Words matter. These are the best Israel Quotes from famous people such as Yitzhak Rabin, Ben Stein, Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu, George Pataki, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I think that life in Israel is sometimes bigger than the movies.
Israel being condemned by the EU, which 66 years ago watched with glee as its Jews were being mass murdered. That is pretty rich.
Israel has its attractions. It’s the most dramatic country in the world. Everybody’s engaged. Everybody argues. When I leave Israel, I get a little bit bored, you know?
I don’t want to govern the Palestinians. I don’t want them as subjects of Israel or as citizens of Israel. I want them to have their own independent state but a demilitarized state.
Israel is a country that respects freedom – freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and freedom of worship.
The idea that the rest of the world was somehow being held hostage by the Arab-Israeli conflict once had a minimal basis in reality. In the first 20 years of Israel’s existence, every Arab country was in an active state of war with the Jewish state.
There are plenty of opportunities for common grounds that we need to explore and strengthen. The Hispanic community has a strong affinity for our relationship with Israel.
Well, the right-wing policy with regard to Israel – the people who don’t want to deal with Arafat, who don’t want a Palestinian state – the whole sort of right-wing view is consistent with the view toward Iraq. It’s the same policy and the same people.
The amount of culture going on in a small country like Israel is amazing.
A challenge to the right of Israel to exist can be construed as a challenge to the existence of the Jewish people only if one believes that Israel alone keeps the Jewish people alive or that all Jews invest their sense of perpetuity in the state of Israel in its current or traditional forms.
Israel is now sustaining a war for its own existence. A nation defending its citizens against terrorist bombings and a military and diplomatic onslaught by an array of Arab foes is practicing survival, not genocide.
Soldiers of Israel, we have no aims of conquest. Our purpose is to bring to naught the attempts of the Arab armies to conquer our land.
New York was a place I wanted to live and work all along. If I wasn’t going to live in Israel, I had to live in New York.
My father is sure that Israel keeps the Holocaust from happening again. I worry that it might hasten its recurrence.
Well, first of all, we now have everybody with the exception of India, Pakistan, and Israel, and I don’t think these three countries are going to join by simply providing them an incentive, in terms of technology.
Second point is no one here could predict or know that Israel was involved or started producing the hydrogen bomb – the most advanced and powerful atomic bomb that can kill millions of people.
I believe that the U.S. is the strongest country in the whole world and the country that supports Israel the most. I believe that it has the strength to push Israel towards peace.
There was an opinion expressed in the newspapers that, after 20 years, maybe the Israel Philharmonic should consider asking me to leave. I thought they might have a point, so I asked my orchestra. They told me overwhelmingly that they wanted me to stay.
According to Gallup, Obama has already lost support among Jewish voters, down from 78 percent to 68 percent. If Romney shows that he is genuinely committed to Israel and that Obama is not, he’ll make further inroads.
I’m a supporter of Israel, always have been.
We as a country have something to learn from Israel, especially in the areas of security and defense, and we will of course be doing that.
Surely it is time for Jews, worried over the huge growth of Arabs in Israel, to consider finishing the exchange of populations that began 35 years ago.
The Palestinians want a state, but they have to give peace in return. What they’re trying to do in the United Nations is to get a state without giving Israel peace or giving Israel peace and security. And I think that’s, that’s wrong. That should not succeed. That should, that should fail.
Rather than undermining the Palestinian Authority, it is in Israel’s interests to strengthen it by… continuing to transfer Palestinian tax revenues and pursuing other avenues of cooperation.
God saw fit, for wise reasons to allow the people of Israel thus to make and possess slaves; but is this any license to us to enslave any of our fellow-men, to kill any of our fellow-men whom we please and are able to destroy, and take possession of their estates?
There’s no preventative measure between the Palestinians, between those terrorists to the state of Israel.
Modern Orthodoxy has a highly positive attitude toward the State of Israel. Our Ultra-Orthodox brethren recognize only the Holy Land, but not the state.
Many European countries, as well as Australia, Canada, Israel, and New Zealand, have adopted legislation that creates a ‘public lending right’, where the government recognises that enabling hundreds of people to read a single copy of a book provides a public good, but that doing so is likely to reduce sales of the book.
The actions of the terrorist organizations, Hezbollah, in Lebanon, and Hamas, in Gaza, against Israel are unconscionable. Instead of working towards peace, these terrorist organizations have chosen to perpetuate the violence.
I’m from Israel, so America has no limits. I started a record label, and then I started managing other artists, like Liza Minelli.
In fact, the Iraqi foreign minister admitted in March 2003 that Iraqi funds were sent to families of Palestinian suicide bombers who attacked and killed innocent Israeli citizens, and also 12 Americans in Israel in 2003.
Israel has a fantastic film industry, and many times we are known for our political films or films that have to do with the army. I love the fact that we can show that there are films coming out of Israel that are just for fun.
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.
The Palestinian Authority refuses on an ongoing basis to take the necessary steps to prevent terrorists from getting into Israel.
The PLO and the Palestinian people adhere to the renouncement of violence and rejection and condemning of terrorism in all its forms, especially State terrorism, and adhere to all agreements signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel.
Enclosed by a sand berm four miles around and 160 feet high, the Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility entombs what remains of reactors bombed by Israel in 1981 and the United States in 1991. It has stored industrial and medical wastes, along with spent reactor fuel.
So I think we should stay focused on the real problem in the Middle East. It’s not Israel. It’s these dictatorships that are developing nuclear weapons with the specific goal of wiping Israel away.
Peace is important for Israel.
Bulgaria is a true friend of Israel, that stood up to save the Jewish people 70 years ago in Europe, and who stood by throughout the terror attack that took place in Burgas last July.
In Israel politics, four years is like 400 years in Europe.
The mystified idea I had of Israel – the demonization of Israel – it just wasn’t true.
All the other members of the U.N. were admitted, at the outset or subsequently, but Israel was created by the U.N. as a Jewish state, on the motion of Stalin’s ambassador, seconded by President Truman’s.
I believe that much of Hollywood is confused about Israel.
It is a very cynical, skeptical, foolish person that suggests Israel does not need a peace process to have a growing economy.
There is no prospect that the United States will say to Israel, ‘You do such and such and we’ll not support you in your security.’
The U.S. and Israel have been slaughtering the Palestinians, just slaughtering them, for years. Robbing them and slaughtering them.
If America would really stand behind the two-state solution, they could make real pressure on Israel.
I was a child during the Lebanese civil war, and I remember Israeli bombardments. So growing up, my view of Israel was completely negative. I’m not coming from a neutral place, but with time, I’ve had to re-examine my thinking.
We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown and when strawberries bloom in Israel.
The idea that you can make love and not war really is pretty neat. That thing in Korea, the thing in Israel – that’s all over the world. There must be a new way of thinking.
Those who liberated the South from Israel must show allegiance to Lebanon.
No one could seriously dispute that almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, all of North Africa except Morocco, all of the Middle East except Israel and Jordan and most of the oil-rich states, and the entire former British Indian Empire were better governed by Europeans.
One of the greatest fears of the Arab world is a direct conflict between Israel and the Islamic State.
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.
If I wasn’t going to live in Israel, I had to live in New York.
The Knesset members – Jews and Arabs – don’t represent the state of Israel. The government is the one that represents the state of Israel officially.
