Quotes
"We extend our
hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an
offer of peace and goodwill, and appeal to them to
establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the
sovereign Jewish people settled in its own
land."
– David Ben-Gurion, in Israel's Proclamation of Independence, May 14, 1948
“This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”
– Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, at a Cairo press conference, (reported in the New York Times, May 16, 1948)
"It will take the Arabs all of eight days to drive the Jews into the sea."
– Field Marshall Montgomery (who fought and defeated the German armies in Africa and the Mid East)
"The Arab states encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies. And it was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."
– The London Economist (1948), reporting on an eyewitness account of the flight of Haifa's Arabs
“Kill the Jews wherever you find them, this is pleasing to Allah.”
– Mufti el-Husseini, a Nazi collaborator, calling for Jihad against Jews, in a 1943 broadcast from Radio Berlin
"I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us."
– Eric Hoffer
"Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us."
– Golda Meir
"In 1939 I first saw Palestine, then an unhappy land under alien rule, and to a large extent then a barren land. . . . In 1951, I traveled again to the land by the River Jordan, to see firsthand the new State of Israel. The transformation that had taken place was hard to believe. For in those twelve years, a nation had been born, a desert had been reclaimed, and the most tragic victims of World War II . . . had found a home.
I would like to . . . dispel a prevalent myth . . . the assertion that it is Zionism which has been the unsettling and fevered infection in the Middle East, the belief that without Israel there would somehow be a natural harmony throughout the Middle East and Arab world. Quite apart from the values and hopes which the State of Israel enshrines . . . it twists reality to suggest that it is the democratic tendency of Israel which has injected discord and dissension into the Near East. Even by the coldest calculations, the removal of Israel would not alter the basic crisis in the area. . . . The basic rivalries within the Arab world, the quarrels over boundaries, the tensions involved in lifting their economies from stagnation, the cross pressures of nationalism – all of these factors would still be there, even if there were no Israel."
– John F. Kennedy
First the Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left
to speak up for me.
- Martin Niemöller, a German U-boat commander in World War I
Wikipedia links to the establishment of the state of Israel, and to the Arabs.
Books to explore:
(with amazon.com links)
O Jerusalem by Larry Collins & Dominique
Genesis 1948 by Dan Kurzman
Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present
by Michael B. Oren
– David Ben-Gurion, in Israel's Proclamation of Independence, May 14, 1948
“This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”
– Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, at a Cairo press conference, (reported in the New York Times, May 16, 1948)
"It will take the Arabs all of eight days to drive the Jews into the sea."
– Field Marshall Montgomery (who fought and defeated the German armies in Africa and the Mid East)
"The Arab states encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies. And it was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."
– The London Economist (1948), reporting on an eyewitness account of the flight of Haifa's Arabs
“Kill the Jews wherever you find them, this is pleasing to Allah.”
– Mufti el-Husseini, a Nazi collaborator, calling for Jihad against Jews, in a 1943 broadcast from Radio Berlin
"I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us."
– Eric Hoffer
"Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us."
– Golda Meir
"In 1939 I first saw Palestine, then an unhappy land under alien rule, and to a large extent then a barren land. . . . In 1951, I traveled again to the land by the River Jordan, to see firsthand the new State of Israel. The transformation that had taken place was hard to believe. For in those twelve years, a nation had been born, a desert had been reclaimed, and the most tragic victims of World War II . . . had found a home.
I would like to . . . dispel a prevalent myth . . . the assertion that it is Zionism which has been the unsettling and fevered infection in the Middle East, the belief that without Israel there would somehow be a natural harmony throughout the Middle East and Arab world. Quite apart from the values and hopes which the State of Israel enshrines . . . it twists reality to suggest that it is the democratic tendency of Israel which has injected discord and dissension into the Near East. Even by the coldest calculations, the removal of Israel would not alter the basic crisis in the area. . . . The basic rivalries within the Arab world, the quarrels over boundaries, the tensions involved in lifting their economies from stagnation, the cross pressures of nationalism – all of these factors would still be there, even if there were no Israel."
– John F. Kennedy
First the Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left
to speak up for me.
- Martin Niemöller, a German U-boat commander in World War I
Wikipedia links to the establishment of the state of Israel, and to the Arabs.
Books to explore:
(with amazon.com links)
O Jerusalem by Larry Collins & Dominique
Genesis 1948 by Dan Kurzman
Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present
by Michael B. Oren