Politicians from Israel

"We are a small nation, but strong; peace-loving, yet ready to fight for our lives and our country."

"The Israeli army is called a "defense force" but it is not a defensive army. . . . The Sinai campaign (1956), the reprisal acts and the raids across the border were purely offensive operations, and were of decisive value. . . . Not only the actions which were actually carried out but also the IDF's prevailing conception is offensive. . . . The most significant technical expression of the new approach . . . is the absence of fortifications and fencing along the country's borders. Although the Government's policy is, politically speaking, essentially defensive – those responsible for the armed forces have refrained from adopting defensive measures. Their response to Arab provocation has been counter-attacks, raids on enemy bases, transferring the war to the Arab countries . . . to put it simply: the IDF is a characteristically offensive army as regards theory, planning and execution, in body and spirit."

"We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is a Jewish state here. In considerable areas of the country we bought lands from the Arabs. Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist; not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahalal arose in the place of Mahalul, Gevat — in the place of Jibta, Sarid — in the place of Haneifs and Kefar Yehoshua — in the place of Tell Shaman. There is no one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."

"There is no more Palestine. Finished . . ."

"If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies."

"Let's say "we don't have a solution, and you will continue living like dogs, and whoever wants will go, and we'll see how this procedure will work out." For now, it works out. Let's say the truth. We want peace. If there is no peace, we will maintain military rule and we will have four to five military compounds on the mountains, and they will sit ten years under the Israeli military regime. Whoever wants to go, will want. It's possible that in five years, there will be 200,000 fewer people, and that's an enormous thing."

"It is not in our hands to prevent the murder of workers… and families… but it is in our hands to fix a high price for our blood, so high that the Arab community and the Arab military forces will not be willing to pay it."

"In two cases I did not fulfill my role as defense minister, in that I did not stop things that I was sure should have been stopped."

"Along the Syria border there were no farms and no refugee camps — there was only the Syrian army... The kibbutzim saw the good agricultural land … and they dreamed about it... They didn't even try to hide their greed for the land... We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was...The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us."

"Let us not today cast blame on the murderers. Who are we to argue against their potent hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been turning the land and villages in which they and their forefathers lived into our own inheritance... We are the generation of settlement, and without steel helmets and the maw of the cannon we will not be able to plant a tree or build a home. Our children will not live if we do not dig shelters, and without barbed wire fences and machine guns we will not be able to pave roads or drill for water. Millions of Jews, annihilated because they had no country, gaze at us from the dust of Jewish history and command us to settle and raise up a land for our people."

"The only method that proved effective, not justified or moral but effective, when Arabs plant mines on our side [is retaliation]. If we try to search for the [particular] Arab [who planted mines], it has not value. But if we harass the nearby village . . . then the population there comes out against the [infiltrators] . . . and the Egyptian Government and the Transjordanian Government are [driven] to prevent such incidents, because their prestige is [assailed], as the Jews have opened fire, and they are unready to begin a war . . . the method of collective punishment so far has proved effective."

"Let us not today fling accusation at the murderers. What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived. We should demand his blood not from the Arabs of Gaza but from ourselves. . . . Let us make our reckoning today. We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house. . . . Let us not be afraid to see the hatred that accompanies and consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who sit all around us and wait for the moment when their hands will be able to reach our blood."

"We could not guard every water pipeline from being blown up and every tree from being uprooted. We could not prevent every murder of a worker in an orchard or a family in their beds. But it was in our power to set high price for our blood, a price too high for the Arab community, the Arab army, or the Arab governments to think it worth paying. . . 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."

"All that is required is to find an officer, even a captain would do, to win his heart or buy him with money to get him to agreed to declare himself the savior of the Maronite population. Then the Israeli army will enter Lebanon, occupy the necessary territory, create a Christian regime that will ally itself with Israel. The territory from Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel, and everything will fall into place."

"A new State of Israel with broad frontiers, strong and solid, with the authority of the Israel Government extending from the Jordan to the Suez Canal."

"During the last 100 years our people have been in a process of building up the country and the nation, of expansion, of getting additional Jews and additional settlements in order to expand the borders here. Let no Jew say that the process has ended. Let no Jew say that we are near the end of the road."

