David Ben-Gurion Quotes

His is one extremist view of Jerusalem. Most historians agree that both Jews and Arabs have lived in Jerusalem since recorded history. Extremists on both sides of the Arab Israeli debate have constructs which deny the existence of the other group. Sisalem is one. Both the Palestinians and Jews claim Jerusalem as their capital and both have reasonable historical claims, and both have shared the city for thousands of years.

Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain

The Turks had massacred the vast majority of their Armenian population, and treated the Greeks badly killing and them many of them from territories the Ottoman Turks had conquered. Jews fared better but were 2nd class citizens. Bristol was the American State Department’s senior official and was very “understanding” of the murders and ethnic cleansing despite the fact that President Wilson and most American politicians were very opposed to the Turkish massacres. See {620614} and {620599} . Two factors makes this quotation very significant. First, at the time the State Department was not really under the control of either the President or the Congress. It was not rare for the Department to have its own policies and implement them. This began to change in WWII and FDR exercised much more control than previous presidents since Theodore Roosevelt. The second factor is that there were many racists throughout the State Department—Bristol was only one. There was little concern for minorities’ welfare and the emphasis was on commerce. See {620600} Even in Truman’s administration, the President had massive opposition from the State Department for his policy of recognizing the State of Israel. Today, this kind of racism in the State Department is very rare, and human rights has been one of their major concerns. There were many changes in 75 years.

At the time, some Palestinian Arabs claimed exclusive rights to the territory on the grounds that Arabs had dominated the area for the longest period of time. They gave no credence to the fact that the Jews had dominated the area and it was the center of their kingdom for many years before—that Jews had constantly lived in the area of longer than the Arabs, nor did they give any credence to the fact that the Christians had conquered the area from the Muslims during the Crusades.

The Ottoman Turks, at war with Russia, exterminated a large proportion of the Armenian population of the then Turkish Empire. Some of the ethnic Armenians were working with Armenians in greater Russia and thus were a risk to the Turks. However, they starved, shot, beat, hung, and bayoneted hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians, wiping out entire villages and towns. Despite the fact that women and little children were all killed, Modern Turkey even into the 21st century refused to admit that this was a genocide even though there was ample documentation to prove it was not spontaneous but government ordered by the “Young Turks” then controlling Turkey. See {620603} and {612638} for examples. The modern Turks maintain the view expressed during the genocide that Armenians were a threat to Turkish Independence.

At that time Jews in Palestine were in the minority. The issue of how to obtain the land was hotly debated amongst Jewish groups. Jabotinsky was at one extreme—colonize and take the land just as the Arabs had done to the Jews when there was a Jewish majority. His view did not however prevail. The policy was to buy the land from individual Arabs and Jewish land up to 1948 was obtained that way. In that year the UN partitioned Palestine and 11 Arab armies attacked the new state of Israel and asked the Arab civilians to leave the area so that the Army could cleanse it of Jews. Many did not, and they or their descendants are still on their land or have sold it. The Arabs who left, were suspected of being possible collaborators or terrorists, and they have never been paid for their land or allowed to return. Compensation is still in dispute. At the same time Jews driven out of Arab countries by law and the military have never been compensated or given any right of return either.

To many, this quotation is shocking. TR was a presidential pioneer in race relations being the first President to ever invite a Black to dine at the White House. See {588996} for his views on Blacks. Although modern and liberal with respect to most minorities, TR had a major blind spot regarding Native Americans and was among the worst racists.

At the time the Arabs, anticipating an English pullout of Palestine, were engaged in constant acts of terror to drive the Jews out with the British. The Jews however wanted to create a Jewish state within Palestine but had few men and weapons, needing to depend on the British for protection which was spotty at best. Wingate persuaded his superior to allow him to set up and train a Jewish Defense Force which was the origin of the Israeli Army.

First Published American Indian Author. His last public speech. He was referring to a horrible massacre of Christian Indians and the polarizing effect that such conflicts had. Whosoever publicly castigated a massacre of whites or Indians would be met by accusations of condoning the massacres of the other side and ignoring the inevitable and natural seeking of retaliation for future protection and revenge.