Ben-Gurion in 1951: Only Death Penalty Will Deter Jews From Gratuitous Killing of Arabs

‘Until a Jewish soldier is hanged for murdering Arabs, these acts of murder won’t end,’ Israel’s first prime minister told his stunned cabinet 66 years ago, when Jewish murders of Arabs had become all too common.

“In general, those who have guns use them,” Ben-Gurion asserted, adding that some Israelis “think Jews are people but Arabs aren’t, so you can do anything to them. And some think it’s a mitzvah to kill Arabs, and that everything the government says against murdering Arabs isn’t serious, that it’s just a pretense that killing Arabs is forbidden, but in fact, it’s a blessing because there will be fewer Arabs here. As long as they think that, the murders won’t stop.”