"[Israel] must see the sword as the main, if not the only, instrument with which to keep its morale high and to retain its moral tension. Toward this end it may, no — it must — invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of provocation-and-revenge..."

"He would wake up with a hundred ideas. Of them ninety-five were dangerous; three more were bad; the remaining two, however, were brilliant."

"He jumped to the sky with anger about Hebron and the provocation of Levinger that has become such a tragedy."

"Dayan didn't want the government to allow the kibbutzim to build there afterwards — he hoped to trade it back for peace."

"Moshe Dayan unfolded one plan after another for direct action. The first — what should be done to force open blockade of the Gulf of Eilat. A ship flying the Israeli flag should be sent, and if the Egyptians bomb it, we should bomb the Egyptian base from the air, or conquer Ras al-Naqb, or open our way south of Gaza Strip to the coast. There was a general uproar. I asked Moshe: Do you realize that this would mean war with Egypt?, he said: Of course."

"Moshe Dayan saw no need for American guarantees of Israel's security and strongly opposed America's conditions i.e. that Israel forswear territorial expansion and military retaliation. In an informal talk with the ambassadors to Washington, London, and Paris, Dayan describe military retaliations as a "life drug" to the Israel Army. First, it obliged the Arab governments to take drastic measures to protect their borders. Second, and this was the essence, it enabled the Israeli government to maintain a high degree of tension in the country and the army. Gideaon Rafael, also present at the meeting with Dayan, remarked to Moshe Sharett: "This is how fascism began in Italy and Germany!""

"Rocking the boat is his favorite tactic, not to overturn it, but to sway it sufficiently for the helmsman to lose his grip or for some of its unwanted passengers to fall overboard.*"

"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives."

"I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender."

"The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."

"If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions."

"It is easy for a rabbi to establish prohibitions, but a rabbi's real strength is to teach Torah and rule on law with an emphasis on what is permitted."

"Saving a life overrides territories."

"It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable. […] The Lord shall return the Arabs' deeds on their own heads, waste their seed and exterminate them, devastate them and vanish them from this world."

"היה צונאמי ויש אסונות טבע נוראיים. כל זה ממיעוט התורה. איפה שיש תורה זה מקיים את העולם. שמה [בניו אורלינס] יש שם כושים. כושים ילמדו תורה? יאללה נביא להם צונאמי, נטביע אותם. מאות אלפים נשארו בלי קורת גג. עשרות אלפים הרוגים. כל זה כי אין להם הקדוש ברוך הוא.‏ There was a tsunami and there are terrible natural disasters, all of this because of too little Torah study. Where there is Torah it sustains the world. There are negros there [in New Orleans]. Negros will study Torah? Let's bring them a tsunami, drown them. Hundreds of thousands were left without a shelter. Tens of thousands died. All of this is because they have no God."

"A Druze soldier who stood guard to protect Israel against vengeful enemies, and was killed by Ishmaelites - it is proper to say a 'hashkava' [prayer] in synagogue for the benefit of his soul... The Druze believe in one God and are not idolaters at all, and also believe in the persistence of the soul [after death], and all the more so they enlist in the IDF and sacrifice themselves to protect the inhabitants of the State of Israel, and they keep the Seven Mitzvot of the Children of Noah, and their status is as Righteous of the Nations of the World."

"It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable."

"“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,”."

"Why are Gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat. That is why Gentiles were created."

"In Israel, death has no dominion over them...With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but (God) will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one's donkey would die, they'd lose their money. This is his servant...That's why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew. Gentiles were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel."

"They don't observe the Sabbath, they don't observe the Torah, they don't pray, they don't put on phylacteries every day. Is it any wonder that they're killed? It's no wonder. May the Almighty have mercy on them and bring them back to religion."

"The most significant halachic authority of the last 100 years, whose positions helped fashion a balanced and moderate Judaism."

"אם לא תהיה ברירה, נכריז מלחמה נגד המליונרים במדינת ישראל. הקרקע כל כך בוערת, שעשירי הארץ לא יתפלאו אם יגיעו קבוצות שפשוט יעלו על הבתים שלהם, ויגרשו אותם מהבית, או שהבנות שלהם כבר לא יוכלו להסתובב בחוץ. כל אחד יצטרך להקים משטרה פרטית. כשיתחילו המאבקים, שמבהירים את העובדה שאי אפשר להמשיך במצב שבו יש קבוצות שצוברות הון ומתעשרות באופן אגדי, ואחרים שנשארים כל כך מאחור, שאף אחד לא ישלה את עצמו שהבית שלו והחצר שלו מחוץ למשחק"

"The targeted assassination policy is a correct one. It is inconceivable that terrorists could operate freely without the ground quaking under their feet."

