David Ben-Gurion Quotes - Page 2

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• Everybody sees a difficulty in the question of relations between Arabs and Jews. But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question. No solution! There is a gulf, and nothing can bridge it... We, as a nation, want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Country, Bridges, Want

  TIME Magazine, July 24, 2006.

  82 Copy quote

• We do not wish and do not need to expel Arabs and take their places.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Israel, Scary, Cleansing

  Letter to his son Amos on October 5, 1937. "Fabricating Israeli History: The 'New Historians'" by Efraim Karsh, 1997.

  53 Copy quote

• Anyone who believes you can't change history has never tried to write his memoirs.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Change, Believe, Writing

  10 Copy quote

• If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Children, Lying, Israel

  "Israel Was Everthing" by Martin Gilbert, www.nytimes.com. June 21, 1987.

  10 Copy quote

• A partial Jewish State is not the end, but only the beginning. ... I am certain that we will not be prevented from settling in the other parts of the country, either by mutual agreements with our Arab neighbors or by some other means. . . [If the Arabs refuse] we shall have to speak to them in a different language. But we shall only have another language if we have a state.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Country, Mean, Agreement

  "Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians". Book by Noam Chomsky, South End Press, p. 162, 1999.

  12 Copy quote

• Ours is a country built more on people than on territory. The Jews will come from everywhere: from France, from Russia, from America, from Yemen... Their faith is their passport.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Country, Russia, America

  86 Copy quote

• No city in the world, not even Athens or Rome, ever played as great a role in the life of a nation for so long a time, as Jerusalem has done in the life of the Jewish people.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Israel, Rome, Cities

  94 Copy quote

• If the antisemites want to hate, let them hate, and let them go to hell.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Hate, Want, Hell

  73 Copy quote

• The test of democracy is freedom of criticism.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Freedom, Democracy, Criticism

  12 Copy quote

• When we say that the Arabs are the aggressors and we defend ourselves — this is only half the truth. As regards our security and life we defend ourselves and our moral and physical position is not bad. We can face the gangs... and were we allowed to mobilize all our forces we would have no doubts about the outcome... But the fighting is only one aspect of the conflict which is in its essence a political one. And politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. Militarily, it is we who are on the defensive who have the upper hand but in the political sphere they are superior.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Fighting, Essence, Political

  "Zionism and the Palestinians". Book by Simha Flapan, June 7, 1938.

  9 Copy quote

• We consider that the United Nations' ideal is a Jewish ideal.

  David Ben-Gurion

  United Nations, United, Ideals

  "Israel: The Watchman". content.time.com. August 16, 1948.

  14 Copy quote

• Israel's economic and cultural progress is due to three things: the pioneering spirit that inspires the best of our immigrant and Israeli youth, who respond to the challenge of our desolute areas and the ingathering of the exiles; the feeling of Diaspora Jewry that they are partners in the enterprise of Israel's resurgence in the ancient homeland of the Jewish people; and the power of science, and technology which Israel unceasingly, and not without success, tries to enhance.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Technology, Israel, People

  76 Copy quote

• Courage is... the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Courage, Bravery, Ought

  25 Copy quote

• Suffering makes a people greater, and we have suffered much. We had a message to give the world, but we were overwhelmed, and the message was cut off in the middle. In time there will be millions of us - becoming stronger and stronger - and we will complete the message.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Cutting, People, Giving

  80 Copy quote

• We regard it as our duty to declare that Jewish Jerusalem is an organic and inseparable part of the State of Israel, as it is an inseparable part of the history of Israel, of the faith of Israel.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Israel, Jerusalem, States

  114 Copy quote

• Which are you first, a Jew or an American? A Jew.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Firsts, Jew

  15 Copy quote

• We have preserved the Book, and the Book has preserved us.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Book

  25 Copy quote

• When a Jew, in America or in South Africa, talks to his Jewish companions about 'our' government, he means the government of Israel.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Mean, Government, Israel

  17 Copy quote

• This life as a simple citizen and laborer has its benefits not only for the person himself but perhaps also for his country. After all, there is room for only one Prime Minister, but for those who make the desert bloom there is room for hundreds, thousands and even millions. And the destiny of the state is in the hands of the many rather than of a single individual. There are times when an individual feels he should do those things which only can and should be done by the many.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Country, Simple, Destiny

  "Why I Retired to the Desert". The New York Times Magazine, p. 47, March 28, 1954.

  49 Copy quote

• We do not want to create a situation like that which exists in South Africa, where the whites are the owners and rulers, and the blacks are the workers. If we do not do all kinds of work, easy and hard, skilled and unskilled, if we become merely landlords, then this will not be our homeland

  David Ben-Gurion

  Israel, Want, Kind

  35 Copy quote

• Israel will not discuss a peace involving the concession of any piece of territory. The neighboring states do not deserve an inch of Israel's land. . . . We are ready for exchange for peace.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Peace, Israel, Land

  42 Copy quote

• To shatter even the largest stones on earth, it takes only a small quantity of explosive powder.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Change, Earth, Stones

  15 Copy quote

• The trebling of the population in this small and impoverished country, flowing with milk and honey but not with sufficient water, rich in rocks and sand dunes but poor in natural resources and vital raw materials, has been no easy task: Indeed, practical men, with their eyes fixed upon things as they are, regarded it as an empty and insubstantial utopian dream.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Country, Dream, Eye

  16 Copy quote

• Terrorism benefits the Arabs, it may lay waste the Yishuv and shake Zionism. But to follow in the Arabs' footsteps and ape their deeds is to be blind to the gulf between us. Our aims and theirs run counter: methods calculated to further theirs, are ruinous to us.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Running, Benefits, Deeds

  "Rebirth and destiny of Israel". Book by David Ben-Gurion, 1954.

  11 Copy quote

• The past is our very being.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Past

  9 Copy quote

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