Page 2 (1875 - 1941)

“The Jewries of Eastern Europe were the hearers and preservers and inexhaustible sources of the culture, the faith, the folkways of authentic Israel. (…) I see in Zionism a great historical process of the rebirth of one of the oldest and culturally most developed peoples of the world. Palestine, which is justly considered as the cradle of modern humanity, should become a Jewish national home, so that the Jewish people can live free and unhampered and create great cultural and human values for itself and the whole world. I see in Zionism a cultural factor of great humanitarian significance. The whole world is dominated by two tendencies, universalism and nationalism. The Jews have until now done much for universalism, and it is time that they also cultivate their own nationalism, since only through this, through its own national forms, will the Jewish genius be able to serve universalism. The culture of the world is a mosaic in which each people must have its own colour. (…) One cannot deny, and the fact cannot be done away with, that Judaism, which was later joined by Hellenism, constitutes the foundation of Western morality.”

​– Thomas Mann, Holsteinian/German author. 1875 – 1955 AD

Raviv, A. (2007) Was the Real Thomas Mann an Antisemite? Volume 2. Page 12-14. 

“The Jews need a land of their own. (…) We condemn all recourse to force and to violence, from wherever it may come, as also we have condemned on several occasions in the past, the persecution that fanatical anti-Semitism unleashed against the Jewish people.”

– Pope Pius XII (Eugene Pacelli), Italian Pope of the Catholic Church. 1876 – 1958 AD

Zenith: Documents. Pius XII Favored a Jewish Homeland in Palestine.

Jewish Telegraphic Agency (1946): Pope Pius Condemns Palestine Terrorism in Message to Arab Delegation. April 15 1946. 

(BEWARE: Joseph Stalin heavily persecuted Jews during the Doctors' plot of 1951-1953)

“Anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Anti-Semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-Semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-Semitism.”

​– Joseph Stalin, Georgian Chairman of the Soviet Union. 1878 – 1953 AD

Stalin, J. (1934): Anti-Semitism. In: Reply to an Inquiry of the Jewish News Agency in the United States. In: Works. Volume 13. 

“[Japanese anti-Semitism is] a tribute, unintended, to be sure, to the Jewish citizens and residents of the Philippines. [It] testif[ies] to the fact that the Jews are standing loyally and firmly at the side of the other groups in the Philippine population, risking their lives and their goods in opposition to the Japanese invaders. (...) The small number of Jews in the Philippines is a respected section of our population. After Hitler introduced official persecution into Germany, we offered our hospitality to a number of refugees, who came to the Philippines and quickly adjusted themselves to our way of life. These people were quiet, energetic and productive. They have become a welcome and loyal part of the Filipino population.”

​– Manuel Quezon, President of the Philippines. 1878 – 1944 AD

JTA (1943): Japan’s New Policy of Anti-semitism Attacked by President of Philippines. February 18, 1943.

“The realization of this Jewish National Home is a sacred cause for all humanity and it is the duty of Romania, as a member of the League of Nations, to cooperate as well. We therefore have no objection to the fact that Jewish citizens of Romania ​are taking part in the construction of Palestine,  which is connected with the greatest sacrifices and physical exertion.”

– Ion G. Duca, Prime Minister of Romania. 1879 – 1933 AD

Die Botschaft Ducas an Sokolow. In: Wiener Morgenzeitung. Heft 2114 (8.1.1925) [Translated by C. Nooij]. 

"Has not the time arrived when the Jews, who have been so loyal to the conception of liberty, should have their own army?”

– Oliver Locker-Lampson, English/British Conservative MP and naval officer. 1880 – 1954 AD

UK Parliament (1944): Parliamentary Debates. House of Commons. Page 757. 

