Eric Gartman > Quotes

“This is the “tradition” that Tevye the Milkman so lovingly sings of in Fiddler on the Roof.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“A short time later, Haganah officers came to take the village from the Irgun. One officer remarked, “All of the killed, with very few exceptions, were old men, women, or children.” He noted, “The dead we found were all unjust victims and none of them had died with a weapon in their hands.” Another Haganah commander sneered, “You are swine,” and ordered his men to surround the militiamen. A tense standoff ensued as the Haganah commanders debated about forcibly disarming the dissidents and shooting them if they refused. At last, the Haganah commander ordered the Irgun to clean the village and bury the dead. They carried the bodies to a rock quarry and set them ablaze. “It was a lovely spring day,” the Haganah commander recorded. “The almond trees were in bloom, the flowers were out, and everywhere there was the stench of the dead, the thick smell of blood, and the terrible odor of the corpses burning in the quarry.”8 The next day, the Haganah commander issued a communiqué: “For a full day Etzel [Irgun] and Lechi [Stern] soldiers stood and slaughtered men, women, and children—not in the course of the operation, but in a premeditated act which had as its intention slaughter and murder only. They also took spoils, and when they finished their work, they fled.” Irgun and Stern leaders denied that any deliberate killings of civilians occurred at Deir Yassin. Menachem Begin noted that they had set up a loudspeaker at the entrance of the village, warning civilians to leave: “By giving this humane warning, our fighters threw away the element of complete surprise, and thus increased their own risk in the ensuing battle. A substantial number of the inhabitants obeyed the warning and they were unhurt. A few did not leave their stone houses—perhaps because of the confusion. The fire of the enemy was murderous—to which the number of our casualties bears elegant testimony. Our men were compelled to fight for every house; to overcome the enemy they used large numbers of hand grenades. And the civilians who had disregarded our warnings suffered inevitable casualties.”9 The Jewish Agency did not accept Begin’s explanation and immediately condemned the killings. Regardless of which view was correct, the events at Deir Yassin would have a more far-reaching impact than anyone could have imagined.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“In Palestine, the committee members met with both Jewish and Arab representatives. It was a distinct change from the Arabs’ tactics with the Peel Commission, which they had mostly boycotted. Now the Arab Office presented an eloquent argument for their opposition to a Jewish state and partition: “The whole Arab people is unalterably opposed to the attempt to impose Jewish immigration and settlement upon it, and ultimately to establish a Jewish State in Palestine. Its opposition is based primarily upon right. The Arabs of Palestine are descendants of the indigenous inhabitants of the country, who have been in occupation of it since the beginning of history; they cannot agree that it is right to subject an indigenous population against its will to alien immigrants, whose claim is based upon a historical connection which ceased effectively many centuries ago.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Jaffa fell on May 13, with only a few thousand Arabs left of the eighty thousand who had lived there a few weeks before.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Yadin and his staff drafted a new operational plan. Whereas previous plans dealt solely with defense of Jewish settlements, Plan D also addressed how to deal with Arab towns and villages. “The objective of this plan is to gain control of the territory of the Hebrew state and defend its borders.” Simply defending against Arab attacks would not be sufficient: if Arab towns or villages occupied strategic points, routes of communications, or were used as enemy bases, Plan D called for the “destruction of the armed forces and the expulsion of the population outside the borders of the state.” In all of Israel’s turbulent history, no single document has ever been as controversial.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Egypt blocked the Straits of Tiran leading to Israel’s southern port of Eilat, and the Suez Canal was closed to Israeli shipping. The sum total of these provocations made Israeli leaders feel their state was in mortal danger from Egypt. But Israel’s tiny industries could not supply it with adequate weapons.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“After the war, the Arab states unleashed a new weapon in the form of an oil boycott. The Western world’s need for fuel drove the Europeans away from Israel. Developing nations broke their ties with the Jewish state, seeing it as an imperialist oppressor of the Palestinians. The economy was hamstrung from the call-up of reservists; Israel spent an enormous sum on arms in 1974, fearful of a replay of the previous year’s war. The government was forced to implement austerity measures that citizens chafed at.