Ambassadors

"Women’s Liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s the men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one’s likely to do anything about that."

"This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy."

"When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons."

"We owe a responsibility not only to those who are in Israel but also to those generations that are no more, to those millions who have died within our lifetime, to Jews all over the world, and to generations of Jews to come. We hate war. We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown, and when strawberries bloom in Israel."

"If we have to have a choice between dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we'd rather be alive and have the bad image."

"[The Soviet government] is the most realistic regime in the world — no ideals."

"I have given instructions that I be informed every time one of our soldiers is killed, even if it is in the middle of the night. When President Nasser leaves instructions that he is to be awakened in the middle of the night if an Egyptian soldier is killed, there will be peace."

"When were Palestinians born? What was all of this area before the First World War when Britain got the Mandate over Palestine? What was Palestine, then? Palestine was then the area between the Mediterranean and the Iraqian border. Eastern West Bank was Palestine. I am a Palestinian, from 1921 to 1948, I carried a Palestinian passport. There was no such thing in this area as Jews, and Arabs, and Palestinians, There were Jews and Arabs."

"It is true we have won all our wars, but we have paid for them. We don't want victories anymore."

"We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon — no alternative. The Egyptians could run to Egypt, the Syrians into Syria. The only place we could run was into the sea, and before we did that we might as well fight."

"We don’t thrive on military acts. We do them because we have to, and thank God we are efficient."

"There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist."

"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."

"It is the tragedy of our generation, that small nations have not yet gained the security of exercising their natural right—namely that of being masters of their own destiny."

"Is it really asking too much for a people to want to decide its own fate; to demand that it alone shall choose flow and by whom it shall be governed; that its young people if they rise against what they believe is wrong shall not be deported from their home and country?"

"My delegation cannot refrain from speaking on this question — we who have such an intimate knowledge of boxcars and of deportations to unknown destinations that we cannot be silent."

"It is a dreadful thing to see the dead city. Next to the port I found children, women, the old, waiting for a way to leave. I entered the houses, there were houses where the coffee and pita bread were left on the table, and I could not avoid [thinking] that this, indeed, had been the picture in many Jewish towns [i.e., in Europe, during World War II]'."

"I now inform you that you are too far from reality."

"They US soldiers] started to commit suicide on the Baghdad walls. We will encourage them to double their suicide attempts."

"In an age of spin, al-Sahaf offers feeling and authenticity. His message is consistent — unshakeable, in fact, no matter the evidence — but he commands daily attention by his on-the-spot, invective-rich variations on the theme. His lunatic counterfactual art is more appealing than the banal awfulness of the Reliable Sources. He is a Method actor in a production that will close in a couple of days. He stands superior to truth."

"He's my man. He was great. Somebody accused us of hiring him and putting him there. He was a classic."

"The information was correct but the interpretations were not. I did my duty up to the last minute."

"The American press is all about lies! All they tell is lies, lies and more lies!"

"Lying is forbidden in Iraq. President Saddam Hussein will tolerate nothing but truthfulness as he is a man of great honour and integrity. Everyone is encouraged to speak freely of the truths evidenced in their eyes and hearts."

"Almost all the regimes which did not place Man and the sanctity of Life at the heart of their world view, all those regimes have collapsed and are no more. You can see it for yourselves in our own day."

"Military cemeteries in every corner of the world are silent testimony to the failure of national leaders to sanctify human life."

"I, serial number 30743, Lieutenant General in reserves Yitzhak Rabin, a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces and in the army of peace, I, who have sent armies into fire and soldiers to their death, say today: We sail onto a war which has no casualties, no wounded, no blood nor suffering. It is the only war which is a pleasure to participate in — the war for peace."

"You are not part of the community of Israel... You are not part of the national democratic camp which we all belong to in this house, and many of the people despise you. You are not partners in the Zionist enterprise. You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish law... We say to this horrible man (Baruch Goldstein) and those like him: you are a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism."

"Violence gnaws on the foundation of democracy. It must be condemned, denounced and Isolated."

"One does not make peace with one's friends. One makes peace with one's enemy."

"I would like Gaza to sink into the sea, but that won’t happen, and a solution must be found."

"We are destined to live together, on the same soil in the same land. We, the soldiers who have returned from battle stained with blood, we who have seen our relatives and friends killed before our eyes, we who have attended their funerals and cannot look into the eyes of their parents, we who have come from a land where parents bury their children, we who have fought against you, the Palestinians. We say to you today in a loud and clear voice: Enough of blood and tears. Enough. We have no desire for revenge. We harbor no hatred towards you. We, like you, are people who want to build a home, to plant a tree, to love, live side by side with you in dignity, in empathy, as human beings, as free men. We are today giving peace a chance and again saying to you in a clear voice: Enough."

"We did not think that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to Sinai on May 14 would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it."

"We later learned that Rabin had not been killed by a Palestinian after all. Instead he had been shot in the back by an Israeli law student."

"Mr. Rabin, in a precarious political situation at home, seemed unable to put a full stop to all construction in the territories, at least until final borders could be demarcated."

"I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth."

"We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines."

"Here we stand before you, men who fate and history have sent on a mission of peace to end once and for all 100 years of bloodshed. Our dream is also your dream -- King Hussein, President Mubarak, Chairman Arafat, all the others, and, above [all], assisting us, President Bill Clinton -- a President who is working in the service of peace. We all love the same children, weep the same tears, hate the same enmity, and pray for reconciliation. Peace has no borders.... My brother Jews speak through the media to you [of] thousands of years of exile. And the dream of generations have returned us to our historic home in the land of Israel -- the land of the Prophets. Etched on every vineyard, every field, every olive tree, every flower is the deep imprint of the Jewish history; of the Book of the books that we have bequeathed to the entire world; of the values of morality and of justice. Every place in the land of the Prophets, every name is an integral part of our heritage of thousands of years of the divine promise to us and to our descendants. Here, is where we were born. Here, is where we created a nation. Here, we forged a haven for the persecuted and built a model of a democratic country. But we are not alone here on this soil, in this land. And so we are sharing this good earth today with the Palestinian people in order to choose life. Starting today, an agreement on paper will be translated into reality on the ground. We are not retreating. We are not leaving. We are building -- and we are doing so for the sake of peace. Our neighbors, the Palestinian people, we who have seen you in your difficulties, we saw you for generations; we who have killed and have been killed are walking beside you now toward a common future, and we want you as a good neighbors. Address at Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement Signing Ceremony, Washington DC (28 September 1995)"

"Of orators, if I must choose you any, it shall be Demosthenes, both for the argument he handles, and for that his eloquence is more proper to a statesman than Cicero's."

"Do you remember that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, "How well he spoke" but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, "Let us march.""

"Demosthenes met war with war only because submitting to brute force can give but a debasing peace. The strong who hold all the rewards in their hands had no degrading attraction for him. At one stroke and for always he gave himself to that subtly inconsequential people — inconsequential because its yoked strength and weakness pulled against each other as they were alternately attracted by the fleeting flatteries it was eager to give and to receive. In the worst trials, respectful of the Athenian ideal to which he had consecrated his life, he remained immutably faithful to his City and to Hellas, through which the civilization that we glory in was enabled to live and flourish."

"Demosthenes would have saved his country had it consented to be saved."

"You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man's actions are, such must be his spirit."

"Whatever shall be to the advantage of all, may that prevail!"

"Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue."

"The man who has received a benefit ought always to remember it, but he who has granted it ought to forget the fact at once."

"No man can tell what the future may bring forth, and small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises."

"It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery."

"The readiest and surest way to get rid of censure, is to correct ourselves."

"Delivery, delivery, delivery."