These early Zionist writers (1881–1904) consistently argued that Jews should colonialize Palestine not through immediate military conquest—which they considered themselves too weak to attempt at those years—but by quietly and sneakilly purchasing land from Arab owners using money and capital, preferably through a secret society or company that would buy every available plot without public committees, and noise, like theives in the dark. They viewed the existing natives as weak, so that if Jews proceeded with cunning and avoided arousing enmity until they themselves became the majority, they could eventually become masters of the land and then brutalize the indeginous population as we can see happening right now and as it happened in 1948 and since; some even contemplated later transferring poorer residents across the border (as happened with the Nakba) or, if necessary, declaring sovereignty by force (which happened in May 1948) once numbers and holdings were sufficient. The overall approach was desgized as “cultural colonization” rather than a brutal and merciless secret war of inahilation, as history shows.
Here are teh "pearls" of those early Zionist:
**Association of the Founders of the Yishuv in Jerusalem, 1881**
“And also do not fear the Arabs and do not be afraid… They will bow down to the ground and be faithful servants to us… When we hold in our hands the weapon that our fathers used in all the lands of our exile from the day of our exile from our land, and with which our father Jacob also defeated Esau — and the tribute shall pass before him…”
**Yehuda Michel Pines, 1882**
“To conquer the land of our fathers before us not by force of arms and not by the power of weapons and war, but in a spirit of loyalty to the government of the land and by the power of money.”
**Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, 1882**
“To conquer the land before us little by little and in secret. Every plot of land that we take out of the hand of a non-Jew… will bring us a little closer to our goal… But all this we can do only in secret, stealthily… We will not form committees that all the Arabs will know what our desires are, but we will be secret spies; we will buy and buy and buy.”
**Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and Yehuda Michel Pines, 1882**
“There now live in it only about five hundred thousand Arabs whose strength is not great, and from whom we will easily succeed in taking the land out of their hands, and if only we do the thing with counsel and cunning so as not to draw their enmity upon us before we become the many and the strong… There will be one secret society, whose nature and purpose the Arabs will not know, which will have the power to buy land at any time and in any place… For only in this way will we be the masters of the land, if the greater part of its land is in our hands.”
**Menachem Ussishkin, 1904**
“It is necessary first and foremost that all the land of Palestine, or at least the greater part of it, be in Jewish ownership. But how can one acquire the land of any country? In one of three ways: by conquest, that is, taking the property from its owners by force; by forced purchase… or by voluntary purchase… It is self-evident that we are too weak to use the first method.”
**Ze’ev Dubnov, 1882**
“To take control over time of the Land of Israel… to strive that all the land and all production be in the hands of the Jews… Then that wonderful day will arrive… The Jews will yet arise, and with weapons in hand (if necessary) they will declare themselves in a loud voice the masters of their ancient homeland.”
**Ze’ev Dubnov, 1883**
“The Jews must acquire land gradually from the Arabs, and then the day is near… Only money is needed, great capital, millions.”
**Ahad Ha’am, 1891**
“They should have founded a large national company for the settlement of the Land of Israel… It will strive to buy every estate that is for sale… without noise and commotion… In such a method… they would not at first arouse any hatred from the people of the land… And even if in the course of time jealousy might lead to hatred… by then our brothers will already be able to hold their ground in the land by their large numbers.”
**Theodor Herzl, 1895**
“The private property in the areas that will be allocated to us we shall have to expropriate gently. The poor population we shall try to transfer across the border without attracting attention… The act of expropriation, as well as the transfer of the poor, must be carried out gently and carefully. The landowners should think that they are cheating us and selling to us at an inflated price; but nothing will be sold back to them.”
**Max Mandelstamm, 1897**
“The war for which we are preparing is very simple and not at all dangerous; we are close to moderate work, work in which there is no bloodshed — only cultural colonization.”
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