Theodore Roosevelt Quotes
There should be a Zionist state around Jerusalem.
Theodore Roosevelt, 1858-1919, 26th President of the United States (Republican, NY), Quoted in Michael Oren, “The Ultimate Ally”, Foreign Policy, May / June 2011
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
at the First World Zionist Congress, 1897
This is the first statement of a Jewish nation since Biblical Times.
This quotation is very surprising for most people. Reading the text alone, most of us would assume that it came from someone when the Zionist movement was fighting for a Jewish homeland in what is now Israel. Or just before the UN decision in 1947 to partition Palestine. However, it came from one of our founding fathers in Colonial times. Adams was by no means the only Founding Father with this point of view. Fundamentalist Protestants have put much credence in God’s granting the area for the Jewish People—then as today.
The recommendation for partition was the basis of the decision of the United Nations in 1949 to partition Palestine.
Prior to 1948 and the establishment of the state of Israel, there were large number of Jewish refugees who were stateless and, regardless of whatever moral rights they may have had, there was no politi.cal mechanism to enforce or claim these rights. For example, in 1956 Nassar expelled most of the Egyptian Jewish population. It was only the existence of Israel that gave these people the right to come to Israel and not depend on the good will of the world to help them as refugees. The difficulty for most refugees is that there is no state to demand, support, and enforce their rights.
To make matters worse for the Muslims, the tiny foreign entity in their midst—populated by "heathens who do not follow the command of God"—have created a much higher standard of living for their people, improved the land and its productivity in ways that have been far superior to traditional Islamic methods, reclaimed much of the desert that the Muslims could not, and produced a military that has staved off the hostilities of all of Islam, and has done all this without any oil or other natural resources to sell. Israel is a living counter-example to the superiority of Islam and its traditions which is so important to Muslims.
Churchill was an enthusiast for the creation of a Jewish State. See {597652}.
He also expressed his pleasure with the British Balfour Declaration granting the Jews their own country in part of Palestine ({594001}). Wilson had earlier committed himself to support the Zionist claim for Palestine. See {585124}.
Theodore Roosevelt Jr., often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer, who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900 and the 25th vice president of the United States from March to September 1901. Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies.