Israel should not feel satisfaction at my son’s death, for he died on the battlefield, facing the conquerors as he wished, with a gun in his hand.
When a peace agreement is concluded between the Lebanese government and Israel, we would surely disagree with the Lebanese government about that, but we would not make any turmoil out of it.
We in the Jewish Home party talk all the time about how Judea and Samaria are our homeland and they are part of Israel, so we are there to stay.
Israel is my past. My two boys are my future.
I didn’t act in Israel, but I wrote plays at home and acted in plays at school. I tried to get an agent when I was 12, but they told me that I had too much of an accent.
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 lobby has clout in the U.S., which means that re-arranging the region and controlling its resources one way or another, will serve Israel through its control over the American administration.
I never thought that Syria and Israel should engage in a violent confrontation because I don’t think that there is any particular interest for any of us to do it.
Eventually, I moved from a place of anger toward the Jews of Israel toward a place of embrace.
I volunteered on a farming community in Israel for two years when I was a teenager. One of the jobs involved clearing out a massive warehouse full of chickens ready for the abattoir. The smell of 40,000 chickens in 45C is awful.
9/11 was a deliberate, carefully planned evil act of the long-waged war on the West by Koran-inspired soldiers of Allah around the world. They hated us before George W. Bush was in office. They hated us before Israel existed. And the avengers of the religion of perpetual outrage will keep hating us.
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.
Given the genocidal belligerence of Iranian threats against Israel, it is hard to take issue with Israel’s right to preemptive self-defense.
Zionists believe they are entitled by God to the land, groves and homes of the non-Jewish underclass. They quote the Bible as the reference that ‘God gave them the land.’ The size of the alleged God-given land has never been determined and Israel’s borders still remain fuzzy.
Israel is a piece of real estate that neither Jew or Arab will let go of; neither will leave these shores. And so they will have to learn to live together.
The Arab world needs to appreciate that legitimate historical claims and modern necessities are what make Israel the homeland of the Jewish people.
As a Jew I am aware of how important the existence of Israel is for the survival of us all. And because I am proud of being Jewish, I am worried by the growing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in the world.
I’m going into politics because I think that the kind of discourse taking place in Israel is leading this country to oblivion, and I want to change it.
The purpose of the Jewish state is to secure the Jewish future. That is why Israel must always have the ability to defend itself, against any threat.
I urge the senior members of the political system to form as broad a government as possible that would unite the moderate forces from the Left and Right so that we will be able to bring about real change in the State of Israel.
I am focused on what needs to be done for the people of Israel. Period. I do not pity myself and I do not pat myself on the shoulder. I get up in the morning full of energy to fulfill my mission.
Perhaps areas of Israel where current large Palestinian populations and demographic realities exist could be exchanged for Israeli expansion into the West Bank to include most of East Jerusalem.
A number of people who have supported me on the border fence in the U.S. have observed the fences in Israel and their effectiveness.
If you want to boycott Israel because of Palestine, I don’t think you actually care, because you’re also boycotting 2 million Muslim Palestinian Israelis.
When the President of Iran talks about removing Israel from the face of the Earth and is building nuclear bombs with a range of 3000km, you have to be worried.
I would like to see real peace and a state of Israel living peacefully alongside a state of Palestine.
Everyone should unconditionally accept that Israel is an indispensable element of the Middle Eastern mosaic.
Israel is the vanguard of the free world against the Islamic terrorism of ISIS, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran.
Honoring the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, in which more than two million Ukrainian Jews died, Ukraine calls on Israel to also recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.
Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. It will be a strong friend of Israel’s under a McCain administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel’s under an Obama administration. So that policy is not going to change.
Lots of countries, like Israel, live with terrorism every day, and it doesn’t impact their integrity. The big threat to America is the way we react to terrorism by throwing away what everybody values about our country – a commitment to human rights. America is a great nation because we are a good nation.
We are dealing with treachery and threats, which accompanied the establishment of Israel.
Israel’s days without Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip are gone and will not return.
As long as Palestinian violence exists, but not a Palestinian state, Israel is in danger, because it cannot obtain assistance from the international community against an entity that is not subordinate to international law.
Mutual investments of Israeli and American companies strengthen economic ties between the two countries and contribute to Israel and to the U.S. alike.
If you live in Israel and you see the way life is there and then you go abroad and see the way Israel is reported on, the way that Israel gets reported on night after night is simply pictures of bombings or military actions.
I think in Israel there is so much talent in the TV world because there’s less movies done.
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.
But Hezbollah now has reared its ugly head in a way that threatens the entire free world. And they want, by their own charter and definition, the destruction of Israel and Christians. That is the truth. That is in their charter.
The President of Iran has called for the destruction of Israel and the West and has even denied the holocaust took place. Iran and its terrorist arm Hezbollah are responsible for the current conflicts between Israel and Lebanon.
There is no comparison between the training here and the training in Israel.
The main points were: one, the amount of Israel’s nuclear weapons, how many Israel had, that no one could predict or know, including the CIA. They were thinking about a number like 10 or 15. But I came out with a number between 150 to 200.
Imagine the situation between Israel and Palestine. It’s such a big mess. You can be on one side or the other. But what’s clear is that there’s an urgent need for a solution there and that’s been dragging on for so long.
In addition to removing our democratically elected government, Israel wants to sow dissent among Palestinians by claiming that there is a serious leadership rivalry among us. I am compelled to dispel this notion definitively.
The government of Israel doesn’t like the kinds of things I say, which puts them into the same category as every other government in the world.
Well, Israel, obviously, thinks of the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat to Israel.
The only thing chicken about Israel is their soup.
Israel would not do that, both because we cannot afford to be accused by the world of aggression and because we cannot, for security and social reasons, absorb in our midst a substantial Arab population.
The banding together by the nations of the world against Israel is the guarantee that their time of destruction is near and the final redemption of the Jew at hand.
Forty percent of my portfolio is in the U.S. In the rest of the world, most of the places I invest in or invested in are Brazil, Russia, Germany with a little bit of Turkey, China, India, France and Israel sprinkled in there.
God is whoever raised Jesus from the dead, having before raised Israel from Egypt. There is no God but this God.
It seems Palestinians can’t win. The language of peace negotiations has always been predicated on a representation that Palestinians are violent and that is why Israel behaves as it does.
I heard an Israeli speaking on Palestinian human rights issues, an interesting guy, and he said ‘There’s no military solution to terrorism. If there were, Israel would be the safest place in the world. But there’s no military solution.’
No border that touches Israel is always secure.
I’ve always thought that if Israel really wanted to solve the problem, they’d just start tomorrow and push right to the Jordan River, and anything in their way goes. They don’t need America or someone else to help.
The present Arab uprising didn’t stem from Israel. The old guard is trying to keep down the young chickens. The old guard is better organized. They may win elections, but unless they have a solution to poverty, to corruption, to oppression, they will not last. I am with the young people.
As a Jew, it is my historic responsibility to defend the Jewish people. I feel this responsibility for the survival of the Jewish people. We’re not going to accept any decision by anybody else about security of the State of Israel. It is our role and only our role.
In my own view, Hamas’s frustration derives from a lack of legitimization by Israel and by much of the world. It is this frustration that leads them to such destructive desperation. That’s why we need to grant them status as a legitimate enemy – before we talk about an agreement or, alternatively, about a frontal war.