"At the first stages of negotiations, we will not release prisoners with blood on their hands. However, as part of a final agreement, I do not rule out this option. Offering hope for a better future is more important than grieving the past."

"צריך לדאוג שלא יהיו פה פעולות ראווה ולא ענישה קולקטיווית, אבל הלגיטימציה שתהיה לי להילחם בטרור תהיה גדולה יותר מאשר של כל מועמד אחר"

"When my mother delivered me, she didn't have milk, and I was breastfed by an Arab woman. Maybe that had an effect on my leftist views."

"If a labor leader of national scale is arrested by the police, I will call a general strike."

"צריך להפסיק עם הדיבורים שאם נבנה עוד מפעלים, נצטרך לקנות פחות שניים שלושה אף-16. זה ממש לא שם. צריך קודם כל לקבוע את היעדים. בוא נקבע מה היעד, אני בטוח שנמצא לזה מקורות. ואם, לא תהיה בררה, ושאלת האף-16 תעמוד מול ערך האדם, אני אכריע לטובת האדם, ולא לטובת האף-16"

"The formula for the parameters of a unilateral solution are: To maximize the number of Jews; to minimize the number of Palestinians; not to withdraw to the 1967 border and not to divide Jerusalem."

"We are approaching the point where more and more Palestinians will say: we have been won over. We agree with [National Union leader Avigdor] Liberman. There is no room for two states between the Jordan and the sea. All that we want is the right to vote. The day they do that, is the day we lose everything. Even when they carry out terror, it is very difficult for us to persuade the world of the justice of our cause. We see this on a daily basis. All the more so when there is only one demand: an equal right to vote. The thought that the struggle against us will be headed by liberal Jewish organizations who shouldered the burden of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa scares me."

"Had I believed that there is a real chance of reaching an agreement, I would have recommended making an effort. But that is not the case. The choice we will be facing will be between less than a Geneva Accord—which means a return to the 1967 border, the crushing of Jerusalem, and a struggle to our last breath to ward off the international pressure to absorb hundreds of thousands of refugees into the shrinking State of Israel—and a comprehensive unilateral move, and I stress the word comprehensive. Through such a move we will define our borders, which under no circumstances will be identical to the Green Line and will include Jerusalem as a united city under our sovereignty."

"For thousands of years, we Jews have been nourished and sustained by a yearning for our historic land. I, like many others, was raised with a deep conviction that the day would never come when we would have to relinquish parts of the land of our forefathers. I believed and to this day still believe in our people's eternal and historic right to this entire land."

"The day will come when the two-state solution collapses and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights. As soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished. The Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us, because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents."

"When we saw that the Secretary of State, for reasons we did not really understand, wanted to vote in favor of the U.N. resolution... I looked for President Bush and they told me he was in Philadelphia making a speech, I said, 'I don't care. I have to talk to him now'. They got him off the podium, brought him to another room and I spoke to him. I told him, 'You can't vote in favor of this resolution.' He said, 'Listen, I don't know about it, I didn't see it, I'm not familiar with the phrasing.' [I said to him] 'I'm familiar with it. You can't vote in favor.' He gave an order to the Secretary of State and she did not vote in favor of it -- a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organized and maneuvered for. She was left pretty shamed and abstained on a resolution she arranged."

"What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians. It’s the result of government policy – knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated."

"Israel must decide quickly what sort of environment it wants to live in because the current model, which has some apartheid characteristics, is not compatible with Jewish principles."

"We won’t be moving people, we will be moving the borders. It’s not a transfer."

"The vision I would like to see here is the entrenching of the Jewish and the Zionist state. I very much favor democracy, but when there is a contradiction between democratic and Jewish values, the Jewish and Zionist values are more important."

"People can choose between the sweet lie or the bitter truth. I say the bitter truth, but many people don't want to hear it."