“Do you know wherein lies the actual danger? Not in the flooding of the land by Jewish immigration, by Jewish capital, by interference in the administration of the land. No! The opposite is the true danger! Namely, that the influential men of the Jewish faith, spread across the world, do not take sufficient interest in the Palestinian problem and that they leave it to its fate. For what Palestine needs is: capital, spirit of enterprise and sacrificial community spirit. If European representatives of Judaism devoted some effort to the colonization efforts in Palestine, it will be of endless benefit to not only the Jews there, but just as much for the Mohammedans and Christians as well. Thus, the ultimate decision as to the success of an extensive cultural, economic and civilizational reorganization of Palestine lies not with the Arabs, but solely and exclusively with the financial and moral support given to the Jews who are building there with the utmost diligence and organizational strength; that is, it lies in the hands of European Jewish capital.”

– Ethel Snowden née Annakin, English socialist and feminist politician. 1881 – 1951 AD

Jüdische Rundschau. Volume XXVIII. Heft 49 (19.6.1923). [Translated by C. Nooij]. 

“The Jews are not only a people, but a people endowed with a mystery which pertains to the very order of the redemption of mankind. The Jews form, analogically, a kind of Mystical Body. (…) The return of a portion of the Jewish people and its regroupment in the Holy Land: this is the reaccomplishment, under our eyes, of the divine promise which is without repentance. (…) To Israel is assigned (…) the work of the earthly leavening of the world. Israel is here (…) to irritate the world, to prod it, to move it. It teaches the world to be dissatisfied and restless so long as it has not God, so long as it has not justice on earth. [Israel’s] indestructible hope stimulates the life forces of history. (…) This Israel is to be found at the very heart of the world’s structure, stimulating it, exasperating it, moving it. Like an alien body, like an activating ferment injected into the mass, it gives the world no peace, it bars slumber, it teaches the world to be discontented and restless as long as the world has not God, it stimulates the movement of history.”

– Jacques Maritain, French philosopher. 1882 – 1973 AD

Maritain, J. (1970): On the Church of Christ.​ 

“The Jews have the duty to maintain the Jewish nationality. (…) So far as Jewish life goes, the national idea and religion are so closely interwoven that they are inseparable. We should not overlook the fact that in Judaism the religion was a natural development of the life of the nation and was not superimposed upon an already existing national culture as was the case with the Christian nations. An opportunity for the Jewish people to live a wholly Jewish life will be a tremendous thing for the world to observe and emulate. (...) The Jews have made the soil of Palestine arable, revived the Hebrew language and endeavoured to achieve success in every field, be it in agriculture, in industry, in commerce and all other areas. It is a worthy mission for every Jew to settle in Palestine. (…) Zionism must be realized, because the Jews should have a place in the world where they can live according to their culture and raise the Jewish children in a Jewish atmosphere. That is the mission of the world’s Jews, for the National Home is for all 15 million Jews and not for those few who are lucky enough to live in Palestine.”

​– Sir Wyndham Deedes, English/British officer and politician. 1883 – 1956 AD

Jüdische Rundschau (1924): Heft 60 (29.7.1924). Seite 434.​ [Translated by C. Nooij]. 

"The murder of six million Jews by Hitler’s Germany made the rescue of the survivors in an uncertain future (in which the same could repeat itself elsewhere) a necessity. (…) What has happened through the fault of Germany and the complicity of the great Western states, including America, the inevitable autonomy of the abandoned Jews threatened with death in the year 1948, now constitutes an obligation of the West as a whole. (…) Anyone who thinks in Western terms knows: Israel, according to tradition and reality, completely belongs to the Occident. The Jews and now their State of Israel, by virtue of a unique obligation, ought to be included in the alliance of Western self-assertion. An attack upon Israel ought to mean an attack on the Occident itself and entail the consequences of such an attack. (…) If Israel perishes, the Occident perishes – not on account of the loss of a minuscule position of power on earth and of several millions of people, but rather because of its ethical and political corruption. If the existence of mankind is questioned, the essence of humanity as a whole must be seized and respond in deed and thought."

​– Karl Jaspers, German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher. 1883 – 1969 AD

Jaspers, K. (1960): Freiheit und Wiedervereinigung. Seite 252. [Translated by C. Nooij]. 

