For example the founder of Political Zionism, Theodor Herzl wrote in his diary in 1895,

Israel Zangwill, another important political Zionist said in a talk in 1905, “(We) must be prepared either to drive out by the sword the (Arab) Tribes in possession as our forefathers did or to grapple with the problem of a large alien population, mostly Mohammedan and accustomed for centuries to despise us.”

Around 1928, Shabtai Levi, a land purchasing agent for Baron de Rothschild wrote in his memoirs, “He (the Baron) advised me to carry on in similar activities, but it is better, he said, not to transfer the Arabs to Syria and Transjordan, as these are part of the Land of Israel, but to Mesopotamia (Iraq), He added that in these cases he would be ready to send the Arabs, at his expense, new agricultural machines, and agricultural advisers.”

Around 1930, Zionist Socialist (Mapai) leader, David Hacohen wrote, “… I would not accept Arabs in my trade union, the Histadrut; to defend preaching to housewives that they not buy at Arab stores; to prevent Arab workers from getting jobs there… To pour kerosene on Arab tomatoes, to attack Jewish housewives in the markets and smash the Arab eggs they had bought; to praise to the skies the Keren Kayemet that sent Hankin to Beirut to buy land from absentee effendi (landowners) and to throw the fellahin (peasant farmers) off the land – to buy dozens of dunams – from an Arab is permitted, but sell, God forbid, one Jewish dunam to an Arab is prohibited.”

Menahem Ussishkin, chairman of the Jewish National Fund, and member of the executive of the Jewish Agency, said in a 1930 speech to journalists, “We must continually raise the demand that our land be returned to our possession … if there are other inhabitants there, they must be transferred to some other place.  We must take over the land.  We have a greater and nobler ideal than preserving several hundred thousands of Arab fellahin.”.

In 1936, Maurice Hexter, with the Jewish Agency Executive, summarized the transfer goals of the Jewish Agency as “the herding together of the existing Arab villages and their concentration in order to evacuate their territories for Jewish colonization…. Force the people to exchange land and move from one place to another… our intention is that the Jewish settlements will be only for Jews.”.

Around 1936, David Ben-Gurion (the father of the State of Israel), wrote “It was permissible to move an Arab from the Galilee to Judea, why is it impossible to move an Arab from Hebron to Transjordan, which is much closer?  There are vast expanses of land there and we are overcrowded… Even the High Commissioner agrees to a transfer to Transjordan if we equip the peasants with land and money.”.

Then in 1937, in a letter to his son, Ben-Gurion wrote, “We must expel Arabs and take their places… and, if we have to use force – not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places – then we have force at our disposal.”.

Around 1937, Simha Flapan, head of Zionist Socialist (Mapam) Party Arab Dept. said of Zionist planning in Palestine,  “…schemes for transfer cropped up repeatedly in Zionist deliberations on Arab opposition in Palestine.  These plans were suggested as feelers in negotiations with the British, though there was no mention of them in public announcements.”

In June of 1938, Moshe Shertok, head of the Jewish Agency Political Dept., said, “The (Royal Peel) Commission does not only not see something fundamentally wrong in removing people who have lived here for many generations; but it says to the Arabs that if there is a need to move out – they should move out – It points out that after the population transfer between Greece and Turkey, good relations once again prevailed between the two countries.”.

In a speech in July, 1938, Ben-Gurion said, “In the proposal of transferring the Arab population from the area, if it is possible voluntarily and if not by coercion, it would be possible to expand the Jewish settlement…The basic difference with the Commission proposal is that the transfer will be on a much larger scale, from the Jewish to the Arab territory;.  If it were possible to transfer Arabs from one village to another within the British Mandate – it is difficult to find any political or moral argument against the transfer of these Arabs from the proposed Jewish–ruled area…. And is there any need to explain the value in a continuous Jewish Yishuv…”.

Also in July, 1938, Yosef Bankover, founding member of the Kibbutz Hameuhad movement and member of the Haganah Regional Command, said, “…as for compulsory transfer, as a member of Kibbutz Ramat Hakovesh, I would be very pleased if it would be possible to be rid of the pleasant neighbourliness of the people of Miski, Tirah and Qalqilyah.”.