Even the poorest in Israel are looked upon as freemen who have lost their possessions, for they are the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
We need to expose the lies and educate the Palestinian public that Israel is not the enemy. Israel actually helps the people of Gaza more than anybody else. We need the average Palestinian to see this clearly.
Our forces saved the remnants of the Jewish people of Europe for a new life and a new hope in the reborn land of Israel. Along with all men of good will, I salute the young state and wish it well.
I’m very much tied to the state of Israel, but I am against their policy of settlements in Palestine.
I think we need to stand with Israel.
Invariably, also a Palestinian state should live side by side with Israel within recognized and secure borders and the security and prosperity of the Palestinian people must be guaranteed.
From the U.S. point of view, negotiations are, in effect, a way for Israel to continue its policies of systematically taking over whatever it wants in the West Bank, maintaining the brutal siege on Gaza, separating Gaza from the West Bank and, of course, occupying the Syrian Golan heights, all with full U.S. support.
The western mantra is that Israel seeks negotiations without preconditions, while the Palestinians refuse. The opposite is more accurate.
There is a danger in monotheism, and it’s called idolatry. And we know the prophets of Israel were very, very concerned about idolatry, the worship of a human expression of the divine.
Our Christian conviction is that Christ is also the messiah of Israel. Certainly it is in the hands of God how and when the unification of Jews and Christians into the people of God will take place.
I’m Jewish. That’s all. So I am in exile all the time. Wherever we go, we are in exile. Even in Israel, we are in exile.
My theology is such that the God who loves Israel and will not forsake Israel – which is why I want to see Israel have a secure nation with secure borders – also loves the Palestinians.
The Golan Heights is an area in the north of the State of Israel that has no part in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I defend Israel’s right to exist, to defend themselves, to not let themselves be exterminated a second time.
Like crime, terrorism is a fact of life. I grew up in Israel, where every unattended bag was a suspected bomb; when my family moved for a few years, it was to London in the early years of ‘the Troubles.’
The United States must ensure that Iran does not attain nuclear weapons, as this poses a direct threat to our interests, including Israel, and would in all likelihood provoke a regional arms race.
Building walls isn’t going to work in the long run. Some people are happy with the wall in Israel, but somebody will get a weapon someday and knock it over or something. Walls aren’t the answer between countries, though.
We of the modern age are a bridge between the old human and the new one. We still have the mentality of the old human – a slave mentality, like the Children of Israel in Egypt: too controlled, full of fear.
It should be known that Israel is based on treachery.
American foreign policy has been – and must continue to be – based on unequivocal support for Israel’s right to exist and to be free from terror.
I am deeply concerned that, without peace and a two-state solution, the Jewish and democratic nature of Israel is in danger. That’s why I have opposed Israel’s settlement policy since 1973, and that’s why I have favored a two-state solution since 1967.
Israel has a security concern involving geography. But geography does not have the same value it did in 1967.
Isaac and I are going to Israel to ride for peace enviromental justice and a safer world for us all.
Since the Six-Day War, the whole world, which is the real arena of battle between us and the Palestinians, believes that Israel is right in regard to procedure, namely problems and disputes should be solved around the negotiating table.
Religion is a big problem in Israel and the Arab world, but again, the problem isn’t religion but political leaders who want to use the religion.
You can’t ignore reality. You won’t wake up one morning and find that the Arabs of Umm al-Faham have become part of Palestine and are no longer in Israel.
In Israel, generally speaking, politics is much more familiar than any other place. We all know each other.
My dream was to study psychology in Israel. It’s a long journey – it’s seven years of study.
I respect Israel as hugely special, especially given all the sensitivities around it. The Jews managed to build a country, to elevate it, without anything except people and brains.
We need to separate the two peoples: Israeli Arabs are part and parcel of Israel, and Palestinians should be separate, as part of a two-state solution.
You can’t have a discussion about Israel and the region without including Iran and their nuclear ambitions.
Contrary to many of the rumors and innuendo in circulation, I wholeheartedly believe that Obama views Israel’s security as absolute.
Israel has always been and must always be America’s strongest ally.
Many of the Europeans who want Israel to go away don’t even know why they do. Nearly a third of those interviewed concede they have no idea what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about. It’s enough to know that Israelis are Jews.
I met my husband Itzik when I got back home to Israel from Oxford in 2002. He is my Internet-of-all-Things.
It is time to change our policy of appeasement toward the Palestinians, to strengthen our ties with the nation of Israel.
I have learned that the state of Israel cannot be ruled in our generation without deceit and adventurism. These are historical facts that cannot be altered.
Jews outside Israel live in permanent contradiction. I think they should come home.
The Vatican’s recognition of the State of Israel in 1997 could not have occurred without John Paul’s leadership.
I am against any reconciliation with Israel.
At the age of nineteen and a half, I went to the Land of Israel to till its soil and live by the labour of my hands. As I did not find work, I sought my livelihood elsewhere.
The fall of the Syrian regime is in the interest of America and Israel.
Occupation is the Palestinian people’s tragedy, but also Israel’s present. We must liberate both people from the occupation.
Hitler had this deal where he was supposed to make it rough on them so they would all get out and migrate to Israel because they needed people there to fight the Arabs.
I am proud to be the president of the state of Israel.
War criminals in the U.S. and Israel are not punished: no international court has the courage to put them on trial.
Based on the Gaza precedent, Israel should not simply be expected to withdraw from territory and let it devolve into a state of anarchy. The West Bank is simply too close to Israel’s major population centers and infrastructure to allow it to become another launching pad for rockets.
Some friends of Israel believe that the Palestinians will never, in their hearts, accept a Jewish state in Palestine. Yet Germans and French, Chinese and Japanese, Mexicans and Americans have overcome their once insurmountable differences. Palestinians and Jews also have much to gain from peaceful coexistence.
It is my Middle Eastern hat and my attachment to Israel that ultimately inspires my support for Obama. I know he understands that neither Israel nor America can afford four more years of Iran and the radical Islamists gaining strategic leverage in the Middle East.
As prime minister, I changed Israel’s position on peace negotiations. I made it clear that we are ready to go along with Resolution 242 of the U.N. Security Council, which specifies withdrawal to secure and recognized boundaries in the context of peace.
I believe that if Israel were to put an end to the settlements in the West Bank tomorrow, as it did in Gaza, there would still be reluctance on the part of the Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish secular democracy.
The struggle to get weapons is continuous, but the United States will aid us, if it finds Israel displaying a willingness for peace.
Most students have thoughts about emigrating to Israel. A significant number go on aliyah. We are proud of our Israel programs, which come at a considerable cost to the university.
When my grandchildren are older and my great-grandchildren start growing up, first of all, I want them to be in Israel. I don’t want them to leave the country because they have no choice.
I’m for Israel’s right to exist.
The U.S. and Israel need to address points of difference between them in private, not in the UN or in front of cameras.
I was 13 when my parents moved to Israel, and I was put in a Scottish mission school. Ninety-nine percent of the children were Israeli… Suddenly, I found myself speaking the wrong language, dressed in the wrong clothes, picked up by the wrong mode of transportation – an embassy car instead of a bus.
