David Ben-Gurion Quotes

The very day of Israel’s birth, 14 Arab Armies attacked a badly outnumbered group of citizens with no formal army and few weapons. The reason the Mufti called on Arabs to leave was to allow the Arab heavy armor and artillery to be used without endangering Arab civilians. The Jews however had no place to go and were fighting for their very lives. Surprising the entire world, they not only beat back all the Arab Armies but won additional strategic positions. The Arabs who stayed became Israeli citizens and there are almost ½ million of them today. Those that left, were rejected by the Arab nations who started the war (except Jordan) and asked them to leave could not be distinguished from those Arabs who, even after the Israeli victory vowed to attack again. That is the origin of the Arab refugees. Since the other Arab states except Jordan would not assist their fellow Arabs, the only solution seems to be a Palestinian State on the West Bank and Gaza, but for that to happen war and terrorism would have to end and Israel would have to be accepted.

A major issue amongst Israeli’s is to how they should relate to those hostile Islamic nations in their area who claim they are at war with Israel or the Jewish People. This position in effect says that the oratory of those Islamic groups that claim that they are in a war—a holy war even—should be taken at their word and treated as a wartime enemy and Israel should actively attempt to kill and destroy them.

When the United Nations partitioned Palestine into separate Jewish and Muslim states, the armies of all the Arab countries attacked the new nation which did not even have a formal Army. The Israelis were able to win the war.

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem is the base on which the Great Jewish Temple was erected. The temple was destroyed by the Romans. Hundreds of years later the Muslims built a mosque which the Prophet Muhammud himself is believed to have transported to. One side of the Temple Mount is the Wailing Wall, the holiest place on Earth for Orthodox Jews. When the Arabs controlled Jerusalem, they would not allow any Jews to pray at the Wailing Wall. When the Israelis gained control of the holy city they were more reasonable. They ceded day to day control of the Temple Mount—the top and the Mosque—to the Muslims and since then Jews have prayed at the side of the Mount and Muslims on the top. However there has been some friction about the archeology of the interior of the Mount itself. And some Muslims resent the fact that Israel controls the security and access to one of their holiest Mosques, and that in the event of some transgression in the Mount, Israeli civil law controls and not Islamic religious law—Sharia. Some permanent agreement will have to be made if there is to be an overall peace.

The UN peacekeepers have had a sorry record of protecting people from aggression, attacks and even genocide. In Sarajevo they stood by as the Serbs rounded up 7,000 male Muslims and marched them off to be executed right past the United Nations forces. And the UN was unable to stop the genocide in Rwanda. In the Middle East on several occasions, Arab armies have walked right through the United Nations peacekeepers and attacked Israeli civilians. So no one, lease of all the Israelis have any confidence that the United Nations can provide security in Jerusalem or anywhere else in the Middle East. The Israeli position was that when the Jordanians controlled the city, they did not allow Jews to their sacred places to pray or have access to the city. The UN could not prevent violence at all. No one else is willing, but since 1967 the Israelis have maintained the peace and security of the city while allowing the Arabs and other groups access to their places of worship.

When the United Nations partitioned Palestine into a Jewish and a Palestinian State the Arab Countries all jointly attacked the fledgling Jewish State of Israel. Despite the Israeli’s being overwhelmingly out numbered in man and weapons, they beat back the invaders. However while many Arabs stayed on their Israeli land and some helped the Jews defend against the Arab Armies some abandoned their homes and land and went to neighboring Arab Counties. This is what they had been asked to do by the Arab governments who wanted to be able to attack communities without worrying about killing Arabs. To spur the evacuation the spread false propaganda about Israeli atrocities and frightened them into leaving. As a motivation to leave they were told that they could move into the Jewish lands and property when the Jews had been driven out. To make matters worse, some Israeli radicals repeated the lies to induce the Arabs to abandon their lands. In at least one case Arabs who stayed were subjected to violence. After the defeat of the Arabs, the Israelis had a dilemma in that they could not tell which Arabs were residents who had just been frightened and which had fought on the Arab side or helped the invaders. The result was that with few exceptions, the Arab refugees were not allowed back. Meanwhile, the Arab countries would not allow the refugees to settle and become citizens of the Arab countries (except for Jordan). The Palestinian refugees were a particularly fertile population and were cared for by the United Nations and have multiplied to many times their original size maintaining a continuous festering problem.

The Resolution to which he referred was Security Council Resolution 181 which Internationalized Jerusalem. The Israeli’s had wanted it for their capital. The Arabs wanted it. Christians had claims on parts of it. So the UN declared it an International City. The Israelis grudgingly accepted the resolution, but the Arab Armies attacked the new state of Israel. They were repulsed from most of Israel but they did take Jerusalem. The UN chose not to implement its own resolution and the Arabs controlled Jerusalem thereafter until they again tried to invade Israel again. This time they lost badly and the Israelis took Jerusalem and established it as their capital and Jews could pray in Jerusalem for the first time since 1948. Unlike the Arabs who kept the Israelis and other Jews out of the city when they controlled it, the Israelis turned over control of the Islamic holy places to Muslims and allowed Muslims access to them. The status of Jerusalem was still contested in the early 21st century.

Just before the Six Day War. Syria did take the initiative and provoked the war which the Arabs lost badly. Ironically, Egypt and Jordan, pushed into the war by Syria, lost the most in manpower and territory.

There are two movements ongoing:

14 Arab Armies in a coordinated attack on the 1 day old Israeli state, intended to massacre all the Israelis as demonstrated by this quote. Note that this kind of extermnination intent was advertised with pride. To everyone's surprised, the Jewish defenders not only beat back the viscious attacks but enlssarged their terroitory by capturing strategic sites from which the attacks had been launched. Many people credit to the Israely victory to the fact that they were litterally fighting for their lives. Defeat would have meant death for them and their families. The Arab armies, in contrast, were fighting for land that other Arabs claimed that should have been theirs. The willingness to stand and fight for this goal did not match the self preservation that motivated the Israelis--especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust killing 6 million Jews in WWII.

There are some who argue that the quotation was made earlier and was not meant as an incendary call for massacre of Israelis. It well may be that in his original thinking, he was predicting what would happen if the State of Israel was created, basing his thoughts on historical artrocieties of the past. And many think he was concerned about that possible outcome and was trying to avoid it. The import of the quotation was not necessaruly to hisltorically blame Assam for the point of view but to simply establish that there were many Arab voices calling for victories of history where there were massacres in the Middle East. And there were those who took Azzam's quotation and broadcasted it on Arab radio, calling for the very massacre that Assam may have been warning about. Note that this notion of Jewish massacre and extermination was also picked up 60 years later and called for by the President of Iran.

Mohamed Anwar El-Sedat

”Palestine” to the Arabs of the area meant the territory of the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel itself. They wanted to expel the Jews and or take over the whole area as a single state—Palestine—with an Arab majority. With the Israeli Defense Forces successes under Dayan, this notion of Palestine was “finished”. The notion of a Palestinian State which included the West Bank and Gaza but not Israel was then negotiated and these negotiations were ongoing for years. Minorities of Arabs and Israelis did not want to see a any Palestinian state that did not include Israel proper, and they blocked it whenever they could.