Israel

[Gen. Volkov]

What's nitpicky about saying that the Israeli's did not use Soviet equipment? It's perfectly accurate. It's inaccurate to say they did. The only thing that is accurate is that a Soviet sattellite state supplied Israel with leftover German equipment. Anything else is wrong.

Well yes, they invested in them later, but at first they were just a buffer and a resource provider. The same holds true for the individual countries that made up the Soviet Union, though to a lesser extent than the satellite nations.

[Nuclear Raunch]

"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." - Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.

David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): " If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp. 121-122.

"We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return... The old will die and the young will forget."-David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, July 18, 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar's "Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet," Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.

"We must expel Arabs and take their places." - David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.

"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." - David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, 'What is to be done with the Palestinian population; Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'? Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979; Rabin's description of the conquest of Lydda, after the completion of Plan Dalet.

"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country." - David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

"There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist." - Golda Meir, statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969.

"How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to." - Golda Meir, March 8, 1969.

"This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy." - Golda Meir, Le Monde, 15 October 1971


"I have learned that the state of Israel cannot be ruled in our generation without deceit and adventurism." --Moshe Sharett, Israel's first Foreign Minister and later a Prime Minister (p.51 Simha Flapan, "The Birth of Israel", 1987)

"The state of Israel must invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the methods of provocation and revenge.... And above all, let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space." -From the diary of Moshe Sharett, Israeli's first Foreign Minister from 1948-1956, and Prime Minister from 1954-1956.

"[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs."-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the 'Beasts,"' New Statesman, June 25, 1982.


"(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." - Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988

"If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force...." - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000.

"I would have joined a terrorist organization." - Ehud Barak's response to Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Ha'aretz newspaper, when Barak was asked what he would have done if he had been born a Palestinian.

"Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories." Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, tells students at Bar Ilan University, From the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.

[Gen. Volkov]

Thank you for that lovely list of statements taken completely out of context Nuke. Would you like to add anything meaningful to the conversation?

[Arthus]

I would have to agree with Volkov and i truly hate agreeing with him.

[Gen. Volkov]

*laughs*. I love you too Arthus.

[Nuclear Raunch]

Which do you not agree with, and what is the context they were originally intended?

[The Beatles]

Well, it's not so much that they're out of context: it's pretty hard to put a lot of those statements into a positive context. It's more of all world leaders say things like that privately, it's par for the course in the top echelons of the world. That's how the world is run. Civilization and morality is a farce in 99% of country leaderships: it's all about getting what you want by any means that will get it for you. (Obviously if you use too strong means then it might be taken away from you again by stronger powers.) So I can't say I'm surprised, I wouldn't be surprised if the US president said that either. Nor if an Arab leader had said it. I mean it's pretty easy to deduce their thoughts from their actions (not their words), and it doesn't diverge much from the list of statements up there, does it?

[Devari]

I mean it's pretty easy to deduce their thoughts from their actions (not their words), and it doesn't diverge much from the list of statements up there, does it?

Those were exactly my thoughts too. From looking at the history of these fellows, their actions seem to match the intent, personality, and ideology expressed in those quotes. One always has to look at the background, yes, but one can't dismiss out of context quotes outright. Sometimes they actually can be a valid reflection.

[edit] Blargh grammar.

[Gen. Volkov]

I wasn't disagreeing with any of them in particular, and the history of Israel's actions would seem to bear them out, but for one thing, Israel has been attacked more than it has attacked others. Most of it's wars have been defensive. Maybe there's provocation that I am not seeing, and that's the source of those quotes, but I would tend to think more they were carefully picked out by someone, not Nuke, in order to present Israel in a negative light. Picked out of larger works with a much milder tone, or used not in the joking manner they were originally presented it. Any list of quotes like that is just naturally suspect for me.

[The Beatles]

I agree that any list of quotes is suspect, and that the singling out of Israel's quotes is unfair. Still, at least we both know that aggression exists on both sides. I think Nuke was just trying to destroy the Israel-as-mostly-defensive image Kraken projected in the thread.

[Gen. Volkov]

Hmm. I guess so, but I don't think either of them is totally right. While it's true aggression exists on both sides, 3 out of the 5 Arab-Israeli wars were started by the Arabs. And the Six-Day war of 1967 was kicked off when Egypt closed the Port of Aqaba to Israel. And the 1956 War was more a pre-emptive one than pure Israeli aggression, their belief at the time, that the Arab states were readying for war again, was probably correct. In addition, the '56 war was proceeded by aggressive foreign policy moves by Egypt, such as nationalizing the Suez canal. Though it is true that in that war and the '67 war, the first assault was from Israel. So in other words, more than half of Israel's wars were defensive. So Nuke is right that Israel can be aggressive, but Kraken is right that Israel has been on the defense alot. As usual in most conflicts, neither side is totally correct.

[Nuclear Raunch]

What, you don't believe I came up with that list of quotes? Haha, me neither.

The list had a few quotes that really stood out to me, and I posted it to prove that Israel has aggressive tendencies as well and it is not an innocent victim in all these wars. I don't at all think the Palestinians are either, just that both sides will be warring long after all of us are dead, gone, buried, and forgotten. I mostly agree with what's been said since the list has been posted. I wouldn't doubt that at least some of these quotes are out of context I'm with Devari on a lot of them. Really no way you could look at it that would put it in a positive light.

[Arthus]

volkov: *laughs*. I love you too Arthus.

I love myself too.

[Gen. Volkov]

Well it's just a regular lovefest in here ain't it?

[Devari]

Too bad the situation in the middle east isn't like that too.