"There are no innocent people in the Gaza Strip. Everyone has a connection to Hamas. Everyone receives a salary from Hamas. Those who are trying to challenge us at the border and breach it belong to Hamas’s military wing."

"The Gaza sniper deserves a decoration, and the photographer a demerit."

"Whoever votes for Lieberman gives strength to Israel."

"America controls the world, we control America. Never before have Jews exerted such an immense influence on the center of world power."

"The only people who have an official confirmation that they are sane are those who have been released from psychiatric hospitals."

"By that time it was already clear that the next prime minister was going to be Golda Meir, a woman whom I frankly detested – a mutual sentiment, I might add. I knew her as an opinionated, obstinate person, primitive in her outlook, rigid in her attitudes, with a genius for reaching and exploiting the deepest fears and prejudices of the Jewish masses. I was certain that with her as prime minister, all peace efforts would come to a total standstill."

"Sartawi and I are sitting in a small restaurant on the Boulevard St. Germain. After the main course, he excuses himself. 'I have to go to the bathroom. Keep an eye on my briefcase.' His attaché case – the kind Israelis call James Bond cases – stands under the table. After a few minutes he comes back, takes his seat and bursts out laughing. 'If I told anyone of my friends that I left a briefcase full of PLO secrets in the care of a Zionist, they wouldn't believe me', he says. 'If I tell anyone of my friends that a PLO terrorist put an attaché case under my table and went away, and I remained there, they'd think that I was crazy', I reply. We laugh and order a dessert."

"[Henry] Kissinger has always been a paradox for me. I was profoundly impressed by his book about European politics in the first half of the last century. One of his main theses was that peace agreements are valueless if a major party to the conflict is left out and sees in the agreement a threat to its basic interests. If ever this rule were true – as it surely is – this is the case with the Palestinians in the Middle East conflict. It is also true for the Soviet Union. Yet once he became the political genius of the Nixon and Ford administrations, Kissinger behaved as if he had never read his own book – the classic example of power blinding the intellectual. He tried to make peace of some kind without the Palestinians, treating the rulers of the various Arab countries as so many Metternichs and Castlereaghs, trying to push the Soviets out of the Middle East altogether. I strongly suspected him of obstructing any real move towards peace, favoring the salami approach of little pieces of peace, so as to keep everybody screaming for American support and dependent on American protection. This was the famous step-by-step approach."

"I have often wondered how different Zionism might have been if Herzl had not been a Viennese journalist but a shopkeeper in a Damascus bazaar. Would Zionism have realized that Palestine was a part of a big area inhabited by Arabs? Might some solution have been found at the very beginning to the problem of co-existence with the people who considered Palestine their own homeland ? But these are, of course idle thoughts. Herzl could not have been anything but a European Jew, because his whole idea was a response to a specific challenge posed by European conditions."

"James Baker was the only leader in America who had the guts to stand up and act against Israel's malignant disease: the settlements. When he was the Secretary of State, he simply informed the Israeli government that he would deduct the sums expended on the settlements from the money Israel was getting from the US. Threatened and made good on his threat. Baker thus confronted the "pro-Israeli" lobby in the US, both the Jewish and the Christian. Such courage is rare in the United States, as it is rare in Israel."

"It is an irony of fate (or a triumph of folly) that Hamas was created, in fact, with the help of Israel itself. Much as the Americans created the al-Qaeda of Osama bin Laden in order to fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan, Israel supported the Islamic movement in the occupied territories as a counterweight to the PLO. The assumption was that pious Muslims would spend their time praying in the mosques and would not support the secular PLO, which was then considered the arch-enemy. But when the first intifada broke out at the end of 1987, the Islamists organized as Hamas (the Arabic initials of "Islamic Resistance Movement") and quickly became the most efficient underground fighting organization. However, the Security Service started to act against them only after a whole year of the intifada had passed."

"Critics of the war plans (including myself) have pointed to the disastrous political results that must be expected: Iraq would break into three parts (Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center, Shi’ites in the south), the Middle East would be exposed to the onslaught of Iranian fanaticism, pro-Western Arab regimes would collapse. Israel would be surrounded by aggressive Islamic fundamentalism, like the Crusader kingdom with the advent of Saladin."

"Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for 50 generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith."

