge those
who have access to original sources, to verify the authenticity of the
source and post here their finding, adhering to the truth whatever it be.
Thanks.
Elias Davidsson
------------------------------

Quotations from Zionist leaders

1. "There was no such thing as Palestinians"
(Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel, London Sunday 
Times, 15 June 1969)

2. "There is, however, a difficulty from which the Zionist 
dares not avert his eyes, though he rarely likes to face it. 
Palestine proper has already its inhabitants."
(Israel Zangwill, The Voice of Jerusalem, London 1920, 
p.88)

3. "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, Israeli Chief of Staff, New York Times, 14 
April 1983)

4. "[The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs."
(Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel in a speech to 
the Knesset,
quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, 'Begin and the "Beasts", New 
Statesman, 25 June 1982)

5. "Both the process of expropriation [of the Palestinians] 
and the removal of the poor must be carried out 
discreetly and circumspectly".
(Dr. Theodor Herzl, The Complete Diaries, Herzl Press, 
1960, I., p.88)

6. "Between ourselves it must be clear that there is no 
room for both people together in this country...The only 
solution is a Palestine.....without Arabs. And there is no 
other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to the 
neighboring countries, to transfer all of them; not one 
village, not one tribe, should be left."
(Joseph Weitz, Jewish National Fund, administrator 
responsible for Zionist colonization. Davar, 29 September 
1967).

7."We shall try to spirit the penniless population [the 
Palestinians] across the border by procuring employment 
for it in the transit countries, while denying it any 
employment in our own country"
(Theodor Herzl, The Complete Diaries, Herzl Press, 1960, 
I, p.88)

8. "[Zionists]...looked for means...to cause the tens of 
thousands of sulky Arabs who remained in the Galilee to 
flee...I gathered all the Jewish muktars, who have contact 
with Arabs in different villages and asked them to 
whisper in the ears of some Arabs that a great Jewish 
reinforcement has arrived in Galilee and that it is going 
to burn all of the villages of the Huleh. They should 
suggest to these Arabs, as their friends, to escape while 
there is still time....The tactic reached its goal....wide 
areas were cleaned."

(Yig'al Alon, Sepher Ha Palmach, in Hebrew, II. p.268, 
quoted in Khalidi, From Haven to Conquest, IPS, 1971).

10. "[Jews] must expel Arabs and take their place" 
(David Ben Gurion, 1937, quoted in Shabtai Teveth, Ben 
Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 
1985, p. 89)

11. "We must do everything to ensure they [the 
Palestinian refugees] never do return"
(David Ben Gurion, in his diary, 19 July 1948, quoted in 
Michael Bar Zohar, Ben Gurion: The Armed Prophet, 
Prentice-Hall, 1967, p.157)

12. "The country was mostly an empty desert, with only 
a few islands of Arab settlement"
(Shimon Peres, Minister of Defense, quoted in David's 
Sling: The Arming of Israel, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 
1970, p.249)

13. "All this story about the danger of extermination [of 
Jews] has been blown up....to justify the annexation of 
new Arab territories"
(Mordechai Bentov, Israeli Cabinet Minister, Al 
Hamishmar, 14 April 1972)

14. "Neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can 
disqualify terrorism as a means of combat"
(Yitzhak Shamir, Hehazit, Summer 1943 [Journal of the 
LEHI, the Stern Gang], translated from the Israeli daily 
Al-Hamishmar, 24 December 1987

14. "The domination of Jewish agriculture by Arab 
workers is a cancer in our body"
(A. Uzan, Israeli Minister of Agriculture, Ha'aretz, 13 
December 1974)

15. "There can be only one national home in Palestine, 
and that a Jewish one, and no equality in the partnership 
between Jews and Arabs"
(Montague David Eder, President of the Zionist 
Federation of Great Britain, 1931,
in Doreen Ingrams, comp., Palestine Papers 1917-1922, 
Seeds of Conflict, George Braziller, 1973, p. 135)

16. "I hope that the Jewish frontiers of Palestine will be 
as great as Jewish energy for getting Palestine"
(Dr. Chaim Weizmann, first President of the State of 
Israel, Excerpts from His Historic Statements, Writings 
and Addresses, Jewish Agency for Palestine, 1952, p.48)

17. "There is not a single Jewish village in this country 
that has not been built on the site of an Arab village"
(Moshe Dayan, Ha'aretz, 4 April 1969...)

18. "Some people talk of expelling 700,000 to 800,000 
Arabs in the event of a new war, and instruments have 
been prepared"
(Aharon Yariv, former chief of Israeli military 
intelligence, 1980, Inquiry, 8 December 1980)

19. "If I was an Arab leader I would never make [peace] 
with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their 
country."
(David Ben Gurion, in Nahum Goldmann, The Jewish 
Paradox, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p.99)

20. "We should there [in Palestine] form a portion of the 
rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization 
as opposed to barbarism."
(Dr. Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, London, 1896, p. 
29)

21. "I deeply believe in launching preventive war 
against the Arab States without further hesitation. By 
doing so we will achieve two targets: firstly, the 
annihilation of Arab power; and secondly, the expansion 
of our territory"
(Menachem Begin, in a speech to the Knesset, 12 October 
1955)

22. "During the last 100 years our people have been in a 
process of building up the country and the nation, of 
expansion, of getting additional Jews and additional 
settlements in order to expand the borders here. Let no 
Jew say that the process has ended. Let no Jew say that 
we are near the end of the road."
(Moshe Dayan, Ma'ariv, 7 July 1968)

23. "Until the British left, no Jewish settlement, however 
remote, was entered or seized by the Arabs, while the 
Haganah, under severe and frequent attack, captured 
many Arab positions and liberated Tiberias and Haifa, 
Jaffa and Safad"
(David Ben Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel, 
Philosophical Library, 1954, p.530)

24. "In the months preceding the Arab invasion [of 
1948], and while the five Arab states were conducting 
preparations, we continued to make sallies into Arab 
territory. The conquest of Jaffa stands out as an event of 
first-rate importance in the struggle for Hebrew 
independence early in May, on the eve of the invasion 
by the five Arab states."
(Menachem Begin, The Revolt,  Nash, 1972, p.348)

25. "What the French could do in Tunisia, I said, the Jews 
would be able to do in Palestine with Jewish will, Jewish 
money, Jewish power and Jewish enthusiasm"
(Dr. Chaim Weizmann, First President of the State of 
Israel, Trial and Error, Harper, 1949, p.244)

26. "I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions 
he sent to the Sinai on May 14 [1967] would not have 
been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He 
knew it and we knew it."
(Yitzhak Rabin, Le Monde, 29 February 1968)

27. "To pretend that the Egyptian forces massed on our 
frontiers [in 1967] were in position to threaten the 
existence of Israel constitutes an insult not only to the 
intelligence of anyone capable of analyzing this sort of 
situation, but above all an insult to the Zahal [Israeli 
army]"
(General Res. Matti Peled, Ha'aretz,  19 March 1972)

28. "when we have broken the strength of the Arab 
Legion and bombarded Amman, we would wipe out 
Transjordan; after that Syria would fall....we would thus 
end the war, and would have put paid to Egypt, Assyria 
and Chaldea on behalf of our ancestors"
(David Ben Gurion in his diaries, quoted in Michael Bar-
Zohar,  The Armed Prophet, A Biography of Ben-Gurion, 
Prentice-Hall, 1967, p.139)

29. "These Jews of the Diaspora would like to see us, for 
their own reasons, heroes with our backs to the wall. But 
this wish can in no way change the realities."
(Israeli General Ezer Weizmann, Le Monde, 3 June 1972)