“Our real problem is not the territory but rather the population of about a million and a half Arabs who live in it and over whom we must rule. Inclusion of these Arabs (in addition to the half a million who are citizens of the state) in the area under our rule will effect the liquidation of the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people and bring about catastrophe for the Jewish people as a whole; it will undermine the social structure that we have created in the state and cause the corruption of individuals, both Jew and Arab.”

— Yeshayahu Leibowitz

"The Territories" (1968)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update April 2, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Our real problem is not the territory but rather the population of about a million and a half Arabs who live in it and …" by Yeshayahu Leibowitz?

Yeshayahu Leibowitz 15

israeli intellectual 1903–1994

Related quotes

“Rule over the occupied territories would have social repercussions. After a few years there would be no Jewish workers or Jewish farmers. The Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administrators, inspectors, officials, and police—mainly secret police. A state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that this implies for education, free speech, and democratic institutions. The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the state of Israel. The administration would have to suppress Arab insurgency on the one hand and acquire Arab Quislings on the other. There is also good reason to fear that the Israel Defense Force, which has been until now a people's army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, degenerate, and its commanders, who will have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in other nations.Out of concern for the Jewish people and its state we have no choice but to withdraw from the territories and their population of one and a half million Arabs.”

Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994) israeli intellectual

"The Territories" (1968)

“Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people, which honors the individual rights of all its citizens, I repeat this is our state. The Jewish state. Lately, there are people who are trying to destabilize this and therefore destabilize the foundations of our existence and our rights, so today we have made a law in stone. This is our country. This is our language. This is our anthem and this is our flag. Long live the state of Israel.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

About the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, as quoted in Israel's Parliament Has Passed a Controversial Jewish Nation Bill http://time.com/5342702/israel-jewish-nation-state-bill/ (July 19, 2018) by Ilan Ben Zion, The Times.
2010s, 2018

“If the Jewish state becomes a fact, and this is realized by the Arab peoples, they will drive the Jews who live in their midst into the sea.”

Hassan Banna (1906–1949) Egyptian politician

AIM TO OUST JEWS PLEDGED BY SHEIKH, New York Times, August 02, 1948 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10E13FF385A157B93C0A91783D85F4C8485F9

“The PLO will now concentrate on splitting Israel psychologically into two camps… We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. Jews will not want to live among Arabs. I have no use for Jews. They are and remain Jews. We now need all the help we can get from you in our battle for a united Palestine under Arab rule.”

Yasser Arafat (1929–2004) former Palestinian President, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

In a speech to Arab diplomats in Stockholm; Quoted in the Jerusalem Post (23 February 1996).
1990s

“I do not want to impugn anybody but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab States in opposing partition and the Jewish State. The Arab States agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem.”

Emil Ghoury

Israel did not cause the Arabs to leave http://web.archive.org/20020604080915/holyland-isreal.tripod.com/pal-refugees.htm, Beirut Telegraph (September 6, 1948).

“We cooperate with our brotherly Arab states… on the basis of the individual interests of those Arab states.”

Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq

November 26, 1958, as quoted in Malik Mufti (1996), Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq.

“Israel had better rid itself of the territories and their Arab populations as soon as possible. If it did not Israel would soon become an Apartheid State.”

David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) Israeli politician, Zionist leader, prime minister of Israel

Quoted from memory by Hirsh Goodman in Let Me Create a Paradise, God Said to Himself: A Journey of Conscience from Johannesberg to Jerusalem https://books.google.com/books?id=lUvqer1w-QcC&lpg=PP1&ots=NaV9ASJZPf&dq=Let%20Me%20Create%20Paradise%2C%20God%20Said%20to%20Himself&pg=PT90#v=onepage&q&f=false By Hirsh Goodman, page 90. The quote was checked by UK Media Watch against Ben Gurion's relevant diary, Ben Gurion archives and with historians Benny Moris, Martin Kramer, Zaki Shalom and Anita Shapira. Hirsh Goodman "stands by his recollection, but declined, when asked, to provide any further details on the interview, such as the name of the radio station or the name of the interviewer" Did the Independent just publish a fake Ben-Gurion quote? (Update) https://ukmediawatch.org/2017/03/29/did-the-independent-just-publish-a-false-ben-gurion-quote/
Misattributed

“Until the arrival of Arafat and the Palestinian terrorists, Lebanon was a Christian democracy. But Islamic radicalism could not tolerate either Christianity or democracy. This — not the presence of tiny Israel (one hundred times smaller than its current antagonists) is the root cause of the violence in the Middle East. The cause is Arab intolerance and Islamic hate. One Jewish state among 22 Arab states was one too many. Six million Jews among 300 million Arabs was too much to bear. A sliver of land, less than one percent of the Arab land mass, which belonged to first to the Turks and then to the British was an imperialist outrage.”

David Horowitz (1939) Neoconservative activist, writer

[David, Horowitz, http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/horowitz.html, "Lebanon is not Innocent", jewishworldreview.com, July 24, 2006, 2010-01-04]
2006

“The question is as follows: if the Arabs settle among us and make enough children to become a majority, will Israel continue to be a Jewish state? Do we have to accept that the Arab majority will decide? Obviously, nobody in Israel can accept this. Because to accept this would amount to being anti-Zionist!”

Meir Kahane (1932–1990) American/Israeli political activist and rabbi

G-d's Law: an Interview with Rabbi Meir Kahane https://web.archive.org/web/20090219141224/http://kahane.org/meir/interview.htm

“A partial Jewish State is not the end, but only the beginning. … I am certain that we well 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 another language. But we shall only have another language if we have a state.”

David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) Israeli politician, Zionist leader, prime minister of Israel

As quoted in * Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians (Updated Edition) (South End Press Classics Series)
Noam
Chomsky
162.

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Yeshayahu Leibowitz 15

Related quotes

Related topics