As far as YU faculty and students are concerned, the love for Israel is very strong. Probably about three thousand of our graduates have settled in Israel. On average, every year 650 male and female students study in Israel for a minimum of one year.
Through these adversities, Israel has endured with continued strength, conviction, and faith.
I often hear them accuse Israel of Judaizing Jerusalem. That’s like accusing America of Americanizing Washington, or the British of Anglicizing London. You know why we’re called ‘Jews’? Because we come from Judea.
Israel is a pretty crazy state.
There are signs that the Arab states are beginning to realize that a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to the entire region, and not just to Israel.
Iran is a major threat to the well-being of Europe and America just as much as it is for the state of Israel.
Ukraine and Israel have long-standing historical ties. Our nations have together experienced all the tragedies in recent history – the Holodomor and the Holocaust, the Second World War, and the totalitarian Soviet regime.
The state of Israel must, from time to time, prove clearly that it is strong, and able and willing to use force, in a devastating and highly effective way. If it does not prove this, it will be swallowed up, and perhaps wiped off the face of the earth.
Israel has a right to defend itself.
I am 73 years old. I was born in Jerusalem. I’m the first prime minister of Israel to be born here. I am the only former general to become a prime minister.
It cannot be too often stressed that Israel had no credible pretext for its 2008-9 attack on Gaza, with full U.S. support and illegally using U.S. weapons.
The question is no longer whether the United States should contribute to assuring Israel’s survival and prosperity; that goes without saying.
Our ministry also supports orphanages in the U.S. and overseas, thousands of poor children in Latin America, drug centers for addicted men, and a drug center in Israel.
Israel was born under the British mandate. We learned from the British what democracy means, and how it behaves in a time of danger, war and terror. We thank Britain for introducing freedom and respect of human rights both in normal and demanding circumstances.
I feel there’s a lot of anti-Israel sentiment in the world and a lot of ignorance about what Israel is and does. But it’s not for me to speak on Israel’s behalf.
My first name, Benjamin, dates back a thousand years earlier to Benjamin – Binyamin – the son of Jacob, who was also known as Israel. Jacob and his 12 sons roamed these same hills of Judea and Sumeria 4,000 years ago, and there’s been a continuous Jewish presence in the land ever since.
We have peace with Israel. We’re actually the last man standing. So there is going to be immense pressure and people asking, ‘Why are we having this relationship when it’s not benefiting anybody?’ Obviously, my answer is you always benefit from peace.
In general, states do not count on pledges of ‘no more war’ from their neighbors. Israel’s army never counted on it from Egypt, for example.
We have no desire to permanently rule over millions of Palestinians, who double their numbers every generation. Israel, which wishes to be an exemplary democracy, will not be able to bear such a reality over time. The Disengagement Plan presents the possibility of opening a gate to a different reality.
Israel was seen as having demonstrated unmistakably it wanted peace, and the reason it wasn’t available, achievable was because Arafat wouldn’t accept it.
I was with a folk trio back in ’63 and ’64, and we traveled all across North Africa, Israel, and Europe.
We know that 99.9% of Arab-Israelis are loyal to Israel.
Only if we accept the proposition that the state of Israel is the exclusive and legitimate representative of the Jewish people would a movement calling for divestment, sanctions and boycott against that state be understood as directed against the Jewish people as a whole.
The United States is a strong and ardent ally of Israel. The fact of the matter is that friends can disagree. I think what’s important is that world leaders are able to sit down with one another, have frank conversations and move forward.
The people of Israel have lived 3,700 years without a memorandum of understanding with America and will continue to live without it another 3,700 years.
Christianity emerged from the religion of Israel. Or rather, it has as its background a persistent strain in that religion. To that strain Christians have looked back, and rightly, as the preparation in history for their faith.
Israel has always been pro-American. Israel will always be pro-American.
We need to save the education system. We need to remove education from the framework of the political parties that rule in the State of Israel. We need to increase the allocation of long-term national resources to education and never touch them – no matter what.
As Prime Minister of Israel, I will introduce a bill into the Knesset that will simply pay the Arabs not to shoot at the Jews.
My husband is not American. He was born in Brazil, where he grew up under a filthy, corrupt dictatorship. In his twenties, he moved to Europe, where he lived for a while under various socialist democracies. He spent a few years on a kibbutz in Israel, living out a utopian experiment in communal existence.
In 1998, I received treatment for my knee by an Israeli therapist. We spoke about Israel and I mentioned ‘Scooterman’ and he just froze. It was like he had met Elvis. I thought he was kidding me and then he called his brother, they yelled to each other over the phone, and then I believed him.
There is no contradiction between the fact that Israel has full personal equality of citizenship but extends national rights only to the Jewish people.
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.
Each and every day, Israel remains on the frontline along with the United States in the War on Terror and is nothing but an unabashed ally of pro-democratic and pro-American policy.
Look, we have existed for 4,000 years – 2,000 years in diaspora, in exile. Nobody in the Middle East speaks their original language but Israel. When we started 64 years ago, we were 650,000 people. So, you know, we are maybe swimming a little bit against the stream, but we continue to swim.
In addition to the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, which is crucial to U.S. interests both domestically and in the Middle East, the U.S. has had and will continue to need Egypt’s collaboration in the war on terrorism.
I am meeting Diaspora Jews all the time, and we are developing programmes to prevent distancing. We have a joint history, but we cannot take matters for granted. Israel is home for all of us, and part of the beauty of the country is its social diversity.
Maintaining control indefinitely over millions of Palestinians will inevitably lead to a demographic nightmare and cannot be sustained if Israel is to remain true to its founding principles.
That is why if Lebanon concludes a peace agreement with Israel and brings that accord to the Parliament our deputies will reject it; Hezbollah refuses any conciliation with Israel in principle.
In Israel, the role of the writer is dictated by the language in which you write. Writers see themselves as cultural prophets.
Israel will not tolerate Iran developing nuclear power, even if Iran claims it is for peaceful purposes. If there is an attack, oil prices will go through the roof.
We want Israel as a democratic and Jewish state. So you have to maintain a Jewish majority, and you want to do that by legal means, by democratic means.
It was no accident that just minutes after Israel became a nation, the United States… became the first nation in the world to recognize what was prophesized throughout the Old Testament about Israel returning after its absence.
We’ve always had a dual role in the region – friend of Israel, and honest broker. We’ve given up the honest broker role completely.
Well, I grew up between Holland and Israel and then moved to France when I was eleven.
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.
I’m of Russian-Jewish background. Like many Soviet Jews, my parents were engineers. My family migrated from Ukraine to Israel when I was six. They arrived in Israel with very little… Within a year of arriving in Israel, the Yom Kippur War happened.
The nations of antiquity rolled away in the current of ages, Israel alone remained one indestructible edifice of gray antiquity… preserved by an internal and marvelous power.
For an artist to go and play in a country that occupies other people’s land and oppresses them, the way Israel does, is plain wrong. They should say no.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a minute off in Israel. I’ve been completely and utterly devoted to what Hanadiv does. I’m not saying I’m a good guy for that. It’s just the way the dice have fallen.
I will continue to believe that Israel’s security is paramount.
The Zionists indeed learnt well from the Nazis. So well that it seems that their morally repugnant treatment of the Palestinians, and their attempts to destroy Palestinian society within Israel and the occupied territories, reveals them as basically Nazis with beards and black hats.
