These quotations from Einstein on Israel and Zionism were compiled by Rick Sterling.
In 1929, Einstein wrote: “The first and most important necessity is the creation of a modus vivendi with the Arab people.… We Jews must show above all that our own history of suffering has given us sufficient understanding and psychological insight to know how to cope with this problem…. Let us therefore above all, be on our guard against blind chauvinism of any kind, and let us not imagine that reason and common sense can be replaced by British bayonets.… We must not forget for a single moment that our national task is, in its essence, a supra-national matter, and that the strength of our whole movement rests in its moral justification, with which it must stand or fall.”
While Einstein was in favor of Zionism, in the sense of Jews moving to Palestine, in 1946 he wrote, “I am firmly convinced that a rigid demand for a ‘Jewish state’ will have only undesirable results for us.”
On another occasion, he stated: “Only direct cooperation with the Arabs can create a dignified and safe life. If the Jews don’t comprehend this, the whole Jewish position in the complex of Arab countries will become, step by step, untenable. What saddens me is less the fact that the Jews are not smart enough to understand this, but rather that they are not just enough to want it.”