“Hitler had been murdering Jews right and left. I saw it, and I dream about it even to this day. The Jews needed some place where they could go. It is my attitude that the American government couldn't stand idly by while the victims [of] Hitler's madness are not allowed to build new lives. (...) I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before ​it, not just as another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.” 

– Harry S. Truman, American President of the United States. 1884 – 1972 AD

Adler, J. (2013): Soulmates from the Pages of History. Page 329.​ 

“The Nipponese, having no racial prejudice, look with friendship toward the Jewish people and are ready to cooperate and maintain close business relations.”

– Kiichiro Higuchi, Japanese lieutenant general. 1888 – 1970 AD 

Tokayer, M. (1979): The Fugu Plan. The Untold Story of the Japanese and the Jews During World War II.

“To the Jews: in any one of you, Christ speaks more strongly than in Mark, Matthew,

​John and Luke. With the last of your sons, o Israel, in truth we will have buried Christ.”

– Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet. 1892 – 1941 AD

Tsvetaeva, M. (1916): To the Jews. 

(BEWARE: J.G. Strijdom was a leading advocate of apartheid and white supremacy)
“South Africa is a Christian country in the same way as Israel is a Jewish country. (…) We have relations of mutual friendship with Israel. We were the first country in the Commonwealth to accord full recognition to the State of Israel and we wish Israel well. I think that the establishment of an independent Jewish State must have had a tremendous effect for good. The unfortunate position in the past was that the Jew was a wanderer on the face of the earth. For others there was a Holland, an England, a France, etc. For the Jew there was no country that was his national home. I think that the establishment of the Jewish State has changed this and raised the status of the Jew both in his own estimation and vis-a-vis other races.”

– Johannes Strijdom, Prime Minister of South Africa (NP). 1892 – 1958 AD

JTA (1955): South African Premier Assures “full and Equal” Rights for Jews. February 9, 1955.

"​For a thousand years, Christian Europe has been trying to eradicate the Jewish people through unspeakable persecutions. The result was that all Jews who were weak-willed, unscrupulous, opportunistic, or sceptical were baptised, thereby escaping the torments of endless persecution. On the other hand, all Jews who were not skilful, clever and inventive enough to survive the struggle for existence in this most difficult form perished under these often difficult living conditions. So finally a small community emerged from all these persecutions, tempered by a heroically endured martyrdom for the idea and purified of all weak-willed and weak-minded elements. Instead of destroying the Jews, Europe reluctantly refined them through this artificial process of selection and educated them into a leading nation of the future. No wonder, then, that this people, who emerged from the prison of the ghetto, developed into a spiritual nobility of Europe. Thus, as the feudal nobility fell into decline, a benevolent providence bestowed upon Europe, through the emancipation of the Jews, a new noble race of spiritual grace."

​– Richard Graf von Coudenhove-Kalergi, Austrian politician and philosopher. 1894 – 1972 AD

Coudenhove-Kalergi, R.N. (1922): Practical Idealism. Page 55-56. [Translated by Curtis White]. 

“The Jew lends himself easily to Communism because it enables him to devote himself to

a high cause, involving all of humanity, characteristics which are natural to him as a Jew.”

– Edmund Wilson, American author. 1895 – 1972 AD

Gould, A. (1997): What did they think of the Jews?. Page 337. 

“[I hail] the vigor and courage of the people of Israel in creating and building a pilot system of free institutions in their part of the world. (…) [Israel’s people] have shown their devotion to freedom [and] must be given the wholehearted cooperation of all those who are willing to stand up and be counted in the fight for justice and democracy.”

– Carlos P. Romulo, Philippine general and Foreign Minister. 1899 – 1985 AD

JTA (1954): ILLINOIS CONFERENCE URGES INCREASED CONTRIBUTIONS TO U.J.A. March 16, 1954.