It’s overwhelmingly in the self-interest of the United States of America to have a secure, democratic friend, a strategic partner like Israel.
The most important sign in Matthew has to be the restoration of the Jews to the land in the rebirth of Israel.
We may need to change the way we think. As in Israel, I think there should be a mandatory draft, where you go away for the service of your country for three years.
If there will be a serious Palestinian prime minister who makes a 100 percent effort to end terrorism, then we can have peace. Each side has to take steps. If terror continues, there will not be an independent Palestinian state. Israel will not accept it, if terror continues.
What could become a danger to world peace is Iran’s nuclear program and the country’s open threat to annihilate Israel.
Those who hate Israel hate America. Those who hate Jews hate Christians.
When I was elected President nobody asked me to negotiate between Israel and Egypt. It was not even a question raised in my campaign. But I felt that one of the reasons that I was elected President was to try to bring peace to the Holy Land.
We’re close friends – the American people, the Israeli people, our governments. There’s absolutely no daylight – none – between us and the Israelis on the question of Israel’s security.
Every dollar that we send in State Department aid or humanitarian aid that saves us from having to get involved with very expensive military actions is a good investment. And frankly, helping Israel fight terrorism in the Middle East is much cheaper than us fighting it here on our shores.
I’ve been called a spy of Israel since 1996, and since I made my documentary film in 2000 the FBI has investigated me as an agent of Iraq. The FBI has also opened up an investigation into my wife calling her a KGB spy.
I’m absolutely convinced of that. Israel is the representative of the United States in that part of the world. Its policies are so integrated with American policies that they use the same language.
We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.
Foreigners who speak Arabic in the Middle East are often assumed to be working for the C.I.A. or Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad.
However, there is no legal and legitimate state called Israel.
I am passionately invested in the survival of Israel and everything Israel represents. But I am extremely critical of much of its policy. I believe that the occupation must end. And if it doesn’t, it will end Israel. I’m not in favor of settlements.
Close to 80 percent of all terrorist activity in Samaria was directed and financed either by Hizbullah or the Iranians. Iran continues to increase its involvement in terror attacks inside Israel, particularly through a small but radical minority of Israeli Arabs which Iran supports and directs.
We are together with the British and Americans because one should fight terror. But we are not going to pay the price for it by endangering Israel and its citizens.
Hamas thinks they can kill the will of people by intimidation. Most of those who are killed in the Gaza Strip for the suspicion of collaborating with Israel, have nothing to do with Israel.
It is impossible to have a Jewish, democratic state and at the same time to control all of Eretz Israel. If we insist on fulfilling the dream in its entirety, we are liable to lose it all. Everything. That is where the extremist path takes us.
I don’t feel particularly attached to Israel – ‘nationalism,’ as Noam Chomsky said, ‘is not my cup of tea’ – but I feel no particular need to demonize it.
I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it – not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.
Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury.
Israel’s willingness to cooperate closely with the U.S. in protecting American interests in the region altered her image in the eyes of many officials in Washington.
Israel made peace with Egypt, the largest Arab State. There are militant Islamists there, but there is also law. There are agreements and also defense arrangements there.
Mr. President, prime ministers, let us have ambitions: ambitions to move beyond the violence and occupation, to the day when two states, Palestine and Israel, can live together side by side in peace and security.
Israel has, enjoys bipartisan support – both Democrats and Republicans – and we extend bipartisan hospitality to both Democrats and Republicans.
As Israel prepares to enter, my position is well known. It is one that I have taken at previous Olympics. It is wrong that the IOC refuses to have a minute’s silence for Israeli athletes that were slaughtered in Munich.
Israel fights back, which is very much at odds with the Jewish instinct to discuss and deconstruct everything until action itself seems senseless.
Since its very inception, Israel has been a threat.
I can certainly put myself in Israel’s shoes. They are humans just like we are. They want peace and security inside their borders.
As long as I’m needed. I’ll be ready to serve. I look forward with optimism. We need the Jews here. Move to Israel! Move to Israel!
There will never be another Ed Koch. He was an original, but he represented a significant, if shrinking, segment of American Jewry who refused to compromise their liberal values, their support for Israel or their Jewish pride.
The religious doctrine of traditional Judaism entails the acceptance of the nationhood of the Jewish people and the everlasting sanctity of the Land of Israel for them.
Israel has created a new image of the Jew in the world – the image of a working and an intellectual people, of a people that can fight with heroism.
The Psalms, the anthology of the hymns of Israel, are still used by Christians.
How can Israel say that everyone is equal before the law – that you’re equal before the law – when the law defines Judaism as the cultural, national and legislative basis for the state?
Without Hitler, the State of Israel probably would not exist today. To that extent he was probably the Jews’ greatest friend.
I think the attraction to Israeli women stems from the fact that we’re exotic and the fact that there are many talented and beautiful women in Israel. I think that there is also greater awareness of Israel than before in the movie industry.
I am a Zionist, an ardent supporter of Israel, its defender when I deem Israel to be right and its critic when I deem it to be wrong.
I particularly love Israel. I’ve had fantastic experiences there.
Israel is the canary in the mine. What happens to Israel will eventually happen to America itself.
Is Israel going to continue to be ‘Fortress Israel’? Or, as we all hope, become accepted into the neighborhood, which I believe is the only way we can move forward in harmony.
My conviction is that the best strategy to defend the West is to defend Israel.
Egypt has been a partner of the United States over the last 30 years, has been instrumental in keeping the peace in the Middle East between Egypt and Israel, which is a critical accomplishment that has meant so much to so many people.
France can certainly accommodate foreign people on its soil long-term, those with foreign citizenship… as long as they respect French laws and French values, which is often a problem on the immigration issue. It’s not really a problem with Israel on this topic.
Israel is a wonderful country. It’s a beautiful country. It is ours. But it is a country with 10,000 problems that we have to solve and deal.
On foreign policy, President Obama has kept our nation safe from terrorism and restored our standing in the world. When it comes to one of our closest allies – Israel – President Obama has been resolute.
After 1957, Israel had to wait 10 full years for its flag to fly again over that liberated portion of the homeland.
And if we are honest we have to make a distinction between a democratic Israel that wants to live in peace and the terrorists who want Israel wiped out. The Israelis were told to give up land for peace; they gave up the land, but got no peace.
The command-and-control systems, the war rooms, the methods of information gathering, and the technology of the pilotless aircraft, or drones, that now serve the Americans and their allies were all, in large part, developed in Israel.
My goal is always to keep support for Israel a bi-partisan issue and never make a national election any kind of referendum on Israel.
I love the nation of Israel. I love Jewish people. My King was Jewish, and I embrace that.
I got ‘Munich’ after I had done ‘In Treatment’ in Israel, which was very successful. But, when I actually shot it, nobody knew it was going to be sold all over the world and be so successful.
The scale of time for a politician runs between one primary and the next, and in Israel, this means two to three years because elections almost never take place once every four years as stipulated by law. The timetable for a system of research is completely different.
Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.
But The Same Sea is set precisely in this Israel, which never makes it to the news headlines anywhere. It is a novel about everyday people far removed from fundamentalism, fanaticism nationalism, or militancy of any sort.
