Prime Ministers Of Israel

"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."

"Every time they try to shake us off their backs, we in our blindness search for "instigators." There are no instigators, Mr. Prime Minister; there are just people who do not want a foreign occupation. Let me ask you: did you do what you did in the underground in the 1940s because of "instigators," Mr. Shamir?"

"Our image has undergone change from David fighting Goliath to being Goliath."

"The sea is the same sea, and the Arabs are the same Arabs."

"Begin, Shamir and Sharon were the evil three."

"The Left is acting like a young child, saying 'I want peace'... A child says 'I want candy right away,' an adult takes all of the factors into account and understands who he's dealing with."

"אם הייתי פלסטיני בגיל המתאים, הייתי נכנס בשלב מסוים לאחד מארגוני הטרור...פעולות ארגוני הטרור הפלסטיני, הפוגעות בנשים וילדים הן חמורות, נבזיות ושפלות"

"There is another story, that we tried to impose upon him [Arafat] cantons, Bantustans. Total lie. We talked about 80%+ of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip. How can it become non-contiguous? And if you have some reservation against this or that curl of the border, at some corner, come to the table, negotiate it, and demand that this will be removed. I can go with you more and more, and I cannot afford spending more time on it, but basically, all these were stories that were invented in order to explain to his own people, and maybe to try to convince honest people in the free world how come that such an opportunity had been missed. Of course, I had my own demands, to protect Israel, to ensure our security, to make sure that we know where do we head. I said loud and clear: we have to put an end to this asymmetric process where we are supposed to give tangible assets, and the Palestinians have just to give vague promises about the nature of future relationship. I said I'm ready to go very far, but I want to know, now, that there is a partner, which is ready and capable to make tough decisions, and painful decisions. I was a great supporter of the peace of the brave, but never a supporter of peace of ostriches, where you put your head in the sand, let whatever happen, happen, and then wake up and say, OK, that's what happened. We cannot afford this approach. That's the reality."

"[How is it consistent with what you advocated this evening in terms of a vision for peace, that you continued to allow the building of settlements in the West Bank, during your primeministership?] Let me tell you, first of all, during my term as a Prime Minister, we have not built a single new settlement. I ordered the dismantling of many voluntary -- I don't know how to call it -- new settlements that had been set on top of hills in different parts of the West Bank, basically. But, I allowed contracts, contracts that had been signed, legally, in Israel, beforehand. To build new neighborhoods in some big cities in the West Bank, cities with 25,000 or 30,000 people. And very few new homes, in small settlements, where youngsters, who came back from the army service, asked to build their home near the home of their parents. Now, Israel is a law-abiding state, you cannot break contracts, there is Supreme Court. If the government behaves in a way that is not proper, any individual can appeal and change whatever we decide. Realizing that this is a sensitive issue from the Palestinian side, I talked to Arafat, at the beginning of my term as a Prime Minister, and I told him: Mr. Chairman, I know that you are worried about it, it creates some problems, in your own constituency. But let me tell you, we have a great opportunity here to put an end to the whole conflict, in a year and a half. When President Clinton that invested unbelievable amount of energy and political capital in trying to solve it, and he's still in power. Now, I understand your problem with settlement if there is no end, there is no time limit, and you are afraid that maybe the accumulation of new settlements will change the nature of the situation, for the worse, from your position. So I tell you, out of our own considerations, independent of you, we have decided not to set even a single new settlement. We will not allow anyone to establish his own private initiatives on the hills, for our own reasons, not because of you. But at the same time I will respect any contract that has been signed, under law, in Israel. But -- and here is a point -- bearing in mind that we can put an end to the conflict, to reach an agreement within a year and a half, why the hell it will matter? To build a new building in Israel takes more than a year and a half, so you won't see any building that is not already emerging from the ground, having it's roof before we can reach an agreement. Now if such a building happens to be in a settlement that will become, under the agreement, part of the new independent Palestine, why the hell you have to care? Take it, use it, put some refugees in it. And if it will happen to be a part of what will be agreed, as Israel, in a mutual agreement that is signed by you, why the hell do you care, if you agree? I believe that that simple answer would not solve his public -- or internal political -- problems, but it would solve the real issue if the will was there to make peace, and not just to politically maneuver and manipulate."

