"[I am as pro-Palestinian] because the Palestinians are despised, are occupied and I think that the majority of Israel's citizens despise Palestinians. ... That is the central theme of my book, that any human being should be respected."
(Alfred Grosser, October 2009)

"From the German side they don't say anything because of Auschwitz. When the Israelis want something from the Germans, they like to remind them of Auschwitz."
(Alfred Grosser, October 2009)

"Germany is now considering paying for the next Israeli submarine. They have already paid for five submarines. It will be the sixth one. Why should Germany pay?"
(Alfred Grosser, 14 October 2009)

"You have to compare it [the Holocaust] with Mao Tse Tung, you have to compare it with the death of millions of Ukrainians killed by Stalin. ... 60 years later they [the Jews] can write about it, they can speak about it, they can publish about it. The poor people in Cambodia, who were killed, they cannot do that. And there is a kind of racism in saying, we are specific, but the mass murder in Cambodia is something different. There is a point of racism in this consideration."
(Alfred Grosser, October 2009)

"Criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism have nothing to do with each other. It is rather Israel’s policies that promote anti-Semitism globally."
(Alfred Grosser, November 2010)

"Israel doesn't have to worry about me. At the end of the day, Israel will have my support - it had me at hello."
(Thomas L. Friedman, November 2010)

"According to [rabbi Warren] Goldstein, Israel is not "occupying" the West Bank and Gaza Strip but reclaiming these areas for ancient Jewish sentiment dating to antiquity. Only religious fundamentalists insist on their own religious texts as the only arbiter between them and others. God is reduced to a dishonest estate agent who parcels out land to His Favorites, land with borders clearly demarcated as if these were registered in a 20th century title deeds office – all at a time thousands of years ago when national boundaries were rather unknown. This sort of thinking is simply outdated - it belongs to a time of colonial conquest and racial domination."
(Allan BoesakFarid Esack, 10 November 2010)

"For Israel is creating a kind of moral schizophrenia in world Jewry. In the outside world the welfare of Jewry depends on the maintenance of secular, non-racial, pluralistic societies. In Israel, Jewry finds itself defending a society in which mixed marriages cannot be legalized, in which non-Jews have a lesser status than Jews, and in which the ideal is racial and exclusionist. Jews must fight elsewhere for their very security and existence—against principles and practices they find themselves defending in Israel."
(I. F. Stone, 3 August 1967)

"Absolutely—absolutely. We want a Jewish state like the French have a French state."
(Moshe Dayan, 11 June 1967)

"In this war the interests of Russian Jews and those of the German Reich are identical."
(Max Isidor Bodenheimer, November 1914)

"The interests of the German government are identical with those of the Russian revolutionaries."
(Alexander Israel Helphand, January 1915)

"I thank God that the interests of Islam are entirely identical with those of Germany."
(Faisal ibn Hussein al-Hashimi, (Emir; later King of Iraq), April 1915)

"In case it may become necessary to acquire the 2 Turkish battleships that are nearing completion in British yards, please formulate plans in detail showing exactly the administrative action involved in their acquisition and the prospective financial transactions."
(Winston S. Churchill, 28 July 1914)

"I think we must let the Admiralty deal with this question as they consider necessary and afterwards make such defence of our action to Turkey as we can."
(British Foreign Office official, 30 July 1914)

"Defining the occupying state as the owner of "state lands" on the West Bank has been the greatest tragedy of generations."
(Yitzhak Laor, 15 November 2010)

"There is a clause in the Israel Lands Administration leasing agreements that enables them to void the purchase of a home if the buyer is not an Israeli citizen or not entitled to make aliyah on the basis of the Right of Return (in other words, is not a Jew)."
(Akiva Eldar, 15 November 2010)

"The truth has been and remains: either Jerusalem will become the capital of two peoples or Israel will become the state of two peoples."
(Akiva Eldar, 15 November 2010)

"Herein lies your [Nick Clegg's] dilemma; you must decide what is most important to you, and choose to be either a friend of Israel or a friend of justice. You cannot be both."
(MEMO staff, 17 November 2010)

"[Eric] Cantor recently met privately with Bibi Netanyahu and said the Republican Party would serve "as a check on" the Obama Administration over its policies in the Middle East. Then "He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other." In other words, Cantor was meeting with the leader of a foreign country and promising to do whatever he could to influence and even subvert the foreign policy of his own country. Think about that one for a minute or two."
(Philip Giraldi, 17 November 2010)

"The façade of [Israeli] democracy is what is truly collapsing, not democracy, as the latter has never existed – nor could have – in any true form in a settler-colonial state like Israel."
(Omar Barghouti, 20 November 2010)

"THE TOPIC of the meeting is even more amazing. As reported, the Peace Now people proposed “cooperation” with the Foreign Office. It would be good for you, they told their host, to distribute Peace Now material around the world, in order to show that Israel is not only a state of occupation and settlements, but also of peaceniks. That would improve the image of the state and help the Foreign Office to silence the critics. In other words: the “Senior Peace Now Members” are prepared to serve as fig leaves for Netanyahu’s government and for Lieberman’s Foreign Office. They offer them an alibi."
(Uri Avnery, 20 November 2010)

"On the eve of the [1982] war, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, the leaders of the Labor Party, went to see Begin and urged him to start the war."
(Uri Avnery, 20 November 2010)

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within."
(Marcus Tullius Cicero, around 63 BC)

"You remember Dr Johnson's saying, that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel? Well, anti-semitism has become the last gasp of the worn-out old Zionists who, instead of trying to make America a better place in which to live, make their living snarling at anyone who might criticize what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and to the Lebanese, and to the Syrians."
(James G. Abourezk, 22 November 2010)

"But even if Avigdor Lieberman was as eloquent as Abba Eban, it would not help Israel's image. The problem is found in the framing, in which Israel is perceived as the evil occupier and settler, and the Palestinians are righteous freedom fighters."
(Aluf Benn, 10 November 2010)

"We also live in bizarre times because [...] particular and specific Israeli policies are severely criticized. People go and demonstrate against the massacre in Gaza; people go and demonstrate against the attack against the Flotilla to Gaza. And yet nobody dares to attack the ideology that is behind these policies. There is no demonstration against Zionism. Even the European parliament regards a demonstration against Zionism as anti-Semitism. Imagine if in the days of apartheid South Africa if you were not allowed to demonstrate against the apartheid in South Africa, but only against the Soweto massacre. And this is still a great Israeli success – and Germany plays a very important role in this success – that the main problem, the main reason, for the criminal policies is not analyzed, is not discussed, is not touched upon; only the symptoms. I am not a doctor, I am not a physician, but I know that if you deal with the symptoms and not with the causes you don’t cure the patient."
(Ilan Pappe, 27 November 2010)

"If people ask when Jews will lose their majority, then it’s already happened. If one combines the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, includes foreign workers and refugees, whose numbers have grown rapidly in recent years, and omits Israelis who made aliya under the Law of Return but are not recognized as Jews by the Interior Ministry, then Jews are slightly less than 50% of the population."
(Sergio DellaPergola, 25 November 2010)

"Uruguay will surely follow the same path as Argentina in 2011 [by recognizing Palestinian state]."
(Roberto Conde, 6 December 2010)

"Racism originated in the Torah"
(Yosef Scheinen, December 2010)

"Seeing what the occupation looked like, and given the ideals of Jewish democracy I was raised on, I wondered: Could Israel be failing and could we American Jews be defending that failure?"
(Ira Stup, December 2010)

"The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."
(Henry Kissinger, 1 March 1973)

"Rabbi Eliyahu has made unceasing racist statements ... and has taken advantage of his public status and religious position and funding from the Religious Council to air his racist views."
(Einat Horowitz, November 2010)

"I would like to inform you that we are in possession of documents to the effect that Mr. Van Harten was a member of the Jewish underground in Europe throughout the last war.... I am of the opinion that Mr. Van Harten's past during the war justifies preferential consideration of his request to remain in Palestine."
(Golda Meir, 1947)

"This is where the buck stops. You either believe me or you believe this coopted Israeli agent!"
(Robert Amory, 26 October 1956)

"Einen klareren Beweis dafür, dass die Zionisten sich als international betrachten, gibt es wohl nicht!"
(Otto Günther von Wesendonck, November 1917)

"In the Zionist Organization we have a tool of an immense value for our Information Service and propaganda activity abroad. This applies especially to Russia. Moreover, as all supplies of cereal and livestock for the Russian Army are delivered by Jewish middlemen, so we have in the Zionists an effective means to impede the catering and the operation of the Rusian Army. Finally, we have come to an arrangement with two Zionist representatives in Constantinople and Jaffa about publishing authentic information on the events of the war. This will be done regularly through the good offices of the Wolff Telegraphic Bureau."
(Friedrich von Prittwitz, 16 August 1914)

"When we look more closely at the origins of Wesendonck's revolutionary memorandum of August 1914, an astonishing fact emerges: it was the Zionists' idea. Specifically, it was the suggestion of Max Bodenheimer, long-term President of the German Zionist Federation, who had been promoting the idea of a strategic alliance between the German imperial government and Zionism for over a decade. In 1902, Bodenheimer had first broached this idea in a long memorandum to the Wilhelmstrasse. To be sure, little came of his suggestion then: but the German Zionist leader never gave up."
(Sean McMeekin, June 2010)

"Concerning the future of Salonika, the internationalization or neutralization of the city would best serve the interests of the Jews. However, it is too soon to take action toward that end. When it becomes clear that Salonika is to be annexed to some particular state or that it is to be neutralized and internationalized, it will be incumbent upon the Zionist Organization, in conjunction with other Jewish organizations, to secure for the Jews full equal rights and consideration for their cultural claims."
(Va'ad HaPoel HaZioni (Zionist Actions Committee/Higher Action Committee), December 1912)

"I am completely sympathetic toward Zionism and National Judaism because I see in them a problem of moral regeneration."
(Tomáš Masaryk, 1918)

"The idea of the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine is met with sincere sympathy by us. The blessed day on which the old aspiration of the Jewish Nation will become a reality will be hailed by us, and will be a triumph of the free-spirit and the neutralization of age-old prejudices against the Jews. The creation of a National Jewish Home in Palestine, where the national spirit of Judaism. will be able to develop freely, will be the correction of an evident injustice which has lasted for 20 centuries. If the Great Powers will propose the settlement of the Jewish problem, Greece will support the creation of a Hebrew Palestine. A Jewish Palestine, will be, without question an ally of Greece, while the similarity of our interests in the Eastern Mediterranean will render our ties unbreakable."
(Nikolaos Politis, June 1917)

"The Greeks do not want the Jews to influence Hellenic politics . . . The Jews of Salonica follow a national Jewish policy. They are not Greeks and do not feel as such. Hence they ought not to involve themselves in Greek affairs. . . . The Salonican Jews are not Greek patriots but Jewish patriots. They are closer to the Turks than to us . . . I will not allow the Jews to influence Greek politics."
(Eleftherios Venizelos, 1934)

"My presence would be of no use; on the contrary, I fear that, if at all, its effect would be rather to cool things down. As I already told you on another occasion, I personally have the greatest doubts relating to the Zionist plans and anticipate their consequences with genuine consternation."
(Paul Warburg, 1921)

"Rather than delivering the demolition orders to the residents of the villages in the area, the Israeli army instead left the orders under a stone two days earlier."
(Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), 16 December 2010)

"It is a question of whether American citizens, regardless of nationality, shall or shall not be discriminated against in Russia. American citizens are American, no matter to what nationality they belong, and they should be treated as justly as the Russian citizen is treated in this country. I heartily approve of President Taft's action."
(Julius Rosenwald, 1911)

"For all those crimes and many more, the Israelis are answerable to no one. Now, one of the few sanctions on those crimes will be removed. As a result of the Bill, Israeli politicians will be literally allowed to get away with murder."
(Gerald Kaufman, 13 December 2010)

"I state a view that I have stated consistently in the House for very many years, and I shall continue to do so, because it is the Israelis who are in trouble, the Israelis who are turning Israel into a pariah state, and the Israelis who will be overcome by demographic changes they will be outnumbered by the Palestinians and this Government is an accomplice to what they are doing. God forgive them."
(Gerald Kaufman, 13 December 2010)

"[Nick Clegg always] rose without fail to say how heinous and unacceptable it would be for the Labour government to change the law [on universal jurisdiction]… and how the Liberal Democrats would be totally opposed to any such change. ... the hypocrisy of the Liberal Democrats on universal jurisdiction is unlimited, as on so many matters. Week after week, their spokesman rose and opposed vehemently a change in the law for which he will vote tonight, just as Liberal Democrats voted last week [to increase university student fees] in blatant breach of their election pledges."
(Gerald Kaufman, 13 December 2010)

"Nixon was a pragmatist, a realist. He saw the interests of America being challenged by communism, and Israel as a state was an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean which was democratic. ... We shared values, we shared history, etcetera. You can be both, unfortunately, you can be both. You can be a bigot, and you can dislike Jews - be an anti-Semite, but act in a realpolitik way to support Israel... Don't always look for consistency when it comes to bigotry. Bigotry is irrational."
(Abe Foxman, 17 December 2010)

"The idea of seld-determination is in the air. The rescue of the Holy Land from the awful Turkish power is a blessing not only to Palestine, but to the whole world. Naturally, many Jews turn with loving eyes to the land of their forefathers. Every one will sympathize with their sentiments and wish them success in their aspirations."
(Michael J Lavelle, 1918)

"It is with pleasure that I learn of the approval accorded by his Holiness, Benedict XV, to the plan of providing a homeland in Palestine to the members of the Jewish race. I am sure that there are many who would feel happy to return to that land so rich with the sacred traditions of the past, and which is at the same time the home of the fathers."
(James Gibbons, 19 November 1918)

"Not only has the situation in Palestine not improved, it has been made worse by the new civil arrangements which aim, if not in their authors' intentions, at least in practice, to oust Christianity from its previous position and put the Jews in its place. We therefore warmly exhort all Christians, including non-Catholic governments, to insist that the League of Nations examine the British mandate in Palestine."
(Giacomo della Chiesa, 14 June 1921)

"The Holy See is not opposed to Jews in Palestine having civil rights equal to those possessed by other nationals and creeds. But it cannot agree to Jews being given a privileged and preponderant position vis-a-vis other sections of the population."
(Pietro Gasparri, 15 May 1922)

"In 1934, my mother and aunt Badra were among those who founded the Arab Women‘s Committee in Jerusalem. This was a charitable society at the outset, but soon took on a political nature in the year 1936 during the general strike."
(Leila Mantoura, 1998)

