Golda Meir Israel Quotations

Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!

We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown and when strawberries bloom in Israel.

We can forgive you for killing our children, but we can never forgive you for making us kill your children.

A story once went the rounds of Israel to the effect that Ben-Gurion described me as 'the only man' in his cabinet. What amused me about is that he (or whoever invented the story) thought that this was the greatest compliment that could be paid to a woman. I very much doubt that any man would have been flattered if I had said about him that he was the only woman in the government!

How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.

Zionism and pessimism are not compatible.

Israel itself is the strongest guarantee against another Holocaust.

There will be peace in the Middle East only when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel.

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.

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

We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.