Moshe Dayan Quotes

What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.

Our American friends offer us money, arms, and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice.

Before (the Palestinians) very eyes we are possessing the land and the villages where they and their ancestors have lived We are the generation of colonizers and without the steel helmet and the gun barrel we cannot plant a tree and build a house.

Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist; not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahalal arose in the place of Mahalul, Gevat - in the place of Jibta, Sarid - in the place of Haneifs and Kefar Yehoshua - in the place of Tell Shaman. There is no one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.

We have no solution... You [Palestinians] shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process leads.

Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.

The method of collective punishment so far has proved effective.

We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state; instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You even do not know the names of those villages, and I do not blame you because these villages no longer exist. There is not a single Jewish settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab Village.

Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.

It is not in our hands to prevent the murder of workers… and families… but it is in our hands to fix a high price for our blood, so high that the Arab community and the Arab military forces will not be willing to pay it.

I am not supposed to be an expert in every field. I am supposed to be an expert in picking experts.

There is no more Palestine. Finished...

To aim and hit, you need one eye only, and one good finger.

Israel cannot afford to stand against the entire world and be denounced as the aggressor.

I know of nothing more exciting than war.

We could not guard every water pipeline from being blown up and every tree from being uprooted. We could not prevent every murder of a worker in an orchard or a family in their beds. But it was in our power to set high price for our blood, a price too high for the Arab community, the Arab army, or the Arab governments to think it worth paying... It was in our power to cause the Arab governments to renounce 'the policy of strength' toward Israel by turning it into a demonstration of weakness.

Take the American declaration of Independence. It contains no mention of territorial limits. We are not obliged to fix the limits of the State.

I have only one eye. Do you want me to look at the road or the at the speedometer.

Most important, don't do anything you don't want.

We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house.

Let us not be afraid to see the hatred that consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who sit around us and wait for the moment when their hands will be able to reach our blood.

Without [the settlements] the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) [Israeli Defense Force] would be a foreign army ruling a foreign population.

During the last 100 years our people have been in a process of building up the country and the nation, of expansion, of getting additional Jews and additional settlements in order to expand the borders here. Let no Jew say that the process has ended. Let no Jew say that we are near the end of the road.

There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.

Soldiers of Israel, we have no aims of conquest. Our purpose is to bring to naught the attempts of the Arab armies to conquer our land.