It is another one of those “quotes” that is a favorite of the Jew-haters* – former Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir supposedly saying ““The Palestinians” would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.”
This one is rather easy to disprove, considering they give a source for the supposed quote, the April 1st edition of the New York Times.
Here is the exact quote and its context:
As Israel prepared to lift a three-day blockade of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir warned today that rioters would be crushed ”like grasshoppers.”
One Palestinian was killed today, bringing the toll to at least 112 in clashes with Israelis in the occupied territories since Dec. 9.
Villagers identified the victim as Suleiman Ahmed al-Jundi, 17 years old, and said he was shot by troops during clashes in Yatta, south of Hebron. Military personnel said he was killed when an army patrol was attacked.
The clandestine leadership of the Palestinian uprising called for a general strike and clashes with Israeli soldiers next week to protest a visit by Secretary of State George P. Shultz.
But Mr. Shamir, standing atop an ancient West Bank castle, told reporters: ”Anybody who wants to damage this fortress and other fortresses we are establishing will have his head smashed against the boulders and walls.”
In an exception to the restrictions on news coverage in the occupied territories, reporters were taken by bus to the inauguration of an Israeli tourism site at the fortress near Bethlehem built by Herod the Great in the time of Jesus.
In remarks aimed at Arab rioters, the Prime Minister said: ”We say to them from the heights of this mountain and from the perspective of thousands of years of history that they are like grasshoppers compared to us.”
PM Shamir’s comments, while very forceful, were clearly directed at rioters in the act of damaging Jewish sites, not all “palestinians.”
Note how even the New York Times misleads. While the lede claims that PM Shamir warned that rioters would be crushed ”like grasshoppers,” he did not even say this. He said they would have their heads smashed and then separately said they are “like grasshoppers compared to us”, given our thousands of years of history.
*including Ariyana Love, in her latest libelous blog post