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“The Labor Zionists of the Mapai Party, the mainstream of the Zionist movement, hoped an accommodation could be reached. Led by David Ben-Gurion, they believed they could work with the Arabs to reach a deal: “If the Arabs agree to our return to our land, we would help them with our political, financial, and moral support to bring about the rebirth and unity of the Arab people.” Furthermore, he explained, we were neither desirous nor capable of building our future in Palestine at the expense of the Arabs. The Arabs of Palestine would remain where they were, their lot would improve, and even politically they would not be dependent on us, even after we came to constitute the vast majority of the population, for there was a basic difference between our relation to Palestine and that of the Arabs. For us, the Land was everything and there was nothing else. For the Arabs, Palestine was only a small portion of the large numerous Arab countries. Even when the Arabs became a minority in Palestine they would not be a minority in their territory, which extended from the Mediterranean coast to the Persian Gulf, and from the Taurus Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean.14”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“That goal was a state for the Jews:”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Old City in Jerusalem—known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, the site where Muhammad ascended to heaven, marked by the spectacular Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and to Jews as the Temple Mount, where the sacred Temple had stood in ancient times. Below the Muslim shrine on the mount, Jews gather to pray at the Wailing Wall, the only remnant of the Temple.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Therefore, the Peel Commission recommended dividing Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The Jews accepted the plan, while the Arabs rejected it. But the commission’s recommendations were quickly overshadowed by events in Europe.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“The Egyptian nation was badly shaken as well. They had lost the war, most of their army, and the entire Sinai Peninsula.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“growing greater by the day, David Ben-Gurion, Chaim Weizmann, and delegates from Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia arrived in London to meet with the British leadership. They had been summoned by British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, in order to explain the empire’s new policy toward Palestine. Jewish immigration would end. The Jews would live under Arab rule in an independent state. Ben-Gurion erupted: “Jews cannot be prevented from immigrating into the country except by force of British bayonets, British police, and the British navy. And, of course, Palestine cannot be converted into an Arab state over Jewish opposition without the constant help of British bayonets!”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“A helicopter from Jordan arrived at an intelligence facility near Tel Aviv. The passengers were Jordan’s King Hussein and his prime minister. The two visitors were taken to meet Israel’s prime minister, Golda Meir. Jordan had been working with Israel since the Six-Day War to prevent another round of violence. Hussein had lost half his kingdom in 1967. He knew Jordan would inevitably be dragged into the fighting if another war broke. He did not want this, and that was the reason for his clandestine meeting with his Israeli counterpart.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“recent Polish immigrant named Menachem Begin, the new leader of the right-wing dissident Irgun militia, decided to take decisive action”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Begin called it one of the happiest days of his life. Israel completed its withdrawal from the Sinai in 1981—exactly one hundred years after the pogroms in Russia had spurred the first wave of Zionists to return to the Land of Israel. Masada had not fallen.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“But out of the fire of the Great War, an opportunity presented itself to the Zionists. The leader of the English Zionists was Dr. Chaim Weizmann, a chemist who created a synthetic (acetone) to compensate for Britain’s lack of cordite during the war. His work for the British brought him into contact with officials in the highest level of the cabinet, and he did his utmost to support the creation of a Jewish home in Palestine.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Nobody suspected that Sadat would prove to be the most formidable foe Israel ever faced. In the end it would be he, not Nasser, who would permanently transform the region.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Arab and Jew attacked civilian and military targets. The worst violence occurred in the Holy City, Jerusalem. On a stormy winter night, the Haganah bombed the Semiramis Hotel, the Arabs’ headquarters, in the neighborhood of Katamon. The Haganah had received word that Abdul Khader himself was there that night. A young Arab woman named Hala al-Sakakini, daughter of Khalil al-Sakakini—one of the Palestinians’ leading intellectuals—recorded:”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Moreover, Kissinger was thinking ahead: he knew that if an entire Egyptian division were wiped out, Sadat would never negotiate for a permanent peace with Israel. The Israeli government accepted the deal, and the war was finally over. It had cost the Jewish state 2,800 dead and 8,800 wounded, but a complete disaster had been avoided. The IDF had crawled back from the dead.