Vladimir Jabotinsky Quotes
Every nation, civilized or primitive, sees its land as its national home, where it wants to be the sole landlord forever. Such a nation will never willingly consent to new landlords or even to partnership.
Arguing that the Arabs will never agree willingly to a Jewish state:
Vladimir Jabotinsky, 1880-1940, Polish Journalist and Palestinian Zionist Leader, On the Iron Wall, 1923
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Although Jabotinsky believed that the Arabs would have to be defeated militarily—see {604497}—he and the other Zionist leaders assumed that the eventual state would have Arab citizens. From this beginning, the principle of equal rights and participation in the politics and public affairs of the Jewish state was in the design. See {587034} as to how this manifested itself. The rights possessed by the Arab minority of Israel exceeds not only those of Jews in any Arab nation, and exceeds those of any minority in an Arab state. And because Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, the Arabs of Israel possess more political rights than do Arabs anywhere else in the Middle East. The number of Arab political parties in Israel is larger than that of most Arab nations where opposition parties are rarely permitted.
The recommendation for partition was the basis of the decision of the United Nations in 1949 to partition Palestine.
His definition of Russian territory included any area that the Czars claimed which included Poland, the Baltic States, the Ukraine, the Caucuses, but at the time of the speech, Russia was fighting to keep its existing territory.
Justifying selling part of the reservation as a waste dump to the distress of neighbors:
President-elect Kennedy had asked the poet to write and present a poem for the inaugural.
At the partition if India into Hindu and Muslim States, what is now Bangladesh, was a part of Pakistan called “East Pakistan” by the Pakistani government. While India became a thriving democracy, Pakistan with its combination of military strongmen and Islamic Fundamentalists did not fare as well and became a very corrupt, undemocratic military nation. East Pakistan was not contiguous with the rest of Pakistan and was culturally quite different and less religiously fundamentalist. While all Pakistanis suffered from poor government, the East Pakistanis fared worse. Finally, they developed their own identity which was suppressed by the military dictators of Pakistan and the Banglas revolted and Bangladesh became and independent nation.
The Kurdish People do not have a homeland of their own but are minorities of other states—mostly in Turkey and Iraq. There was a “Kurdistan” for a few years but it did not last do to major geopolitical forces. Whereas Barzani is opposed to violence, there are other Kurds who have resorted to vicious terrorism in their quest for a homeland. Kurds represent a wide range of opinion on the best way to create a stat of Kurdistan, but they were at the time, almost unanimous on their desire for independence and the belief in their moral right to have a homeland.
- Born: October 17, 1880
- Died: August 3, 1940
- Nationality: Russian
- Profession: Zionist Activist, Military Leader, Author, Journalist
Ze'ev Jabotinsky, MBE, was a Russian Jewish Revisionist Zionist leader, author, poet, orator, soldier, and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa. With Joseph Trumpeldor, he co-founded the Jewish Legion of the British army in World War I. Later he established several Jewish organizations in Palestine, including Betar, Hatzohar, and the Irgun.
