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Quotes (Israel-Palestine)

Quotation audit before reuse

The list below includes primary texts, secondary paraphrases, disputed translations, and a Reddit compilation. For Herzl, Jabotinsky, Weizmann, Katznelson, and Ben-Gurion, consult the source-status ledger and the founder dossiers before quoting. Inclusion here is not authentication.

Audited peace-process quotations

Arafat at the UN — exact official-record wording

“Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat: do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”
— Yasser Arafat, 13 November 1974, UN A/PV.2282, para. 82

The familiar “olive branch in one hand and a gun in the other” is not Arafat’s verbatim sentence in this record. PLO representative Farouk al-Kaddoumi used essentially the “one hand … the other” construction nine days later in A/PV.2296, para. 264. → context

Haddad passage — Warrick’s narration, not Haddad speaking

“Haddad had tried in the past to minimize deaths and injuries, because he wanted to win sympathy for the Palestinian cause. No longer. Casualties were now essential, because Haddad’s goals had changed: His new objective was sabotaging prospects for Middle East peace.”
— Joby Warrick, PDF p. 113 / book p. 96 (file not included in this release)

Warrick supplies no discrete endnote for this strategy-change sentence. His own account of Haddad’s lethal 1972 Lod operation rules out a simple earlier nonviolent phase. → full context

Modern Israeli adaptation — argument, not quotation

“Today Israel comes bearing an olive branch and a defender’s weapon. Do not let the olive branch fall from its hand.”

This is a newly written rhetorical adaptation, not words spoken by Arafat or an Israeli leader. Use it with the measured claim that the Second Intifada and October 7/opening war period were associated with sharp hardening among Israeli Jews—not that every Israeli abandoned peace or that Israeli policy was causally compelled. → evidence and limits

Pro-Palestinian

QUOTE

He quotes his great-great-great-uncle Yusuf Diya al-Din Pasha al-Khalidi, a one-time mayor of Jerusalem and member of the Ottoman Parliament, who back on March 1, 1899 wrote to the founder of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl: “Who could contest the rights of the Jews in Palestine? My God, historically it is your country.”

QUOTE

Ten years prior, in 1937, Ben Gurion supported the Peel Commission plan for partition. “Addressing the Zionist Executive, he again emphasized the tactical nature of his support for partition and his assumption that ‘after the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.’ He reiterated this position in a letter to his son (The Birth of Israel, Simcha Flapan) in October 1937: ‘A Jewish state is not the end but the beginning… we shall organize a sophisticated defense force—and elite army. I have no doubt that our army will be one of the best in the world. And then I am sure that we will not be prevented from settling in other parts of the country, either through mutual understanding and agreement with our neighbors, or by other means.’” Partition-and-lead-up-to-violence.pdf

  • 1937 Ben-Gurion letter - Wikipedia

    • Benny Morris, in his 1988 The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949, quoted from Ben-Gurion’s letter in the paragraph discussing the Negev: “We must expel Arabs and take their places…”, having taken the quote from the English version of Shabtai Teveth’s 1985 Ben-Gurion and the Palestine Arabs.2(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Ben-Gurion_letter#cite_note-Commentary-2) Criticism from Efraim Karsh later discussed the scribbled-out text immediately before the wording, which, if included, would reverse the meaning of the quote.11(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Ben-Gurion_letter#cite_note-FOOTNOTEKarsh200046-51-11)
    • Morris later explained, “The problem was that in the original handwritten copy of the letter deposited in the IDF Archive, which I consulted after my quote was criticized, there were several words crossed out in the middle of the relevant sentence, rendering what remained as “We must expel the Arabs”. However, Ben-Gurion rarely made corrections to anything he had written, and the passage was not consonant with the spirit of the paragraph in which it was embedded. It was suggested that the crossing out was done by some other hand later and that the sentence, when the words that were crossed out were restored, was meant by Ben-Gurion to say and said exactly the opposite (“We must not expel the Arabs…’).”2(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Ben-Gurion_letter#cite_note-Commentary-2)
    • As to the general tenor of the critique, Morris later wrote that “the focus by my critics on this quotation was, in any event, nothing more than (an essentially mendacious) red herring – as elsewhere, in unassailable statements, Ben-Gurion at this time repeatedly endorsed the idea of ‘transferring’ (or expelling) Arabs, or the Arabs, out of the area of the Jewish state-to-be, either ‘voluntarily’ or by compulsion. There were good reasons for Ben-Gurion’s endorsement of transfer: The British Peel Commission had proposed it, the Arabs rebelling in Palestine were bent on uprooting the Zionist enterprise, and the Jews of Europe, under threat of destruction, were in dire need of a safe haven, and Palestine could not serve as one so long as the Arabs were attacking the Yishuv and, as a result, the British were curtailing Jewish access to the country.”2(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Ben-Gurion_letter#cite_note-Commentary-2)

  • “A series of quotes from Zionists, admitting to being imperialists, colonialists, genocidal, etc.”