"["DONALDSON: But on Friday, you were very pessimistic. You said, "No good," when someone asked you how things were going."] No, I'm saying even now, if I have to summarize the situation - in one word it's good, in two words, not good."

"Life-sustaining Zionism and the seeds of fascism cannot live together."

"What has happened is a hostile takeover of the Israeli government by dangerous elements. And it's just the beginning."

"This government needs to be brought down before it brings all of us down, there are no serious leaders left in the world who believe the Israeli government."

"His knowledge of war has fed a passion for peace."

"Arabs may have the oil, but we have the matches."

"I didn't always agree with Arik, and he didn't always agree with me. But he was one of the big warriors for the nation of Israel."

"He defended this land like a lion and he taught its children to swing a scythe. He was a military legend in his lifetime and then turned his gaze to the day Israel would dwell in safety."

"He held to the idea that the Jewish people, so often victims of injustice and persecution, should have a state where they could be independent and free. Think good or ill of Arik Sharon, agree or disagree with him, but that calling - a noble one - was plain and unalloyed."

"He was a giant on this land."

"Begin, Shamir and Sharon were the evil three. Sharon is the most evil man I've run across in Israeli politics. [I regarded myself when Prime Minister as] the best friend Israel had in the Western world."

"A bellicose man who seemed to be chomping at the bit to start a war."

"[After Ariel Sharon's severe stroke] Ladies and Gentlemen I said last year that Israel was entering into the most dangerous periods of its entire existence as a nation. That is intensifying this year with the loss of Sharon. Sharon was personally a very likeable person, and I am sad to see him in this condition, but I think we need to look at the Bible and the Book of Joel. The prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who "divide my land." God considers this land to be His. You read the Bible and He says "this is my land" and for any Prime Minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says "no, this is mine." I had a wonderful meeting with Yitzhak Rabin in 1974. He was tragically assassinated, it was a terrible thing that happened but nevertheless he was dead. And now Ariel Sharon who again was a very likeable person, a delightful person to be with, I prayed with him personally, but here he's at the point of death. He was dividing God's land and I would say woe unto any Prime Minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations, or the United States of America. God says "this land belongs to me. You'd better leave it alone.""

"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"

"anyone interested in fighting Le Pen-style fascism or Sharon-style brutality has to deal with the reality of anti-Semitism head-on. The hatred of Jews is a potent political tool in the hands of both the right in Europe and in Israel...For Ariel Sharon, it is the fear of anti-Semitism, both real and imagined, that is the weapon. Mr. Sharon likes to say that he stands up to terrorists to show he is not afraid. In fact, his policies are driven by fear. His great talent is that he fully understands the depths of Jewish fear of another Holocaust. He knows how to draw parallels between Jewish anxieties about anti-Semitism and American fears of terrorism. And he is an expert at harnessing all of it for his political ends. The primary, and familiar, fear that Mr. Sharon draws on, the one that allows him to claim all aggressive actions as defensive ones, is the fear that Israel’s neighbors want to drive the Jews into the sea. The secondary fear Mr. Sharon manipulates is the fear among Jews in the Diaspora that they will eventually be driven to seek safe haven in Israel. This fear leads millions of Jews around the world, many of them sickened by Israeli aggression, to shut up and send their cheques, a down payment on future sanctuary. The equation is simple: the more fearful Jews are, the more powerful Sharon is. Elected on a platform of "peace through security," Sharon’s administration could barely hide its delight at Le Pen’s ascendancy, immediately calling on French Jews to pack their bags and come to the promised land. For Sharon, Jewish fear is a guarantee that his power will go unchecked, granting him the impunity needed to do the unthinkable: send troops into the Palestinian Authority’s education ministry to steal and destroy records; bury children alive in their homes; block ambulances from getting to the dying. Jews outside Israel now find themselves in a tightening vice: the actions of the country that was supposed to ensure their future safety are making them less safe right now. Mr. Sharon is deliberately erasing distinctions between the terms "Jew" and "Israeli," claiming he is fighting not for Israeli territory but for the survival of the Jewish people. And when anti-Semitism rises at least partly as a result of his actions, it is Sharon who is positioned once again to collect the political dividends."