(BEWARE: MacDonald forbid migration to Palestine, condemning European Jews to death)

“If not a single Jew had come to Palestine after 1918, I believe that the Arab population of Palestine today [in 1938] would still have been around the 600,000 figure, at which it had been stable under Turkish rule. It is because the Jews who have come to Palestine bring modern health services and other advantages that Arab men and women would be dead are alive today, that Arab children who would never have drawn breath have been born and grow strong. It is not only the Jews who have benefited from the Balfour Declaration. They can deny it as much as they like, but materially the Arabs have benefited very greatly from the Balfour Declaration.”

– Malcolm MacDonald, Scottish/British Governor-General of Kenya and Minister of Health. 1901 – 1981 AD

UK Parliament (1938): Palestine. Debated on Thursday 24 November 1938. 

“Most of the present Arab countries were given their freedom after the 1914-18 War, or after the 1939-45 War. Yet to listen to Arab spokesmen one might think that they had been cheated… because they have not also got Israel. Israel is only .2 per cent of the land where Arab States have been established. Surely no fair-minded man can begrudge the Jews their own promised land when it is remembered that for every 2 acres that went to make up Israel, 1,000 acres became Arab.... Why is there an Arab refugee problem? The oil-rich countries have the money. There is no shortage of land, and the Israelis have the technical knowledge to show how it could be developed and made fertile. Bring those things together and the problem could be solved.”

​– Sir Robert Balfour, Scottish peer. 1902 – 1968 AD
Primary source lost; quotation preserved from earlier research. 

“When we entered into the new era which afforded us new hopes and new aspirations, we found ourselves faced with problems which could only be solved by new skills and new techniques, some of which we lacked. We therefore had to cast our eyes on the horizon, looking for help, and from Israel, timely help, in the form of technical assistance, came.”

​– William M.Q. Halm, Ghanaian Ambassador to the United States. 1902 – ??? AD
JTA (1961): New York Conference on Science Urges Arabs to Adapt Israel’s Achievements. October 17, 1961.

"We have followed with pride the great constructive work of the Jewish community in Palestine, for we know that a major part of this community consists of Jews who came from Poland and once were citizens of the Polish Republic. (...) We know that a large proportion of the Jewish people consider Palestine as their national home, where they wish to establish their own national life. In view of our own close historic association with the Jewish people, we cannot help sympathizing with these aspirations. (...) The reestablishment of a Jewish state more than two thousand years after its extinction is a fact of such historic import that it should receive worldwide attention. My delegation and my government welcome it, and are fully conscious of the great historic significance of the act."

– Oskar R. Lange, German-Polish economist and diplomat. 1904 – 1965 AD 

Future government of Palestine – GA debate – Verbatim record. Held in the General Assembly Hall at Flushing Meadow, New York, on Wednesday, 26 November 1947, at 3 p.m.

"Indeed it is difficult for all other nations of the world to live in the presence of Jews. It is irritating and most uncomfortable. The Jews embarrass the world as they have done things which are beyond the imaginable. (...) They violate the rules of history by staying alive, totally at odds of common sense, and historical evidence. They outlived all their former enemies, including vast empires such as the Romans and Greeks. They angered the world with their return to their homeland after 2000 years of exile and after the murder of six million of their brothers and sisters. They aggravated mankind by building, in the wink of an eye, a democratic State which others were not able to create in even hundreds of years. (...) They have had their hands in every progressive human endeavor, whether in science, medicine, psychology, or any other discipline, while totally out of proportions to their actual numbers. (...) So the nations of the world decided once again to go out of 'their way' in order to stick it to the Jews. The goal: to prove that Jews are as immoral and guilty of massacre and genocide as some of they themselves are. (...) All of this in order to hide and justify their own failure to even protest when six million Jews were brought to the slaughterhouse of Auschwitz and Dachau; so as to wipe out the moral consequences of which the Jews remind them, and they found a stick. (...) ​If there is any honor in all the world that I should like, it would be to be an honorary Jewish citizen."