Another leader of the Kibbutz Hameuhad movement, Aharon Zisling said, “I do not contest our moral right to propose population transfer.  There is no moral flaw in a proposal aimed at concentrating the development of national life.  On the contrary: in a new world order it can and should be a noble human vision…”.

Then in August, 1938, Berl Katznelson, a labor leader, wrote, “The matter of population transfer has provoked a debate among us:  Is it permitted or forbidden?  My conscience is absolutely clear in this respect.  A remote neighbour is better than a close enemy.  They will not lose from being transferred and we most certainly will not lose from it…. But it never crossed my mind that transfer to outside the Land of Israel would mean merely to the vicinity of Nablus, I have always believed and still believe that they were destined to be transferred to Syria or Iraq.”.

In 1938, Golda Meyerson, leader of the Histadrut (Hebrew Trade Union), said, “.I, too, would want the Arabs out of the country, and my conscience would be absolutely clear.  But is there a possibility of its implementation without Arab consent and British assistance?”.

Also around the same time, Berl Locker, one of the founding members of Po’ale Tzion, said, “I do not raise any moral objections.  If suitable land will be ensured for the Arab transferees, no injustice will have been done to them… however, the question is whether it is possible to uproot and re-plant tens of thousands of peasant families against their will.”.

Yosef Weitz, director of the Land Dept. of the Jewish National Fund, and founding member of the Population Transfer Committee of the Jewish Agency, said in 1938, “the transfer of the Arab population from the area of the Jewish State does not serve only one aim - to diminish the Arab population, it also serves a second, no less important aim which is to evacuate land presently held and cultivated by the Arabs and thus to release it for the Jewish inhabitants.”.
 
Vladimir Jabotinsky, the father of the Revisionist Zionism movement, wrote in 1939, “There is no choice: the Arabs must make room for the Jews in Eretz Israel.  If it was possible to transfer the Baltic peoples, it is also possible to move the Palestinian Arabs (to Iraq and Saudi Arabia).”

In 1941, Ben-Gurion wrote, “…the land of Israel is only a small part of the territories inhabited by Arabs, and the Arabs of the Land of Israel are only a negligible group among the Arabic-speaking peoples. (But) it is impossible to imagine general evacuation without compulsion, and brutal compulsion.  There are of course sections of the non-Jewish population of the Land of Israel which will not resist transfer under adequate conditions… but it would be very difficult to bring about the resettlement of other sections of the Arab populations such as the fellahin and also urban populations (to) neighbouring Arab countries by transferring them voluntarily, whatever economic inducements are offered to them.”

In 1943, Eliahu Ben-Horin, editor of a Zionist newspaper and member of the revisionist Zionist movement, wrote, “I suggest that the Arabs of Palestine and Transjordania be transferred to Iraq, or a united Iraq-Syrian state.  That means the shifting of about 1,200,00 pesons.  (Thus) the Palestinian Arabs will not be removed to a foreign land but to an Arab land…”.

In May, 1944, at a meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive, Ben-Gurion said, “Zionism is a transfer of the Jews.  Regarding the transfer of the Arabs this is much easier than any other transfer.  There are Arab states in the vicinity… and it is clear that if the Arabs are removed (to these states) this will improve their condition and not the contrary.”.

Once fighting began in 1948, realization of transfer planning became clear.

Ben-Gurion told the Mapai Party Council, “The war will give us the land.  The concepts of ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’ are peace concepts, only, and in war they lose their whole meaning.”.

In 1948, Aharon Cohen, head of the Arab Dept. wrote to Political Committee of the United Workers’ Party (Mapam), “There is reason to believe that what is being done… is being done out of certain political objectives and not only out of military necessities, as they claim sometimes.  In fact, the ‘transfer’ of the Arabs from the boundaries of the Jewish State is being implemented… the evacuation/clearing out of Arab villages is not always done out of military necessity.  The complete destruction of villages is not always done only because there are no sufficient forces to maintain a garrison (there).”.

Thus in 1948, Yosef Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency Population Transfer Committee, met with military and intelligence officers, and said, “…must direct our war towards the removal of as many Arabs as possible from the boundaries of our state.  The guarding of their property after their removal is a secondary question.”