Israel Quotes - Page 3

• Israelis keep teaching you your own business. God knows everything but the Israelis know everything better.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, Teaching

  George Mikes (1969). “Coat of Many Colors: Israel”

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• If it is gay, ribald and lascivious night-life you are after, Israel is not the place for you. The night clubs you do find are nearer in spirit to a YMCA than to dens of iniquity.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, Gay

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• Bad English was the second language of Israel and bad Hebrew, of course, remained the national language.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Humorous, Hebrew

  George Mikes (1969). “The Prophet Motive: Israel Today and Tomorrow”

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• The country has always been governed by a coalition but today it is governed by a so-called Grand Coalition which is a more polite word for all and sundry.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Country, Humorous

  George Mikes (1969). “The Prophet Motive: Israel Today and Tomorrow”

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• Long before the word Zionism was uttered for the first time, old religious Jews came from all over the world to die in Jerusalem. It is the finest place to die in - it has always been acknowledged. It has a joie de mourir quite its own.

  George Mikes

  Funny, Religious, Humorous

  George Mikes (1969). “The Prophet Motive: Israel Today and Tomorrow”

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• Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen.

  Golda Meir

  Responsibility, Favors, Cleansing

  Golda Meir's speech to the Knesset as quoted in "New England Review", October 1961.

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• The United States ... has been proud of its association with the State of Israel. We shall continue to stand with Israel. We are committed to Israel's survival and security. The United States for a quarter of a century has had an excellent relationship with the State of Israel. We have cooperated in many, many fields - in your security, in the well-being of the Middle East, and in leading what we all hope is a lasting peace throughout the world.

  Gerald R. Ford

  Presidential, Survival, Middle East

  United States. President (1974-1977 : Ford), Gerald R. Ford (1975). “Gerald R. Ford: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President”

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• Virtually all informed observers agree that a fair and equitable resolution of the plight of the Palestinians would considerably weaken the anger and hatred of Israel and the US in the Arab and Muslim worlds - and far beyond, as international polls reveal. Such an agreement is surely within reach, if the US and Israel depart from their long-standing rejectionism.

  Noam Chomsky

  Agreement, Long, Hatred

  "Apocalypse Near (Part One)". Interview with Merav Yudilovitch, www.ynetnews.com. August 04, 2006.

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• The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war.

  Benjamin Netanyahu

  War, Would Be, Arms

  "Olmert: We will continue to pursue Hizbullah leaders". www.globes.co.il. August 14, 2006.

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• Peace should provide security. It should be durable. I'm ready to go far in making painful concessions. But there is one thing I will never make any concessions on and that's the security of the Israeli citizens and the very existence of the state of Israel. The Palestinians are losing time.

  Ariel Sharon

  Citizens, Losing, Painful

  "The Bulldozer". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. November 7, 2001.

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• We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return

  David Ben-Gurion

  Return, Palestinian Refugees, Zionist

  "Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet" by Michael Bar Zohar, Prentice-Hall, (p. 157), 1967.

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• Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Country, Taken, Leader

  "The Jewish Paradox". Book by Nahum Goldmann, translated by Steve Cox, p. 99, 1978.

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• The preeminent obstacle to peace is Israel's colonization of Palestine.

  Jimmy Carter

  Obstacles, Colonization, Palestine

  "Colonization of Palestine Precludes Peace". www.haaretz.com. March 16, 2006.

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• I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him.

  Ariel Sharon

  Suffering, Killing, Vow

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• I have made it a top priority for my administration to deepen cooperation with Israel across the whole spectrum of security issues - intelligence, military, technology.

  Barack Obama

  Military, Technology, Issues

  Remarks by the President at Signing of the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. July 27, 2012.

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• If the Zionist commit the folly and attack Iran, they will receive a crushing response from the Islamic Republic's armed forces which will lead to their annihilation.

  Mohsen Rezaee

  Crush, Islamic, Iran

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• This is the kernel of the problem, as we see it: the Jews comprise a distinctive element among the nations under which they dwell, and as such can neither assimilate nor be readily digested by any nation.

  Leon Pinsker

  Elements, Problem, Zionist

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• Hence the solution lies in finding a means of so readjusting this exclusive element to the family of nations, that the basis of the Jewish question will be permanently removed.

  Leon Pinsker

  Lying, Mean, Elements

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• This does not mean, of course, that we must think of waiting for the age of universal harmony.

  Leon Pinsker

  Mean, Thinking, Waiting

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• No previous civilization has been able to achieve it, nor can we see even in the remote distance, that day of the Messiah, when national barriers will no longer exist and all mankind will live in brotherhood and concord. Until then, the nations must narrow their aspirations to achieve a tolerable modus vivendi.

  Leon Pinsker

  Distance, Civilization, Brotherhood

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• Palestine must be built up without violating the legitimate interests of the Arabs.. Palestine is not Rhodesia... 600,0000 Arabs live there, who before the sense of justice of the world have exactly the same rights to their homes as we have to our National Home.

  Chaim Weizmann

  Home, Rights, Justice

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• We do not want to create a situation like that which exists in South Africa, where the whites are the owners and rulers, and the blacks are the workers. If we do not do all kinds of work, easy and hard, skilled and unskilled, if we become merely landlords, then this will not be our homeland

  David Ben-Gurion

  Want, Kind, Easy

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• In the midst of wanton aggression, we still call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to return to the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, with full and equal citizenship and due representation in its bodies and institutions - provisional or permanent.

  David Ben-Gurion

  Play, Development, Body

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• Anti-Zionists, last of all, exhibit a distaste for certain words. It was Thomas Hobbes who, anticipating semantics, pointed out that words are counters, not coins; that the wise man looks through them to reality. This counsel many anti-Zionists seem to have neglected. They are especially disturbed by the two nouns nationalism and commonwealth, and by the adjective political. And yet these terms on examination are not at all upsetting.

  Milton Steinberg

  Wise, Men, Reality

  "The Zionist Ideas: Visions for the Jewish Homeland—Then, Now, Tomorrow". Book by Gil Troy, 2018.

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• Jewish nationalism means no more than recognition of the peoplehood of Israel, and of the propriety of that people's being a religio-cultural group in America, a nationality in Eastern Europe, and in Palestine an actualized nation.

  Milton Steinberg

  Mean, Europe, America

  "The Zionist Ideas: Visions for the Jewish Homeland—Then, Now, Tomorrow". Book by Gil Troy, 2018.

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