Select Quotations
On Fighting the Nazis & the British
"We must assist the
British in the war as if there were no White
Paper and we must resist the White Paper
as if there were no war." - September 1939
On the Fate of European Jewry
"Anyone who does not see what Jewry is facing is blind
and is neither a Jew nor a human being. First of all, the Jews are not
in their place. After the war, every last Jewish collective in every
country will have been displaced. American Jewry is settled where it
is, but we are only speaking of European Jewry, the Jews in the countries
under Hitler. True, this has also happened to other peoples, to a small
extent. Poles and Czechs have been displaced, and so now have the French.
But it has not happened to them to the same extent. [The Nazis] have
not displaced the entire French people. However, it is possible to displace
the Jewish people; all of French Jewry, all of Dutch and Romanian Jewry
can be displaced. They can also murder them all. I do not know if Jews
will survive after Hitler. But if the world war ends, [members of other
peoples] will return to their places and towns, and the Jews will have
nowhere to return. Not a memory will remain of their homes, shops, and
property." - October 1942
On World Silence During the Holocaust
"What have you done to us, you freedom-loving peoples,
guardians of justice, defenders of the high principles of democracy and of
the brotherhood of man? What have you allowed to be perpetrated against a
defenseless people while you stood aside and let it bleed to death, without
offering help or succour, without calling on the fiends to stop, in the
language of retribution which alone they would understand. Why do you
profane our pain and wrath with empty expressions of sympathy which ring
like a mockery in the ears of millions of the damned in the torture house
of Nazi Europe? Why have you not even supplied arms to our ghetto rebels,
as you have done for the partisans and underground fighters of other
nations? Why did you not help us establish contacts with them, as you have
done in the case of the partisans in Greece and Yugoslavia and the
underground movements elsewhere? If, instead of Jews, thousands of English,
American or Russian women, children and aged had been tortured every day,
burnt to death, asphyxiated in gas chambers-would you have acted in the
same way?" - September 1944
On Victory in the War of Israeli Independence
"Let us not be intoxicated with victory. To many people and not only among ourselves, it would appear to be a miracle: a small nation of 700,000 persons (at the outset of the campaign there were only 640,000) stood up against six nations numbering 30 million. However, none of us knows whether the trial by bloodshed has yet ended. The enemy forces in the neighbouring countries and in the world at large have not yet despaired of their scheme to annihilate Israel in its own land or at least to pare away its borders, and we do not yet know whether the recent war, which we fought in the Negev and which ended in victory for the IDF, is the last battle or not, and as long as we cannot be confident that we have won the last battle, let us not glory." - January 1949
On Israel's Military Commanders
“May every Jewish mother know that she has put
her son under the care of commanders who are up to the task.”
On the Negev
“It is in the Negev that the creativity and pioneer
vigor of Israel shall be tested.”
“The Negev is one of the Jewish nation's safehavens.”
“Wisdom goes with South. It is written: ‘Whoever
seeks wisdom, south shall he go.’”
On Belief in the Jewish Bible
“Since I invoke Torah so often, let me state that I don't personally
believe in the God it postulates ... I am not
religious, nor were the majority of the early
builders of Israel believers. Yet their passion
for this land stemmed from the Book of Books ... [The
Bible is] the single most important book
in my life.”
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