''The cultivated land is probably 1 million dunam. According to international law, we cannot sell anything, so maybe we should buy from those Arabs who do not w

''The cultivated land is probably 1 million dunam. According to international law, we cannot sell anything, so maybe we should buy from those Arabs who do not want to come back.... All we need is 400 tractors, each tractor can cultivate 3000 dunam - cultivating not just for the purpose of procuring food but in order to prevent anyone from returning to their lands. Land of lesser quality should be sold to private or public sectors....At least, let us say that this confiscation is an exchange for the property the Jews from the Arab world lost when they immigrated to Palestine." --Bechor Shitrit, head of the settlement department of the Jewish National Fund, Ben-Gurion's Diary, 18 August 1948.