Israelis Quotes

I am always hearing from Israelis, ‘Oh, CNN is anti-Israel,’ or ‘BBC is against us.’ But no, they are reporting facts.

We see and hear about Israelis and Palestinians only when they are defined by the global media as ‘occupiers,’ ‘terrorists,’ and ‘victims.’ But we forget that they are fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and neighbors and doctors and shop-owners and farmers and students.

Although my stance on responsible citizenship made sense to many Israelis, the intelligentsia could not, as you say in English, get their heads around it. ‘Racist’ and ‘fascist’ were the knee-jerk reactions.

Success is not assured, but America is resolute: this is the best chance for peace we are likely to see for some years to come – and we are acting to help Israelis and Palestinians seize this chance.

While Israelis do not care too much about Europeans moral judgments, the E.U. is an important market for them, and European sanctions of any kind would be harmful to Israel.

We seriously suspect the agents of the Americans and Israelis in conducting such horrendous terrorist acts and cannot believe the people who kidnap Philippines nationals, for instance, or behead U.S. nationals are Muslims.

The United States is for a two-state solution. The United States wants to see the Israelis and Palestinians come together.

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.

We will stand up for our friends in the world. And one of the most important friends is the State of Israel. My administration will be steadfast in support Israel against terrorism and violence, and in seeking the peace for which all Israelis pray.

I’m asking the Israelis to choose their nationality. It doesn’t mean that if they don’t choose French nationality, they have to leave.

Many Israelis are educating their kids in a very nationalist, powerful identity, since kindergarten – and the Arabs as well.

There are so many talented Israelis – musicians and actors and everything.

I’m on the board of directors for Peace Now, which works tirelessly between the Palestinians and the Israelis to create peace in the Middle East and we’ve never been closer.

The Middle East is a land of great injustice. The Israelis can claim – or wish to, at least – that Lord Balfour’s Declaration of 1917 promised Britain support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which didn’t just mean the left-hand bit that became Israel.

In practical terms, Israel has become the eyes and ears of the United States in the Middle East. This arrangement has freed the United States from a heavy intelligence-gathering burden. But it has also forced the Americans to depend upon the Israelis.

When Will and I were growing up in Los Angeles, his girlfriends were always Israeli, so we’d always be hanging out with Israelis in L.A.

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.

Israelis and Palestinians are suspicious of each other and of promises from outside. But the need for a negotiated solution between the parties should not stymie international clarity and consensus about the endgame in terms of borders and other issues.

The Israeli military plays more than a critical role in defending the citizens of the Jewish state. It also plays an important social, scientific and psychological role in preparing its young citizens for the challenging task of being Israelis in a difficult world.

Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis. That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels, only a ceasefire.

Palestinian children deserve the same right to be free in their own land as Israeli children in their land. A two-state solution will finally bring Israelis the security and normalcy to which they are entitled, and Palestinians the sovereignty and dignity they deserve.

The choices Israelis face and the decisions they make, day in and day out, are literally the difference between life and death. In many ways, I liken their reactions to the way I felt while serving in Iraq.

Using vehicles as weapons is a tactic that has often used by Palestinian terrorists to target Israelis, but in 2014, an ISIS spokesman had encouraged such vehicular attacks in the West, saying of ISIS’ enemies, ‘Run him over with your car.’

As in any war, there have been dreadful mistakes and civilian casualties. The difference is when Israelis kill innocents they apologize; when Hezbollah kills innocents they celebrate.

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.

It’s not what the rabbis say that defines Jewishness but what we Israelis do every day – our actions and our values.

I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music.

The ability of the president to be perceived as someone with whom all Israelis can identify depends on his ability to avoid being a party to debate.

The idea that all Israelis are villains is a childish idea. Israel is the most deeply divided, argumentative society. You’ll never find two Israelis that agree with one another – it’s hard to find even one who agrees with himself or herself.

We have agreed with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to cease all acts of violence against the Israelis and against the Palestinians wherever they are. Tranquility and quiet that will be witnessed and in our land, starting today, is the beginning for a new era.

Most Israelis do want to keep Israel safe. The question is how do you do that.

The settlers do not have a problem with the leftists but, rather, with Israelis who like settlers: Israelis who are unconcerned by the fact that national-religious youngsters are overtaking our elite units. Such Israelis actually appreciate the settlers for that.

The struggle between Israelis and Palestinians is a perfect reflection of the struggle between fear and forgiveness that rages within us all.

