Levi Eshkol Quotes

Zionism demands, as Levi Eshkol, prime minister of Israel during the 1960s, once put it, “the dowry, not the bride”—that is to say, the land without the Palestinians on

Of course, Menachem Begin, who headed the Irgun and later became prime minister, was one of the most prominent Jewish terrorists in the years before Israeli independence. When speaking of Begin, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol often referred to him simply as “the terrorist.”120 The Palestinians’ use of terrorism is morally reprehensible today, but so was the Zionists’ reliance on it in the past. Thus, one cannot justify American support for Israel on the grounds that its past or present conduct was morally superior.

On July 7, 1967, exactly one month after the Israeli army occupied the West Bank, Israel’s then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol of the Labor Party said, “The security and the land are in Israeli hands.” 182 In a party meeting that year, Eshkol clarified that authorities “covet the dowry, not the bride,” 183 an apparent reference to wanting the West Bank without the Palestinians who live there. Fifty-two years later, on July 10, 2019, Prime Minister Netanyahu of the Likud said, “Israeli military and security forces will continue to rule the entire territory, up to the Jordan [River].” 184 He added on May 28, 2020, that “we are the ones dictating security rules over the entire territory,” describing West Bank Palestinians as “subjects.

In principle, the document stated that selection should be carried out in any country where it was actually possible to select candidates. The countries explicitly listed were Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Turkey, Persia, India, and the countries of Central and Western Europe. The cases of rescue Aliyah that would be determined by the Coordination Committee were explicitly excluded.124 The class component of selection was clearly present in the decision to also exempt “people with means” (baalei emtzaim), and implicit in the choice not to include the Americas in the list of regions where selection would be implemented in order not to deter the “handful of Jews who would be interested in making Aliyah from there,” as Levi Eshkol put it.

Kennedy stepped up the pressure the following year, however, sending both Ben-Gurion and his successor, Levi Eshkol, several stern letters demanding biannual inspections “in accord with international standards” and warning that “this Government’s commitment to and support of Israel could be seriously jeopardized” if the United States were unable to resolve its concerns about Israel’s nuclear ambitions.65 Kennedy’s threats convinced Israel’s leaders to permit additional visits, but the concession did not lead to compliance. As Eshkol reportedly told his colleagues after receiving Kennedy’s July 1963 demarche: