Sorry if this has been asked and answered… a search through GQ and GD didn’t turn anything up.
The following quote was posted on another message board:
It’s obviously slightly inflammatory.
I googled a few of the phrases, and the handful of sites that turned up were more than a little biased toward the Palestinian cause. Nothing reputable has turned up at all.
A little help?
Danke.
I am his greatest critic, and I wouldn’t accept that quote as valid unless I had several unbiased (as much as that is possible) sources quoting him saying that. It is certainly inflammatory, and without confirmation, I wouldn’t quote that to anybody.
Also, one must take into consideration that it might’ve been translated, and that the translation might not have been accurate.
I’m not certain that there is a source where you could verify that as a quote or not.
Your claim that the sites are “a little biased” is a little understated.
Googling on Ouze Merham, and variations, reveals nothing but the same sort of sites. I’d expect that if this Ouze guy were an Israeli general back in the 50’s he would show up somewhere other than in the context of the above “quotation.”
I THINK this is a fake. ALL web hits containing “General” and “Merham” come up with this quote. And none I could find a date on was more than 6 months old. If this were a real quote from the time, I think we would have been hearing about a long time ago.
So – this seems like an obvious fake. Besides that its just to preposterous to believe:
The quote presumably is a translation from Hebrew. But, its a very poor translation.
“if I was” should be subjunctive “if I were”; “I’ve killed” should be “I killed”; “Arabic girls” should be “Arab girls”; tenses are mixed up with “I wanted”, “we do”, “we shall do” all in one sentence.
It looks more like something someone who didn’t speak English well forged, rather than something a professional translater translated from Hebrew to English.
Notice that they refer to Palestinians many times, but the closest Hebrew word (transliterated Palestini) refered to both Jews and Arabs from Palestine up until the mid 60’s, when the Arab Palestinians began identifying as a people and the words general meaning was changed. In 1956, Sharon would have called them Arabs.
Notice that the word “that” is in parenthese. Why? Did Sharon leave the Hebrew word for “that” out of the sentence, and the translator was being very literal (here but not in the rest of the translation), or are was a forger trying to make the text sound more like a quote, but forgetting that its supposed to be a translated quote.
Figured as much. Thanks, folks. Now my only problem is convincing the guy who posted this that it’s fake. Sigh…
The irony of all this is that when Israel finds documents linking Arafat’s Palestinan Authority (finance dept.) to funding of terrorists, the Arabs leaders all repeat their mantra that Israel has forged all these documents.
We saw the same pattern during the Karine A affair – when the Israeli navy stopped a shipload of rockets, and heavy arms from reaching Gaza. Arafat and the Arab leaders all Israel was trying to frame them. (The only thing missing was a press conference with Johnny Cochrane.)
And isn’t it interesting that there is no newspaper or magazine refrenced in the Sharon quotation. There is nothing that an independent person could, in theory, check out for themselves.
Since we’re on the topic of middle-east quotations, consider a few of the following by Israel’s Arab neighbors (all are referenced!):
…
June 7, 2000
The Iranian Government reissues The Protocols of the Elders of Zion includes the following introduction:
The liberation of Al-Quds [Jerusalem] and Palestine was one among the many decisive slogans that originated from the Islamic Revolution of Iran. Imam Khomeini, the exalted Leader of the Islamic Revolution, has repeatedly pointed out to the world Muslims how dangerous this Satanic enemy could be… Moreover, it should be strongly emphasized that as long as the root of this deadly, cancerous tumor, Zionism, is not burned and wholly destroyed, peace and tranquillity will never prevail in the region…
MEMRI (Middle East Research Institute) translation
Source: http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/Publications.asp?did=469&pid=1109
…
June 23, 2000
Anti-Semitism reappears in the Egyptian press.
The Jews share boundless hatred of the gentiles; they kill women and children and sow destruction.
Dr. Mustafa Mahmud, in the official Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram
Source: http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/Publications.asp?did=469&pid=1109
…
October 13, 2000
Virulent anti-Jewish hate-speech airs on Palestinian television.
Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them.
Dr. Ahmed Abu Halabiya, in a sermon on the Palestinian Authority national TV station, MEMRI translation, October 14, 2000
Source: http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/Publications.asp?did=469&pid=1109
…
December 7, 2000
The Palestinian Authority acknowledges that the intifada was planned.
The intifada was been planned immediately following the failed peace talks.… from the information we received from Yasir Arafat himself, Fatah understood that the next step must be a violent confrontation.
Fatah member Sakher Habash, in an interview with the Palestinian Authority newspaper, Hayat Al Jadida
Source: http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/Publications.asp?did=469&pid=1109
…
March 2, 2001
The PA takes pride in having instigated Palestinian violence after Camp David II.
It [violent Palestinian resistance against Israel] had been planned since Chairman Arafat’s return from Camp David, when he turned the tables in the face of the former U.S. president and rejected the American conditions.
Imad Faluji, PA communications minister, in a speech at a Lebanese refugee camp, as reported in the Associated Press, March 2, 2001
Source: http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/Publications.asp?did=469&pid=1110
…
April 18, 2001
Egyptian government-sponsored newspaper voices extreme anti-Jewish sentiments.
Thanks to Hitler, of blessed memory, who on behalf of the Palestinians, revenged in advance, against the most vile criminals on the face of the earth. Although we do have a complaint against him for his revenge on them was not enough.
Ahmad Ragab, writing in his daily column in Al-Akhbar, an Egyptian government-sponsored newspaper, MEMRI translation, April 20, 2001
[Several months later, Ragab was awarded the Egyptian Press Syndicate’s highest prize for journalistic excellence.]
Source: http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/Publications.asp?did=469&pid=1110
…
May 6, 2001
Syrian government voices extreme anti-Jewish sentiments.
If every Arab kills one Jew, there will be no Jews left at all.… I would like to stand and kill a Jew standing opposite me."
The Syrian Minister of Defense, speaking in a television address on the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation
Source: http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/Publications.asp?did=469&pid=1110
I think the current violence cannot be understood without an appreciation of the intensity of hostility toward Israel and all things Jewish by its Arab neighbors. These quotes (and ironically the hoax quote supposedly from Sharon) make that pretty clear.