The Palestinian must stop throwing stones, and the Israelis must stop firing rockets. And in the view of the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, rockets are equal to stones.

Israel is much more effective when the Israelis are convinced that we are on the moral high ground: that we are acting not just out of might, but also out of right.

Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!

I wouldn’t discount the possibility that the Israelis would act if they came to the conclusion that basically the world was prepared to live with Iran with nuclear weapons. They certainly have the capability by themselves to set back the Iranian nuclear program.

Arab Israelis don’t have the same voice as Jewish Israelis. If you look at the numbers, we are not equal. There are many reasons for this, some have to do with the fact that we are a bit primitive in the way we do certain things, others have to do with the government not giving us the same opportunities as Jews.

This was not a decision made with the Israelis. This was a decision by the president for the American people. And so, it was a decision that we all said Jerusalem should be the capital and the embassy should be there. This decision should not weigh in on the peace process.

Palestinians have had to live for a long time with the fact that Israelis had power over them in their everyday lives.

We must become Icelanders in soccer, Israelis in defending our land, Japanese in technology.

When something is presented as an existential threat, it is very easy to scare the Israelis.

First of all, I think the Saudis are deeply concerned about the collapse of negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the resumption of conflict.

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.

Israelis are displaying buds of xenophobia.

One cannot forsake the security of Israelis.

The way forward in the Middle East, as it has been around the world and throughout history, is communication. There must be direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, mediated by the United States.

Our Palestinian brethren continue to be slaughtered at the hands of Israelis while the world turns the other cheek.

It is well past time for President Abbas to stand up and condemn all acts of violence, rather than encouraging violence by glorifying terrorists and teaching children to view Israelis as animals.

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.

Suicide bombers caused us more than 50 percent of our casualties. The fence works. There is a decline in the number of those terrorist attacks against Israelis.

My father was a Foreign Service officer, a diplomat and an Arabist who spent virtually all his career in the Near East, as it was called in the State Department. So I spent most of my childhood among the Israelis and the Arabs of Palestine, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

I see a lot of tech companies developing technology here and selling it abroad, but I don’t see new factories being built, and that worries me, because it means we are not creating the jobs that will guarantee a good life for Israelis.

The relationship between the Jews and Arabs is necessary to help build a bridge between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israelis cannot enter Iran, so Israel, Iranian officials believe, has devoted huge resources to recruiting Iranians who leave the country on business trips and turning them into agents.

It’s necessary for Israelis and Palestinians to make the compromises that are required to get the direct talks back on track.

The United States, and the president’s made this clear, does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us. And it’s a red line obviously for the Israelis so we share a common goal here.

Israel is prepared for a compromise. The majority of Israelis understand this compromise will be serious, will be meaningful, and will be painful.

If we see to it that the Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians have jobs, we will actually be securing our own future.

Direct talks is the only possible way to build trust and to resolve the conditions for a peace perspective between Palestinians and Israelis.

Before statehood was achieved, Syria and Egypt had their tanks and military equipment lined up to invade Tel Aviv and destroy it; but the Israelis scrambled together an air force, some of it from old Second World War Messerschmidts, and the invasion was halted.

All Israelis think Arabs steal cars.

The Palestinians have tried everything, and by God, it’s Israel’s governments that taught us that the only thing the Israelis appreciate is force.

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.

I’ve always been interested in justice. I think what is happening to the Palestinians represents the ultimate injustice. I also hate bullies and the effect of them, the way people side with them out of fear. The Israelis are the schoolyard bullies, with England and the United States siding with them.

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.

There is no question that Israelis – indeed, all concerned Jews – have to continue to work out a Jewish public philosophy that truly justifies a Jewish state in the land 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.

The leadership of the Palestinian Authority is not held in high regard by most of the population of the West Bank. They’re seen as living relatively high off the hog and certainly not accomplishing anything vis-a-vis the Israelis.

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.

The immoral veto of the United States allowed the Israelis, with impunity, to destroy Lebanon. Right in front of all of us as we stood there watching, a resolution in the council was prevented.

Philosophers and theologians have argued for centuries over the morality of targeted assassinations – a technique that the Israelis use with some frequency – without ever reaching anything approaching consensus.

We are the greatest experts in the world in criticizing our country, but no one loves his country more than the Israelis. No one.

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.