Israel lost their power to intimidate during the second war with Lebanon.
Mubarak was oppressing and pillaging his own people. He was an enemy to the Palestinians and an accomplice of Israel, the sixth nuclear power on the planet, associated with the war-mongering NATO group.
In my mind the city of Ariel is a thorn in Israel’s side and a serious obstacle to peace.
Now, the people that helped get Obama elected, who think Israel is a good idea, need to wake up and tell him they’re our friends, let’s preserve them. And then it would happen. Because that’s the only kind of thing he responds to. But he throws our friends under the bus and rewards our enemies.
Aside from the states, Israel’s my favorite country. I love it there. I still go there to visit.
Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.
I cannot say that the attitude of the United Nations always is for the Israeli attitude. Israel, I think, has been under severe attacks by members of the United Nations many times.
Leaned on by Turkey and understandably wary of false equivalences – for not every death is a massacre, and not every war is genocidal – Israel connives in Armenian genocide denial.
I challenge the homes of Israel to display on their walls great quotations and scenes from the Book of Mormon.
It was in our power to cause the Arab governments to renounce the policy of strength toward Israel by turning it into a demonstration of weakness.
Israel no longer has allies in Egypt and in Tunisia, we are saying to the Zionist enemies that times have changed and that the time of the Arab Spring, the time of the revolution, of dignity and of pride has arrived.
If history remembers me at all, in any way, I hope it will be as a man who loved the Land of Israel and watched over it in every way he could, all his life.
You don’t have people chanting ‘Death to America’ in Israel.
Israel cannot afford to stand against the entire world and be denounced as the aggressor.
I think Iran is a very dangerous country – very dangerous to Israel, to the Middle East, and also to the United States. They export terrorism. And they also have the ability to manufacture rockets and missiles.
And then there’s Israel – a lot of people support Israel, and it’s important to Israel to take out Iraq. So it’s all mixed together. It’s a combination of motives.
As one who participated in all the wars of the state of Israel, I saw the horror of wars. I saw the fear of wars. I saw my best friends being killed in battles. I was seriously injured twice.
Israel is too attached to America, too influenced by America. It should be connected to Europe. America is based on mythology – the free man, the individual, the open frontier. Europe is more conscious of history. Take Britain and Shakespeare. You shape your identity through history.
An independent, strong, thriving and peaceful State of Israel is the vengeance of the dead.
Israel’s capital will never again be a divided city, a city with a wall at its center, a city in which two flags fly. This city, will, in its entirety, absorb immigrants, welcome pilgrims and be the eternal capital of Israel forever.
In 1975 I was among a group of blacks who formed the Black Americans in Support of Israel Committee.
From the day I started to think politically and to develop my own moral values, from my earliest youth, I have been an ardent defender of Israel.
The military operation in Lebanon was the most successful military operation in recent Israeli history. Many in Israel don’t recognise that.
There’s no doubt about it that Mubarak has been indeed a partner with Israel, but there’s also no doubt about something else. Conditions in Egypt were getting worse and worse, and it was almost just a matter of time before the popular uprising started.
David – the man after God’s own heart – was a man of war and a mighty man of valour. When all Israel were on the run, David faced Goliath – alone… with God – and he but a stripling, and well scolded, too, by his brother for having come to see the battle.
Just as we rely on Israel as a continual source of inspiration and renewal, Israel relies on us.
Why does Israel always have to suffer for others to feel bad for it?
The greatest king of Israel, King David, the author of the Psalms, sent a man out to die in battle so that he could sleep with his wife.
I want people to have a good impression of Israel. I don’t feel like I’m an ambassador for my country, but I do talk about Israel a lot – I enjoy telling people about where I come from and my religion.
Israel is our strongest, most reliable ally in the Middle East. Of course, we’re their most reliable ally, too.
Israel is one of the easiest places to play ball. When I say easy I am referring to the easy lifestyle an athlete has while in Israel. It’s very easy to get around the country, because it’s so small.
It’s hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.
The framework for peace signed by Egypt and Israel is almost a peace treaty. We solved the problem for the peace treaty 98%.
I don’t feel we need a declaration from the Palestinians that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Because I know about the Holy Land, I’ve taught lessons about the Holy Land all my life, and – but you can’t bring peace to Israel without giving the Palestinian also peace. And Lebanon and Jordan and Syria as well.
The principles governing Western democracies, of which Israel rightly considers itself a part, are based on the assurance that everyone has a vote, but also that the minority needs to yield to the wishes of the majority.
The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.
Netanyahu is pressured easily, gets into a panic, and loses his senses… to run a country like Israel a leader needs to have reason and judgment and nerves of steel, two traits he does not have.
I have been, and will remain, outspoken in my insistence that Israel has a right to live in peace and security.
It is important that the right of Israel to exist should be respected and also the viable Palestinian authorities, in terms of political and financial situation, be supported so that both can live side by side in peace and security. That is a two-state solution.
Apparently, the line you take on Israel trumps everything else in life.
Israel has a sizeable nuclear arsenal and could retaliate if it were attacked.
If I were in the government, I would persuade the prime minister to see the beauty in the fact that people see Israel as a haven – from their sadness to their hope.
The U.S. has a stronger military than Israel, but, but don’t short-change Israel, either. Don’t short-change them.
The State of Israel was not established so that the anti-Semites will disappear but, rather, so we can tell them to get lost.
Israel has created a new image of the Jew in the world – the image of a working and an intellectual people, of a people that can fight with heroism.
If America has the right to target Osama bin Laden, or terrorists, of course Israel has the right to defend itself from terrorism.
Peace for us means the destruction of Israel. We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations.
I simply cannot see how denying chemotherapy treatment for Palestinian children increases Israel’s security or advances U.S. national interests.
Iran has long sponsored terrorists who carry out homicide bombings in Israeli cities. However, it is a mistake to believe the danger Iran poses is directed at Israel alone.
What I was doing was servicing the needs of my constituents and I was not allowed to do that because I did not toe the line on U.S. policy for Israel.
Given the events of even the 19th century, Zionism was inevitable. Given the events of the 20th century, Israel was inevitable.
Twenty percent of students in Israel’s schools are haredim; another 20% are retired; another 20% are Arab. I have no problem with any of them.
I studied at the Hebrew University Medical Faculty, graduated, and was an Israel Defense Forces’ combat physician on a Navy ship.
Israel’s doors are open to collaboration with Bulgaria.
I want to do everything in my power to ensure the equality between all movements of Judaism in the state of Israel: Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform. In conversions, in budgets, in the eyes of the law. No one can claim ownership over the Jewish God.
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.
Both during the elections and as Prime Minister, I have repeatedly and publicly said that I support the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel.
Israel’s master strategy needs to be moving toward a regional arrangement that will enable a full normalization of relations with the Arab states and the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel.
I never believed that Israel had the right to exist at all.
My prayer is that the good news of Jesus, the crucified and risen Messiah, would flood Jewish communities around the world, that the veil would be lifted, and that we would see a massive turning of Israel to the Lord Jesus.
Not only must Americans admire Israel, there can be no doubt that we have an interest in, and special responsibility for, that valiant nation.
As Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak have repeatedly said, the intelligence and security relationship between the United States and Israel at present is unprecedented. It has never been stronger.
Jerusalem Syndrome is actually a rare psychological condition that occurs to some visitors to the Middle East. They get to Israel and just snap.
If I have to advise our brothers in France, I’ll tell them one thing – move to Israel, as early as possible. I say that to Jews all around the world, but there I think it’s a must and they have to move immediately.
Every country that has experimented with women in actual combat has abandoned the idea, and the notion that Israel uses women in combat is a feminist myth.
I never wanted to write. I just wrote letters home from a kibbutz in Israel to reassure my parents that I was still alive and well fed and having a great time. They thought these letters were brilliant and sent them to a newspaper. So I became a writer by accident.
I think president after president has always stood behind Israel. We always will. They’re our ally there. And we have to do whatever we can help them to protect their citizens.
The Jewish journey started in the land of Israel, and it always strove to return there against all odds and all limitations.
Our role in Israel is a pioneering one, and we need people with certain strength of fiber.
Too often in the past, U.S. leaders have forced Israel to pay the price for American strategic interests in the Middle East – through concessions in the peace process as well as passivity in the face of Iraqi attacks.
Overwhelmingly, Israel’s political and military establishment want the rest of the world to act diplomatically or otherwise to stop Iran. But if that doesn’t happen, then the impulse toward the use of force will become quite strong.
Let me be clear: I unequivocally support a two-state solution as the path to resolution of the Israel and Palestinian conflict, with Israel as the national homeland for the Jewish people. Moreover, I reject the demonization and de-legitimization of Israel represented by the BDS narrative and campaign.
Those in the international community that refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.
There is a mutual interest between Israel and the United States of America. It is more than friendship – it is friendship plus mutual interest, and it is bipartisan.
I believe that the people of Israel are the chosen people of God.
The bonds of trust between the United States and Israel have been frayed, but even the hostility and disrespect the Obama administration has shown has not severed those bonds.
The Arabs are ready to accept a strong Israel with nuclear arms – all it has to do is open the gates of its fortress and make peace.
The people of Israel are entitled, as is any other nation, to live in peace and safety.
Other countries, such as Israel, successfully employ behavior detection techniques at their airports, but the bloated, ineffective bureaucracy of TSA has produced another security failure for U.S. transportation systems.
When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, the U.N. vetoed several resolutions right away, calling for an end to the fighting and so on, and that was a hideous invasion.
To the extent that Israel does face threats, like from say Hamas or Hezbollah, those are threats that do not jeopardise Israel’s existence.
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.
Our two party platforms were emphatic about Jerusalem being the capital of Israel. For the Obama administration to remove this language from the Democratic Party platform drives a wedge into one of the few issues that our two parties agreed on.
I am opposed to any state with an ethnic character, not only to Israel.
The people whose necks hurt when I write about the Middle East tend to live in Brooklyn or Boca Raton: the kind of Zionist who pays another man to live in Israel for him. I have nothing but contempt for such people.
When I was born here on one of the farms in Israel, my childhood, I never thought for one day that we will not be living together with Arabs.
While criticism of Israel is legitimate and justifiable, it cannot be an excuse – in any way, shape or form – for anti-Semitism.
The state of Israel seems to owe its very existence to the American Jewish vote, while at the same time consigning the non-religious to political oblivion.
When you live in a small country such as Israel, the dream of any musician is to go abroad.
Anti-Semitic insults by ‘Svoboda’ have caused outrage on number of occasions both in Ukraine and in Israel.
A final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians has to be based on a program of exchange of territory and populations.
I am a supporter of the state of Israel.
My heart goes out to the brave citizens of Syria, who each day risk and even sacrifice their lives to achieve freedom from a murderous regime. We in Israel welcome the historic struggle to forge democratic, peace-loving governments in our region.
We see today that there is a growing understanding in the international community that the extremist regime in Tehran is not just Israel’s problem, but rather an issue that the entire international community must grapple with.
Being from Israel and a Jew is complex already, but with France, there is a freedom and a mix of culture. I have met musicians from all over the world.
Jewish existence in the Land of Israel depends only on the Jews, and on what the Jews think of themselves.
I contend that Bush would be a lot more moderate if there weren’t some fundamentalists breathing down his neck every time he wants to establish the state of Israel, every time he wants to do justice for the Palestinian people.
A small country like Israel has compulsory military training. But countries like India, that are so much bigger, have no compulsory military training, so people don’t understand how the military functions. They have no knowledge of how it works, no respect for it.
It is crystal clear to me that if Arabs put down a draft resolution blaming Israel for the recent earthquake in Iran it would probably have a majority, the U.S. would veto it and Britain and France would abstain.
No country in the history of the world has ever contributed more to humankind and accomplished more for its people in so brief a period of time as Israel has done since its relatively recent rebirth in 1948.
The security of the citizens of Israel, the future of the state of Israel, this is the Israeli government’s responsibility.
I think that a strong Israel is the only Israel that will bring the Arabs to the peace table.
Everyone who supports Israel is a Zionist.
Everybody on this floor wants to send the same loud and clear message: that Congress is united in its opposition to terror and we are all deeply concerned about the future and security of our close friend and ally, Israel.
ISIS and radical Islam have declared war on us not because of anything we have done – not because we are a friend to Israel and not because we have not yet toppled the bloody Syrian dictator Assad. ISIS and radical Islamists hate us for who we are. The irony is, we ourselves do not know who we are.
The mortal mind alone cannot devise an answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because the true answer lies on a level of consciousness that’s beyond our mortal thinking. Quite simply, when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, we need a miracle.
The Holocaust is a central event in many people’s lives, but it also has become a metaphor for our century. There cannot be an end to speaking and writing about it. Besides, in Israel, everyone carries a biography deep inside him.
The missile that downed the Malaysian plane, they say, is a Russian-made missile. But the weapons that are used in the barbarism in the barbaric act against the Palestinians were made by the West, and nobody is blaming them. Nobody talks about it; not even the U.N. Security Council can pass a resolution against Israel!
Harry Truman, who was a Bible-believing Christian Zionist, defied the secretary of state he so admired, George C. Marshall, and won a place in Israel’s history by recognizing the new state 11 minutes after it declared its independence in 1948.
Israel expanded beyond its original boundaries only because the Arab powers attacked Israel and the U.N. demarcation unsuccessfully in 1948. The endless caterwauling about the 1967 borders is rubbish.
I have written to Israel’s friends around the world, including the U.S. Congress and the E.U., and asked them to make funding for the United Nations dependent on ending blatant discrimination against Israel at the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Israel has many hopes, and faces extreme dangers. The most prominent danger is Iran, which is making every effort to acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and establishing an enormous terror network together with Syria in Lebanon.
The central premise behind Oslo was that if Arafat were given enough legitimacy, territory, weapons and money, he would use his power to fight terror and make peace with Israel.
Arab youth are taught to wonder, ‘Since the Holocaust was a European affair, why are the Palestinians being forced to pay for the creation of Israel?’
Israel’s middle class is paying for those below it, and that’s fine, but also for those who are above it, and that’s very wrong.
I do believe that Israel is covenant land. That’s very controversial, but I read the Bible literally, and I believe that God gave them that land, all the way back to Deuteronomy.
A visit to Israel is always an experience in cognitive dissonance. The Israel you personally see and hear is so completely different from the Israel you read and hear about in the media.
