"In our state there will be non-Jews as well — and all of them will be equal citizens; equal in everything without any exception; that is: the state will be their state as well. ...The attitude of the Jewish State to its Arab citizens will be an important factor—though not the only one—in building good neighbourly relations with the Arab States. If the Arab citizen will feel at home in our state, and if his status will not be the least different from that of the Jew, and perhaps better than the status of the Arab in an Arab state, and if the state will help him in a truthful and dedicated way to reach the economic, social, and cultural level of the Jewish community, then Arab distrust will accordingly subside and a bridge to a Semitic, Jewish-Arab alliance, will be built..."
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Ba-Ma'Araha Vol IV, Part 2, pp. 260, 265, quoted in Fabricating Israeli History, Efraim Karsh, p.67 (1947)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion
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David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion (16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the first Prime Minister of Israel. He was an active Zionist campaigner before the establishment of the Jewish state, and played an instrumental role in Israel when the British Mandate in Palestine ended. He carried Israel through the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and led the country in its first years of existence, not leaving office for the last time until 1963.
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