David Ben-Gurion Quotes About Zionist
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Those who today murdered our people in an ambush not only plotted to murder some Jews but intended to provoke us... The Arabs stand to gain from such a development. They want the country to be in a state of perpetual pogrom.... Any further bloodshed [by the Jews] will only bring political advantage to the Arabs and harm us... Our strength is in the defense... and this strength will give us political victory if England and the world will know that we are defending ourselves rather than attacking.
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Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.
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We do not wish and do not need to expel Arabs and take their places.
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We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan 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.
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We offer peace and neighborliness to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Hebrew nation for the common good of all.
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We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinians] never do return. The old will die and the young will forget,
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If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.
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The old will die and the young will forget.
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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?
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We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return
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We do not want to create a situation like that which exists in South Africa, where the whites are the owners and rulers, and the blacks are the workers. If we do not do all kinds of work, easy and hard, skilled and unskilled, if we become merely landlords, then this will not be our homeland
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The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan: one does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today, but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them.
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In the midst of wanton aggression, we still call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to return to the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, with full and equal citizenship and due representation in its bodies and institutions - provisional or permanent.
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Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs.
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David Ben-Gurion
- Born: October 16, 1886
- Died: December 1, 1973
- Occupation: Former Prime Minister of Israel