– A.L Rowse, Cornish historian and author. 1903 – 1997 AD

Steinberg, D. (2008): Reflexions. Page 26-28. 

“I have always felt an affinity for Israel because of the spiritual parallels between her ideas of freedom and those of the African nation.”

– Léopold Sédar Senghor, President of Senegal. 1906 – 2001 AD

JTA (1971): African Presidents Favor Israel-egypt Dialogue; Senghor Compares Zionism to African Liberation Movement. November 5, 1971.

“My visit to Israel some six years ago left a deep impression on me. It was inspiring to see a modern nation springing out of the desert. It was impossible not to be stirred by the justifiable sense of achievement which permeated all the people. (...) Israel is wonderful. I was particularly impressed by the energetic labors of the Israeli people. They are turning stones into building materials. They are digging up the land, erecting cities, constructing roads, making gardens out of wilderness. You know, I love people who are brave. What the Israelis are doing is brave, wonderful, courageous.”

– U Nu, Prime Minister of Burma. 1907 – 1995 AD

‘Israeli premier feted’, The Nation (Burma), 7 Dec. 1961, p. 1.
Wrigh, R. (1997): Askar Akayev. In: Los Angeles Times. Sept. 7, 1997.

“(BEWARE: Tixier-Vignancour held a ministerial position within the collaborationist Vichy government)

The creation of Israel is truly the return of a dispersed people... nothing is more normal. (...) Never would the Jewish State have manifested the slightest act, the slightest sentiment of imperialism if, between 1948 and 1968, no shots had been fired on its frontiers."

– Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, French lawyer and politician. 1907 – 1989 AD

Wajsman, P. & Teissedre, R.F. (1969): Nos politiciens face au conflit israélo-arabe. Page 63-64. [Translated by C. Nooij].​ 

"I half expected that I would find Israelis paralyzed, as the French were in 1939, anticipating their destruction. Having got there, however, I quickly realized that although their mood has become extremely serious, the Israelis are in no panic. In fact what strikes one about Israel is how very much it is a going society: so active indeed that it gives one the impression of a country growing and thrusting upward. The forces which might intercept this growth are certainly present in the minds of the Israelis but practical concerns absorb them. (…) Israel is in fact as little as possible like France or any other European country, unless perhaps Great Britain, in 1939. For like Great Britain then, it combines the sense of an indestructible destiny with a readiness to meet whatever happens. (…) It might be asked whether the Israelis are wise in insisting so much on the horrors of the Holocaust. This is perhaps too much a modern version of the wailing wall. Yet I think they are right, for the simple reason that the state of Israel is founded as much on these modern ashes as on its Biblical past. The Holocaust is the negative pole of the positive energy which is the modern nation. It represents too the debt, in destroyed human lives, of the outside world to the Jewish state. And it represents the history that the state of Israel exists to prove will never be repeated."

– Stephen Spender, English poet, novelist and essayist. 1909 – 1995 AD

Spender, S. (1975): Among the Israelis. In: The New York Review. March 6, 1975 Issue.

"Both Jews and blacks respect and have a personal stake in the spread of democracy. Surrounded by the autocratic, despotic countries of the Middle East, Israel alone adheres to the democratic principles that are a precondition to freedom. Israel, as a progressive and democratic nation, is the ultimate reflection of traditions which run throughout Jewish history and culture. Wherever Jews are, they stand firm for the extension of human rights for all. (...) Six million Jews were annihilated during World War II for no other reason than they were Jews. And yet this painful, tragic lesson has not been sufficient to convince mankind of the stupidity of racial and religious hatred. Today anti-Semitism persists in the hearts of many men and many countries, awaiting the opportunity to rise to the surface disguised as anti-Zionism. Blacks well understand that where anti-Semitism exists, racial prejudice ultimately follows. Those who have historically felt hatred, contempt and superiority towards Jews, have looked on Negroes with hatred, contempt and superiority."