When you say to Israelis, ‘European boycott,’ they think it means that this year they won’t get Camembert cheese on time… That is not the case.

Everyone assumes America must play the leading role in crafting some settlement or compromise between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But Jefferson, Madison, and Washington explicitly warned against involving ourselves in foreign conflicts.

You know, it is very clear that the Israelis, they don’t want this plan and they don’t agree.

I think protest and actions have to be organised against the Israelis and their backers. There needs to be a concerted high profile campaign to raise awareness of the people in this country.

On average, the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese are more similar to each other and are different from Australians, Israelis and the Swedes, who in turn are similar to each other and are different from Nigerians, Kenyans, and Jamaicans.

Our response has been, ‘Well, let’s then make an effort to get the Israelis and the Palestinians to sit around the table.’ That hasn’t happened. So we only have ourselves to blame for this crisis.

I wish that only three residents of Tel Aviv could see what conditions on the West Bank are like. Living in such proximity, most Israelis have no idea about the adversity on the West Bank.

Israelis are the total Jews.

The Israelis would like to live in peace within their borders; the Arabs would like to kill them all.

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.

I cannot recognise either the Palestinian state or the Israeli state. The Palestinians are idiots and the Israelis are idiots.

In 1996, Al Jazeera was the first TV station in the Arab world to allow Israelis to appear on the screen and express their views and address the Arab world. Before that, Arab broadcasters did not allow what was perceived as the enemy to appear on the screen.

I wrote a novel about Israelis who live their own lives on the slope of a volcano. Near a volcano one still falls in love, one still gets jealous, one still wants a promotion, one still gossips.

Wow, bad news. Mr. Obama now hates Israel because the Israelis want to build 1,600 apartments in their own capital city, Jerusalem. Russia hates Israel, too. So do the Europeans. So does Ban Ki-moon, a Korean who is secretary-general of the UN.

No one wants to abandon the Israelis. But I think the perception is, and I think it’s probably an accurate perception, that the tail is leading the dog – that we are giving the Israelis carte blanche ability to exercise whatever they want to do in their area.

There are many Israelis who are not keen on Barack Obama – they did not want to see him elected.

The Israelis are very smart about politics and strategy, but there are a few exceptions. One is Lebanon, the other is Gaza, where they were completely inept.

My priority will remain supporting those courageous individuals and organizations, among both Israelis and Palestinians, committed to bringing peaceful coexistence to the region.

People think of Jews as the Woody Allen stereotype, the nebbishy kind of thing, but that’s not the kind of Jews I know. I know plenty of Israelis and plenty of tough guys that are Jewish. So, I think it makes sense that Jews play metal.

Our law is a Jordanian law that we inherited, which applies to both the West Bank and Gaza, and sets the death penalty for those who sell land to Israelis.

In Israel, there’s a lot to learn from anyone, because to live there you’ve got to deal with the truth. Things happen real fast. Your day goes from cool to catastrophic in one second. Israelis know that the cafe you’re in could blow up, or the shopping mall, and they rock that.

I am well placed to know that Le Pen is not an anti-Semite. If one considers his life seriously… a man who went to fight with the Israelis in ’56! Many times, he tried to better the party’s relationship with the Jewish community, even though I do not like the term.

Israelis would mostly breathe a sigh of relief if Palestinians were to disappear.

Israelis want peace and security, and Palestinians want peace and justice – these are two very different things, and this is the real gap we have to close.

Hamas murders not only Israelis, but also Palestinians whose political stance is different from that which its group promotes; that is, its radical religious outlook in which Islam is the solution to the world’s problems.

There’s been a significant amount of Israelis who are joining my party because they think that Israel has to have a tough stance in this crazy environment called the Middle East.

The Israelis and the Palestinians don’t know each other. They live right there, but they’ve become strangers. And it makes it much more difficult to make peace with a person you really don’t know, and that’s an obstacle in itself.

When I come to the airport, they always send me with all the other Israeli Arabs to the foreign workers’ line. I don’t mind. I feel like I belong more with all the people from abroad and the foreign workers than in the Israelis’ line.

I wish the Israelis would embrace Christianity and Trump more. Love your wall. Love Trump’s wall. It’s very clear where I stand.

When Ukrainians and Israelis speak to each other, each side respects the other.

We’ve already seen proliferation. We started it with Britain, then France. Then we benignly let the Israelis do it. The Pakistanis and the Indians have recently done it. The Chinese have nuclear weapons.