"[The fact that the women were unveiled] mark[ed] the gravity of the occasion. [They] were obviously stirred by deep emotion. [Two women refused to drink coffee with me, saying it was the custom of Arabs to drink only in the houses of friends.] Such a breach with the Arab traditions of the courtesy due to a host in his own house is significant of the bitterness of the hostility now felt towards the Government in certain quarters. [The women had informed me before the congress that they wished to] make a demonstration [at Government House when they presented the resolutions]. I caused them to be informed that no such demonstration would be permitted, but that I would consent to receive a deputation of the ladies and hear their complaints. Attempts were made to induce some of the Moslem leaders to dissuade the women from making the demonstration. At first they declined to intervene; but when it was explained to them that the demonstration would be stopped by force if necessary, and that they would have only themeslves to thank if their women came into collision with the police, the arrangements were altered. It was arranged that the main body of the conference should drive from the meeting to the al-Aqsa Mosque where they would await the members of the delegation, who would join them at the Mosque after the interview with me. That arrangements was duly carried out. By arrangement with the Police the main body of the conference drove to the Mosque by a circuitions route avoiding the main streets."
(John Chancellor, 31 October 1929)

"It would be for us and for all Christians a bitter grief if unbelievers in Palestine were put in a superior or more privileged position, still more so if the august monuments of the Christian religion were assigned to those who were not Christians. ... We know, furthermore, that non-Catholic foreigners endowed with ample means are taking advantage of the unspeakable misery and ruin produced by the war to disseminate their own doctrines. It is unbearable that so many souls, losing the Catholic faith, should go to perdition in the very place where our Lord Jesus Christ won for them eternal salvation."
(Giacomo della Chiesa, 2 July 1922)

"We are a Protestant country, but I boldly say that I do not believe that in any country - Protestant or Catholic - has the Catholic religion received fairer or more generous treatment than it has within the British Isles. Now, is it credible that when you have, by the fortune of war, taken away from a Mohammedan country and put under a Christian mandatary places which have sacred associations for large bodies of Christian believers, is it credible (I ask) that these should suffer by the transfer? And remember that whatever it done [sic] in Palestine, now or in the future, is done in the light of day."
(Arthur James Balfour, 17 May 1922)

"The very stones are crying out for vengeance. The Catholic world must fight against the profanation of the Holy Land by the Zionists. It must declare a holy war against Zionism."
(Luigi Barlassina, early June 1922)

"The latest available figures for the Palestine police are: Jews, 211; Arabs (including all non-British Christians), 1,120. For the Trans-Jordan frontier force: Jews, 27; Arabs, 441. The latter force, while available for service in both Palestine and Trans-Jordan, operates mainly in Trans-Jordan, to which the Balfour Declaration does not apply."
(William Lunn, 6 November 1929)

"[The Palestine Arabs are] persons who not unnaturally want self-determination, not Hebrew domination."
(Lytton Strachey, 22 April 1922)

"[The government should withdraw from Palestine. The government should not be afraid of international Jewry as] we should never get on satisfactory terms with Jewish financiers by showing ourselves afraid of them."
(Lytton Strachey, 18 November 1922)

"One regrets to have to speak quite plainly about the policy of the Vatican or of some of itsrepresentatives towards Zionism. ... The British Government, which is primarily attacked, will no doubt know how to deal with these strange alliances between arabs and Catholics and the only effect of charges so reckless and combinations so unnatural will be to strengthen its determination to carry out its policy. The British public is still imperfectly educated on the issues in Palestinem but if anything could turn its post-war indifference to foreign affairs into active keenness for the ideals of the British Government in Palestine it is the spectacle of this unnatural alliance between Catholics and Muslims against the Government of this country. ... Of the proper activities of the Church in Palestine Zionists are respectful but if the Church oversteps its lawful limits, it will find that the principle of praemunire is quite as strong in Palestine as it was in England."
(British Palestine Committee, 27 May 1922)

"I did not say that he is lying; I said that I don’t believe him."
(Felix Frankfurter, some date after 1942)

"I am of the opinion that this question deserves investigation by our statesmen ... England has always understood how to use the valuable Jewish sympathies although, in reality, she has made in return only very doubtful promises. [it is important not to underrate] the seriousness of the successful propaganda which the well-to-do Jews launched against Germany. ... [The best way to counter this is to persuade the Porte to create in Palestine] an autonomous Jewish reservation"
(Konrad Romberg, 2 March 1917)

"Up till now the Zionist Executive in Berlin has been successful in keeping that Organization in line with the German and Turkish interests. Therefore, we and the Embassy in Constantinople have adopted an ad hoc benevolent attitude towards them, without pledging ourselves in principle."
(Arthur Zimmermann, 24 February 1917)

"It is therefore superfluous to stress that such an organization, which is completely in German hands and scattered all over in enemy countries, represents a factor which can be utilized to Germany's advantage in a number of ways. ... Third, the Zionists might be used, though under a different cover, behind the Russian Army as carriers of revolutionary movements, to spread demoralization, and organize sabotage."
(Otto Sprenger, 1997)

"Our chief aim now is to see that the Jews in countries of the central powers and those in the Occupied Territories do not swing towards the Entente."
(Alexander von Musulin, 16 February 1918)

"Straus is for Mesopotamia! He said he knew that a long time ago a pamphlet on Mesopotamia had been sent me by Cyrus Adler, at the instigation of some friends (Judge Sulzberger and others in New York). Mesopotamia, he said, was attainable. There are no church rivalries there, and it is the original home of Israel. Abraham came from Mesopotamia, and there we could make use of the mystic elements, too."
(Theodor Herzl, December 1899)

"I believe that a lot of the blind support of Israel by American Jews, their acceptance of Jim Crow and worse for 5 million people, stems from this fear that if this Answer to the ancient Jewish question is somehow demystified and taken apart, if we read that Herzl saw no real connection of Jews to Palestine (ala the brilliant Shlomo Sand), well then we are back to this very perilous combination of a privileged but not sovereign minority in western society, subject to the winds of mass hatred. I get that; and we're working on that, too."
(Philip Weiss, 20 December 2010)

"I’d love to go back sometime and I only wish it weren’t so expensive to get there. I would want to visit friends mostly. But I’d also like to finally get to visit the West Bank. On my first trip I didn’t go because some people told me it would be dangerous for me to go alone and I got nervous. It’s funny because it was my Israeli friend who told me it would be too risky to go to Ramalah. Before the trip, there were some people thought it would be too risky for me to go to Israel itself! Anyway, I’ve always regretted the fact that I let this fear keep me away from what sounds like a normal city."
(Zev Hurwich, 3 November 2010)

"They are approaching a zero-sum situation, and yet they ask us to attack Hamas. This is a new development. We have never seen this before. They [Fatah] are desperate."
(Yuval Diskin, 9 June 2007)

"Dahlan is trying to manage Fatah's security forces by remote control. We are not even sure where he is."
(Yuval Diskin, 9 June 2007)

"In the West Bank, Diskin said that ISA [Israeli Security Agency, the Shin Bet] has established a very good working relationship with the Preventive Security Organization (PSO) and the General Intelligence Organization (GIO). Diskin said that the PSO shares with ISA almost all the intelligence that it collects. They understand that Israel's security is central to their survival in the struggle with Hamas in the West Bank."
(staff of US Embassy in Israel, 9 June 2007)

"He's a paradox. He cannot function and do anything. Why is Fatah failing? Because Abbas has become the 'good guy' whom everyone is trying to do everything for in order to keep him alive ... He knows he is weak and that he has failed ... to rehabilitate Fatah. He did not start to take any action when he had the chance in 2004. Instead of choosing to be the leader for Fatah, he chose to be a national leader for all Palestinians."
(Yuval Diskin, 9 June 2007)

"Yadlin said Israel would be "happy" if Hamas took over Gaza because the IDF could then deal with Gaza as a hostile state."
(staff of US Embassy in Israel, 13 June 2007)

"The Ambassador commented that if Fatah decided it has lost Gaza, there would be calls for Abbas to set up a separate regime in the West Bank. While not necessarily reflecting a consensus GOI view, Yadlin commented that such a development would please Israel since it would enable the IDF to treat Gaza as a hostile country rather than having to deal with Hamas as a non-state actor. He added that Israel could work with a Fatah regime in the West Bank. The Ambassador asked Yadlin if he worried about a Hamas-controlled Gaza giving Iran a new opening. Yadlin replied that Iran was already present in Gaza, but Israel could handle the situation "as long as Gaza does not have a port (sea or air).""
(staff of US Embassy in Israel, 13 June 2007)

"While he described this overall relationship with the Palestinian security services in the West Bank as healthy, Diskin noted that Fatah did not react to the last set of Hamas attacks in the West Bank due to the current "mood" of GIO leader Tawfik Tirawi. Diskin explained that Tirawi (whom he described as psychopathic, cruel, dangerous and prone to extreme mood swings) is disaffected and feels that his status has declined, and that he is no longer respected by Abbas. Diskin claimed that Tirawi also feels that his relationship with Dahlan has deteriorated. Diskin said that he hopes to meet with Tirawi the week of June 17 to dissuade him from "doing stupid things, as he is trying to develop ties with the Dughmush family in the Gaza Strip.""
(staff of US Embassy in Israel, 13 June 2007)

" Keeping all these facts in mind — and provided that Israel maintains its military strength and builds a wall to stop suicide bombers — it is crystal-clear that Israel can easily afford to give up the West Bank. Strategically speaking, the risk of doing so is negligible. What is not negligible is the demographic, social, cultural and political challenge that ruling over 2.5 million — nobody knows exactly how many — occupied Palestinians in the West Bank poses. Should Israeli rule over them continue, then the country will definitely turn into what it is already fast becoming: namely, an apartheid state that can only maintain its control by means of repressive secret police actions. To save itself from such a fate, Israel should rid itself of the West Bank, most of Arab Jerusalem specifically included. If possible, it should do so by agreement with the Palestinian Authority; if not, then it should proceed unilaterally, as the — in my view, very successful — withdrawal from Gaza suggests. Or else I would strongly advise my children and grandson to seek some other, less purblind and less stiff-necked, country to live in."
(Martin van Creveld, 15 December 2010)

"We appreciate the desire of the Jewish minority, in countries where they have a srongly developed culture of their own, to pursue their own way of life and we are willing to give benevolent support to these aspirations. ... With regard to the aspirations of Jewry, especially that of Zionists, towards Palestine, we welcome the recent statement of Talaat Pasha, the Grand Vizier, as well as the intentions of the Ottoman Government, made in accordance with its traditional friendship towards the Jews in general, to promote a flourishing Jewish settlement in Palestine, in particular by means of unrestricted immigration and settlement within the absorptive ..."
(Hilmar von dem Bussche-Haddenhausen, 5 January 1918)

"I fired in the air ... But they continued to approach, so then I began firing at their legs ... so that they'd turn away, not to injure their legs. But they still kept coming. And then I fired at the upper bodies and hit one of them. I saw someone fall. I aimed at the body with intent to wound, because they were continuing to approach and walking very quickly. After one of them fell, all the rest began to run away ... After that, the shooting stopped. The battalion commander arrived and asked 'Who fired?' I said, 'I fired'. He asked, 'Why did you fire?' and I answered, 'The company commander's orders were to shoot anyone who approaches the fortifications, because he's a terrorist.' He said, 'Very good' and went away."
(Staff-Sergeant S (2), 2010)

"I remember in 1945 a cafe in Tel Aviv was attacked and almost entirely broken up because of a rumour that there was an Arab working in the kitchen washing the dishes. I also remember, when I was in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem between 1936 and 1939, repeated demonstrations against the vice-chancellor of the university, Dr Magnes. He was a rich American Jew and a liberal, and his crime was that he was the tenant of an Arab landlord."
(Tony Cliff, December 2000)

"Nobody must think that we have become reconciled to the existence of non-Jewish labour in the villages. We will not forgo, I say we will not forgo, one place of work in the country. I say to you with full responsibility that it is less shameful to establish a brothel than to evict the Jews from their work on the land of Palestine."
(David Ben-Gurion, March 1932)

"It must be admitted that if the Arabs knew we were contemplating an extensive Jewish colonization scheme in Palestine (withe the possible prospect of eventual Jewish self-government), this might have a very chilling effect on the Arab leaders."
(Hugh O'Beirne, 22 March 1916)

"The one ruling consideration, as it seems to me, by which we should be guided in the present stage of this matter is to be found in the answer to the question whether any of the suggestions ... would appeal powerfully to a large and influential section of Jews throughout the world. If that question is answered in the affirmative, and I believe it is so answered by good authorities, then it is clear that the Palestine scheme has in it the most far-reaching political possibilities and we should be losing a great opportunity if we did not do our utmost to overcome any difficulties that may be raised by France and Russia ... Another points ... is that in any communications which we may address to Mr. Wolf or any other representative Jew we should be careful to make it clear that we do not propose to give the Jews a privileged position in Palestine fornothing but that we should expect whole-hearted support from them in return."
(Hugh O'Beirne, some date in Marc-June 1916)

"It has been suggested to me that if we could offer the Jews an arrangement as to Palestine which would storngly appeal to them we might conceivably be able to strike a bargain with them as to withdrawing their support from the Young Turk Government which would then automatically collapse. The trementous political consequence of such a deal are quite obvious. I am tolf that notwithstanding the indifference of hostility of a great many Jews to the Zionist idea an arrangement completelely satisfactory to Jewish aspirations in regard to Palestine might nevertheless have immense attractions for the great body of Jews. The Zionists are opposed to an international protectorate and would wish for a British protectorate, which seems imprtacticable. But I understand that the idea has been put forward that there might be an American protectorate which would probably appeal intensely to the very influential body of American Jews. While there would necessarily be an international administration of some kind in Jerusalem itself it is conceivable that in the rest of Palestine the Jews could be given special colonising facilities which in time would make them strong enough to cope with the Arab element, when the management of internal affairs might be placed in their hands under America's protection. Meanwhile Palestine outside Jerusalem might possibly be left under the administration of some neutral nationality if the United States would not agree to undertake the administration themselves. I do not feel competent to express any opinion as to the feasibility of these shcemes. The difficulty of Jewish colonists displacing any large proportion of the 6-700,000 Arabs in Palestine, or growing strong enough to administer them, seems to me almost insurmountable. I would suggest that we might consult Mr. Fitzmaurice."
(Hugh O'Beirne, 28 February 1916)

"[The settlers] are turning the landscapes of the biblical land and the culture of the East into the landscapes of cold and snowy Switzerland, and are dispossessing the inhabitants who for years preserved the culture of the ancient Hebrews. The heart cringes at the sight of the felled olive trees, the scorched fields and vista-wounding roads, the apartheid roads."
(Dani Karavan, December 2010)

"Arabian countries should be for the Arabs, Armenia for the Armenians and Judea for the Jews."
(Robert Cecil, 2 December 1917)

"By birth I am a Jew, though not by religion, for I have never professed any creed, whether Hebrew or Christian. I feel neither pride nor shame in my origins. I am, I hope, a sufficiently good historian to know that racial qualities are a myth, and that the whole notion of Race is an absurdity which becomes particularly flagrant when attempts are made to apply it, as in this particular case of the Jews, to a group of co-religionists originally brought together from every corner of the Mediterranean, Turco-Khazar and Slav worlds."
(Marc Bloch, 1940, 1999)

"What does the 'Jewish people' mean? Does it exist? Can we speak of the Jewish people as one speaks of the French people or of the Basque people? The only valid reply seems to me to be that if one speaks of the 'Jewish people', one is using the notion of people in a sense that applies only to this particular case.

Those who are called Jews are not, for the most part, biological descendants of the Semitic tribes whose beliefs and transfigured history are chronicled in the Bible. In the Mediterranean basin, just before or during the first century of the Christian era, there existed dispersed Jewish communities that had been converted to Judaism, not necessarily composed of emigrants from Palestine. Nor did all the Jews of Romanized Gaul come from Palestine.

But these communities had none of the characteristics that ordinarily make up a people: neither a land, nor a language, nor a political organization. Their unity was based on their Book, their faith, and certain practices."
(Raymond Aron, 1997)

"The conquerors of the Holy City [in 1967] could not appear, not even in part, as descendants of Berber horsemen or Khazars. They had to be direct heirs of the warriors of the 'great kingdom' of David. Zionism had need more than ever of a solid ethnocentric legitimacy in order to justify the pursuit of the conquest of territory, and to have this legitimacy recognized by wide circles of Western opinion.

It was only logical, therefore, that the arguments of thinkers and scholars such as Ernest Renan, Theodor Mommsen, Marc Bloch or Raymond Aron, as well as a whole historiographic heritage, should become absolutely unacceptable. It is a bitter irony of history that, rather than continuing the lines of pluralistic research into this rich tradition, from the early 1970s the hunt was on, in Israeli laboratories of molecular biology, for marks of a DNA common to all the 'children of Israel'."
(Shlomo Sand, November 2010)

"Russian usurers, inn-keepers and moneylenders from Galicia, second-hand dealers from Prague, Polish horse-merchants, moneychangers from Frankfurt, of what concern are they to me, an Israelite of France? In the name of what alleged brotherhood am I to care about measures taken by the Tsar against subjects who appear to him to be harmful? By defending and supporting them do I have to assume part of their responsibility? What do I have in common with these descendants from the Huns? They are pariahs of this world without being Israelites."
(Lazare Marcus Manassé Bernard, October 1890)

"The history of the fin de siecle [in France], which records little physical violence against Jews, is one long litany of outbursts against Italians, rising at times to what could be described as pogroms."
(Eugen Weber, 1986)

"Anti-Semitism and modern racism more generally did not become part of French political life in the same way that it did in German-speaking Europe of the late 1870s and 1880s. A more diffuse xenophobia, on the other hand, remained deeply rooted. Its more virulent expressions, however, were not directed against Jews but against Italians who, at over three hundred thousand by the turn of the century, were the most numerous of aliens residing in the country. They suuffered repeated attacks in the 1890s, 'rising at times to what could be described as pogroms.'"
(Albert S. Lindemann, 1991)

"Que m'importent à moi, Israélite de France, desusuriers russes, des cabaretiers galiciens prêteurs sur gages, des marchands de chevaux polonais, des revendeurs de Prague et des changeurs de Francfort. En vertue de quelle prétendue fraternité, irai-je me préoccuper des mesures prises par le tzar envers des subjets qui lui paraissent accomplir une oeuvre nuisible? Ai-je en les défendent, en les soutenant, à assumer une part de leur responsabilité? Qu'ai-je de commun avec ces descendants des Huns? S'ils souffrent j'ai pour eux la naturelle pitié due a tous les souffrants, quels qu'ils soient, puisque sur la terre le châtiment est toujours disproportionné au crime, mais adoreraient-ils trois fois Jéhovah et venereraient-ils dix fois Moïse, je ne sentirai pas ma sympathie s'en accroître, les chrétiens de Crète auront droit aussi bien à m'émouvoir et tant d'autres, quit sont parias en ce globe, sans être israélites."
(Lazare Marcus Manassé Bernard, October 1890)

"I echo what is said by the [ICJ] judges, who found that Israel had breached, violated… call it what you will, international humanitarian law and human rights law – the combination. That is pretty powerful. They breached it by the building of the wall itself, but they did it in the context – the court recognized the context – of the illegality of the occupation, the illegality of the settlements. Now, lets pause for a minute. We are now in this Alice in Wonderland situation where Hillary Clinton says to Netanyahu, well, do you think that you could just stop building them for a few weeks, and in exchange we will give you some fighter planes, billions of pounds worth of them. As a criminal lawyer, this is rather like going up to an armed robber – because that is what they are doing with them, stealing land – going up to an armed robber and saying "excuse me, could you hold up on this robbery and a few other ones for a few weeks, and in the meantime I will provide you with some new shotguns". It is the same situation.

"
(Michael Mansfield, 1 December 2010)

"I realized there [in Auschwitz] that anybody from a dominating group who tries to dehumanize people from a minority group, can only do so if by education, indoctrination and propaganda he has already been dehumanized himself, independent of the uniform he wears. It is a deep tragedy that in Israel this is not what one concludes from the experiences in Auschwitz. To the contrary, Auschwitz is elevated there into a new religion."
(Hajo G. Meyer, 27 January 2010)

"For some time, shows of Israeli purity have not been the sole property of rabbis who serve the divine will. These demonstrations formulate and express something essential within the Israeli identity. "We" Israelis are everything "they" are not. Being Israeli is no longer a territorial or a religious definition, nor even a national definition resting on religious foundations. The Israeli state might be more Jewish than democratic, but being Israeli means belonging to a separate race that also happens to be Jewish; what counts is the Israeli race."
(Zvi Bar'el, 26 December 2010)

"Gaza is like an abscess, a problematic boil. For as long as they don't understand how to act, nothing will move forward here."
(Matan Vilnai, 27 December 2010)

"Where you find administrative detentions,you are likely to find torture."
(Douglas Valentine, 30 December 2010)

"If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, anti-semitism is the last refuge of occupiers"
(Yoel Marcus, 2010)

"He trusts us implicitly. . . . I feel sure that we shall greatly regret it in the future if we are not quite open and frank with him now over the whole matter . . . For Heaven's sake let us be straight with the old man"
(Cyril Wilson, 1917)

"A new generation of Jews is growing up in the US. Their relationship with Israel is becoming less patient and more problematic. They see what has happened with the Rabbinical Letter, for example. How long can you expect that they’ll love unconditionally the place called Israel [sic]? You’ve got a problem. You have the status of an occupier since 1967. It’s been happening for so long that even people like me, who understand that not only one side is responsible for the conflict and that the Palestinians missed an historic opportunity for peace in 2000, can’t take it anymore. The US administration is trying out of good will to get a peace process moving and in return Israel lays out conditions like the release Jonathan Pollard. Sorry, it can’t go on this way. The Jewish community is not just a nice breakfast at the Regency. You think it’s bad that a US President is trying to make an effort to promote peace? That’s what’s hurting your feelings? Give me a break, you’ve got bigger problems. A shopping list in exchange for a two month moratorium on settlement construction? Jesus [sic]."
(David Remnick, 24 December 2010)

"Information continues to reach me corroborating reports of Turkish preparations against Egypt. Large transport camel corps arrived at Jerusalem ... peace stations, and I have stated that His Majesty's Government can only view any further preparations at Jerusalem or at Maan in a serious light.

In addition to above-mentioned military measures, movements of suspicious individuals have now been supplemented by those of a German naval officer named Hilgendorf, who is at present on his way from Damascus to Petra with a party of eight Germans. It is understood that they will be joined by a smaller party from Haifa via Amman, and that they are conveying a large supply of explosives. I have made representations to the Grand Vizier explaining that such hostile enterprises against Great Britain cannot be allowed in a neutral country, and that these people must be arrested."
(Louis Mallet, 2 October 1914)

"Deep down, I believe that a little anti-Semitism is a good thing for the Jews – reminds them who they are."
(Jay Lefkowitz, 12 February 1995)

"While hate sounds like something all decent people would condemn, one man's hate may be another man's righteous indignation. Zionists for example tend to conflate anti-zionism with anti-semitism, and therefore as something that could be considered a hate crime."
(Maidhc Ó Cathail, 2 January 2011)

"We are convinced that the accomplishment of our principal task - the acquisition of the straits and Constantinople - will be guaranteed in good time both from a diplomatic and military point of view."
(Paul N Milukoff, 9 February 1915)

"The Jews were supporters of the Austro-German alliance, but must now alter their opinion regarding Austria's foreign policy. Germany does not permit Jews to cross her eastern frontier. Russia, on the other hand, has abolished all laws placing limitations on Jews. It is clear which side enlists our sympathy. Germany is the only European State which wishes to drive out Jews."
(staff of the Vienna Morgen Zeitung, 12 August 1918)

"I may mention in passing that the Bolsheviks have with great cunning and very adroit propaganda made extensive use of the Jewish suffering for which they themselves are largely responsible, by now coming forward with an apparently generous proposal for a large settlement of Jews on the land in Ukraine and Crimea. . . . The Crimean scheme is being heralded as a competitive and alternative project to Palestine. In a manner characteristic of American propaganda visions are being dangled before the public which make our slow and difficult work in Palestine look insignificant as compared with the Bolshevik mirage. We have no doubt that eventually all this will result in a fiasco, but for the present it constitutes a serious embarrassment to us, divides our forces, and tends to deflect financial and moral support from Palestine."
(Chaim Weizmann, 13 may 1926)

"Talking about murder from the air, we must once more take ourselves to task over what we smugly call 'police bombing'."
(J R J Macnamara, 2009)

"Is not the purpose of the bombing to give the natives the idea that they are being scolded from Heaven?"
(Frederick Macquisten, 16 June 1938)

"It has been suggested to me that if we could offer the Jews an arrangement as to Palestine which would strongly appeal to them, we might conceivably be able to strike a bargain with them as to withdrawing their support from the Young Turk government which would then automatically collapse."
(Hugh O'Beirne, 28 February 1916)

"To my mind the Zionists are now the key of the situation-the problem is how are they to be satisfied? - with 'Great Jewry' against us there is no possible chance of getting the thing thro' - it means optimism in Berlin - dumps in London - unease in Paris - resistance to last ditch in C'ople - dissension in Cairo - Arabs all squabbling among themselves - as Shakespeare says 'Untune that string and mark what discord follows' - Assume Zionists satisfied the contrary is the case, of that I am positive"
(Mark Sykes, 18 March 1916)

"I do not think it is easy to exaggerate the international power of the Jews."
(Robert Cecil, March 1916)

"[Herbert Samuel is] a greedy, ambitious and grasping Jew with all the worst characteristics of his race."
(David Lloyd George, April 1914)

"Palestine will become the world's Ghetto."
(Edwin S. Montagu, 23 August 1917)

"[Weizmann said] It was really a question whether the Zionists were to realize their aims through Germany and Turkey or through Great Britain. He [Weizmann], of course, was absolutely loyal to Great Britain."
(William Ormsby-Gore, 10 June 1917)

"Zionists ... encouraged the British governing elite in its belief that Jewish influence was a global force. On June 10, 1917, Weizmann warned the Foreign Office that Germany was about to issue a Balfour Declaration of its own, and Zionists were increasingly beginning to question "whether [they] were to realize their aims through Germany and Turkey or through Great Britain," he wrote. While Weizmann declared that he was "absolutely loyal" to Britain, he implied that other Jews would not be so dependable. In October and November 1917, as the British cabinet debated the declaration, ministers voiced this very fear. So they decided to issue their own statement of support for a Jewish homeland first. "Many [gentiles] have a residual belief in the power and the unity of Jewry," one of Weizmann's followers observed many years later. "We suffer for it, but it is not wholly without its compensations.… To exploit it delicately and deftly belongs to the art of the Jewish diplomat." Few exploited it more deftly than Chaim Weizmann."
(Jonathan Schneer, 8 September 2010)

"Are there no Arabs in Palestine?"
(Karl Popper, 1912)

"Butt stereotypical thinking about Jews did play a role in the War Cabinet's decision to issue the Balfour Declaration. It is a further irony that British Zionists had done what they could to foster such thinking. The inimitable Harry Sacher wrote long afterward: "Many . . . have a residual belief in the power and the unity of Jewry. We suffer for it, but it is not wholly without its compensations. It is one of the imponderables of politics, and it plays, consciously or unconsciously, its part in the calculations and the decision of statesmen. To exploit it delicately and deftly belongs to the art of the Jewish diplomat." During 1917 the Zionists did just that. Starting in June 1917, they began warning that Germany was courting Jews. Usually they did not say, indeed it was better left unsaid, that if Germany won Jewish support, then the Entente would lost it - and possibly the war. British officials were capable of reaching this conclusion themselves. On one occasion, however, Weizmann went even that far. The Germans had "recently approached the Zionists with a view to coming to terms with them," he warned William Ormsby-Gore on June 10. "It was really a question whether the Zionists were to realize their aims through Germany and Turkey or through Great Britain. He [Weizmann], of course, was absolutely loyal to Great britain.""
(Jonathan Schneer, August 2010)

"Many [gentiles] have a residual belief in the power and the unity of Jewry. We suffer for it, but it is not wholly without its compensations. It is one of the imponderables of politics, and it plays, consciously or unconsciously, its part in the calculations and the decision of statesmen. To exploit it delicately and deftly belongs to the art of the Jewish diplomat."
(Harry Sacher, 1959)

"I would not hesitate to state that the spraying of CS from the air – which is an action entirely impossible to control – and the imposition of a curfew after its wide use, should he thought of as war crimes."
(Israel Shahak, 5 January 1991)

"I imagine that the principal object of Zionism is the realization of the ideal of an existing centre of nationality rather than boundaries or extent of territory."
(Mark Sykes, February 1916)

"This silence in the face of the accumulating evidence that Israel plans to launch Operation Cast Lead 2 is a devastating form of criminal complicity at the highest governmental levels, especially on the part of countries that have been closely aligned with Israel, and also exhibits the moral bankruptcy of the United Nations system."
(Richard Falk, 5 January 2011)

"There is a general unwillingness among the British troops to support a pro-Zionist policy. They are not exactly pro-Arab, but prefer the Arabs very greatly to the jews."
(William Thwaites, 21 June 1920)

"We cannot befriend both Jews and Arab. My proposal is based on befriending the people who are more likely to be loyal friends - the Jews."
(Richard Meinertzhagen, March 1919)

"The Palestine Administration must be purged of those elements hostile to Zionism."
(Richard Meinertzhagen, June 1919)

"1 . We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographic bonds.