"When Ariel Sharon, attempting to justify the Lebanese adventure, spoke of "over one thousand victims of terrorism," there was, as one had come to expect with him, a considerable disparity be tween what he said and the truth. According to the IDF spokesman, terrorism had been on an absolute decline: in the three years preceding the Lebanon War, thirty-seven persons were killed in all hostile actions, and, in the year preceding the war-one. Surely even one is too many, and every person killed is a heartbreak. But let us bear in mind that in the Lebanon War, fought at Sharon's initiative, more Israelis were killed in two weeks than fell at the hands of the terrorist organizations in Israel's harshest security periods, including the periods of pursuit operations and massive IDF offensive actions against terrorists."

"If I know Arik [Ariel Sharon's nickname], he'll head straight for Cairo and try to get votes for Likud."

"Ariel Sharon is a man of peace."

"It is not true, however, that the solutions proposed by the Zionists, of whatever shade, represented historical realism as against the inconsistent utopianism of the Bund. Certainly the prophets were not numerous, but they have to be given their due: Kurt Tucholsky, for example, who already in the mid-1920s sounded the alarm, in a Weimar Republic prey to the demons of order, nationalism, xenophobia and dreams of revanchism; Leon Trotsky, who in the late 1920s warned that the fate of Europe was being played out in Germany, and understood that the bankruptcy of German communism in the face of Hitler bore within it the inexorable unfurling of horror. At this time they were preaching in the desert, including the desert of Judaea. The rabbis who called for obedience to the temporal power in all circumstances, and the inspirers of Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon who at the time paraded in black shirts, are not best placed to cast the first stone at these Jewish visionaries and militants who were struggling at this time for a better world."

"Today Israel and India are embattled democracies, sharing values and the challenge of terrorism. United in our quest for life, liberty and peace our joint determination to fight for these values can inspire our hopes for a better future for our people."

"We are very much interested in developing and strengthening our relations with India because India is one of the most important countries in the world. We believe in democracy... I hope my visit will contribute to strengthening our relations with India."

"As one who fought in all of Israel's wars, and learned from personal experience that without proper force, we do not have a chance of surviving in this region, which does not show mercy towards the weak, I have also learned from experience that the sword alone cannot decide this bitter dispute in this land."

"It is not in our interest to govern you. We would like you to govern yourselves in your own country. A democratic Palestinian state with territorial contiguity in Judea and Samaria and economic viability, which would conduct normal relations of tranquility, security and peace with Israel. Abandon the path of terror and let us together stop the bloodshed. Let us move forward together towards peace."

"We can also reassure our Palestinian partners that we understand the importance of territorial contiguity in the West Bank for a viable Palestinian state."

"You cannot like the word, but what is happening is an occupation -- to hold 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation. I believe that is a terrible thing for Israel and for the Palestinians."

"If we [are to] reach a situation of true peace, real peace, peace for generations, we will have to make painful concessions. Not in exchange for promises, but rather in exchange for peace."

"[Iran, Libya and Syria] are irresponsible states, which must be disarmed of weapons [of] mass destruction, and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will make that easier to achieve."

"I believe that Jews and Arabs can live together. It’s not an easy thing but I believe we can reach an agreement. I don’t want to pretend about talking to Arabs because I meet Arabs, here and on our farm at home. I would like to very careful not to pretend but I think I am one of the only ones here at the present time that will have the power and the strength to tell the citizens of Israel what they have to do and to make compromises and painful compromises, to look into their eyes and say that."

""Palestinian must pay the price (...). If possible they should get awake every morning finding out they get 10 or 12 corpses, without knowing what happened.(...) You must be creative, efficient, sophisticated" Ariel Sharon to his Chief of Staff (troop commander) Shaul Mofaz, in 2002."

