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That is the price the Arab world will extract from those who do not toe the line and proclaim: Death to Israel

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Understanding the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Compiled by Paul Bogdanor

“Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history and religion.”

• Haj Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem (Radio Berlin, March 1, 1944; quoted in Robert Wistrich, Muslim Anti-Semitism: A Clear and Present Danger [American Jewish Committee, 2002], p. 47)

“I personally wish that the Jews do not drive us to this war, as this will be a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Tartar massacre or the Crusader wars.”

• Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League (Akhbar al-Yom, Egypt, October 11, 1947; quoted in David Barnett and Efraim Karsh, “Azzam’s Genocidal Threat,” Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2011)

“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… Even if we are beaten now in Palestine, we will never submit. We will never accept the Jewish state... But for politics, the Egyptian army alone, or volunteers of the Muslim Brotherhood, could have destroyed the Jews.”

• Hassan al-Banna, Muslim Brotherhood founder (New York Times, August 2, 1948)

“In demanding the return of the Palestinian refugees the Arabs mean their return as masters, not slaves, or to put it more clearly – the intention is the extermination of Israel.”

• Salah al-Din, Egyptian Foreign Minister (Al-Misri, Egypt, October 11, 1949; quoted in Harris O. Schoenberg, A Mandate for Terror: The United Nations and the PLO [Shapolsky Books, 1989], p. 239)

“Israel, to the Arab world, is like a cancer to the human body, and the only way of remedy is to uproot it just like a cancer… Had we united then [in 1948] Israel would not have come into existence. Israel is a serious wound in the Arab world body, and we cannot endure the pain of this wound forever. We don’t have the patience to see Israel remain occupying part of Palestine for long… We Arabs total about 50,000,000. Why don’t we sacrifice 10,000,000 of our number to live in pride and self-respect?”

• King Saud of Saudi Arabia (New York Times, January 10, 1954)

“Is not Israel’s isolation a natural result of her racial artificiality, a patchwork society of German, Polish, East European recruits, of her cultural and political singularity, and to the fact that she does not belong, and should not belong to that part of the Arab world upon which she was imposed by outside force? … No international intrigue, no force whatsoever can oblige the Arabs to accept the intruders whose hands are still stained with the blood of other Arabs…”

• M. Samir Ahmed, Egyptian Embassy Press Secretary (Letter, Washington Post, September 20, 1955)

“We are awaiting aggression by Israel and any supporters of Israel. We will make it a decisive battle and get rid of Israel once and for all… This is the dream of every Arab.”

• Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt (Washington Post, July 27, 1959)

“If the refugees return to Israel – Israel will cease to exist.”

• Gamal Abdel Nasser (Zuercher Woche, West Germany, September 1, 1961; quoted in Harris O. Schoenberg, A Mandate for Terror: The United Nations and the PLO [Shapolsky Books, 1989], p. 239)

“... collective Arab military preparations, when they are completed, will constitute the ultimate practical means for the final liquidation of Israel.”

• Arab League (Summit Declaration, January 1964; quoted in Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World [Penguin, 2001], p. 230)

“The real Palestine problem is the existence of Israel in Palestine. As long as a Zionist existence remains even in a tiny part of it - that will mean occupation. The important thing is to liquidate the Israel occupation, and there is no difference between the territories lately occupied and those occupied before.”

• Egyptian government broadcast (Radio Cairo, March 17, 1968, quoted in Gil Carl AlRoy, “Do the Arabs Want Peace?” Commentary, February 1974)

“We shall never allow Israel to live in peace… We shall never recognize Israel, never accept the usurper, the colonialist, the imperialist.”

• Farouk Kaddoumi (Der Stern, West Germany, July 30, 1981)

“We have to accept the [Oslo] deal and wait for a change in the circumstances that could lead to the elimination of Israel.”

• Abu el-Aynayn, PLO commander in Rashidieh, Lebanon (US News and World Report, September 27, 1993)

“We will not lay down our weapons until complete liberation... Sooner or later we will throw the Zionists into the sea.”

• Lt. Col. Munir Maqdah, PLO commander in Lebanon (Reuters, October 8, 1993)

“As for the bomb being chemical and poisonous, that was an invention by the evil Jordanian intelligence... God knows that should we - and we ask God to shortly empower us to - possess that kind of bomb, we would not hesitate one second to use it on Israeli cities.”

• Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Jordanian terrorist leader (Washington Post, September 27, 2004)

“... the Jews are a virus resembling AIDS, from which the entire world suffers… the Jews were behind all the civil strife in this world. The Jews are behind the suffering of the nations… The day will come when we will rule Britain and the entire world – except for the Jews. The Jews will not enjoy a life of tranquility under our rule, because they are treacherous by nature, as they have been throughout history… The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew.”

• Sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiris, Palestinian Authority cleric (Palestinian Authority Television, May 13, 2005)

“Allah’s promise and the Prophet’s prophecy of our victory in Palestine over the Jews and over the oppressive Zionists has begun to come true... Before Israel dies, it must be humiliated and degraded. Allah willing, before they die, they will experience humiliation and degradation every day... Allah willing, we will make them lose their eyesight, we will make them lose their brains.”

• Khaled Mashal, Hamas leader (Al-Jazeera TV, February 3, 2006)

“My message to the loathed Jews is that there is no god but Allah, we will chase you everywhere! We are a nation that drinks blood, and we know that there is no blood better than the blood of Jews. We will not leave you alone until we have quenched our thirst with your blood, and our children’s thirst with your blood.”

• Hamas broadcast (Jerusalem Post, February 17, 2006)

“Israel should be wiped from the face of the earth. It is an animal state that recognises no human worth. It is a cancer that should be eradicated.”

• Ghazi Hamad, Hamas spokesman (BBC, November 8, 2006)

“Israel is weaker than a spider web. The future of Israel is death and perdition... Our martyrs inscribed in blood during the July-August war: Death to Israel.”

• Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah (Al-Manar TV, January 30, 2007)

“Rest assured that the day the American forces leave Iraq, the Israelis will leave the region along with them... This is because the annihilation of the Zionist regime has begun... The moment they leave Iraq, you, the Muslims of the world, can walk into Palestine, because Israel will no longer exist.”

• Abdallah Safialdeen, Hezbollah representative in Iran (Channel 4, Iranian TV, March 4, 2007)

“Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, vanquish the Americans and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one.”

• Ahmad Bahr, Palestinian Legislative Council acting speaker (Sudan TV, April 13, 2007)

“The Prophet of Allah has promised us that the Jews will gather in Palestine, and that the Muslims will fight them, and totally kill them.”

• Muhammad Nimr al-Zaghmout, head of the Palestinian Islamic Council in Lebanon (Al-Kawthar TV, May 15, 2007)

“By Allah, we will not be satisfied even if all the Jews are killed.”

• Dr. Walid Al-Rashudi, Department of Islamic Studies, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia (Al-Aqsa TV, February 29, 2008)

“The treacherous Zionist enemy will never permit us to lessen our revenge towards him or stray from our confrontation against him, until he is wiped off this land, which is saturated with the blood of the martyrs.”

• Ahmad Dahbour, Palestinian Authority propagandist (Jerusalem Post, March 23, 2008)

“Strike the interests of Jews and Americans, and all those who wield aggression against the Muslims. Today no one can say that we are battling the Jews in Palestine alone.”

• Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda leader (Associated Press, March 24, 2008)

Last updated May 14, 2008 .