2. The Declaration made by M. Pichon, Minister for Foreig Affairs for France, that France had rights in our country based on the desires and aspirations of the inhabitants has no foundation and we reject all the declarations made in his speech of 29th December 1918, as our wishes and aspirations are only in Arab unity and complete independence.

3. In view of the above we desire that one district Southern Syria or Palestine should not be separated from the Independent Arab Syrian Government and to be free from all foreign influence and protection.

4. In accordance with the rule laid down by President Wilson and approved by most of the Great Powers we consider that every promise or treaty concluded in respect of our country and its future as null and void and reject the same.

5. The Government of the country will apply for help to its friend Great Britain in case of need for the improvement and development of the country provided that this will not affect its independence and Arab unity in any way and will keep good relations with the Allied Powers."
(Delegates to the First Palestinian Arab Congress, 1978)

"Some of us - some of our friends even, and especially some of our opponents - are very quick in drawing conclusions as to what will happen to the Zionist Movement after the Russian Revolution. Now, they say, the greatest stimulus for the Zionist Movement has been removed. Russian Jewry is free. They do not need any places of refuge somewhere outside Russia - somewhere in Palestine. Nothing can be more superficial, and nothing can be more wrong, than that. We have never built our Zionist Movement on the sufferings of our people in Russia or elsewhere. Those sufferings were never the cause of Zionism. The fundamental cause of Zionism was, and is, the ineradicable national striving of Jewry to have a home of its own - a national centre, a national home with a national Jewish life."
(Chaim Weizmann, 20 May 1917)

"In the struggle for a Jewish majority, Israel doesn’t know what it wants. It wants to be rid of the Palestinians, but not to give up the occupation. It wants “foreign workers” but doesn’t want them to hang around here. It wants to be democratic but limits the rights of the Arab minority. Israel is caught in internal contradictions without a strategy to solve them – except burying its head in the sand. As a result, it is slowly losing its Jewish majority and being pushed to racism against a growing number of groups. Day by day, Israel is losing its legitimacy in the international community."
(Michal Schwartz, 7 January 2011)

"... who have been tyrannized; the Bulgarians, the Druses, and the Maronites. But not one of them shows a tithe of the abominable qualities which mark off Armenians from the rest of mankind. Even Jews have their good points but Armenians have none ; perhaps the educational labours of the American missionaries may ..."
(Mark Sykes, 1900)

"The Military Administration notably contravened the Status Quo, in the matter of Zionism. Palestine had been (and in 1918 half Palestine still was) a province of the Moslem Ottoman Empire, and the vast majority of its inhabitants were Arabs. Under the Status Quo we were entitled (and instructed) to impress upon those desiring immediate reforms that we were here merely as a Military Government and not as Civil Reorganizers. Our logical procedure would therefore have been to administer the territory as if it had been Egypt or any other country with important minorities; making English the official language, and providing Arabic translations and interpreters, and treating the resident Jews, Europeans, Armenians and others as they would have been treated in Egypt. Far different from this conception was the attitude of O.E.T.A. General Allenby's very first proclamation and all that issued from me were in Hebrew, as well as in English and Arabic. Departmental and public notices were in Hebrew and, as soon as possible, official and Municipal receipts also. We had Jewish officers on our staffs, Jewish clerks and interpreters in our offices. For these deliberate and vital infractions of military practice O.E.T.A. was criticized both within and without Palestine. They were surely justified by the announcement by Great Britain and the almost universal endorsement of the Balfour Declaration on 2 November 1917, which gave any occupying Power the right to assume, though the League of Nations was then unborn and Mandates hardly conceived, that the ultimate Government would have to reckon with Zion. Pleasant as was the unchartered freedom of a Military Governor, and reluctant as any Governor would be to circumscribe it, I soon began to feel that, unless I speedily obtained good legal advice, no subsequent Act of Indemnity could cover my irregularities. I therefore procured the services of Major Orme Clark, the consequent founder of modern justice in Palestine. He was assisted and shortly succeeded by Norman Bentwich, my old friendship with whom (I am proud to hope) Arab, and sometimes Jewish, criticisms of him, and frequent Jewish criticisms of myself, served only to draw closer. About then Colonel Rees Mogg was replaced by Major Lord William Percy, an organizer to whom the Governorate owed and probably still owes some of its best features."
(Ronald Storrs, 1937)

"Early in the afternoon the Chief Administrator formally handed over the Administration to the High Commissioner. He had humorously prepared for Sir Herbert [Samuel] a typewritten receipt for 'one Palestine taken over in good condition,' which Sir Herbert duly signed, adding 'E. and O.E.' [errors and omissions excepted].'"
(Ronald Storrs, 1920)

"Although not equal to Alexandria, Beirut is the most important commercial port on the Syrian coast, and among the facts of special interest which I have learned is, that most of the vessels which bear the United States flag, arriving here, come with cargoes of petroleum. Foreigners shorten this word into "petrole," while the natives call the article "gas." It began to be imported directly about 1867, and during that year 50,000 gallons arrived at Beirut. But the trade has so increased that last year nearly 1,000,000 gallons arrived in American ships alone. This oil is not all consumed in Beirut, but is distributed over the whole of Syria. Small native craft take it to other ports along the coast, and it is carried inland to Damascus and the other towns throughout the central and northern portions of the country, and finds its way even to the cities and villages along the Euphrates."
(Selah Merrill, 1881)

"The Government should know that this favouritism of Jews is harmful to the Jews themselves in the first place, and in the second place it destroys the dignity and prestige of the Administration, while it drives the Arabs to despair. ... [The] dislike which Arabs cherish towards the Zionists is the fruit of such preferential treatment."
(Jamal al-Husseini, November 1921)

"[If the people of Palestine is given any say in controlling immigration] it will immediately say no Jews are to come in, and bring the whole thing to a standstill. It is impossible to put claims like that. How can the British Government allow the policy to which it is publicly declared to be brought to naught in that way?"
(Winston S. Churchill, 23 August 1921)

"[The] easiest way [for the Palestine Arabs to understand the policy regarding immigration of Jews is] to have a discussion with the controlling authorities of the Zionist Organisation."
(Winston S. Churchill, 23 August 1921)

"The situation in Palestine causes me perplexity and anxiety. The whole country is in ferment. The Zionist policy is profoundly unpopular with all except the Zionists. Both Arabs and Jews are armed and arming, ready to spring at each other's throats. ... In the interests of the Zionist policy, all elective institutions have so far been refused to the Arabs, and they naturally contrast their treatment with that of their fellows in Mesopotamia. It seems to me that the whole situation should be reviewed by the Cabinet."
(Winston S. Churchill, 11 August 1921)

"At the time of the debacle [the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70] Palestine did not contain more than a fraction of the Jewish race. Flourishing Jewish communities had long existed in Egypt and in Cyrenaica, in Syria and in Mesopotamia, in Italy and Greece. The Jews were dispersed long before the collapse of the Jewish State. Indeed at the opening of the Christian era there are said to have been only about 700,000 Jews in Palestine out of something like 4,000,000 in the Roman Empire alone."
(Leonard Stein, 1932)

"I don’t tend towards credulity or exaggerations and still I can’t avoid to stress that this revealed an extraordinary amount of friendship: to grant a Jew and representative of Zionism with such a promptness a private audience which took so long and was of such a warmth and took place with all assurance of sympathy, both for the Jews in general and for Zionism in special, proves that we don’t need to expect any obstacles which can’t be overcome from the side of the Vatican."
(Nahum Sokoloff (Sokolow/Sokolov), 12 May 1917)

"[Iraq is] in urgent need of agricultural population. It should not be impossible to come to an arrangement with [King] Faisal [of Iraq] by which he would take the initiative in offering good openings for Arab immigrants . . . There should be suitable propaganda as to the attractions of the country which indeed are great for Arab immigrants - and there should be specially organised and advertised facilities for travel. We, of course, should not appear [to be promoting this], but I see no reason why H.M.G. should not be interested . . . There can be no conceivable hardship for Palestinian Arabs - a nomadic and semi-nomadic people - to move to another Arab country where there are better opportunities for an agricultural life - c.f. English agricultural emigrants to Canada."
(Frederick Hermann Kisch (Kish), 20 May 1930)

"This is what I have always been hoping and waiting for, having before now expressed the view that with the irrigation of Mesopotamia will be found the solution of the racial problem in Palestine. . . . Propaganda for an Arab emigration to Iraq cannot be made by us - except by the most indirect methods - but for the Iraq Government to do so would be wonderful, and in the interests of both countries."
(Frederick Hermann Kisch (Kish), 21 September 1928)

"Lord Passfield observed that he was convinced he would have to consider a solution in that direction; but Iraq might present some difficulties . . . and they [i.e. the Iraqis] were very difficult people. My reply was: 'Of course, it isn't easy, but these countries [i.e. Transjordan and Iraq] have to be developed . . .' Lord Passfield thought this a wide outlook and one to be taken into consideration very seriously. (I then said, supposing we were to create a Develpment Company which would acquire a million dunams of land in Transjordania, this would establish a reserve and relieve Palestine from pressure . . .)"
(Chaim Weizmann, 6 March 1930)

"It was a special stroke of good fortune that in the last critical days General von Falkenhayn had the command. Cemal Pasha in this case – as he announced often enough – would have expelled the whole population and turned the country into ruins. We and the whole population, Christians as well as Muslims, must remember P. [Eugenio Pacelli] with deep gratitude, since he saved the civil population from doom when he prevented the planned evacuation of this area."
(Ya'akov Thon, December 1917)

"We are met on the most momentous occasion in the history of Judaism for the last eighteen hundred years. We are here to return thanks to His Majesty's Government for a declaration which marked an epoch - for the first time since the dispersion, the Jewish people have received their proper status by the declaration of one of the great powers."
(Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2 December 1917)

"With one step the Jewish cause has made a great bound forward. The declaration of His Majesty's Government as to the future of Palestine in relation to the Jewish people marks a new epoch for our race. For the British Government, in accord - it is without doubt to be assumed - with the rest of the Allies, has declared itself in favour of the setting-up in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, and had undertaken to use its best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of that object. Amidst all that is so dark and dismal and tragic throughout the world, there has thus arisen for the Jews a great light. It is the perceptible lifting of the cloud of centuries, the palpable sign that the Jew-condemned for two thousand years to unparalleled wrong – is at last coming to his right. The prospect has at last definitely opened of a rectification of the Jew's anomalous position among the nations of the earth. He is to be given the opportunity and the means whereby, in place of being a hyphenation, he can become a nation. Instead of, as Jew, filling a place at best equivocal and doubtful, even to himself, and always with an apologetic cringing inseparable from his position, he can — as Jew — stand proud and erect, endowed with national being. In place of being a wanderer in every clime, there is to be a home for him in his ancient land. The day of his exile is to be ended. In this joyous hour we English Jews turn with feelings of deepest pride and reverence to great and glorious Britain, mother of free nations and protectress of the oppressed, who has thus taken the lead in the Jewish restoration. The friend of our people for generations, who has raised her voice times out of number for our suffering martyrs, never was she truer to her noble traditions than today — never more England than now! In the time to come, when Jewry, free and prosperous, lives a contented and, as we all hope, a lofty life in Palestine, it will look with never-failing gratitude to the Power which crowned its centuries of humanitarianism by a grand act that linked Jewish destinies with those of the freest democracy in the world. . . . matchless devotion, in face of many a setback and many a disappointment, they have never turned from the work that was to them a sacred mission. And now they have obtained not merely an historic acknowledgement that their view of the Jewish position was the right and the practical one, but that their activity - so often misrepresented, so often baulked by the most powerful sections of Jewry - was politically sound and ethically just. It is a great victory, which must encourage the movement from end to end of the world and give to it an enormous impetus for the labours the heavy labours that are now before it. Where all, from the most prominent leader to the humblest follower, have wrought so valorously, it may possibly seem invidious to mention specially any names in connection with the Government declaration. But it would be churlish to withhold from Dr. Weizmann the fullest measure of praise and congratulation, of honour and of respect; for it is his diplomatic achievement of which the declaration is the result. In his work in this connection he has been magnificently seconded by M. Sokolow, who was specially delegated as a member of the executive body of the organisation for Zionist work in this country.

We have called the Government declaration "a Jewish triumph." It is in truth much more. It is a triumph for civilisation and for humanity. For it points the way to not alone an ending of the brutal suppression of our people from which directly they have suffered the last two thousand years, but from which civilisation, albeit indirectly, has suffered no less certainly. It will mean releasing for mankind, as a great spiritual force, the soul of our people, cramped and bound as it has hitherto been because of the world-position till now assigned to the Jew. The time can at least be described when the Jew will be able, without let or hindrance, to perform for the world his mission of Judaism, that mission which alone is the justification for his existence as a Jew, and the sense of his responsibility for which has alone enabled him to endure the untellable suffering to which our people have subjected.

