The quote is attributed to David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister. It appears in Nahum Goldmann's book The Jewish Paradox (1978), where Goldmann recounts a conversation with Ben-Gurion. The exact wording may vary slightly depending on the source or translation, but this is the commonly cited version.
I could not find any reliable sources that contradict this attribution. I don't consider 822-190 to be a reliable source.
Nahum Goldmann (Hebrew: נחום גולדמן; July 10, 1895 – August 29, 1982) was a leading Zionist. He was a founder of the World Jewish Congress and its president from 1951 to 1978 and was also president of the World Zionist Organization from 1956 to 1968
