Partial transcripts of a March 26, 1989 interview with Dr. Israel Eldad on IDF Radio.
Asked if he had created the concept of "Transfer" Dr. Eldad replied:
"This is a great honor that I do not deserve. The idea [was created by]greater men before me. If someone was to tell me that the idea/solution was my brainchild, I would want to receive for that the Noble Prize or at least the Israel Prize, because this idea is a great idea! … This is the most humane and acceptable solution. And also the most efficient one… this idea was put forward by Berl Katznelson and Arthur Ruppin, respectable, liberal and democratic Zionists. Here we are not talking about their expulsion to some other state, but their transfer to a state of their brothers, to Arabs, to 22 Arab states… We must help (in carrying out) this thing. Otherwise there will be a catastrophe here, a terrible war for all sides.
I very much loved the statement of Golda Meir regarding the Palestinians: There is not such a people.
It was not as though there was a Palestinian People in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian People and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.
Anyway the refugees are displaced. If the refugee resides in Balata or Dehayshe (two refugee camps in Judea/Samaria) or any other camp, let us suppose that there are not many among us who would agree to this return to Jaffa or Acre. Kibbutz Ma’abarot would not return, G-d forbid, the land to the Arabs who had lived there before and now are in Sabra and Shatila. And our notables at University Ramat Aviv (Tel Aviv University) which is situated on the site of Shaykh Muannis village would not, in their goodness, and much humanitarianism, give up the university and return it to the refugees in Sabra and Shatila."
[Eldad added that although he did not suggest the implementation of “transfer” by force, such forcible methods would be sanctioned “during wartime as in 1948”.]
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