"The prophecy of Professor Yeshayahu Leibovitz, that the occupation would corrupt us through and through and turn us into a people of exploiters and secret-service-men, has come awfully true. Nothing has remained of the "beautiful Eretz Israel " but a cloying nostalgia, of which Naomi Shemer was a standard-bearer. A small and gallant state, progressive and (relatively) egalitarian, respected by the world, has become an occupying and looting state, hostage to delirious settlers, full of internal violence and "swinish capitalism" (a phrase coined by Shimon Peres, one of those most responsible for this situation). Throughout the world, the idea of boycotting Israel is gaining ground."

"It seems that most religions are obsessed with sex. They assume that if a religious male sees a woman, whatever her age and looks, he is aroused and cannot think about anything else. So, logically, women must be hidden away."

"...The ultimate test of this agreement will be a test of blood... If it becomes clear that they [the Palestinians] cannot overcome terror, this will be temporary accord and... we will have no choice but to abrogate it... And if there is no choice, the IDF will return to the places it is about to leave in the upcoming months."

"[the pact with Yasir Arafat had caused the deaths of sixteen hundred Israelis in terror attacks] It’s on your hands! You should be ashamed! You gave them guns and they shot at us!"

"I think my appointment is the example and answer for those who accuse Israel of being an apartheid state. It shows minorities have equal rights and we are part of the government, the state and the parliament."

"I think it is necessary to state here – Zionism is above everything."

"I will not demand that the Jewish Agency allocate a sum of 300,000 or 100,000 pounds sterling to help European Jewry. And I think that whoever demands such things is performing an anti-Zionist act."

"Indeed, there were Jews, like Yitzhak Gruenbaum, the Polish Zionist leader, who sincerely hoped for a united front of German and Jewish minorities [in Central and Eastern Europe]. Yet far from uniting in their common adversity, insecure Germans turned against even more insecure Jews."

"I prefer a powerful and proud Jewish State that is hated by the entire world than an Auschwitz that is loved by one and all."

"The poor Palestinians who today kill Jews with explosives and firebombs and stones are part of the same people who when they had all the territories they now demand be given to them for their state -attempted to drive the Jewish state into the sea."

"Every Arab is a proud Arab, a good nationalist. And because of this, he is opposed to the existence of the state of Israel."

"I say the Arabs must leave Israel, precisely because I believe if the Arabs stay, they'll become the 'good Arabs' as I understand the term."

"The question is as follows: if the Arabs settle among us and make enough children to become a majority, will Israel continue to be a Jewish state? Do we have to accept that the Arab majority will decide? Obviously, nobody in Israel can accept this. Because to accept this would amount to being anti-Zionist!"

"Western democracy has to be ruled out. For me that’s cut and dried: there’s no question of setting up democracy in Israel, because democracy means equal rights for all, irrespective of racial or religious origins. Therefore democracy and Zionism cannot go together. And Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed this state to be a Jewish state, is a totally schizophrenic document. You just can’t, on the one hand, want a Jewish state and at the same time give non-Jews the right to become a majority."

"There is no greater anti-Semite than the Jewish one, and none hates the Jewish people more than the Jewish traitor and apostate."

"Today I view Sharon and Kahane and the Gush Emunim not simply as examples of the weaknesses of our yidishe mentshlekhkayt, Jewish humanness, but as a political evil. Some of my friends challenge this view as extreme. But I believe it. Kahane and Sharon are not concerned with Jewish values, Jewish security, Jewish survival. I don't believe that their policies are motivated by Jewish fears of annihilation. There are, I know, many Israeli Jews whose refusal to accept a Palestinian state is rooted in real fears, some of which I share. And because of this, I see their position differently, even though I strongly disagree with it. However, Kahane and his kind express blatant racism, chauvinism, a hunger for military power, a greed for territory, an insistence on religious and cultural supremacy. These can be easily analyzed as originating in feelings of inadequacy and insecurity and even fears of annihilation. Yet they are manifested in such hatred of Palestinians, such callous indifference to non-Jews and non-Jewish culture that I do not consider these "psychological roots" of fascism legitimate concerns. And so I continue viewing Kahane and his politics as an evil that impinges on my Jewishness because they actively try to redefine and reshape it through the actions and policies of the Jewish State. Everything Jewish in me resists their efforts."

