Eli Yishai Quotes
We have to protect and do our utmost to fortify the walls of Judaism in the land of Israel through legislation that will guard the unique Jewish character of the state of Israel.
Yishai, Eli. Interview. The Jerusalem Post, 12 Jul. 2010.
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}.
This is the first statement of a Jewish nation since Biblical Times.
The irony is that the Zionist movement was very democratic long before most of the world had adopted democracy. They not only saw no conflict between a Jewish Homeland and democracy, but they maintained that Jewish tradition required democracy. After 60 years if constant attacks by its neighbors and having to defend the nation from invasion and extinction, the Israeli body politic actually became very conservative, while the Zionists were extremely left wing. Under the concept of Zionism there was a large population of Arabs as Israeli citizens. However, when some of those Arabs were openly against the nation in its struggle with the Palestinians and its other Muslim neighbors. Leiberman led the right wing effort in various efforts to expel the dissident Arab citizens and use very non democratic methods to cope with the right wing’s perception of the risk to the Jewish State.
Olmert was speaking for a significant minority of Israelis who believe that God consecrated the land of Palestine to the Jewish People and all other peoples who controlled it did so by conquest. So their logic is for those who do not believe in the Bible and give no modern credence to God’s will, the Jews have no taken back the land by conquest which is the way the Palestinians and all of the many peoples had controlled that land. For believers, the Jews have the highest right; for non-believers, their right of conquest is no weaker than any of the others.
Eliyahu "Eli" Yishai is an Israeli politician. A former leader of Shas, he represented the party in the Knesset from 1996 until 2015, also holding several ministerial posts, including being Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Internal Affairs, and Minister of Industry, Trade, and Labor. In December 2014, he left Shas to establish the Yachad party.
