10 Quotes to Remember While Palestinians Commemorate Al-Nakba

This week, Palestinians are commemorating the 65th anniversary of Al-Nakba, or "The Day of Catastrophe," when they were forcibly expelled from their homeland to make way for the State of Israel. Amid Israel's celebration of its own founding and pro-Israel extremists' insistence that Palestinians are not worthy of their own state, here are 10 Zionist quotes that should never be forgotten.

1. "We shall have to spirit the penniless population across the border … while denying it any employment in our country.” — Theodore Herzl

2. “Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." — Theodore Herzl(source: Thedore Herzl Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895).

3. “It must be clear that there is no room in the country for both peoples … If the Arabs leave it, the country will become wide and spacious for us. The only solution is a Land of Israel … without Arabs. There is no room here for compromises …There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, and to transfer all of them, save perhaps a few.” — Joseph Weitz, the director of the Jewish National Fund (source: Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestine Refugee Problem, 1947-1949, p. 27).

4. “We must do everything to insure they [the Palestinians] never do return … The old will die and the young will forget.” — David Ben Gurion, 1948

5. "When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." — Raphael Eitan, chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, New York Times, April 1983 (source: Debunking the Myths of Colonization: The Arabs and Europe by Samar Attar).

6. "One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail." — Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, Feb. 27, 1994.

7. "Everybody has to move; run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements, because everything we take now will stay ours. Everything we don't grab will go to them." — Ariel Sharon, Israeli foreign minister, addressing right-wing Tsomet Party, Nov 15, 1998. 

8. “Destroy and damage infrastructure, public buildings and government buildings. We must make sure that Hamas will be spending many years rebuilding Gaza, and not attacking Israel.” — Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Operation Pillar of Defense.

9. “The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages, only then will Israel be calm for the next 40 years.” — Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Operation Pillar of Defense.

10. “We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima — the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too. There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire.” Journalist Gilad Sharon, son of former Prime Minster Ariel Sharon.