"It had always been one of my convictions that Jews and Arabs could live together. Even as a child it never occurred to me that Jews might someday be living in Israel without Arabs, or separated from Arabs. On the contrary, for me it had always seemed perfectly normal for the two people to live and work side by side. That is the nature of life here and it always will be.... though Israel is a Jewish nation, it is, of course, not only a Jewish nation... I begin with the basic conviction that Jews and Arabs can live together. I have repeated that at every opportunity, not for journalists and not for popular consumption, but because I have never believed differently or thought differently, from my childhood on. I am not afraid of Arabs. I feel I can live with them. I believe I understand their problems. I know that we are both inhabitants of this land, and although the state is Jewish, that does not mean that Arabs should not be full citizens in every sense of the word."

"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."

"אני אכן חושב שמלחמת לבנון היתה מהמוצדקות במלחמות ישראל. ועכשיו לעובדות: אני שומע את האמירות של ברק על הטרגדיה של 18 השנים בלבנון. צריך לזכור שהכניסה שלנו ללבנון החלה לפני 25 שנה, כשיצחק רבין היה רה"מ ופרס שר הביטחון. בשלב הראשון נכנסנו לדרום לבנון ואחרי חודש כבר היינו נוכחים בצפון לבנון וזאת בשל טרור מצד אש"ף. הגענו למצב שמחצית מאוכלוסיית הארץ נטשה את הצפון וזזה דרומה. אחרי המלחמה השתרר בצפון שקט להרבה שנים [...] כבר באוקטובר 82' הייתי היחיד שאמר שכבר אפשר לצאת מלבנון, אבל אז כבר לא הייתי שר ביטחון"

"I am for lasting peace... United, I believe, we can win the battle for peace. But it must be a different peace, one with full recognition of the rights of the Jews in their one and only land: peace with security for generations and peace with a united Jerusalem as the eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish people in the state of Israel forever."

"Everybody has to move; run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements, because everything we take now will stay ours. Everything we don't grab will go to them."

"When Golda Meir's speech at Brandeis in June 1973 was disrupted by picketers holding signs that said, "Gramma, how many babies did you kill today?" Diane Balser protested. Her family adored Golda Meir-and, further, "this was Brandeis," where Balser was then enrolled as a Ph.D. student in sociology. Regardless of her disagreement with the Israeli prime minister's policies, Balser saw the placards as "anti-Semitic and as misogynistic attacks on a Jewish woman.""

"Golda Meir was asked that question: "We hear you don't mind getting older?" And she said, "That's true, but I never said it was a pleasure.""

"Rita Giacoman mentions in passing that she returned from the U.S. to teach public health at Birzeit University in 1969, when Golda Meir announced that there was no such thing as a Palestinian. "So I had to come home," she says, matter of factly, "in defiance of Golda Meir-and today no one dares say it.""

"Golda Meir relates in her memoirs that when she arrived at the newly established Kibbutz Merhavia, she found the members eating what she called "terrible food": vegetables that "weren't even cooked" in "some awful green oil," spicy olives "that are bad for you, as everyone knows." She took over with a firm hand, and from the day she entered the kitchen she "forced" (as she put it) her companions to desist from their wayward "native" habits, and to start their day with good, hot, cooked mush. Their feeble protests were soon stilled, and they adapted. No wonder it was Golda who later declared that there was no such thing as a Palestinian (by her lights, there wasn't) and that the palm of her hand would sprout hair if Anwar Sadat really came to Jerusalem."

"We must understand that there was no "Jewish justice," as Golda Meir said in one of her less sterling moments, nor was there "Arab justice," a claim that also has proponents; rather, there were two deep traumas, on which a completely new life, a different world, new hope must be built."

"he (Shimon Peres) maintains an ongoing dialogue with the intellectual community. Now that is real change from, say, Menachem Begin-not to mention Golda Meir!"

"Golda is the best man in my Cabinet."