alt Hacker NewsBen-Gurion famously preached coexistence publicly (sometimes) but his private messages and memoirs betray his true beliefs:
5 October 1937, Ben-Gurion wrote in a letter to his 16 year old son Amos: “We must expel the 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.”
“It is very possible that the Arabs of the neighboring countries will come to their aid against us. But our strength will exceed theirs. Not only because we will be better organized and equipped, but because behind us there stands a still larger force, superior in quantity and quality …the whole younger generation of Jews from Europe and America.” Ben-Gurion, Zichronot [Memoirs], Vol. 4, p.297-299, p. 330-331. See also Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, p. 182-189
https://www.progressiveisrael.org/ben-gurions-notorious-quot...
And that's the difference between 1937 and the 1920s. In between the Palestinians had committed the 1929 and 1936 massacres which included ethnic cleansing of Jewish communities which predated Arab presence, such as the Jews of Gaza.
Interesting to know that your quote is disputed in the original text, as to say the exact opposite.