– Bayard Rustin, African-American activist. 1912 – 1987 AD

Rustin, B. (1973): The Importance of Israel's Survival. In: The Miami Times. (1973-10-26) 

“[Singapore must] learn a lot from the spirit which has turned the small State of Israel from a desert into a garden.”

– Francis Thomas, Anglo-Singaporean Minister of Communications and Works. 1912 – 1977 AD

BiblioAsia (2013): Oriental, Utai, Mexican: The Story of the Singapore Jewish Community. 1 April 2013.

"We have often made commitments that we consider Israel a necessary state in the Middle East, both as to integrity of territory and its existence. (...) The United States (…) has been proud of its association with the State of Israel. We shall continue to stand with Israel. We are committed to Israel's survival and security. The United States for a quarter of a century has had an excellent relationship with the State of Israel. Americans and Israelis have both been inspired by moral aims. Indeed, my commitment to the security and to the future of Israel is based upon basic morality as well as enlightened self-interest. Our role in supporting Israel honors our own heritage."

– Gerald Ford, President of the United States. 1913 – 2006 AD

Time (1975): The Nation: Gerald Ford: They Will See Something Is Being Done. January 20 1975.

Ford, G. Remarks of Welcome to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. September 10, 1974. In: United States President (1974): Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Page 113. 

“Israel’s name refers in due time to the sons of Isaac, his offspring, a people, a kingdom, a modern republic, a collective being, a moral person, the Jewish soul, trembling, stubborn, sorrowful, invincible, which was the first interlocutor of God on this earth, it is four thousand years old and has, since then, found no one to converse with. (…) You, the insoluble nation, cross the world’s history without merging with it, just as the Rhone passes through Lake Geneva without their waters mingling: it enters from the east, and it is reborn in the west without losing its name along the way; storms have not dispersed it, the liquid mass hasn’t stopped its course; as such, the river-swimmer jumping into the lake remains, as it is, unchanged, when he left; and same for you, Israel, you do not change.”

– André Frossard, French journalist and essayist. 1915 – 1995 AD

Frossard, A. (2014): Ecoute Israël. [Translated by C. Nooij]. 

“Every spiritual blessing I’ve ever enjoyed I owe to one people, the Jewish people: without them, no patriarchs, no apostles, no Bible and no Saviour. (...)The nations who show mercy to the Jews will receive mercy from God; the nations who deny mercy to the Jews will be denied mercy from God. (...) For example, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Spain was the dominant nation of Europe, with a high level of culture, a powerful army and navy, and an empire that spanned both hemispheres. But within a century of expelling all Jews from her territories, Spain declined to a struggling, second-rate power. (...) Britain emerged victorious from two World Wars, retaining intact an empire that was perhaps the most extensive in human history. But in 1947–8, as the mandatory power over Palestine, Britain opposed and attempted to thwart the rebirth of Israel as a sovereign nation with her own state. (...) Today, less than a generation later, Britain—like Spain—is a struggling, second-rate power.”

– Derek Prince, Anglo-Indian Bible teacher. 1915 – 2003 AD

Mitchell, C. (2013): Dateline Jerusalem. Page 114.​

Prince, D. (2013): The Key to the Middle East. 

“The truth is that the Jews participated and sacrificed their lives in many revolutions for human freedom. They took part in the American Revolution, in the French Revolution, and to a large extent in the Russian Revolution. Let us now have the courage to say and acknowledge that they were betrayed by almost all revolutions, which were unable or did not wish to solve the Jewish problem, which represents the age-old suffering of an entire people. That is why they listened to the voice of their prophets who preached the return to Zion. That is why they rebuilt their State on the lands of Israel – lands which, were they able to speak, would not do so in the Roman, Arabic, Turkish or English language, but in the age-old Hebrew tongue.”

– Benjamin Nuñez Vargas, Costa Rican Minister of Labor and Social Security. 1915 – 1994 AD

United Nations GENERAL ASSEMBLY THIRTIETH SESSION. Monday, IO November 1975, at 3.50 p.m. Page 778.