Let us, however, not be mistaken. The Jewish fight is, we are fully conscious, not finished; complete victory is not won. Indeed, we are not sure that just now is not beginning the real testing-time for Jews and for the Jewish National spirit; that just now is being proved for the first time the real measure of Zionism. We are not in the least unmindful of the great and sacred work which the Government declaration has opened out for Jewry. None the less, a position, a great, a vital, a decisive position, has been won for the Jew and won for humanity. The Government declaration marks the definite opening of a new chapter, we believe a great and glorious chapter, in the history of our people. It is a memorable day for Israel: 'This is the day the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad therein.'"
(Jewish Chronicle staff, 9 November 1917)

"... the promise of tolerance to the Israelites cannot be embodied in a mercantile contract, nor could it be enforced if it were. Its fulfilment would only be ensured if the Head of the State were in sympathy with it, and we know that he is not, though we long hoped against hope. The Emperor is only less barbarous to his own family than to the Jews, and nothing good for Israel will come out of his inscrutably hardened heart. With a temper so harsh and so alien to the ordinary dictates of civilization and political economy guiding the destinies of the Empire, it is full of risk to have any commercial transactions with Russia, and it would be as prudent from the point of view of mercantile success, as it is desirable from that of outraged Jewish feeling, to let the finances of this unhappy sovereign severely alone."
(Jewish Chronicle staff, 1 May 1891)

"... the lesson thus roughly taught to Russia of the effects of its treatment of the Jews upon the commerce and credit of the country will not be without its influences. The Romanoffs are as proud of their honour as they are fanatically attached to their religion. They will not care to see the credit of Russia ... shaken to the dust by her own folly. Indeed the lesson is being brought home to her in the Holy City of Moscow itself. The merchants generally have been seized with alarm at the threatened withdrawal of the Jewish capital, which is the life's blood of the commerce of the country."
(Jewish Chronicle staff, 8 May 1891)

"As in England - owing to the reception in Russia of the representation of the Mansion House meeting - the barbarity of these expulsions, which have been attended with the saddest results, has been felt more keenly than elsewhere. Lord Rothschild took the first step in protesting to the members of his house against the support given by Jewish financiers to a government which has devoted itself to such persecution."
(The Times staff, 9 May 1891)

"So far as the war operations are concerned, the one thing that pleases most people is the capture of Jerusalem, 'the Holy City'. That rejoices the hearts of Jews and Christians ... After these hundreds of years the dream of Peter the Hermit, Richard Coeur de Lion and their fellow crusaders is an accomplished fact."
(Champ Clark, 24 December 1917)

"[Zionism has come to] represent in Jewish life what Progressivism does in general American life."
(Louis Dembitz Brandeis, 16 June 1916)

"Sefer HaChinuch [a book of Jewish law] states that the character traits of the father pass on to the son. If the father in not Jewish, what character traits could he have? Traits of cruelty, of barbarism! These are not traits that characterize the people of Israel. ... A person born to Jewish parents, even if they weren't raised on the Torah – there are things that are passed on (to him) in the blood, it's genetic. If the father is a gentile, then the child is deprived of these things. I even read in books that sometimes the crime, the difficult traits, the bitterness – a child that comes from these traits, it's no surprise that he won't have the qualities that characterize the people of Israel."
(Dov Lior, January 2011)

"The problem presented by Jewish hostility to Russia - and thus indirectly but rarely by intention, to the Allied cause generally - had therefore more than ethnic origins and certain tactical features in common with that presented by prevalent Irish-American opinion. Both were characterized by there being no way in which the true and evident cause of distress - Irish in one case, Jewish in the other - could actually be tackled to some good purpose. None but the British could alter the state of affairs in Ireland; and this, for the time being, they were neither willing nor, given the current structure of politics in the United Kingdom, able to do. Only the Russians could alter Russian policy; and while, as we have seen, there were voices within the Russian government at a level that fell just short of that of the Tsar himself that favoured going well beyond the one grudging gesture than had been made to the Jews - a promise that their affairs would be looked at once the war was over - the response to all such proposals was firmly negative. Gentle probing in St. Petersburg by the French and the British could nor did, nor was ever expected to, lead anywhere. No one in Paris or London was prepared seriously to consider exerting really heavy diplomatic pressure on their wartime ally in any internal cause, least of all a Jewish one. Nor had anyone the wit to suggest what form such pressure might take were a decision to exert it ever taken."
(David Vital, 2001)

"But the principle of rigorous neutrality was a popular one that would not be entirely overcome until the United States itself had entered the war as an 'associated' power in the spring of 1917. It went hand in hand with minority ethnic sentiment in certain cases. German-Americans tended, naturally enough, to be moderately pro-German, although the effect of this could be offset to some degree by suitable emphasis on the free and democratic nature of society and government in Great Britain and France. Irish-American sentiment was firmly, not to say congenitally anti-British and was the more serious politically for there being no conceivable way in which sympathy for the Irish nationalist cause could be seriously appeased; this was undoubtedly so before the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 and doubly so thereafter. Prevailing views in the growing Jewish community in the United States were marginally like those of the German-Americans, but were not without affinities with the Irish. As Allied representatives in Washington correctly and repeatedly pointed out, it tended to be pro-German, but out of 'dislike and fear of Russia' rather than because of any intrinsic symptahy for Germany itself. The French ambassador (Jusserand) noted with foreboding the damage done to the Allies 'in a country where the Jews are powerful and numerous' by reports of mistreatment of Jews by the Russian forces. His British colleague (Spring Rice) observed that while 'the principal Jewish journalists in New York, the editors of the "Sun" and the "Times", are strongly in favour of the allies and ... have done us a very great deal of good', there was no question of Jewish bankers, some of them of the first rank, being other than unfriendly."
(David Vital, 2001)

"I occupied part of my stay in Hedera with an examination of the Yemenite settlement, located on the outskirts of the colony. Here I found about seventy Yemenites, living under the most wretched conditions, of filth, poverty and overcrowding, families of six and seven, huddled together in one small, dark bare room.
They are paid exceedingly small wages and nearly all of them suffer from malaria and trachoma in aggravated form, while many have succumbed to tubercolosis.
Seven years ago this Yemenite Settlement was established by three hundred enthusiastic and devoted immigrants, from Yemen, in the southernmost extremity of Arabia. During the seven years, two hundred of them died, a few fled back to their old homes and seventy remain.
I was grieved to find that the colonists here, as elsewhere are totally indifferent to the unfortunate plight of their wretched brethren."
(Joseph Krimsky, 1919)

"As a socially responsible retailer, John Lewis takes very seriously the treatment of workers and their working conditions. We expect all our suppliers not only to obey the law, but also to respect the rights, interests and well-being of their employees, their communities and the environment. ... In relation to your specific enquiry about Ahava Dead Sea products, I can confirm that John Lewis has ceased stocking these particular products."
(Andy Street, 7 January 2011)

"Some Yemenite families living in wretched hovels on the outskirts of Rishon supply the domestic help as well as a number of field laborers."
(Joseph Krimsky, 1919)

"Rechoboth, established about forty years by wealthy Jews from Russia, is one of the fairest among the Jewish colonies in Palestine ... Adjoining the colony there is the inevitable Yemenite settlement with its squalor and filth and poverty.
In the centre of the village, at the summit of the hill, stand the synagogue, the People's Hall and sch schoolhouse, symbolic of the ideas and aims, which many years ago brought these settlers from Russia to create for themselves in Palestine a free home and an opportunity for self-expression and self-development."
(Joseph Krimsky, 1919)

"I am not a Zionist, and I deplore the national Jewish Movement. To my mind the Jews are not a nationality . .. Still, the facts cannot be ignored, and in any bid for Jewish sympathies to-day, very serious account must be taken of the Zionist movement. In America the Zionist organizations have lately captured Jewish opinion . .. This is the moment for the Allies to declare their policy in regard to Palestine. The Central Powers, with their Turkish attachment, cannot well say much on this subject. The Allies, of course, cannot promise to make a Jewish State of a land in which only a comparatively small minority of the inhabitants are Jews, but there is a great deal they can say which would conciliate Jewish opinion. If, for example, they would say that they thoroughly understand and sympathize with Jewish aspirations in regard to Palestine, and that when the destiny of the country comes to be considered, these aspirations will be taken into account . . . I am confident they would sweep the whole of American Jewry into enthusiastic allegiance to their causes."
(Lucien Wolf, 16 December 1915)

"My friends and my road-fellows, pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress. Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful. Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block. Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking. Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again. Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation."
(Khalil Gibran, 1933)

"Overgrown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty."
(George Washington, 1796)

"The civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded. It is a doctrine of the oldest and of the newest philosophy, that man is one, and that you cannot injure any member, without a sympathetic injury to all members."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1 August 1844)

"I know there are readers out there who must believe that there is actually a secret, underground [US] State Department, possibly concealed somewhere in the Department of Agriculture, that is actually going around the world and doing what is best for America and its people. Alas, it is not true and what we are seeing is what we are getting."
(Philip Giraldi, 20 January 2011)

"Whether Obama or Palin is elected in 2012 almost seems irrelevant. Six more years of this and we will be finished as a nation, bankrupt and despised everywhere, our only legacy a network of seven hundred-plus military bases falling into ruin worldwide, meant to give us peace and prosperity but delivering on neither."
(Philip Giraldi, 20 January 2011)

"In the end a lot depended on Netanyahu, or the armour-plated bullshitter as some of the FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] guys called him."
(Alastair Campbell, 17 April 1998)

"We had a meeting with [Ehud] Barak, who was OK but not everything he had been cracked up to be. He said he was pessimistic because Bibi was a total bullshitter."
(Alastair Campbell, 20 April 1998)

"Also there, needless to say, was Michael, hiding behind [Derek] Plumbly and saying he was deliberately hiding. Then, as TB wound up, who should march straight up there and shake him by the hand and start making introductions but Michael. He was unbe-fucking-lievable."
(Alastair Campbell, 21 April 1998)

"I don’t believe in the necessity of a Jewish state. Most Jews disagree with me, and that is sort of the heart of my crisis."
(Philip Weiss, January 2011)

"[The family] was shocked to learn he was a settler, just like us. ... Once we learned he was Jewish ... there's a great sense of betrayal. I'm relieved to know he's in jail. I don't know who he is and what his beliefs are, but I think they are primitive and regrettable."
(Leah Ortiz, 1 November 2009)

"Rabbi Dov Lior, for instance, once wrote that Israel should use captured Arab terrorists as guinea pigs for medical experiments."
(Gershom Gorenberg, 1 July 2002)

"The black-haired Jewish youth, with satanic joy on his face, lurks in wait for hours for the innocent girls he plans to defile with his blood, and steal the young girl from her people. With every means at hand he seeks to undermine the racial foundations of the people they would subjugate. . . . For a people which is racially pure and is conscious of its blood, will never be able to be subjugated by the Jews. The Jew in this world will forever only be the masters of bastardized people. . . ."
(Adolf Hitler, 1925)

"Israelis want the two-state solution but they don't trust. They want it more than you think, sometimes more than Palestinians. What is in that paper gives them the biggest Yerushalaim in Jewish history, symbolic number of refugees return, demilitarized state ... what more can I give?"
(Saeb Erekat, January 2010)

"If you act along these lines, we'll support you both materially and politically by lifting our financial restrictions, coordinating with the Gulf states to ensure prompt delivery of promised aid, and working with the Israeli government towards a resumption of revenue transfers."
(Jacob Walles, 2007)

"That damned iftar has cost us another two weeks of Hamas government."
(Condoleezza (Condi) Rice, 4 October 2006)

"Even after the Law of Return had been enacted, in 1951 the Ministry of the Interior refused to permit the entry of a group of old women from Bulgaria. The attorney General had to intervene and rule that the Law of Return made their admission unexceptionable. Other undesirable immigrants were communists, members of Lehi (the "Stern Gang"), uncircumcised children, intermarried couples, and journalists. On the other hand, certain people were more welcome than others: Zionist leaders were given priority and various kinds of assistance after arrival, including housing."
(Tom Segev, 1986, reprinted April 1998)

"Arye Gelblum divided the immigrants into three groups: the elite, the second-rate and "African Arabs." As for the Bulgarians, he wrote, they are indeed praiseworthy. The Turks, too, are good quality, only less intelligent. This was the usual way of discussing them, in generalized, collective terms."
(Tom Segev, 1986, April 1998)

"âæò ùìà éãòðå ëîåúå áéùøàì. îãåáø áàðùéí ôøéîéèéáééí áéåúø. øîú äùëìúí âåáìú ááòøåú âîåøä, åâøåò îæä, äí çñøéí ìâîøé àú äéëåìú ì÷ìåè îùäå øåçðé. ëììéú, äí èåáéí ø÷ áîòè îäòøáéí (...) ùáéðéäí çéå. òì ëì ôðéí, äí ðçåúéí îòøáéé àøõ éùøàì ùäúøâìðå àìéäí (...) àê éåúø îëì ãáø àçø ÷ééîú òåáãä áñéñéú àçú - àé éëåìúí ìäñúâì ìçééí áéùøàì, åîòì ìëì àìä - òöìðåúí äëøåðéú åñìéãúí îòáåãä"
(Aryeh Gelblum, 22 April 1949)

"àì ìðå ìäâåú øòéåï ùì äùúìáåú (áîãéðåú òøá). ìäéôê, òìéðå ìäéîðò îäùúìáåú. àçú äãàâåú äâãåìåú äîúòåøøåú áìáðå ùòä ùàðå ñå÷øéí àú îöáðå äúøáåúé äéà, ôï éâøåí øéáåé äòåìéí àìéðå îàøöåú äîæøç ìäùåàú øîúä äúøáåúéú ùì éùøàì àì øîú äàøöåú äùëðåú. àì ðà ðøàä àú òåìéðå îàøöåú äîæøç ëâùø áãøê ìäùúìáåúðå áòåìí ãåáøé òøáéú; òìéðå ìäëðéñ áäí øåç îòøáéú, åìà ìúú ùéâøøåðå ìúåê îæøçéåú ìà èáòéú"
(Abba Eban, 1952)

"In the corners of the living quarters of the Africans ... you will find the filth, card games played for money, residents getting drunk, and prostitution. ... The Africans bring this way of life with them when they migrate, and it is no wonder that crime in the country is on the upswing. Young women and even young men are again not safe going out on the streets alone after dark."
(Aryeh Gelblum, 22 April 1949)

"áôéðåú îâåøéäí ùì äàôøé÷àéí... úîöà àú äæåäîä, îùç÷ ä÷ìôéí áëñó, ùúééä ìùåëøä åæðåú... öåøåú çééí àìä îáéàéí àúí äàôøé÷àéí ìî÷åîåú ééùåáéäí, åàéï ôìà ùâì äôùòéí äëììé áîãéðä äåà áîòìä... ùåá àéï æä áèåç ëìì ìöòéøä åàó ìöòéø ìöàú ìáãå ìøçåá ìàçø ù÷éòú äçîä"
(Aryeh Gelblum, 22 April 1949)

"ìôðéðå òí ùäôøéîéèéáéåú ùìå áùéà. ãøâú äùëìúí âåáìú ááåøåú îåçìèú, åçîåø òåã éåúø çåñø äëùøåï ì÷ìåè ëì ãáø øåçðé... áôéðåú îâåøéäí ùì äàôøé÷àéí áîçðåú úîöàå æåäîä, îùç÷ ä÷ìôéí áëñó, ùúééä ìùåëøä åæðåú. øáéí îäí îåëé îçìåú òéðééí øöéðéåú, îçìåú òåø åîéï...àáì îòì ìëì ÷ééîú òåáãä éñåãéú, äîçñåø áëì ðúåðéí ìäñúâìåú ìçéé äàøõ, åáøàù åáøàùåðä – òöìåú ëøåðéú åùðàú òáåãä"
(Aryeh Gelblum, 22 April 1949)

"Dennis [Ross] is the closest thing you'll find to a melitz yosher, as far as Israel is concerned."
(Abe Foxman, January 2011)

"'One of the abundant sources for the future population of Israel will be North Africa,' the Manchester Guardian has written. There are 200,000 Jews in Morocco; there are about 140,000 Jews in Algeria; tens of thousandsin Tripoli, and hundreds of thousands in Tunisia. Altogether in North Africa there are more than half a million Jews all of whom are candidates for immigration. Have we given any thought to what will happen to this state if this is to be the makeup of its population? One of these days they will be joined by immigrants from Arab lands! What will be the nature of the state of Israel with such a population?"
(Aryeh Gelblum, 22 April 1949)

""áééùåá äàùëðæé áøåáå, ùøøå åùåøøéí îåùâéí ëììééí, ùìôéäí ôøð÷ äåà ôøð÷ åðâîø, ëìåîø âæò ðçåú å'äàùëðæéí', ëìåîø éåöàé àéøåôä, äí äòéìéú…

"… ìòåîú æàú îåöâ ñéîï ùàìä øöéðé åîàééí òì éãé äòìééä îöôåï àôøé÷ä… ìôðéðå òí ùäôøéîèéååéåú (ëê àééúå àæ – זאב גלילי ) ùìå äéà ùéà. ãøâú äùëìúí âåáìú ááåøåú îåçìèú. åçîåø òåã éåúø çåñø äëéùøåï ì÷ìåè ëì ãáø øåçðé. áãøê ëìì äí òåìéí ø÷ áîùäå òì äãøâä äëììéú ùì äúåùáéí äòøáéí, äëåùéí åäáøáøéí ùáî÷åîåúéäí; áëì àåôï æåäé ãøâä ðîåëä òåã îîä ùéãòðå àöì òøáéé àøõ éùøàì ìùòáø… äí ðúåðéí ìâîøé ìîùç÷ äàéðñèéð÷èéí äôøéîèéååééí åäôøàééí. áëîä ú÷ìåú òåìä, ìîùì, çéðåëí ùì äàôøé÷àéí ùéòîãå áúåø ì÷áìú äîæåï áçãø äàåëì åìà é÷éîå îäåîä ëììéú. éäåãé áåìâøé àçã òîã åèòï ìôðéäí òì òîéãä áúåø, îéã ùìó àçã àôøé÷àé ñëéï åâæø àú àôå"…

"… áôéðåú îâåøéäí ùì äàôøé÷àéí áîçðåú úîöà àú äæåäîä, îùç÷ ä÷ìôéí áëñó, ùúééä ìùåëøä åæðåú. øáéí îäí îåëé îçìåú òéðééí øöéðéåú, îçìåú òåø åîéï. ëì æä áìé ìäæëéø ôøéöåú åâðéáåú. àìîðè à-ñåöéàìé æä àéï ãáø áèåç îôðéå åàéï îðòåì ñåâø îùäå 'áøöéðåú'. ìà ø÷ çôöé äòåìéí àìà âí öéåã ëììé ùì äîçðä ðòìîéí. áîçðä àçã ôøöå, áéîé ùäåúé áå, åäøé÷å àú äîçñï äëììé. áîçðä àçø, ìîùì, àéøò î÷øä îååú øâéì. áçãø ùìéã áéú äçåìéí ðòøëä èåäøú äîú- åä÷áøðéí éöàå ìäìååéä. îùçæøå- ùåá ìà îöàå àú ëìé äèäøä".

"… åàéï ôìà ùâì äôùòéí äëììé áîãéðä äåà áîòìä. áëîä îçì÷é éøåùìéí ùåá àéï æä áèåç ìöòéøä åàó ìöòéø ìöàú ìáãå ìøçåá ìàçø ù÷éòú äçîä. åæä òåã ìôðé ùùåçøøå äöòéøéí äàôøé÷àéí îï äöáà. àâá, äììå äáèéçåðé ìà ôòí: 'îùðñééí àú äîìçîä áòøáéí ðöà ìîìçîä áàùëðæéí'. áîçðä àçø 'úëððå îøã', ùëìì úôéñú ðù÷ äðåèøéí åøöéçú ëì ô÷éãé äñåëðåú áî÷åí… àáì, îòì ëì àìä, ÷ééîú òåáãä éñåãéú… òöìåú ëøåðéú åùðàú äòáåãä. ëåìí, ëîòè ììà éåöà îï äëìì, äí îçåñøé ëì î÷öåò"…

"… áñê äëì éù áöôåï àôø÷ä ìîòìä îçöé îéìéåï éäåãéí ùëåìí îåòîãéí ìòìééä. äðúðå àú ãòúðå òì ëê, îä éàøò ìîãéðä æå, àí æå úäà àåëìåñééúä? åäøé áéåí îï äéîéí úúååñó òìéäí òìéú éäãåú àøöåú-òøá! îä éäéå ôðé îãéðú éùøàì åøîúä òí àåëìåñéåú ëàìä?… ìâáé éìãéäí àéï ú÷ååä: ìäòìåú àú øîúí äëììéú áîòî÷é éùåúí äòãúéú, æä òðééï ìãåøåú! àéï ôìà ùîø áâéï å'çøåú' ãåøùéí ìäòìåú àú ëì îàåú äàìôéí äììå îéã, ëé éåãòéí äí ùäîåðéí áåøéí, ôøîéèéååééí åòðééí äí çåîø äèåá áùáéìí, åø÷ òìééä ëæå òùåéä ìäòìåúí ìùìèåï"."
(Aryeh Gelblum, 22 April 1949)

"Maybe we will be able to find countries that can contribute in kind. Chile, Argentina, etc (ie, give land)."
(Condoleezza (Condi) Rice, June 2008)

"UNRWA has never been approached by any government to assist with the movement of refugees to South America. If such an offer was made refugees could accept or reject it. It would be their choice."
(Christopher Gunness, 25 January 2011)

"Dennis is the closest thing you’ll find to a melitz yosher [advocate], as far as Israel is concerned."
(Abe Foxman, 12 January 2011)

"So, do they really think in Israel that Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Dan Shapiro, Mara Rudman, Dennis Ross and the other good American Jews who work with Obama are a fifth column?"
(unnamed liberal American Jew involved in politics, July 2009)

"We have had to kill Palestinians to establish one authority, one gun and the rule of law… We have even killed our own people to maintain order and the rule of law."
(Saeb Erekat, 2009)

"[PA prime minister Salam Fayyad was] "doing everything possible to build the institutions. We are not a country yet but we are the only ones in the Arab world who control the Zakat [charitable religious donations] and the sermons in the mosques."
(Saeb Erekat, September 2009)

"I am very happy to see that Brazil recognized the Palestinian state with the 1967 borders. We cannot count on the United States alone to bring peace, since it agrees with almost everything that Israel does. Brazil can help because it has a lot of influence among developing countries. Brazil can be one of the leaders of this process."
(Jimmy Carter, December 2010)

"There will be be no peace in the Middle East as long at the United States continues to serve as the main mediator in the region. ... It's important to develop other elements, other countries which could mediate. ... The UN Security Council represents the world order after World War II rather than the world order of the 21st century."
(Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, December 2010)

"Towns were usually built on fixed locations throughout the course of long periods, and their names have been preserved with amazing consistency ... a new settlement was nearly always founded on the same ancient hill, the old name being preserved in spite of all the changes in the population's composition."
(Yohanan Aharoni, 1967)

"With the large bulk of its income coming from the US and the European Union, the PA's leaders are now far more accountable to their funders than to their own people. And, as the records of private dealings between US and PA officials show, it is the American government and its allies that now effectively pick the Palestinians' leaders."
(Seumas Milne, 26 January 2011)

"Refusing the dictates of brute power and realpolitik to which their so-called leaders have surrendered, the Palestinian people have already developed a new strategy that, turning the tables on Israel, transmutes every Israeli strength into a form of weakness. Faced with tanks, they turn to symbolic forms of protest that cannot be destroyed; faced with brutality, they demand justice; faced with apartheid, they demand equality. The Palestinians have learned the lessons of Soweto, and they have unleashed a simultaneously local and global campaign of protests and calls for boycotts and sanctions that offers the only hope of bringing Israelis – like their Afrikaner predecessors – to their senses."
(Saree Makdisi, 27 January 2011)

"I was the Minister of Justice. I am a lawyer… but I am against law – international law in particular. Law in general.
If we want to make the agreement smaller, can we just drop some of these issues? Like international law, this will make the agreements easier."
(Tzipi Livni, 13 November 2007)

"I have had phone calls saying 'you should be hanged' and calling me a traitor. People have sent me messages calling for me to be expelled from Israel, saying I am a traitor to my mother and father."
(Nurit Kedar, 27 January 2011)

"Congratulating Israel on its 'independence', or creation, if you will, is equivalent to congratulating it on the success of its armed robbery of Palestine and systematic expulsion of the Palestinian people."
(Azmi Bishara, 13 May 2010)

"It is now much clearer to Palestinians that they are living in a prison and that the PA leaders are there only to negotiate the terms of our imprisonment."
(Mahdi Abdul Hadi, January 2011)

"The fight for national independence is over and, if it is to survive, the PA must quickly reinvent its role. Palestinians are now in for the long haul: a struggle for their civil and political rights in a single state."
(Samir Awad, 31 January 2011)

"I cannot accept to remain the president of an authority that doesn't exist."
(Mahmoud Abbas, December 2010)

"Wikileaks has changed the face of the Middle East more radically than my ramblings ever could. Without Wikileaks, Al-Jazeera would never have published its Palestine Papers, and Tunisia and Egypt would not have begun their battle away from dictatorship and towards freedom."
(Israel Shamir, 1 February 2011)

"The United States essentially has disqualified itself as a mediator. I say that with great sadness because I believe on many occasions in the past we had opportunities to broker peace. I think there has been the implicit promise of peace on many occasions and we did not do that. We cannot play the role of mediator because of the political hammerlock that the right-wing in Israel, through its supporters here, exercises in our politics. We're simply biased. We're not capable. If you doubt that, read the so-called Palestine Papers and see what we were doing. So, with great reluctance, I have come to the conclusion that the United States is unfit to make peace in that context. But we need peace and so my answer would be to outsource, that is, to look to Europeans, Russians, to support the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 at Beirut, which has placed on the record now, not just the willingness of all of the Arab countries but all Islamic countries, through the Islamic Conference's endorsement of it, to recognize Israel and establish a normal relationship with it, if only it will reach an acceptable deal with the Palestinians."
(Charles W. Freeman, 30 January 2011 2011)

"[The siege of Gaza is] a brand of shame on the forehead of every Arab, every Egyptian and every human being."
(Mohamed El Baradei, June 2010)

"Sooner or later, the protective nets the Israeli tyranny has excelled at creating will tear. Will the masses flood the streets then, will they break through the barriers and roadblocks, march to Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and Psagot, as my colleagues Akiva Eldar and Aluf Benn have predicted? Let us not delude ourselves. There will be no confusion here. Precise instructions, clear and immediate, will be given to the Israeli soldiers. The IDF of Operation Cast Lead will not give up its heritage. Even if it is a march of 200,000 unarmed civilians - the order will be to shoot. There will not be 10 dead, because the army of Cast Lead will want to outdo itself. We have not yet reached the stage in which the machinery of Israeli repression breaks up into its component parts - the people - who instead of obeying, begin to think."
(Amira Hass, 2 February 2011)

"Go back home to Tel Aviv"
(Demonstrators in Tahrir Square, January-February 2011)

"'Peace you make with your enemies.' This nonsensical, overused slogan, repeated over and over again by the more vocal of the Israeli 'peace camp,' should, truth be told, be replaced with 'peace you make with dictators.'"
(Moshe Arens, 1 February 2011)

"One of the blights of history will now involve a US president who held out his hand to the Islamic world and then clenched his fist when it fought a dictatorship and demanded democracy."
(Robert Fisk, 2 February 2011)

"Is it possible – is it conceivable – that Israel's favourite Egyptian is going to give these millions the freedom and democracy they demand?"
(Robert Fisk, 2 February 2011)

"òæåá àåúé îäðçéåú áâ"õ. àðé ìà éåãò îúé éöàå äðçéåú áâ"õ åîúé ìà. àðé éåãò ùñéëåì îîå÷ã îàåùø åéåöà ðåäì ôòîå"ï åàðé î÷áì àú ääåøàåú îàâó äîáöòéí"
(Yair Naveh, probably in 2008, definitely some date before 28 November 2010)

"Stop bothering me with the rulings of the Supreme Court. I don’t know when they apply and when they don’t. I do know that targeted killings work and prevent terror attacks. I take my orders from the operations command."
(Yair Naveh, probably in 2008, definitely some date before 28 November 2010)

"I am perfectly frank to say, my sympathies in this lamentable and terrible conflict are on the side of Germany because I have not only been born and educated there, but because also my forebears have lived in Germany for many centuries. . . . Nevertheless, I have in reality no anti-English feeling, and am perfectly willing to concede that liberty - especially as far as the Jews is concerned - has in the past gained vastly more from England than from Germany[.] . . . Whether this will be so in the future, with the venom and poison which the Russian Alliance appears to have already instilled into English feeling for the Jew, seems to be at least doubtful."
(Jacob H. Schiff, 14 June 1915)

"We did not want to say that there is a "Palestinian people" but we've accepted your right to self-determination."
(Tzipi Livni, 13 November 2007)

"The [Palestine Papers] release has stripped it [the Palestinian Authority] of any remaining legitimacy; one can say that Al-Jazeera morally assassinated the PA."
(Amira Howeidy, 27 January 2011)

"The world must learn from what happened in Gaza. Democracy begins with elections – but does not end with elections. Democracy is civilization and if the wrong side is elected it brings democracy to an end…the world saw very well what happened in Gaza when there was pressure for democratic elections and a radical and dangerous movement was elected, which has not permitted even one day of democracy for the Gaza residents."
(Shimon Peres, 1 February 2011)

"Democracy begins with elections, but it doesn’t end with elections . . . If you elect the wrong people, you bring an end to democracy."
(Shimon Peres, 2 February 2011)

"All I'm saying is that, in the case of Egypt and in the case in Yemen, because there are other factors in this – not least those who would use any vacuum in order to foment extremism – that you do this in what I would call a stable and ordered way. [The West should engage with countries such as Egypt] so that you weren't left with what is actually the most dangerous problem in the Middle East, which is that an elite that has an open minded attitude but it's out of touch with popular opinion, and popular opinion that can often – because it has not been given popular expression in its politics – end up frankly with the wrong idea and a closed idea."
(Tony Blair, 28 January 2011)

"All assessments and predictions must now be rechecked and reevaluated amid the bitter realization that this potentially seismic shift in regional governance and orientation was not anticipated by our intelligence services. Our most concrete strategic assumptions were liquefied almost overnight."
(David Horovitz, 4 February 2011)

"In view of the dearth of local laborers, capable of working in water and mud, I imported 150 Egyptians to do the work of digging. They participated in the laying of the railroad tracks from Jerusalem to Jaffa that a Belgian company executed, and thereafter remained in the country."
(engineer in charge of swamp drainage at Hadera, some date before 1984)

"I got together with him to pursue two issues: [international] recognition of Jewish refugees from Arab lands and recognition by the UN of Israel with the status of “indigenous.” It’s unacceptable that after 2,000 years of exile, we are still characterized as “occupiers.” Since 2007, there are peoples recognized by the UN as indigenous. The U.S. also recognizes Indians as indigenous and if it won’t return to them their ancestral lands it will offer reparations. We too require similar recognition. Our connection to the land appears in the Bible and we are connected to this land no less than the Indians."
(Nissim Zeev, 3 February 2011)

