Quotes about Occupation Policy

Robert Fisk

In Palestine, the Israelis claim they found a land without people,' a Syrian officer explained to us. 'Now they will take southern Lebanon and claim they have found another land without people if these refugees do not return.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Turkey will be in Cyprus forever.

Joseph Stalin

This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. It cannot be otherwise. If now there is not a communist government in Paris, this is only because Russia has no an army which can reach Paris in 1945.

Sayed Kashua

It sometimes seems that the only plan the Israeli government has for the Palestinians is for them to sit quietly while Israel does whatever takes its fancy, equipped with its army, with laws it promulgated, and with courts it established.

Eva Bellin

One of the most remarkable aspects of the occupation of Japan and Germany was the relatively free hand the occupation forces enjoyed in imposing policy on the conquered country. This was especially dramatic in the case of Japan. There, the occupying forces wrote a new constitution for the country and essentially handed it down to the occupied with little local consultation in ways that are quite astonishing today for their radicalness and their dictatorial quality. In Germany the occupying forces had the luxury of postponing national elections for three years giving them precious time to purge the old guard and reestablish order before putting the new political system to the test.

She was referring to the aftermath of the Iraq War.

Tom Brokaw

One of the things that we don't want to do is to destroy the infrastructure of Iraq, because in a few days we're going to own that country.

Edmund Allenby

You know what we did at Jerusalem. Do exactly the same. Send for the Turkish Wali [Civil Governor] and tell him to carry on, giving him the extra police he requires.

Although the Turks were the enemy, the British when they “liberated” an area, turned to the local governors of the territory and asked them to “carry on,” supplying them with resources if necessary. This was just the opposite of the George W. Bush administration strategy in the Iraq War of 2004, where after taking Baghdad, all the old politicians and governors were arrested and the police and other infrastructure was removed. The replacements were inexperienced and had little respect and influence and the city fell apart. The moral hypocrisy of the British left the “bad guys” in place running things for them instead of the Turks. However, they were able to keep the cities running and keep control of the entire situation.

Jonathan Schell

It is a key fact about American policy in Vietnam that the withdrawel of American troops was built into it from the start. None of the presidents who waged war in Vietnam contemplated an open-ended campaign; all promised the public that American troops would be able to leave in the not-too-remote future. The promise of withdrawel precluded a policy of occupation of the traditional colonial sort, in which a great power simply imposes its will on a small one indefinitely.

Ambrose Burnside

The wastefulness of indiscriminate plunder impoverishes a country, while it adds nothing to the support of the army; policy, as well as humanity to the inhabitants, dictates that all levies should be made according to established rules, and under the charge of discreet and competent officers.

Nicholas Roosevelt

Throughout 1922 the demand for further occupation of the Ruhr became stronger in France, the people being convinced that in no other way could the Germans be made to understand that the Allies were determined to collect reparations.

After WWI, the Germans were reluctant to make the reparation payments that they had agreed to in the WWI peace treaty. The French, to “motivate” the Germans, occupied the German Ruhr Valley—an area that contained very important German heavy industry and coal mines that could not function under the occupation. See {640090}.

Alfred Jodl

In view of the vast size of the occupied areas in the East the forces available for establishing security in these areas will be sufficient only if all resistance is punished not by legal prosecution of the guilty but by the spreading of such terror by the occupying power as is appropriate to eradicate every inclination to resist among the population. The competent commanders must find the means of keeping order not by demanding more security forces but by applying suitable Draconian methods.

Robert Alexis McClure

The shooting war is over, here! ... with one phase over I am now up to my neck on the control phase. We will rigidly control all newspapers, films theatre, radio music, etc., in Germany! My division now publishes 8 newspapers in Germany, with 1,000,000 circulation and sends 2 million plus language papers each day by air for displaced persons and POWs. Biggest newspaper enterprise in the world.

After the Germans surrendered, the Army ran a huge propaganda enterprise. See {589368} to learn how it expanded.

Moshe Dayan

The proposed policy [of raising the level of public service in the occupied territories] may clash with our intention to encourage emigration from both [Gaza] Strip and Judea and Samaria. Anyone who has practical ideas or proposal to encourage emigration-let him speak up. No idea or proposal is to be dismissed out of hand.

Ari Shavit

Only a few years ago did it suddenly dawn on me that my existential fear regarding my nation’s future and my moral outrage regarding my nation’s occupation policy are not unconnected. On the one hand, Israel is the only nation in the West that is occupying another people. On the other hand, Israel is the only nation in the West that is existentially threatened. Both occupation and intimidation make the Israeli condition unique. Intimidation and occupation have become the two pillars of our condition.

Occupation Policy Quotes