Benny Morris Quotes
The Arab people gained a large slice of the planet. Not thanks to its skills or its great virtues, but because it conquered and murdered and forced those it conquered to convert during many generations. But in the end the Arabs have 22 states. The Jewish people did not have even one state.
A large part of the Middle East and the now “Arab” states used to be a very large Jewish State. Jews had lived in the Palestinian area and expanded from there, also using conquest as all other nations had and even occasionally, forced conversion, to establish the Jewish State. This was destroyed by the Romans and the Jews have not had a state until 1948 when the UN voted to create Israel.
Benny Morris, Israeli Historian, Description of the situation at the time of the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab State
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
It was speeches like this which created a distrust of the Palestinian intentions when there were negotiations of land for peace. Worry that peace was just a pretext for war or takeover, inhibited many Israelis from wanting to give up anything unless they could get a more reliable partner. The Palestinians had a traditional fertility rate that was several times that of the Israelis.
He reversed the Spanish policy of keeping guns from the American Indians. He provided arms with the express intention that they destroy each other. This policy almost worked for the Indians of California but several Indian tribes were exterminated.
Just like Spain and Persia, the Arabs by fighting lost not only more land, but also lost the respect of most of the non-Muslim War. The conscious decision to choose an irrational strategy that would cause loss of life, land and respect has none-the-less repeatedly been chosen by the Arab culture. much to its detriment. Azzam is one of the few Arabs to admit this to the non-Islamic World.
Marquis de Seignelay. At the time, a perfectly acceptable justification for war on a people was that they were interfering in the plan to convert the area to one particular religion, in this case, Catholicism.
At the time, some Palestinian Arabs claimed exclusive rights to the territory on the grounds that Arabs had dominated the area for the longest period of time. They gave no credence to the fact that the Jews had dominated the area and it was the center of their kingdom for many years before—that Jews had constantly lived in the area of longer than the Arabs, nor did they give any credence to the fact that the Christians had conquered the area from the Muslims during the Crusades.
Shlomo ben Yitzchak
To make matters worse for the Muslims, the tiny foreign entity in their midst—populated by "heathens who do not follow the command of God"—have created a much higher standard of living for their people, improved the land and its productivity in ways that have been far superior to traditional Islamic methods, reclaimed much of the desert that the Muslims could not, and produced a military that has staved off the hostilities of all of Islam, and has done all this without any oil or other natural resources to sell. Israel is a living counter-example to the superiority of Islam and its traditions which is so important to Muslims.
This quotation is typical of the anti-Semitic view of the World that is held by many Islamic fundamentalists. Saudi Arabia promulgates this type of venom throughout the Muslim World. This, along with diatribes like it, are recorded in video and audio tape, and with the permission of the Saudi Arabian government if not with government funds.
In September of 2006 Pope Benedict XVI, quoted this statement in a lecture to theological students. There was much distress and protest among Muslim leaders.
He arrived in 1527, 7 years before De Soto and in a 6,000 mile ordeal, was the first white to cross the explore the interior of the continent. He was describing the Spanish slavers behavior with respect to the Indians of the New World.
Some Mexicans have always resented the U. S. for “colonizing” Arizona and other territory that once belonged to Mexico. This quotation is very revealing concerning the reality on the ground. The Apache were on the land when the Mexicans moved in to “civilize” the territory. However, the Apache, by violence, drove the Mexicans out. At that point the Mexicans were happy to sell Arizona to the Americans and the Gadsden Purchase brought Arizona to the United States as a territory. The Americans however didn’t buy the land from the Apache, the owners before the Mexicans claimed it. Many Apaches continued the violence against whoever tried to settle in the area. Eventually, the Americans accomplished what the Mexicans did not—militarily subduing the Apache.
In the early stages of Islam, Muhammad had hoped to convert the Jews and others on the Arabian Peninsula. When they refused to be converted, he warred against them usually killing the men, and taking the women and children as slaves. The result was that non-believing tribes were “cleansed” from the Arabian Peninsula. The Muslims at the time preferred children as slaves. For then they could convert the children against their will. Adults in Islam must accept Islam in order to convert. Children are regarded as having no such maturity of decision making and therefore opposition to conversion may be ignored and they may be forced. Critics of Islam and those who argue that Islam is at odds with all other religions point to this quotation. They claim that it is the only religion whose founder and fundamental scriptures demand war against others for no other reason than that they believe in a different religion. The Catholic Church during the Crusades and the Inquisition had a similar philosophy as did Christian missionaries colonizing Africa later. One difference is that most Christians today repudiate the doctrine as against the true spirit and teachings of Christ and view it as historical error, while very few modern Muslims repudiate this quotation of the Prophet.
Benny Morris is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of the group of Israeli historians known as the "New Historians," a term Morris coined to describe himself and historians Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappé.