"äëøúé àú äà÷áé ìôðé ìîòìä îùðúééí. ðôâùúé àéúå áîìåï ÷éðâ ãéåéã, äåà îâéò ìëàï îãé ùðä òí ÷áåöú öìééðéí, åîàæ àðçðå á÷ùø. áã÷ðå àéúå àéê àôùø ì÷ãí ùðé òðééðéí: äøàùåï - äëøä áôìéèéí äéäåãéí áîãéðåú òøá. äðåùà äùðé äåà äëøä ùì äàå"í áéùøàì áîòîã ùì éìéãéí. ìà ééúëï ùàçøé àìôééí ùðåú âìåú àðçðå òãééï îöèééøéí ëëåáùéí, ìàøâåï ëîå äàå"í éù îàæ ùðú àìôééí åùáò òîéí ùåðéí ùäåëøå ëéìéãéí, àøä"á äëéøä âí áàéðãéàðéí ëéìéãéí åâí àí äí ìà é÷áìå àú äàãîåú ùìäí áçæøä éúðå ìäí ôéöåééí, âí àðçðå ãåøùéí äëøä ãåîä, ä÷ùø ùìðå ìàãîä îåôéò áúð"ê åàðçðå ÷ùåøéí ìàãîä äæàú ìà ôçåú îäàéðãéàðéí"
(Nissim Zeev, 3 February 2011)

"Despite the tenacity, optimism, and blood of the protesters massed in Tahrir Square, Egypt's democratic window has probably already closed. Contrary to the dominant media narrative, over the last ten days the Egyptian state has not experienced a regime breakdown. The protests have certainly rocked the system and have put Mubarak on his heels, but at no time has the uprising seriously threatened Egypt's regime. Although many of the protesters, foreign governments, and analysts have concentrated on the personality of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, those surrounding the embattled president, who make up the wider Egyptian regime, have made sure the state's viability was never in question. This is because the country's central institution, the military, which historically has influenced policy and commands near-monopolistic economic interests, has never balked."
(Joshua Stacher, 7 February 2011)

"I think it would be a very good thing to warn English Jews of the very great danger Jews will incur in the allied countries if in this neutral country the Jews as a whole use their organisations and political power against the Allies. ... The Jews here [in the United States] are living in a neutral country. If they take part as an organisation against the allies it must be for some reason. If the reason is that the victory of Germany is to the advantage of Jewry the Jews are rather dangerous citizens to have in our midst [in the United Kingdom]."
(Cecil Spring-Rice, 14 July 1916)

"It is significant that the principal Jewish journalists in New York, the editors of the "Sun" and the "Times", are strongly in favour of the allies and they have done us a very great deal of good. But it is certainly true that the Jewish bankers are really acting for the Germans although they pretend to be neutral."
(Cecil Spring-Rice, 1 April 1915)

"Mr. Schiff, the head of the Jewish colony in New York, [is] an ardent admirer of Germany, which is the country of his origin."
(Cecil Spring-Rice, 27 November 1914)

"The German Jewish Bankers are toiling in a solid phalanx to compass our destruction"
(Cecil Spring-Rice, 13 November 1914)

"It is very important indeed that the Jews who are a very strong element in the population here and even stronger than they are numerous, should not be hostile to us. The official chief of the Jewish party here, Mr. Schiff, is openly pro-German. I think the vast majority are pro-German or at any rate anti-Russian. Some of them however on political grounds and out of gratitude to England are very desirous that the Jewish Colony here should not compromise itself too much in favour of Germany. They very much wish that through the influence of the English and the French Jews the Russian Government may be induced to make some concessions. This they regard as vital. Of course if we were to make this proposal to Russia we would not do the Jews much good and woulddo ourselves a great deal of harm. But they think that quietly and unofficially some steps might be taken at Petrograd. They are convinced that if the Russian Government would take some action favourable to the Jews there would be a great revulsion of feeling here. It is significant that the principal Jewish journalists in New York, the editors of the "Sun" and the "Times", are strongly in favour of the allies and they have done us a very great deal of good. But it is certainly true that the Jewish bankers are really acting for the Germans although they pretend to be neutral. The German Embassy lives almost entirely with the Jews and does most of its work through them. The most powerful German agent in Washington is Herr Warburg of the great Hamburg house, who is the most influential member of the Federal Reserve Board and has immense influence in the Treasury. The German Ambassador is constantly with him and through him is supposed to exert a great deal of influence over the head of the Treasury and over the financial part of the Administration. The Democratic party owing to its quarrel with the principal Christian bankers was thrown upon the Jewish rivals of Morgan and his friends for financial support and advice. This gives the Jewish community great influence in Washington and in addition to this they are certainly working all through the country, mainly in the German cause, and as they control the majority of the advertisments their influence is very great. It would be untrue to say that they are altoegther on the German side but a very large number of them are and I am assured that one of the principal reasons for this is their dislike and fear of Russia. I think men like Montefiore and the Rothschilds could exercise a very salutary influence here by a timely message."
(Cecil Spring-Rice, 1 April 1915)

"Are we going to let the fucking Jews run American foreign policy?"
(Gerald Ford, 1981)

"Fuck the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway."
(James A. Baker III, around 1991)

"If I get back in, I'm going to fuck the Jews."
(Jimmy Carter, Spring 1980)

"Den Privatbesitz der angewiesenen Ländereien müssen wir sachte enteignen. Die arme Bevölkerung trachten wir unbemerkt über die Grenze zu schaffen, indem wir ihr in den Durchgangsländern Arbeit verschaffen, aber in unserem eigenen Lande jederlei Arbeit verweigern. Die besitzende Bevölkerung wird zu uns übergehen. Das Expropriationswerk muß ebenso wie die Fortschaffung der Armen mit Zartheit und Behutsamkeit erfolgen. Die Immobilienbesitzer sollen glauben, uns zu prellen, uns über dem Wert zu verkaufen. Aber zurückverkauft wird ihnen nichts."
(Theodor Herzl, 12 June 1895)

"When we occupy the land, we shall bring immediate benefits to the state that receives us. We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us.
We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country.
The property-owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.
Let the owners of immovable property believe that they are cheating us, selling us things for more than they are worth. But we are not going to sell them anything back . . .
The voluntary expropriation will be accomplished through our secret agents. The Company would pay excessive prices.
We shall then sell only to Jews, and all real estate will be traded only among Jews. To be sure, we shall not be able to do . . ."
(Theodor Herzl, 12 June 1895)

"The edifice of despotic government totters to its fall. Strive so far as you can to destroy the foundations of this despotism, not to pluck up and cast out its individual agents. Strive so far as in you lies to abolish those practices which stand between the Persians and their happiness, not to annihilate those who employ those practices. If you merely strive to oppose individuals, your time will only be lost. If you seek only to prevail against them, the evil practice will draw to itself others."
(Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, 1897)

"Truly the path of democracy is straight and narrow. Democracy for an Eastern country seems to mean only one thing: to carry out the behests of the imperialist ruling power and not to touch any of its interests. Subject to that proviso, democratic freedom can flourish unchecked."
(Jawaharlal Nehru, 1936)

"The Arab village of Ghabisiyya near Nahariya was conquered and evicted a few days after the state was founded."
(Tom Segev, 11 February 2011)

"Clayton went to Syria - the British want to make Syria their base after failing in Iraq and Egypt. The situation in the Arab world is difficult - riots in Iraq and Britain is trying to concentrate Arab thoughts on Palestine."
(Eliyahu (Elyahu) Sasson, 7 March 1948)

"The envisaged collaboration could operate in a very wide framework. It would be enough if there was an agreement in principle, upheld by a discrete connection, exchange of information and, at regular intervals, joint decisions on certain points of the policy to be followed. The object of this partnership, the Lebanese Christian, could be completely unaware of the understanding between his protectors. It is clear that the Franco-Zionist collaboration could intervene in many other places besides the Levant, without ever being exposed: study of the development of political, social, cultural and economic trends in the Middle East, North African policy or international propaganda."
(Official of French government, April 1946)

"Then Britain began to conduct a covert war against the Jewish Yishuv. First it incited the Arabs of this country, using the “Higher Arab Committee”; then Brigadier Clayton, the British government’s official representative in the “League”, proposed the invasion of *Palestine by irregulars, and when Qawuqji’s invasion failed, Clayton worked out at the conference of the Arab Chiefs-of-Staff in Bludan in Syria the details of the plan for the invasion of the country by the Arab armies, the main features of which were an assault by the Legion on the Jerusalem–Ramle–Lydda line from the east, an assault by an Egyptian armoured column on the Gaza–Jaffa line from the south and the meeting of the two columns at the approaches to Tel Aviv for the purpose of occupying it. At that stage Britain, the kind “saviour”, was to appear in order to save the Jews of *Palestine from the clutches of the “Arab barbarians” and to renew its rule in the country. In this assessment there is no disagreement among political rivals such as D. Ben-Gurion and M. Begin."
(Akiva OrrMoshe Machover, 1961)

"During one of the visits to Transjordan that I participated in, the king began to ask, as was his wont, about the health of the President, the health of the Prime Minister and the health of the Foreign Minister (M. Sharett), in order of seniority, and when he got to Golda Meir and was told that she was in Moscow (where she was then serving as Ambassador), he responded by closing his eyes and saying with a hand gesture “khalluha hunak, khalluha hunak” (“keep her there, keep her there”)"
(Moshe Dayan, 29 May 1959)

"I went in [into the Faluja Pocket] and I talked to the Egyptian officers and I had a long conversation with Nasser. You know what Nasser asked me? He said to me: how did you manage to get rid of the British?"
(Yeruham Cohen, 1953)

"The population of Lod did not leave willingly. There was no way of avoiding the use of force and warning shots in order to make the inhabitants march the ten to fifteen miles to the point where they met up with the legion."
(Yitzhak Rabin, 1979)

"The inhabitants of the town [al-Lydda] became panic-stricken. They feared that . . . the IDF troops would take revenge on them. It was a horrible, earsplitting scene. Women wailed at the top of their voices and old men said prayers, as if they saw their own deaths before their eyes."
(Yeruham Cohen, 1969)

"What could we do? In war, you have to do the sort of things that are improper during peaceful times."
(Shmuel Cohen, 2000)

"At first, incidentally, people will avoid us. We are in bad odor. By the time the reshaping of world opinion in our favor has been completed, we shall be firmly established in our country, no longer fearing the influx of foreigners, and receiving our visitors with aristocratic benevolence and proud amiability."
(Theodor Herzl, 1895)

"Perhaps there might be an opportunity for the fulfilment of the ancient aspiration of the Jewish people and the restoration there [Palestine] of a Jewish state."
(Herbert Samuel, 9 November 1914)

"I have just received from Herbert Samuel a memorandum headed 'The Future of Palestine' . . . He thinks we might plant in this not very promising territory about three or four million European Jews, and that this would have a good effect on those left behind. It reads almost like a new edition of Tancred brought up to date . . . it is a curious illustration of Dizzy's [Disraeli's] favourite maxim that 'race is everything' to find this almost lyrical outburst proceeding from the well ordered and methodical brain of H.S."
(Herbert Asquith, 28 January 1915)

"The dream of a Jewish State, prosperous, progressive, and the home of a brilliant civilization might vanish in a series of squalid conflicts with the Arab population. And even if a state so constituted did succeed in avoiding or repressing internal disorder, it is doubtful whether it would be strong enough to protect it from external aggression from the turbulent elements around it. To attempt to realize the aspiration of a Jewish State one century too soon might throw back its actual realization for many centuries more."
(Herbert Samuel, January 1915)

"Already there is a stirring among the twelve million Jews scattered throughout the countries of the world. A feeling is spreading with great rapidity that now, at last, some advance may be made, in some way, towards the fulfilment of the hope and desire, held with unshakeable tenacity for eighteen hundred years, for the restoration of the Jews to the land to which they are attached by ties almost as ancient as history itself."
(Herbert Samuel, January 1915)

"That, . . . we all fully recognize is an impracticable proposal. No responsible Zionist leader has suggested it. The immediate establishment of a complete and purely Jewish state in Palestine would mean placing a majority under the rule of a minority; it would therefore be contrary to the first principles of democracy, and would undoubtedly be dis-approved by the public opinion of the world. . . . The policy propounded before the Peace Conference, to which the Zionist leaders unshakably adhere, is the promotion to the fullest degree that the conditions of the country allow, of Jewish immigration and of Jewish land settlement, the concession to Jewish authorities of many of the great public works of which the country stands so greatly in need, the active promotion of Jewish cultural development and the fullest measure of local self-government, in order that with the minimum of delay the country may become a purely self-governing Commonwealth under the auspices of an established Jewish majority."
(Herbert Samuel, 2 November 1919)

"An old man sat with his back to the village — he could not bear to watch it burn. From a burning courtyard a young boy came running to me laughing; he wanted to play. He came up and I took him into my arms and he hugged me. What will I do with him, I thought. It was such a contradiction to what was going on around us."
(Yisrael Cohen, 18 May 2009)

"I think I told you that H Samuel had written up an almost dithyrambic memorandum urging that in the carving up of the Turks' Asiatic dominions, we should take Palestine into which the scattered Jews could in time swarm back from all quarters of the globe, and in due course obtain Home Rule. (What an attractive community!). Curiously enough, the only other partisan of this proposal is Lloyd George, who, I need not say, does not care a damn for the Jews or their past or their future, but who thinks it would be an outrage to let the Christian Holy Places . . . pass into the possession or under the protectorate of "Agnostic Atheistic France"! . . . Kitchener, who surveyed Palestine when he was a young Engineer, has a very poor opinion of the place. . . . So he (K) is all for Alexandretta, and leaving the Jews and the Holy Places to look after themselves."
(Herbert Asquith, 13 March 1915)

"By the way, I see from Reuter's telegram that Balfour has made the Zionist declaration against which I fought so hard. It seems strange to be a member of a Government which goes out of its way, as I think, for no conceivable purpose that I can see, to deal this blow at a colleague that is doing his best to be loyal to them, despite his opposition. The Government has dealt an irreparable blow at Jewish Britons and they have endeavoured to set up a people which does not exist; they have alarmed unnecessarily the Mohammedan world; and, in so far as they are successful, they will have a Germanised Palestine on the flank of Egypt. It seems useless to conquer it. Why we should intern Mahomed Ali in India for Pan-Mohammedanism when we encourage Pan-Judaism, I cannot for the life of me understand. It certainly puts the final date to my political activities."
(Edwin S. Montagu, 11 November 1917)

