Opinion: Mearsheimer's favorite Ben-Gurion quote doesn't say what he claims

Economist Walter E. Block argues in a Washington Examiner op-ed that University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer, a fierce critic of Israel, builds his case against the Jewish state on quotes he twists.

Block's main example is a line Mearsheimer attributes to David Ben-Gurion: "We have stolen their country." According to Nahum Goldmann's book The Jewish Paradox, Block writes, Ben-Gurion actually said: "Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. ... They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?"

Block's point is that Israel's first prime minister was describing how Arab leaders saw things, not agreeing with them. He also says Mearsheimer reads Ze'ev Jabotinsky's expectation that the Arabs would resist as proof that Jabotinsky thought they were in the right, which, Block writes, does not follow.

Block goes on to argue that the Jewish people's ties to the land go back thousands of years, and that Zionists came back to reclaim what was theirs rather than to steal it.