Because an incredibly disheartening number of people think this "war" which is actually a once-sided year-long (so far) genocide is justifiable by talking about the past. They've absorbed outright lies about various points in the history so deeply that it's very hard to show them the truth. And words from the mouths of the people who literally did these things were the best way I could think of to force them to acknowledge the truth (of course, as my comments show, it still isn't enough).

Because, as I've actually done my research, I'm aware that early Zionists were, at the very least, honest about what they were doing. Honest in a way that today's Zionists can't bring themselves to be, because they know better than to think settler-colonialism is okay.

Lastly, sorry, I'm done with the whole “X source is antisemitic” canard. If I listened to every person who told me that a source that criticised Israel was antisemitic I literally wouldn't be able to say anything except, “Israel was completely empty when the Zionists arrived and God came down on a shimmering cloud and personally handed Ben-Gurion the deed to the land.”

The UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’TSelem, Save The Children, Oxfam, even Haaretz, all of them and more are “antisemitic” according to some people I’ve spoken to. Because the disingenuous accusation of antisemitism is all these people have to defend the indefensible.

Again, that's why I directly quoted Zionist leaders, to do away with this inevitable "critique."