"[Palestine is] barren and desolate ... a less propitious seat for the future Jewish race could not be imagined. . . . [I regard Zionism] as sentimental idealism, which would never be realized and [something with which] His Majesty's Government should have nothing to do."
(George Nathaniel Curzon, 4 October 1917)

"It is a matter of deep regret to me . . . that you are being misled by a foreigner, a dreamer, an idealist . . . who ... sweeps aside all practical difficulties with a view to enlisting your sympathies on behalf of his cause. . . . . I don't want to make difficulties. If I were to resign now I believe that after what has happened . . . a match would have been put to the Indian fire ... It seems almost inconceivable that I should have to give it [the position of Secretary of State for India] up for something wholly unconnected with India at all, and yet what am I to do? I believe firmly that if you make a statement about Palestine as the National Home for Jews, every anti-Semitic organisation and newspaper will ask what right a Jewish Englishman, with the status at best of a naturalised foreigner, has to take a foremost part in the Government of the British Empire. Palestine is not now British. It belongs to our enemies. At the best it can never be part of the English Empire. The country for which I have worked ever since I left the University - England - the country for which my family have fought, tells me that my national home, if I desire to go there, therefore my natural home, is Palestine. How can I maintain my position?"
(Edwin S. Montagu, 4 October 1917)

"There has been a good deal of discussion as to the meaning of the words 'Jewish National Home' and whether it involved the setting up of a Jewish National State in Palestine. I have already quoted the words actually used by Mr. Balfour when he submitted the Declaration ot the Cabinet for its approval. They were not challenged at the time by any member present, and there could be no doubt as to what the Cabinet then had in their minds. It was not their idea that a Jewish State should be set up immediately by the Peace Treaty without reference to the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants. On the other hand, it was contemplated that when the time arrived for according representative institutions to Palestine, if the Jews had meanwhile responded to the opportunity afforded them by the idea of a National Home and had become a definite majority of the inhabitants, then Palestine would thus become a Jewish Commonwealth. The notion that Jewish immigration would have to be artificially restricted in order to ensure that the Jews should be a permanent minority never entered into the heads of anyone engaged in framing the policy. That would have been regarded as unjust and as a fraud on the people to whom we were appealing."
(David Lloyd George, 1937)

"If, as may well happen, there should be created in our own lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a Jewish State under the protection of the British Crown which might comprise three or four millions of Jews, an event will have occurred in the history of the world which would from every point of view be beneficial, and would be especially in harmony with the truest interests of the British Empire."
(Winston S. Churchill, 8 February 1920)

"As four your representations touching Palestine, I have before this expressed my personal approval of the declaration of the British Government regarding the aspirations and historic claims of the Jewish people in regard to Palestine. I am, moreover, persuaded that the Allied nations, with the fullest concurrence of our own Government and people, are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundations of a Jewish Commonwealth."
(Woodrow Wilson, 2 March 1919)

"By contrast, Lloyd George's Memoirs make strange reading: Russian Jews become the chief agents of German pacifist propaganda in Russia. By 1917 the Russian Jews had done much in preparing for that general disintegration of Russian society . . . it was believed that if Great Britain declared for the fulfillment of Zionist aspirations in Palestine . . . the effect . . . "
(Mark Levene, 1992)

"Russian Jews had been secretly active on behalf of the Central Powers from the first ; they had become the chief agents of German pacifist propaganda in Russia; by 1917 they had done much in preparing for that general disintegration of ..."
(David Lloyd George, 1939)

"Lunched with Lady Crewe; both Asquith and Balfour were there, also Walter Rothschild who showed me a copy of the Balfour Declaration, this latter document monopolizing the conversation. It is an ambiguous document and can be interpreted . . . I cannot see how a Jewish State can ever be established which would not prejudice the civil and religious rights of the Arabs. [Page 9] The document gives with one hand and denies with the other and to me is disappointing. I put a straight question to Balfour. Is this a reward or bribe to the Jews for past services and given in the hope of full support during the war?

Both he, Walter Rothschild and Lady Crewe were indignant. Balfour at once said, "Certainly not; both the Prime Minister and myself have been influenced to give the Jews their rightful place in the world; a great nation without a home is not right." I said I was glad to hear that. I then asked, "At the back of your mind do you regard this declaration as a charter for ultimate Jewish sovereignty in Palestine or are you trying to graft a Jewish population on to an Arab Palestine?" Balfour waited some time before he replied, choosing his words carefully, "My personal hope is that the Jews will make good in Palestine and eventually found a Jewish State. It is up to them now; we have given them their great opportunity." . . . I remarked that if this declaration did in the end found a Jewish State, it would be the only good thing which came out of this miserable war and I hoped H.M.G. would give the Jews al the assistance they wanted during the first difficult years. But I am not happy about the dubious wording of the document. Anti-semites, and God knows the world is full of them, will use the document against the Jews. I want to meet . . ."
(Richard Meinertzhagen, 7 February 1918)

"American Secretary of State and the Zionist leader:

Mr Lansing asked Dr Weizmann to clear up some confusion which existed in his mind as to the meaning of the words 'Jewish National Home'. Did that mean an autonomous Jewish Government?
Dr Weizmann replied in the negative. The Zionist Organisation did not want an autonomous Jewish Government, but merely to establish in Palestine, under a Mandatory Power, an administration, not necessarily Jewish, which would render it possible to send into Palestine 70,000 to 80,000 Jews annually. The Organisation would require to have permission at the same time to build Jewish schools, where Hebrew would be taught, and to develop institutions of every kind. Thus it would build up gradually a nationality, and so make Palestine as Jewish as America is American or England English."
(Martin Gilbert, 1978)

"The Zionist Organisation [does] not want an autonomous Jewish Government, but merely to establish in Palestine, under a Mandatory Power, an administration, not necessarily Jewish, which would render it possible to send into Palestine 70,000 to 80,000 Jews annually. The Organisation would require to have permission at the same time to build Jewish schools, where Hebrew would be taught, and to develop institutions of every kind. Thus it would build up gradually a nationality, and so make Palestine as Jewish as America is American or England English."
(Chaim Weizmann, 27 February 1919)

"I had a long talk with Weizmann today and advised him to go all out for Jewish Sovereignty in Palestine. He might get it now, whereas in a year's time it will be impossible. I told him I would help him all I knew. I have good reason to believe that Lloyd George and Wilson will support him. Clemenceau and the Italians would of course oppose it as they have schemes of their own in the Middle East. But Weizmann thinks the time inopportune and might wreck the whole idea of Mandatory Zionism. I am sure the Arabs will accept anything from the Peace Conference but would never accept a Jewish Sovereign State imposed by Great Britain in say five years' time. There are vast anti-semitic forces at work even now in London and elsewhere but they are . . ."
(Richard Meinertzhagen, 12 February 1919)

"Lastly, there are the Jews, whom we are pledged to introduce into Palestine and who take it for granted that the local population will be cleared out to suit their convenience."
(Winston S. Churchill, 25 October 1919)

"I had not appreciated the weakness inherent in King Hussein's position. He is only a member of the Sherifan family selected by the Turks on political grounds. What other candidates were there in the Sherifan family at the time when the Turks made this decision? When did they make it? What other important chiefs of the Sherifan family are still alive? It seems to me that all this has bearing upon our committing ourselves irrevocably to one of King Hussein's sons as ruler of Mesopotamia. If the father's title is defective, the son's influence may fall within it. Probably you will be able to re-assure me. Write a brief opinion on this…

The Wahabi sect is at feud with the Sunni. It is also at feud with the Shia? What are the principal doctrinal and ritualistic differences involved between the Shia, the Sunni and the Shabi Mohammedans? A very brief answer will suffice."
(Winston S. Churchill, 23 January 1921)

"For the Allies there were two paramount problems at the time. The first was that the Central Powers should be broken by the blockade before our supplies of food and essential raw material were cut off by sinkings of our own ships. The other was that the War preparations in the United States should be speeded up to such an extent as to enable the Allies to be adequately reinforced in the critical campaign of 1918 by American troops. In the solution of these two problems, public opinion in Russia and America played a great part, and we had every reason to believe that in both countries the friendliness or hostility of the Jewish race might make a considerable difference...

...Another most cogent reason for the adoption by the Allies of the policy of the Declaration lay in the state of Russia herself. Russian Jews had been secretly active on behalf of the Central Powers from the first; they had become the chief agents of German pacifist propaganda in Russia; by 1917 they had done much in preparing for that general disintegration of Russian society, later recognised as the Revolution. It was believed that if Great Britain declared for the fufillment of Zionist aspirations in Palestine under her own pledge, one effect would be to bring Russian Jewry to the cause of the Entente.

It was believed, also, that such a declaration would have a potent influence upon world Jewry outside Russia, and secure for the Entente the aid of Jewish financial interests. In America, their aid in this respect would have a special value when the Allies had almost exhausted the gold and marketable securities available for American purchases. Such were the chief considerations which, in 1917, impelled the British Government towards making a contract with Jewry."
(David Lloyd George, 1938)

"Are we to keep our pledge to the Zionists made in 1917...? Pledges and promises were made during the war, and they were made, not only on the merits, though I think the merits are considerable. They were made because it was considered they would be of value to us in our struggle to win the war. It was considered that the support which the Jews could give us all over the world, and particularly in the United States, and also in Russia, would be a definite palpable advantage. I was not responsible at that time for the giving of those pledges, nor for the conduct of the war of which they were, when given, an integral part. But like other members I supported the policy of the War Cabinet."
(Winston S. Churchill, 4 July 1922)

"Nor need Palestine to-day be confined to its historic borders, and Jewish colonization may extend to the whole territory which was contained in the Promise. When the Israelites were about to march from the Wilderness, they received at Horeb the message : "Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount. Turn you and take your journey and go to the mount of the Ammonites, and unto all the places nigh thereto in the plain, in the hills and in the vale and in the south and by the side, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon and unto the great river, the river Euphrates." From the Mediterranean to the Euphrates and from Lebanon to the river of Egypt — this is the territory which, was to be the land of Israel, and in the future might be the Jewish land. All this area, this Greater Palestine, cries for a population to redeem it from the neglect and decay of centuries, and all of it is full of associations for the Jews. When Palestine was shut against them by the tyranny of Christianized Rome, they made a new Land of Israel in the country to the east; and when in recent times the door to Palestine seemed to be closed, Herzl looked to the El-Arish district as a starting-place of Jewish colonization on a large scale. The plateaux of Gilead and Moab and the plains that stretch away to the Tigris and Euphrates may be reclaimed by Jewish enterprise and industry no less than the stony hills of Judea and Samaria and the green slopes of Galilee."
(Norman de Mattos Bentwich, 1917)

"The Jews demand no privilege, unless it be the privilege of rebuilding by their own efforts and sacrifices a land which, once the seat of a thriving and productive civilization, has long been suffered to remain derelict. They expect no favoured treatment in the matter of political or religious rights. They assume, as a matter of course, that all the inhabitants of Palestine, be they Jews or non-Jews, will be in every respect on a footing of perfect equality. They seek no share in the Government beyond that to which they may be entitled under the Constitution as citizens of the country. They solicit no favours. They ask, in short, no more than an assured opportunity of peacefully building up their National Home by their own exertions and of succeeding on their merits."
(World Zionist Organization (WZO), before 1923)

"We communists who opposed the Arab rulers' invasion of our country in 1948, we who defended the right of the Jews and the Arabs to establish their independent states and who regarded that invasion as an imperialist plot against both the Jews and the Arabs - with the same strength, courage, and loyalty to our people we also oppose today the policy of military raids that Ben-Gurion organizes on the borders of the Arab states."
(Emile Habibi, January 1956)

"Some, like Lutfi Mash;our, editor of the Arabic-Israeli newspaper Al-Sinnara, have argued that Arab Communists also helped convey arms to the Jewish forces. He made this charge in his newspaper in 1988, in response to which the Communist writer Emil Habibi sued him for libel; see court cases 388/88 (Nazareth district court), in which Habibi won, and Al-Sinnara's legal appeals to the Supreme Court (civil appeals 808/89 and 1370/91), which did not lead to changing the decision."
(Hillel Cohen, January 2010)

"Americans of Irish and German blood live together in America in harmony; they are the best of friends; they intermarry; and together, for the last twenty years at least, they have been the formidable force that has prevented sn entangling alliance with England."
(Michael Ryan (2), October 1914)

"The Revolution emblem of the Crescent embracing the Cross, which was held high overhead in their processions and funerals, in Mosques and Churches, had demonstrated ever since the union between the national elements of the nation ... during the Revolution, with their brothers, husbands and men folk out during the revolt demonstrating, and exposing themselves ... to the severest penalty, women couldn't help but play their part in the men's struggle for liberty and independence."
(Mohammed Rifaat, 1946)

"It now emerges, thanks to a genuine old-fashioned scoop in Le Monde, that President Ben Ali didn't really intend to flee his country at all. He planned to fly his immediate family to safety in Riyadh and then return to Tunis next morning to continue his reign. Only when the Tunisair crew arrived in Saudi Arabia and saw al-Jazeera in the airport's VIP lounge, announcing Ben Ali's overthrow, did they call Tunis and receive a new flight plan to take off at 1.30am the following day. They discreetly flew away while the President slept, leaving the dictator planeless in Riyadh. Memo to all airline passengers: don't take your crew for granted. Especially if they've been watching al-Jazeera."
(Robert Fisk, 19 February 2011)

"I am certainly not prepared to accept them [the Palestinians] as participants in any way in a land that has been consecrated to our people for thousands of years. To the Jews of this land there cannot be any partner."
(Chaim (Haim) Herzog, some date in 1967-73)

"In the beginning we shall need their permission [that of the people of the country where the Jewish state will be created]. Gradually we shall get strong, grant ourselves everything that we need, and be able to defy everyone."
(Theodor Herzl, 11 June 1895)

"How significant this particular Egyptian-American divergence becomes remains to be seen. But most Israelis already see it as a calamity in the making, with the ironic consequence that the self-styled 'only democracy in the Middle East' now leads the field in proclaiming that democracy should never have been for the Arabs."
(David Hirst, 20 February 2011)

"When we try to think how and why the United States and the West lost Egypt, Tunis, Yemen and perhaps other countries in the Middle East, people forget that. The original sin began right after WWII, when a wonderful form of government that protected security and peace in the Middle East (and in other parts of the Third Word) departed from this world following pressure from the United States and Soviet Union... More than sixty years have passed since the Arab states and the countries of Africa were liberated from the 'colonial yoke,' but there still isn't an Arab university, an African scientist or a Middle Eastern consumer product that has made a mark on our world."
(Amir Hazroni, February 2011)

"[The present owners of the land in Palestine are] Arabs, Greeks, the whole 'mixed multitude' of the Orient."
(Theodor Herzl, 9 October 1898)

Page: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11