    • Reddit - Dive into anything
    • “The undertaking will be made great and promising by the granting of colonial rights. This is the tremendous attraction for the outlawed, enfeebled, and unfortunate Jewish people.” - Theodor Herzl, “Father of Modern Political Zionism”, in his diary
    • “You are being invited to help make history. That cannot frighten you, nor will you laugh at it. It is not in your accustomed line; it doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor, not Englishmen, but Jews. But had this been on your path, you would have done it yourself by now. How, then, do I happen turn to you, since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial.” - Theodor Herzl, talking to Cecil Rhodes, Prime Minister of the Cape Colony
    • “We should there [in Palestine] form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence.” - Theodor Herzl, in “The Jewish State”
    • “It is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting Palestine from an Arab country into a country with Jewish majority. My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent. The native populations, civilised or uncivilised, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilised or savage.” — Ze'ev Jabotinsky, “The Iron Wall”
      • Context guardrail: the essay uses this reasoning to justify non-consensual majority-building behind superior force, but it also rejects expulsion and anticipates later negotiation, equal rights, and guarantees against displacement. Quote both halves in debate.
    • “[The] 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 on your behalf. Or else, give up your colonization, for without an armed force which will render physically impossible any attempts to destroy or prevent this colonization, colonization is impossible, not ‘difficult’, not ‘dangerous’ but IMPOSSIBLE!…Zionism is a colonizing adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important to build, 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 colonization.” - Ze’ev Jabotinsky, in “The Iron Law”
    • “What we wanted was a British Protectorate. Jews all over the world trusted England. They knew that law and order would be established by British rule, and that under it, Jewish colonizing activities and cultural development would not be interfered with. We could therefore look forward to a time when we would be strong enough to claim a measure of self-government.” - Chaim Weizmann, President of Israel (1949-1952)
    • “We can reasonably say that should Palestine fall within the British sphere of influence, and should Britain encourage a Jewish settlement there, as a British dependency, we could have in 20 to 30 years a million Jews out there, perhaps more; they would develop the country, bring back civilization to it, and form a very effective guard for the Suez Canal.” - Chaim Weizmann in “Trial and Error”
    • “Partition might be only a temporary arrangement for the next twenty to twenty-five years.” - Chaim Weizmann (I wonder what happened 20 years after partition…)
    • “[I am] satisfied with part of the country, but on the basis of the assumption that after we build up a strong force following the establishment of the state, we will abolish the partition of the country and we will expand to the whole Land of Israel.” - David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel (1948-1953, 1955-1963), in a 1938 speech to the Zionist Executive
    • “After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.” - David Ben-Gurion, in a speech to the Zionist Executive
    • “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.” - David Ben-Gurion in a 1937 speech
    • “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
    • “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.” - David Ben-Gurion in a 1938 speech
    • “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.” - David Ben-Gurion
    • “It’s not a matter of maintaining the status quo. We have to create a dynamic state, oriented towards expansion.” - David Ben-Gurion
    • “We should prepare to go over to the offensive with the aim of smashing Lebanon, Transjordan, and Syria…The weak point in the Arab coalition is Lebanon [for] the Moslem regime is artificial and easy to undermine. A Christian state should be established, with its southern border on the Litani River [within Lebanon]. 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.” - David Ben-Gurion in 1948, talking to his General Staff
    • “I hope they all go. If we could achieve the departure of three hundred thousand without pressure, that would be a great blessing!” - Moshe Dayan, Israeli Defense Minister (1967-1974), talking about the Naksa
    • Recent, Gaza Genocide:
    • We will turn Gaza into an island of ruins.” - Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister
    • “It is an entire nation that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.” - Isaac Herzog, President
    • “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” - Yoav Gallant, Defense Minister
    • “Gaza will not return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.” - Yoav Gallant, Defense Minister
    • “Hamas has turned into ISIS, and the residents of Gaza, instead of being appalled, are celebrating. Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water, there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.” - Ghassan Alian, Major General and Head of COGAT
    • “I don’t care about Gaza, I literally don’t care. For all I care, they can go swim in the sea.” - May Golan, Women’s Advancement Minister”
    • “We are dropping hundreds of tons of bombs on Gaza. The focus is on destruction, not accuracy.” - Daniel Hagari, IDF Spokesman
    • “There is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza. They can go to Ireland or deserts, the monsters in Gaza should find a solution by themselves.” - Amihai Eliyahu, Heritage Minister

Vladimir Jabotinsky

Zionism is a colonization adventure.

Benjamin Netanyahu

Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas—This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.

Pro-Israeli

Listen to what “Palestinians”* Really Want | by Lester Golden | Lessons from History | Medium

Matiel Mughannam, the Lebanese-born Christian who headed the AHC-affiliated Arab Women’s Organization in Palestine, told an interviewer early in the civil war (January 1948):

“The UN decision has united all Arabs, as they have never been united before, not even against the Crusaders… [A Jewish state] has no chance to survive now that the ‘holy war’ has been declared. All the Jews will eventually be massacred.”

Ben Gurion (1937)

After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.

  • Frequently attributing to 1947 partition plan incorrectly

6 Days War: Crucial quotes

March 8th 1965
https://lessons.myjli.com/survival/index.php/2017/03/20/6-days-war-crucial-quotes/

President Nasser In a speech to Arab Trade Unionists on 26 May

“The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.”

QUOTE

“Any man who sells land to the Jews will be put to death. Any man who serves the government will be put to death. Any man who destroys Jewish property will be a saint.” -Arab informant to the Jewish Agency [source]

QUOTE

“If we must offend one side… let us offend the Jews rather than the Arabs.” -Neville Chamberlain [source]

Neville Chamberlain

“I see no light. The Jews as far as I can judge are behaving admirably [and] most reasonably & pathetically patient in the face of brutal realities. The Arabs on the other hand are intransigent, unfair, prejudiced and unreliable.” [source]