1891: After paying a visit to Palestine in 1891, the Hebrew essayist Achad Ha-Am commented: “Abroad we are accustomed to believe that Israel is almost empty; nothing is grown here and that whoever wishes to buy land could come here and buy what his heart desires. In reality, the situation is not like this. Throughout the country it is difficult to find cultivable land which is not already cultivated."

1895: The removal of Arabs bodily from Palestine is part of the Zionist plan to "spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment...Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried away discreetly and circumspectly." Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry.

1901: Israel Zang wrote in1901 that Palestine was a "land without people for a people without land."He retracted the statement in 1920 upon admitting evidence it was filled with Arabs.

1919: "In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country" Lord Balfour in private memorandum to Lord Curzon, 11 August 1919.  (Note: Organized Zionist organizations and weathy Zionists in Britain and the U.S. funded the British World War I effort and pressured the U.S. to enter World War One to ensure a decisive defeat of the Germans in exchange for Britain's promise of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.)

1922: "If we are going to admit claims on conquest thousands of years ago, the whole world will have to be turned upside down." Lord Sydenham, Hansard, House of Lords, 21 June 1922.

1923: "Zionist colonization must either be terminated or carried out against the wishes of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, be continued and make progress only under the protection of a power independent of the native population - an iron wall, which will be in a position to resist the pressure to the native population. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs...... Zionism is a colonization adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important... to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot - or else I am through with playing at colonizing." Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall, 1923.  (He was a right wing founder and advocate of Zionist terrorist organizations.)

1930s: "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 (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth's book Ben-Gurion in a slightly different translation).

1937: "We must expel Arabs and take their places."  David Ben Gurion, future Prime Minister of Israel, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.

1938: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and in-human to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home....But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart....” M.K. Gandhi, November 1938

1940: "Between ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples together in this country. We shall not achieve our goal if the Arabs are in this small country. There is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries - all of them. Not one village, not one tribe should be left." Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department in 1940. From "A Solution to the Refugee Problem" Joseph Weitz, Davar, September 29, 1967, cited in Uri Davis and Norton Mevinsky, eds., Documents from Israel, 1967-1973, p.21.

1947: "There is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here (Palestine) to the neighboring countries, to transfer all of them; not one village, not one tribe should be left."  Jospeh Weitz, Davar, 29 September 1947 from "My Diary and Letters to the Children", Massada, 1965, III, p. 293.

1948  "What is necessary is cruel and strong reactions. We need precision in time, place, and casualties. If we know the family, we must strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise, the reaction is inefficient. At the place of action, there is no need to distinguish between guilty and innocent."  January, 1948 David Ben-Gurion diary entry. As the first Israeli Prime Minister, he is quoted as having said at some point: "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.

1948: "If it is proper to 'reconstitute' a Jewish state which has not existed for two thousand years, why not go back another thousand years and reconstitute the Canaanite state? The Canaanites, unlike the Jews, are still there." H.G. Wells, quoted in Palestine Dilemma: Arab Rights Versus Zionist Aspirations, by Frank C. Sakran, Public Affairs Press, 1948, p. 204.

1948: "Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created State of Israel of the Freedom Party (Herut), a political party closely akin in its organization, method, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties." Albert Einstein, Hanna Arendt and other prominent Jewish Americans, writing in The New York Times, protest the visit to America of Menachem Begin, December 1948. Begin and Yitzhak Shamir who were members of the party became Prime Ministers.

1949: Martin Buber, Jewish Philosopher, addressed Prime Minister Ben Gurion on the moral character of the state of Israel with reference to the Arab refugees in March 1949: "We will have to face the reality that Israel is neither innocent, nor redemptive. And that in its creation, and expansion; we as Jews, have caused what we historically have suffered; a refugee population in Diaspora."

1952: "It lies upon the people's shoulders to prepare for the war, but it lies upon the Israeli army to carry out the fight with the ultimate object of erecting the Israeli Empire."  Moshe Dayan (Israel Defense and Foreign Minister), on February 12 1952. Radio Israel.

1960: "We shall reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters" Uri Lubrani, PM Ben-Gurion's special adviser on Arab Affairs, 1960. From "The Arabs in Israel" by Sabri Jiryas.

1967: Aba Eban, Israeli Foreign Minister: " If the [United Nations] General Assembly were to vote by 121 votes to 1 in favor of "Israel" returning to the armistice lines-- (pre June 1967 borders) Israel would refuse to comply with the decision."   New York Times June 19, 1967.

1967: "Hitler's legal power was based upon the 'Enabling Act', which was passed quite legally by the Reichstag and which allowed the Fuehrer and his representatives, in plain language, to be what they wanted, or in legal language, to issue regulations having the force of law. Exactly the same type of act was passed by the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) immediately after the 1967 conquest granting the Israeli governor and his representatives the power of Hitler, which they use in Hitlerian manner."  Dr. Israel Shahak, Chairperson of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, and a survivor of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, Commenting on the Israeli military's Emergency Regulations following the 1967 War. Palestine, vol. 12, December 1983.

1969: "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I don't blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, .The Arab villages are not there either. Nahal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibat; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kfar Yehushu'a in the place of Tal al Shuman. There is not one single place that did not have a former Arab population." Moshe Dayan's address to the Technion, Haifa (as Quoted in Haaretz, April 4, 1969).

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

1972: "The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war." Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Haaretz, 19 March 1972.

1982: The Palestinians are "..beasts walking on two legs." Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, 'Begin and the "Beasts"', New Statesman, 25 June 1982.

1983: "When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.

1983: "We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves."  Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.

1989: "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.

1989: "I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa." Archbishop Desmond Tuto, observes during Christmas visit to Jerusalem, December 25, 1989. From Israeli daily Ha'aretz, cited in Palestine Perspectives, January/February 1990.

2000: "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.