• o As quoted by Ariel Sharon, in the documentary The 50 Years War : Israel & The Arabs (1999), this advice was given to him by Ben-Gurion after the controversial raid on Qibya. • Regarding the Galilee, Mr. [Moshe] Sharett already told you that about 100,000 Arabs still now live in the pocket of Galilee. Let us assume that a war breaks out. Then we will be able to cleanse the entire area of Central Galilee, including all its refugees, in one stroke. In this context let me mention some mediators who offered to give us the Galilee without war. What they meant was the populated Galilee. They didn’t offer us the empty Galilee, which we could have only by means of a war. Therefore if a war is extended to cover the whole of Palestine, our greatest gain will be the Galilee. It is because without any special military effort which might imperil other fronts, only by using the troops already assigned for the task, we could accomplish our aim of cleansing the Galilee. From a protocol of the Government of Israel, translated from Hebrew by Israel Shahak, in Truth or Myth about Israel? Read between Quotation Marks by Ch Quotes about Ben-Gurion[edit] • One day, or rather night, in 1956 I sat up at his [Ben-Gurions] house till three in the morning. That night, a beautiful summer night, we had a forthright discussion on the Arab problem. I dont understand your optimism, Ben-Gurion declared. Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, its true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations time, but for the moment there is no chance. So its simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out. Ill be seventy years old soon. Well, Nahum, if you asked me whether I shall die and be buried in a Jewish State I would tell you Yes; in ten years, fifteen years, I believe there will still be a Jewish State. But ask me whether my son Amos, who will be fifty at the end of this year, has a chance of dying and being buried in a Jewish State, and I would answer: fifty-fifty. But how can you sleep with that prospect in mind and be PM of Israel too? I responded. Who says I sleep? was Ben-Gurions simple reply. That was Ben-Gurion all over: he had told me that so as to show me how well he knew in his heart that Israel could not exist without peace with the Arabs, but his stubborn, aggressive unbending character prevented him from following what his own intelligence told him. The best proof of that is that having lost his grip on power his intelligence reasserted itself; he even became a Goldmannite, declaring that all the occupied territories except Jerusalem should be restored. On this point I am in agreement with him: Israel must keep Jerusalem. o Nahum Goldmann, in The Jewish Paradox : A Personal Memoir of Historic Encounters that Shaped the Drama of Modern Jewry (1978), as translated from the French by Steve Cox, pp 99-100 ISBN 0-448-15166-9 . One quote appearing here has sometimes been given erroneously as That is natural: they think we have taken their country. The original Cest normal; nous avons pris leur pays. is properly translated as That is natural: we have taken their country. o arley Reese in The Orlando Sentinel (13 June 1999); later published as What Israeli Historians Say About 1948 Ethnic Cleansing in Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (September 19990) I thought it would be interesting reading this little bit of history, because it explains well what is happening today.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 22:53:42 +0000
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