Yitzhak Rabin Israel Quotations

I am 73 years old. I was born in Jerusalem. I'm the first prime minister of Israel to be born here. I am the only former general to become a prime minister.

The struggle to get weapons is continuous, but the United States will aid us, if it finds Israel displaying a willingness for peace.

I would like Israel to be a Jewish state, and therefore not to annex over 2 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Israel, which will make Israel a bi-national state.

Israel has an important principle: It is only Israel that is responsible for our security.

I believe that in the long run, separation between Israel and the Palestinians is the best solution for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I enter negotiations with Chairman Arafat, the leader of the PLO, the representative of the Palestinian people, with the purpose to have coexistence between our two entities, Israel as a Jewish state and Palestinian state, entity, next to us, living in peace.

Israel is no longer a people that dwells alone, and has to join the global journey toward peace, reconciliation and international cooperation.

We appreciate the efforts of the United States, of the president, of the secretary of state, and we are ready to find any form of talks, but we have to overcome the differences between Syria and Israel to reach peace.

I invite President Assad to come to Jerusalem and to speak with me, with our parliament, with whomever he wants to speak in Israel and in the territories among the Palestinians.

Israel's willingness to cooperate closely with the U.S. in protecting American interests in the region altered her image in the eyes of many officials in Washington.

The Government chose to give peace a chance. The Government chose to do something to achieve it.

This rally must send a message to the Israeli people, to the Jewish people around the world, to the many people in the Arab world, and indeed to the entire world, that the Israeli people want peace, support peace. For this, I thank you.

What I, as the prime minister of the present government of Israel, started to do, is first to tackle the longest part of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Vis a vis the Golan Heights, the present government of Israel, under my leadership, is the first government that is ready to speak about a withdrawal.

Steps toward a rapprochement between Israel and the Arab states create a process that turns economics into the moving force that shapes the regional relations instead of nationalist interests that were dominant in the past.

But, more than anything, in the more than three years of this Government's existence, the Israeli people has proven that it is possible to make peace, that peace opens the door to a better economy and society; that peace is not just a prayer. Peace is first of all in our prayers, but it is also the aspiration of the Jewish people, a genuine aspiration for peace.

For me, Jerusalem was united, will be under Israel sovereignty, will be the capital of Israel and the heart of the Jewish people.

Here, in the Land of Israel, we returned and built a nation. Here, in the Land of Israel, we established a State. The Land of the prophets, which bequeathed to the world the values of morality, law and justice, was after two thousand years, restored to its lawful owner - the members of the Jewish People, On its Land, we have built an exceptional national Home and State.

[Israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat.

We can continue to fight. We can continue to kill - and continue to be killed. But we can also try to put a stop to this never-ending cycle of blood. We can also give peace a chance.

We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!