The Israelis have suffered a great deal, we must condemn suicide bombers, and we must never say that the plight of the Palestinians justifies this terrible thing.
The Palestinians are facing a historic junction at which they will have to decide whether they want to remain stuck in a corner of extreme fundamentalism, which will cut them off from the entire world, or whether they are ready to take the necessary steps. My role is to assist in building this process.
Hebron is a bone of contention between Israeli settlers and the Palestinians in part because Abraham is buried there, in the Tomb of the Patriarchs.
Blowing up buses will not induce the Israelis to move forward, and neither will the killing of Palestinians or the demolition of their homes and their future. All this needs to stop. And we pledge that Jordan will do its utmost to help achieve it.
It’s preferable for the Palestinians to become citizens of the state than for us to divide the country.
I feel that we don’t have the luxury of asking whether or not the Palestinians and Israelis can achieve peace. I think we have to just ask the question of when and how.
On balance, my life has been a constant stream of blessings rather than disappointments and failures and tragedies. I wish I had been re-elected. I think I could have kept our country at peace. I think I could have consolidated what we achieved at Camp David with a treaty between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Palestinians are the only nation in the world that feels with certainty that today is better than what the days ahead will hold. Tomorrow always heralds a worse situation.
The fight against terror cannot stop as long as terrorism itself is not stopped, but the path of war must change: it must lead directly to terrorists and not be waged on the backs of three million Palestinians.
The Palestinians must be brought to an understanding that Jerusalem will always remain under Israeli sovereignty and that there is no point for them in opening negotiations about Jerusalem.
As mayor of Jerusalem, I wanted the government to invest the necessary funds in order to unite the city in an effective manner with full rights for the Palestinians living in Jerusalem, so the world would say, ‘Okay, it can work.’
I believe the Israelis have been wronged, but they also have a lot to apologize for. And I believe the Palestinians have been wronged, but they have a lot to apologize for, as well.
Arafat rejected the deal because, as a dictator who had directed all his energies toward strengthening the Palestinians hatred toward Israel, Arafat could not afford to make peace.
Israelis would mostly breathe a sigh of relief if Palestinians were to disappear.
We would like to ease the life of the Palestinians. I prepared a new plan that we call a positive agenda.
You cannot like the word, but what is happening is an occupation – to hold 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation. I believe that is a terrible thing for Israel and for the Palestinians.
Turkey knows the importance of its ties with Israel; it knows it’s in the same moderate camp with Israel, the moderate Palestinians and other Muslim countries, and the threat to Turkey is not from us.
Israel should share its great wealth with its neighbors, like the Palestinians, in areas like governance and investment as well as the building of institutions.
In my photography, I always lean towards the underprivileged because that’s where I came from. When I went to the wars, I attempted to go and stand by those who were being trodden on. By that, I mean people like the Palestinians. When I go to India, I see really the poorest people, and I tend to be drawn to them.
Peace should provide security. It should be durable. I’m ready to go far in making painful concessions. But there is one thing I will never make any concessions on and that’s the security of the Israeli citizens and the very existence of the state of Israel. The Palestinians are losing time.
I don’t know where Bush is going – yet. But, Sharon obviously – I wrote somewhere in the last several months, that Sharon has adopted, essentially, the position of the Labor Party: that the Palestinians are here to stay.
Hamas is really a problem for the Palestinians and for Egypt more than Israel.
My idea for peace in the Middle East is to go back to the 1966 line, but to build even more houses for the Palestinians, who are a poor people.
The Palestinians, whose national cause guards the gates of Arab-Israeli peace, look forward like their Arab brethren to that comprehensive, just, and lasting peace based on ‘land for peace’ and compliance with international legitimacy and resolutions.
You can set up whatever negotiations or structure you want, but until the Palestinians are willing to accept the fact, as the majority of Israelis do, that there should be two states between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, we won’t have peace.
In the litany of issues that separate the two Americas – one more conservative and one more liberal, increasingly as opposed and intractable and opaque to each other as the Palestinians and Israelis – none is so fierce, precise, inviolable and confounding to the other side as guns.
Palestine isn’t a state when it concerns statehood. When it comes to warring, it’s a state, yes? The Palestinians, they live in a country, for the purpose of war.
Bringing an end to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians may help the young Arab generation to realise their aspirations. Israel is more than willing to offer our experience in building a modern economy in spite of limited resources to the whole region.
Anybody that’s ever been to Israel and to Palestine knows that you can’t look at a person and tell if they’re Israeli or Palestinian. You can assume. But I’ve seen Palestinians who look Swedish, and I’ve seen Israelis who are black.
There are thousands of Palestinians in prison virtually for no reason.
I want to separate from the Palestinians. I want them to have their independent, separate state on a contiguous territory, and I want Israel to exist, of course, as a Jewish state in its own territory, as an independent state in its own territory. The Palestinian state, the Israeli state, separate. This is my dream.
I don’t understand if it was, like, Palestinians were here, then it was called Israel, and that’s the problem, or they never had their land. Everyone just goes back and forth. So it seems like everyone can just have a piece… call the whole thing something else.
The Arabs could have peace tomorrow if sufficient numbers of Palestinians were not content to be used as cannon fodder in fruitless assaults on Israel, even as the surrounding Arab powers distract the Arab masses with the red herring of Israel while retarding their countries with their repression and corruption.
What I’m working is for peace on ground between Israelis and Palestinians through business, through economy, through quality of life.
I’m not saying that I’m on some crusade to change people’s minds. I’m just doing what I do. I’m a comedian, I’m trying to be funny… I think when they see a comedy show with an Iranian and an Egyptian and two Palestinians, I think they go, ‘Oh wow, these guys are just like us.’
I believe that in the long run, separation between Israel and the Palestinians is the best solution for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
My priority will remain supporting those courageous individuals and organizations, among both Israelis and Palestinians, committed to bringing peaceful coexistence to the region.
The project to settle Palestinians here will be never be approved during my tenure regardless of the price.
No doubt Israel and America have made mistakes in the Middle East. Certainly, Israel was born at the price of considerable dislocation and suffering on the part of the Palestinians. And yes, there will never be a satisfying answer for this.
It is true that a large percentage of the Western world hopes that I am imprisoned or dead. But all my people, the Palestinians and the Arabs, wish me long life and freedom.
One could establish a system in one state in which Judea and Samaria are jointly held. The Jews would vote for a Jewish parliament and the Palestinians for an Arab parliament, and we would create a system in which life is shared.
A popular intifada is most beneficial for the Palestinians.
I think the U.S. leaders should do more to support our Israeli allies and the Palestinians to find peace.
Most of the approaches to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, have been directed at trying to resolve the most complex problems, like refugees and Jerusalem, which is akin to building the pyramid from the top down.
There’s a myth that in Arab countries, they all like Palestinians. They don’t. On the contrary.
There’s no preventative measure between the Palestinians, between those terrorists to the state of Israel.
Like all Israelis, I yearn for peace. I see the utmost importance in taking all possible steps that will lead to a solution of the conflict with the Palestinians.
Israel needs to separate from Netanyahu in order to separate from the Palestinians.
There are roughly 22,000 Palestinians working side by side with what you call settlers in factories and malls in the West Bank. If you work together, you start understanding each other.
The Palestinians have arrived at the conclusion that nothing can be achieved using terror.
