One can criticize the Israeli government, but it is not fair to judge the people of Israel.
Many occasions I’ve sat down with Israelis to say, where do you see your country in 10 years time, and work me back, so we can figure out the synergies and the connections between Israel and the rest of the Arab world. No Israeli has ever been able to answer that question.
I watched Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, and I saw a man who loves his country with all his heart and soul. I also saw a strong leader, which is absolutely crucial for the safety of the Israeli people.
We declared jihad against the U.S. government because the U.S. government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal, whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation.
We are different from many African countries. We represent Africa as the gateway and will do everything to make African and Israeli relations mushroom.
The Israeli military believes it has destroyed all of Hamas’s tunnels, or at least all the ones it knew about.
I think we need to change the system of elections in order to give less power to some sectors in Israeli society.
I pledge that the personal safety of Israeli citizens will not be futile.
I have an ambivalent feeling about the Israeli army. Growing up in Tel Aviv, being involved in the arts, the last thing artists want to do is fight.
I fundamentally agree with the critical nature of Israeli democracy, which embraces the core notion of free speech.
The route of the train of Israeli justice must take into account the Jewishness of the state.
There is an innate fear that runs within Israeli society of all that we see and hear around us, and you know what? It’s a natural reaction of human beings.
Now, I love Israeli food, love ‘Jerusalem: A Cookbook’, love the homey exoticism, the fusion forged in the crucible of an eternally contested crossroads.
Agribusiness could provide an opportunity for joint Israeli-Palestinian projects, spurred on by Israeli technical expertise in this field.
I’ve been very active all my life. I was a combat instructor in the Israeli Army.
Israel of the coastal plain, where eight out of ten Israeli Jews live far removed from the occupied territories, from the fiery Jerusalem, from the religious and nationalistic conflicts, is unknown to the outside world, almost unknown to itself.
The Israeli public is frustrated with the way it is portrayed abroad.
The clarinet is not so dominant in Israeli music as it is in klezmer. I heard klezmer when I was growing up, but for some reason I avoided it. I listened to Louis Armstrong instead. But the sense of melody is the connection between jazz and klezmer.
I wish I could be proud of being an Israeli citizen, but how can I do that when I’m not really recognized as a full citizen?
I have no interest in Israeli citizenship… Israel does not want me, nor do I want Israel.
As leaders, we in Israel must take into account the concerns of diaspora Jewry. Israel is strong enough to take criticism from within the family of Jews who say, ‘OK, we disapprove of Israeli policy, but we stand firm for Israel.’
The wise Jewish Israeli must work with the moderate Muslim and the Christian leader of the free world against the crazy Muslims.
From the end of 2006 until the end of 2008 I think I met with Abu Mazen more often than any Israeli leader has ever met any Arab leader. I met him more than 35 times. They were intense, serious negotiations.
I have covered the secret war that Israeli and American intelligence have waged against Iran’s nuclear program and Iran’s assistance to jihadi movements in the Middle East, since the mid-’90s.
I was critical of the Israeli government, however, for not being prepared for the move. One does not uproot thousands of people without planning in advance what will be done with them. This was a political and human error in which the government functioned poorly.
There’s been an Israeli position, which is ‘We love Mubarak,’ that permeates their whole society, the political class. That certainly differs from many of us in the pro-Israel camp in the United States.
Cooperation with the U.S. is the basis on which all Israeli foreign policy is built.
I have acquired – some would say deservedly – quite a few rivals: former Israeli politicians, some of whom at their height were stars beloved by large parts of the public. But today, they aren’t in politics, and when they sit alone in their room, they say to themselves that Barak is the one who showed them out the door.
Extol Jewish virtue, modern Zionism and the Israeli Defense Forces.
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.
It’s not an Israeli model, it’s a TSA, screwed-up model. It should actually be the person who’s looking at the ticket and talking to the individual. Instead, they’ve hired people to stand around and observe, which is a bastardization of what should be done.
My dad’s Israeli. He was born in Baghdad to Iraqi Jews. Then, at age two, his parents wanted to move to their homeland and he grew up in Israel. I’ve been there twice, once as a baby and once when I was 15.
I became a prime minister within four-and-a-half years, the shortest kind of career ever in Israeli political history.
The State of Israel has faced obstacles and challenges to its very survival, with conventional military attacks leading the way to suicide bombers who have killed innocent Israeli men, women, and children.
I wanted the Israeli mainstream audience to meet different kinds of Arabs – not just terrorists or politicians – and to listen to their language and their stories.
If there were Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, it makes it certain there would be a reprisal attack against the United States at some point.
When Arab apologists wring their hands over an Israeli military incursion, they never mention what the Israelis are reacting to, or else diminish and distort it.
Let the Palestinians run their affairs: create a situation in which no Israeli soldier will have to maintain public order, whether in Gaza or the West Bank. Let’s give it to the Palestinians, as long as there is security for us. No more occupying another people.
Finding the right form of debate regarding Israeli policies will remain a challenge in Germany. Even with every conceivable and warranted criticism, the danger always arises that it will be exploited by those who consciously or unconsciously present anti-Semitism in a new guise.
My parents often wondered why I would grow so indignant at the falsification and exploitation of the Nazi genocide. The most obvious answer is that it has been used to justify criminal policies of the Israeli state and U.S. support for these policies.
But there’s one thing we are not going to compromise at all: when it comes to security of Israeli citizens and the State of Israel, there are not going to be any compromises – not now and not in the future.
As a long-time supporter of Israel, I will ensure that our alliance does not waver, and that America continues to support Israeli security, advocate for her on the international stage, and contain the threat from Iran and terrorism across the region.
In 2008, we began an initiative to outsource projects from our Israeli office to three companies in the Palestinian Territories.
Benjamin Netanyahu has made the official policy of the Israeli government the two-state solution, at a time when he had opposition from many quarters. That is his official position. He remains publicly committed to it, but not just publicly; also in diplomacy, totally committed to moving swiftly toward that solution.
Let me start by saying I wish no country had the need for an army. But in Israel, serving is part of being an Israeli. You’ve got to give back to the state. You give two or three years, and it’s not about you. You give your freedom away. You learn discipline and respect.
It’s no rare thing for the Israeli prime minister to enrage the Jews of the diaspora.
When the Israeli leaders launched their expansionist war in June 1967 they never envisaged that 40 years later they would still be haunted by the consequences.
If there was genuine desire on the Israeli side, even without a solution, it would be possible to solve a large percentage of the problems between Israelis and Palestinians by means of simple statements from the Israelis.
We believe that settlement expansion policies pursued in recent decades by successive Israeli governments have facilitated the process of de-facto annexation. It has complicated the dialogue between the different communities.
When I visited Jerusalem and the West Bank back in 2008, I was shocked by how individual Palestinians and whole Palestinian communities were treated by the Israeli government. From the illegal settlements to daily humiliations at checkpoints, the evidence of gross injustice and the human suffering it brings is indisputable.
Not all Modern Orthodox Jews, at the present juncture, identify with what the Israeli government does. In Israel many religious Zionists strongly oppose the government because of the disengagement.
I have seen for the first time in 100 years of conflict, the two peoples – the Israeli people and the Palestinian people – are ahead of their leaderships.