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“on the afternoon of October 6, 1973. Egypt would send 100,000 men and 1,550 tanks against 436 Israeli soldiers with 3 tanks manning the Bar-Lev Line, while Syrian deployed 1,500 tanks and 942 artillery guns against 177 tanks in the Golan Heights. The latest battle for the Jewish state’s survival had begun.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Zeira would later claim that Marwan was a double agent who fed Israel false information that crippled its warning system. In fact, it was only Marwan’s warning that finally persuaded policymakers to begin mobilizing the reserves. If the Egyptians had planted a double agent, they could not have asked for a better one than Eli Zeira.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“On a hot July morning in 1946, seven Irgun members disguised as Arab porters smuggled milk crates filled with 250 kilos of explosives into the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The hotel housed the Mandate’s headquarters. It was the very symbol of British rule in Palestine, the target Begin wished most to attack. At 12:37 p.m. a tremendous explosion shook West Jerusalem. The southwest wing of the King David Hotel bulged outward, and then all six floors collapsed. An Englishman relaxing in the bar’s hotel recalled: “There was the most appalling roar . . . Everything went completely black and there was the noise of smashing glass and wrenching furniture and through the blackness one could feel the atmosphere was full of smoke and dust . . . from above came the most terrifying sound I have ever heard: the sound of falling masonry, and we could only assume we were about to be crushed.”10 The massive blast killed ninety-one people, including British, Arabs, and Jews. The British government was outraged by the attack, but it had the effect that the Irgun had hoped it would: the British began to reevaluate their position in Palestine.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“By closing the Straits of Tiran to their ships, Egypt was successfully challenging Israel’s legitimacy. Indeed, for Ben-Gurion it was the most important operation of the war.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“To this end, the governments of Israel and France had agreed to build a nuclear reactor in the Negev desert near the remote town of Dimona. Although the agreement was signed in 1958, its existence did not become public for another two years, and even then its true purpose was concealed.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Despite the gaps between the two sides’ positions, Sadat’s trip was nonetheless of monumental importance. For the first time, Israelis saw an Arab leader who was charming, well dressed, soft-spoken, clearly wanted peace, and was willing to risk life and limb for it. Perceptions in Egypt changed as well. The people had been impressed by the welcome extended their leader by the Israelis. The Arab press refrained from traditional demonizations of the Zionist enemy and began analyzing the situation with a cooler head.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Europe was gripped by nationalist movements in the late nineteenth century, and the intellectual ferment inevitably affected the Jews. Soon a number of writers and intellectuals were advocating the re-creation of the Jewish state in the Land of Israel. Two groups formed to bring Jews back to Palestine, one called the “Lovers of Zion” and the other the Bilu, a Hebrew acronym from the biblical verse “O House of Jacob, come and let us go!” With Jews leaving Mother Russia in droves, these movements now had their recruits. They would send young Jews to Palestine, buy land, and have them settle it. They had high hopes, as the Bilu manifesto made clear.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“Many Israelis expressed reservations about the removal of the civilians from Lydda and Ramle. One party leader did not accept Allon’s position that strategic needs justified the removal of thousands of women, children, and old men from their homes. A hardened military leader of the operation recalled his conflicting emotions: “For years you’ve trained for this day,” he explained. “You’ve been told there is an inevitable war coming. You’ve been told that the Arabs will have to go. And yet you are in shock. In Lydda, the war is as cruel as it can be. The killing, the looting, the feelings of rage and revenge. Then the column marching. And although you are strong and well-trained and resilient, you experience some sort of mental collapse. You feel the humanist education you received collapsing.”21 Like Deir Yassin, Lydda remains one of the most controversial episodes in Israel’s history, causing much debate and internal anguish to this day, and continued condemnation from the Palestinians, more proof in their eyes of Zionist aggression.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“On March 26, 1979, the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty was formalized in a signing ceremony at the White House. In the interim, the Knesset had overwhelmingly approved of the treaty, including the dismantling of the Sinai settlements. Hundreds of journalists were at the scene, capturing every moment of what was truly a historic event, as Begin, Sadat, and Carter shook hands and congratulated each other.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel

“The Jews always viewed the Land of Israel as their home, a notion reinforced through their devotion to biblical study and daily prayer.”
― Eric Gartman, Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel