Famous
Quotes
Violence and racism against Arabs
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Although
Israeli politicians and their supporters in the
U.S. often claimed that the purpose of Jewish settlements
in the West Bank and Gaza is for Israeli security,
the quotes below give insight into their true purpose—expanding
Israeli territory and obstructing peace,
in violation of international law. International law "The Occupying Power shall not deport or
transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." —Article 49 of the
Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 "We consider these settlements to be
contrary to the Geneva Convention, that occupied territory should not be changed by establishment of
permanent settlements by the occupying power". President Carter (Q&A with American Jewish
Press Association, June 13, 1980, Washington) "Since the end of the 1967 war, the U.S. has
regarded Israel as the occupying power in the occupied territories, which includes the West
Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. The U.S. considers Israel's occupation to be governed
by the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the 1949 Geneva Conventions concerning the protection of civilian populations under military
occupation." —US Ambassador to the UN Pickering (27 November 1989) Expansion and settlement "It's not a matter of maintaining the status
quo. We have to create a dynamic state, oriented
towards expansion." —Ben Gurion "Take
the American declaration of Independence.
It contains
no mention of territorial limits. We are not
obliged to fix the limits of the State." —Moshe
Dayan (Jerusalem Post, 08/10/1967) "The settlement of the Land of Israel is the essence of Zionism. Without settlement, we will not fulfill Zionism. It's that simple." "In strategic terms, the settlements (in
Judea, Samaria, and Gaza) are of no importance." —Binyamin Begin, son of the late Menahem Begin
and a prominent voice in the Likud party writing in 1991.
(Quoted in Findley, Deliberate
Deceptions; p 159) Paul Findley notes that Begin added that
their importance was that "they constitute an
obstacle, an insurmountable obstacle to the establishment
of an independent Arab State west of the river Jordan." "Without [the settlements] the IDF [Israeli
Defense Force] would be a foreign army ruling a foreign population." — Defense Minister Moshe Dayan
(quoted in Aronson, Geoffrey, Settlements and the Israeli- Palestinian
Negotiations; Institute for
Palestinian Studies) "The past leaders of our movement left us a
clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the River Jordan for future generations, for the mass
aliya [immigration], and for the Jewish people,
all of whom will be gathered into this country." —Yitzhak Shamir ("Former Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Aviv memorial service
for former Likud leaders"; Jerusalem Domestic
Radio Service, November 1990) "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. "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) Expulsion of Palestinians "We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return" 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. "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 Defence Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983. "If I was an Arab leader I would never make [peace] with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country." David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99. "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. "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 leakedcensored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979. "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. "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, colonization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands." Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aahronot, of 14 July 1972. "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 entry.
"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." David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978. "How can we return the occupied
territories? There is nobody to return them to." — Golda Meir,
March 8, 1969 Violence and racism against Arabs"May the Holy Name visit retribution on the Arabs' heads, and cause their seed to be lost, and annihilate them, and cause them to be vanquished and cause them to be cast from the world. It is forbidden to be merciful to them, you must give them missiles, with relish - annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones." -- Ultra-Orthodox Shas Party spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, in a sermon discussing Passover and God's wrath at Israel's enemies, 8 April 2001. Some months ago he distinguished himself by describing Arabs as "snakes" whom "God regrets having created". "[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs." Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, 'Begin and the "Beasts"', New Statesman, 25 June 1982 "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" 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. "I am a black South African, and if I were
to change the names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank
could describe events in South Africa." — Archbishop Desmond Tutu, during Christmas visit to
Jerusalem, December 25, 1989 (Ha'aretz; cited in Palestine
Perspectives, January/February 1990) |