Chaim Weizmann

Chaim Weizmann in 1949

Chaim Azriel Weizmann (27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Zionist leader and Israeli statesman who served as President of the Zionist Organization and later as the first President of Israel. He was elected on 16 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952. Weizmann convinced the United States government to recognize the newly formed state of Israel.

Quotes

• [I]t is not true–no, it is not true–that we have uprooted the Arabs.We have not uprooted them; we have shown them the way to a better life,and we shall continue to do this until they understand that we have a common interest in reviving the Middle East, and that this task can be achieved only on the basis of a strong Jewish Palestine.
  • Lustick, Ian S. (2016). "Zionist Theories of Peace in the Pre-state Era Legacies of Dissimulation and Israel’s Arab Minority". in Rouhana, Nadim N.. Israel and its Palestinian Citizens: Ethnic Privileges in the Jewish State. Cambridge University Press. p. 53. doi:10.1017/cbo9781107045316. ISBN 9781107045316. , Weizmann’s address to the 19th Zionist Congress in Lucerne,Switzerland, August 27, 1935, in ibid.:81

• There is no official anti-Semitism in Russia; anti-Semitism in Russia is a crime against the State.
  • The Jewish People and Palestine. London: Zionist Organization, 1939. p. 7