"Farrakhan is one person, one black person. Why is it that no black person seems to be rabid about Meir Kahane? Farrakhan is rejected by a lot of black people who wouldn't go near that man. It's not an equal standard-one black person is all black people."

"We have reached a level of insanity and delusion, to take a situation from the battlefield, when soldiers are under stress and explosive devices are being thrown at them and attempts are being made to infiltrate, and to take their human response and judge them from the armchairs in ?"

"You are weak people, only a country that isn’t normal acts this way. No apartheid law will erase the fact that in this homeland there are two nations."

"In a government that has lost all shame, that fears its own shadow, the majority tramples the minority, legislation is racist and the democratic space is under constant threat."

"This is an evil law, a black flag hovers over it."

"Today, I will have to tell my children, along with all the children of Palestinian Arab towns in the country, that the state has declared that it does not want us here. ... It has passed a law of and told us that we will always be ."

"This government (24th Knesset) is dependent on us (United Arab List) and on our decision. And if there is a decision that contradicts our national principles and our religion (Islam), we will not be there."

"I am satisfied with the process we started. We are inside (the Knesset). Now is the time to know how to play the game. That means improving our steps and finding solutions to problems."

"The State of Israel was born as a Jewish state, and it will remain one."

"We are equal partners the whole way, part of the coalition, for the first time in the State of Israel. We are compromising to solve the Arab society's problems."

"The protection of our (Israeli Arab) students is a major and important demand for us due to the ongoing circumstances as they feel the loss of safety and security inside Israeli universities and school residencies."

"If someone wants to make Jerusalem or the Galilee Jewish it's the same policy. Whether an Arab or a Jew does it is irrelevant."

"We will increase our vigilance and readiness to thwart terror ... and will continue to take any measures necessary in facing terror groups in the area."

""The first rule of war is know your enemy, and Europe and the current American government are unwilling to define this war as against Islamist terrorism. If in Belgium they continue eating chocolate and enjoying life, and continue to appear as great democrats and liberals, they won't be aware that some Muslims in their country are organising terror, they won't be able to fight them." Israeli minister: Belgians who continue to eat chocolate, enjoy life can't fight terror"

"I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly."

"I have released all the restraints, we have (regained) control of the area, and we are moving to a full offense. You will have the ability to change the reality here. You have seen the prices (being paid), and you will get to see the change. Hamas wanted a change in Gaza; it will change 180 degrees from what it thought. They will regret this moment, Gaza will never go back to what it was. Whoever comes to decapitate, murder women, Holocaust survivors, we will eliminate him with all our might, and without compromise."

"[Israel] will topple Hamas rule in Gaza. We will eliminate its military capability. We will make sure this threat doesn't exist on our border. It will take time, and it will be lethal, powerful and forever."

"I make it now clear: At the end of the war, Hamas will not control Gaza, there will be no civilian Israeli control in the Gaza Strip, and Tzahal will retain full military freedom of action."

"Shameful that a man like that, a former US president, abets propaganda and disseminates things that wound the spirit of Israel’s fighters and its citizens."

"It is time to deploy a new agency in Gaza that is focused more on humanitarian efforts, and not on activism or, in some cases, terrorism. The latest polio campaign, spearheaded by UNICEF, the World Health Organization and IDF, where more than 600,000 Gazan children were vaccinated, shows that progress is possible when Israel is working with partners interested in humanitarian efforts."

"I want to congratulate my dear friend Governor Mike Huckabee. I think he will be a great ambassador to Israel. I think he visited Israel dozens of times. And I had the honor to escort him. Also, after October 7, he came, and I took him to visit the sites on Kfar Aza and Be'eri and other locations where the massacre took place."

"I think the first thing that shoud be done is to apply personal sanctions against some of the bad actors in the international arena; I give you and example, I don't know if you heard about Francesca Albanese - yeah, you can boo her, you can - and I think the US - and many here in the crowd from the US - US shoud apply sanctions against her. She shouldn't be allowed entering the United States of America. She comes once a month to promote hate, to go to universities, and you know she compared our prime minister Netanyahu to Hitler; and she compare your president to orrible leaders. That's unacceptable and I expect the new administration to be stronger on this issue."