We repeat today that we are with the establishment of a Palestinian state on any liberated part of Palestinian land that is agreed upon by the Palestinian people, without recognizing Israel or conceding any inch of historical Palestine.
Israel changed my life. It is one of the most amazing countries that I have ever been to.
Israel gives the West Bank water twice a week! One way of promoting good would be not to ration water.
The NSA and Israel wrote Stuxnet together.
If Hamas continues to threaten the security of the state of Israel, I believe Israel has the ability and the capacity to control the borders and cut off the weapons supply.
For me the root of evil today is the policy of President Bush. It is a fascist policy. I cannot understand how is it that the Jewish people, who have been the victims of Nazism, can support such a fascist policy. No other people in the world support those policies but Israel! This situation saddens me.
I went to Israel when the missiles were falling there.
That whole concept of team and teamwork and team first – that’s how Israel, in my opinion, has survived in the Middle East.
Israel does not care about the international public opinion.
We want to see Israel withdraw from our territory. But we don’t want to be accountable vis-a-vis Israel on the security basis, because we don’t see, in the absence of a peace agreement, that Lebanon can really be accountable to Israel if anything happens.
In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
For the Arabs in Israel there is always a tension between nationality and identity.
Israel reoccupied the cities of the West Bank by a unilateral action, and reestablished the civil and military occupation by a unilateral action, and it is the one that determines whether or not a Palestinian citizen has the right to reside in any part of the Palestinian Territory.
Israel is a lighthouse and the only democracy in a dark and tyrannical region. It’s part of us, of our European identity.
I am going to take something I learned over in Israel. Their Independence Day is preceded the 24 hours before with Memorial Day, so it gives them a chance to serve and reflect and then celebrate. I am going to try to start that tradition here in America.
The international community and Israel have the same opinion regarding the Hamas government. We don’t say we are going to boycott it forever. We say the Hamas government must abide by the obligations the Palestinian Authority has signed.
Cabinet resolutions approving mass releases of terrorists deal a mortal blow to the status of Israel’s judges and courts.
Judaism will be enmeshed in pride and shame for as long as it endures. But to endure as a country, Israel must shun both these tendencies.
The truth about Hamas and Islamic Jihad is that they don’t prevent Israel from existing or even flourishing, they prevent Palestine from coming into existence.
The only way to security for Israel and a humane life for Palestinians in their own land is political. No matter where the fault for past negotiating failures lies, there is no other path.
Yes, Israel’s our ally. But, are the Palestinians our enemy? No, they are not.
In Egypt, on the eve of Tahrir Square, there was a major poll which found that overwhelmingly – 80-90%, numbers like that – Egyptians regarded the main threats they face as the U.S. and Israel. They don’t like Iran – Arabs generally don’t like Iran – but they didn’t consider it a threat.
Then the administration tied it in to the regional dispute between Israel and its enemies, as if that’s about international terrorism. No, it’s not.
I think we need a public, strategic, cooperative relationship with Israel.
A solution of two national states – a Jewish state, Israel; an Arab state, Palestine. The Palestinians are our closest neighbors. I believe they may become our closest friends.
This resolution simply says Israel has the right to defend itself. This includes conducting operations both inside its borders and in the territory of nations that threaten it, which is in accordance with international law.
There must be some security arrangement in the south of Lebanon so northern Israel is not threatened anymore.
When I’d go to Israel, I felt like a tourist. My social and professional ties had started to dissolve, and it confused me. I didn’t know whether I should stay here in Paris or go back to Israel, or even cut off all my ties with Israel so I could really plant roots here. Or maybe go somewhere else altogether.
There are only two ways to remove the president – if he violates the constitution or commits high treason. How could anyone accuse me of treason after I had terminated Israel’s occupation of South Lebanon in 2000.
We would like to have friendly regimes with enough broad participation of their populations to maintain long-term stability, so that we would have not only access to the region’s wealth, but we would be able to ensure the security of our good friend Israel.
Israel has incredible entrepreneurial spirit and a deep bench of technology talent.
In Israel, there is this reduction of the political discourse to something that is very limited. It’s as if you have that pitch that only dogs can hear. Sometimes I feel I speak at such a pitch that very few people around me communicate with what I’m saying.
A lasting solution to this problem will have an exceptionally positive influence foremost on the peoples of Palestine and Israel, as well as on the region and the international community.
I will say that I think Israel enjoys strong bipartisan support in the United States. It’s really above and beyond American politics.
Just as we send young American Jews to Israel through the Birthright program, we need to also consider a ‘reverse Birthright’ for Israeli kids to come see America.
You have to show Israel that it’s not going to be forced to do things it doesn’t want to do and can’t do.
Tel Aviv is the most exciting place to eat in Israel.
There is a school in Israel called Hand in Hand which I support. There Arab and Jewish students study together on a daily basis.
Israel can’t make peace without the clear support of the United States.
No one is speaking about the Arab citizens of Israel.
Israel is so tiny. It’s, you know, a little less than the length of Manhattan, without the West Bank, without Judea and Samaria.
We are not going to damage our safety and our security. We’re not going to give those extremists the privilege to come so freely to Israel in order to carry out more attacks against us and kill us one day after another.
We do not build new Jewish communities in Samaria, Judea and Gaza. The United States has never accepted our building of communities or of the fence. Yet, I’ve managed to develop relations between Israel and the United States even though President Bush never supported settlements.
Look, Israel doesn’t intend to introduce nuclear weapons, but if people are afraid that we have them, why not? It’s a deterrent.
The most vexing problem Israel faces is its relations with its neighbors. From the inception of the state until today, Israelis have felt besieged, surrounded by enemies who want to make them disappear.
Without that assured American largesse Israel would have been obliged to come to an accommodation with her neighbours.
You want a culture where citizens are free to express themselves and so live in the openness necessary to the functioning of a successful economy? Israel has a free press, much of it openly hostile to the parties in power.
While in Israel, Mitt Romney said something every sane person knows to be true: There is great cultural and political meaning in the fact that Israel has prospered while the Palestinians have festered.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Arabs can be elected to the parliament in a democratic election.
The aggressive, unprovoked acts of violence against Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas are revealing. It is clear they don’t want peace, but rather seek the ultimate destruction of Israel.
Only weeks after Oslo began, when nearly all the world and most of Israel was drunk with the idea of peace, I argued that a Palestinian society not constrained by democratic norms would be a fear society that would pose a grave threat to Israel.
Until 1956, America treated Israel not much differently from other friendly states.
At the same time as we clearly condemn actions of violence by groups in Palestinian against Israel.
You still can’t find Israel on a map of the Middle East in a Palestinian schoolbook.
In 1993, Israel and North Korea were moving towards an agreement in which North Korea would stop sending any missiles or military technology to the Middle East and Israel would recognize that country. President Clinton intervened and blocked it.
I don’t think Israel can accept an Iranian terror base next to its major cities any more than the United States could accept an al Qaeda base next to New York City.
We have a close, unshakable bond between the United States and Israel, and between the American and Israeli people. We share common values and a commitment to a democratic future for the world, and we are both committed to a two-state solution. But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to agree.
My father worked for the railroad, and whenever a train crashed, we would go as a family and steal food from the boxcars. One year we stole a case of butterscotch pudding that was for export to Israel. It took us years to get through.
