Benjamin Netanyahu Quotations | Page 2

We'll attack anyone who tries to harm our citizens

I will go to the UN General Assembly and, in a clear voice, tell the nations of the world the truth about Iran's terrorist regime, which constitutes the greatest threat to world peace.

You know, I think, I think the Palestinians are trying to get away without negotiating. They're trying to get a state to continue the conflict with Israel rather than to end it. They're trying to basically detour around peace negotiations by going to the U.N. and have the automatic majority in the U.N. General Assembly give them, give them a state.

No one yet knows what awaits the Jews in the twenty-first century, but we must make every effort to ensure that it is better than what befell them in the twentieth, the century of the Holocaust.

There is a great danger to the world, not only to my country [Israel] but to the United States, to the Middle East, to peace, to all of humanity, from the prospect that such regimes that brutalize its own people, that sponsors terrorism more than any other regime in the world - that this regime acquires atomic bombs is very, very dangerous.

If I have to reduce all of the laws of war into a single sentence, it is this. You divide the world into two, combatants and noncombatants. You can attack deliberately combatants, but not deliberately noncombatants. Israel acts that way. It attacks combatants and accidentally kills noncombatants. But in the case of the terrorists, it's the exact opposite. They deliberately attack combatants - noncombatants, civilians, deliberately.

Israel can make peace with an organization that seeks its destruction. That's Hamas. But Israel can make peace with the Palestinian Authority. It requires a lot of courage from both sides including President Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority.

The entire world is focusing on the compromises that are necessary from Israel's side. But people [in the world] are not focusing on the fact that the Palestinians refuse to make the necessary compromises that are required on their side for peace.

I don't know of any army that does more than an Israeli army does to avoid civilian casualties. But incidental and unintended casualties accompany every war.

I don't think that anyone should doubt Israel's determination to defend itself against terror and destruction.

Hamas is responsible and Hamas should held accountable for civilian deaths.

Hamas is firing at our cities, at our people, firing from these areas, from these homes, from these schools, from mosques, from hospitals. They are actually using them as weapon storage, as command posts and as firing positions, or right next to them.

History of warfare has not yet enabled any army, any civilized army, the army of a democracy like Israel, to be able to deal with a ruthless terrorist enemy that uses civilians as a human shield without having some incidental civilian casualties.

The Israelis wanted to sabotage the Palestinian - Palestinian reconciliation.

There is a structural difference between the way that Europe views Israel, and America views Israel. The European view is informed by the importance of colonialism in Europe's past. So for Europeans we are like Belgiums in the Congo, or the French in Alger, or the British in India. Strange interlopers in somebody else's land. But in fact, we [Israeli] have been here for 4,000 years. This is our ancestral homeland.

The instability in the region is not a result of Israel and the Palestinians. That was never the cause of this instability. Instead, the disfunctionality of many of these societies that have failed to modernize.

We will take whatever action is necessary to protect our people,including against the terror tunnels that they are trying to dig against us.

Israel has to accommodate the Palestinian demands and aspirations for ending occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. That is the only answer. The Israeli aggression on Gaza does not bring peace to Israel. We know that. We want end of occupation.

Israel is doing what any other country would do, and certainly the U.S. would do. If 80 percent of your population were under fire and you had 60 seconds or 90 seconds to get into bomb shelters, if terror tunnels were dug underneath your border in order to come in and explode your kindergartens and massacre your people and kidnap American citizens.

Hamas is simply continuing all its operations. And Israel will not let this terror operation decide when it's convenient for them and not convenient for them to attack our people.

A legitimate democracy cannot act against a terror organization because it is using civilians as a human shield, and therefore it should absorb attacks on its own civilians.

The Palestinian society is split into two - those who are openly calling for Israel's destruction like Hamas, and those who are not calling openly for Israel's destruction but refuse to confront those who do. They're timid, they're afraid to actually stand up to these killers. They're afraid, maybe for their own sake, for their own political hides, sometimes for their own physical safety. And they don't take that necessary plunge.

I`m very proud to be the prime minister of all of Israel`s citizens, Arabs and Jews alike.

I`m very proud of the fact that Israel is the one country in a very broad radius that - in which Arabs have free and fair elections. That`s sacrosanct. That will never change. I wasn`t trying to suppress a vote. I was trying to get something to counter a foreign-funded effort to get votes that are intended to topple my party. And I was calling on our voters to come out.

We wanted peace and we wanted to come to terms with the Israelis.

[The decision to travel to Washington and deliver the speech] has injected a degree of partisanship, which is not only unfortunate, I think it's destructive of the fabric of the relationship

You know, I said in the U.N., I said to President Abbas, 'Look, we're in the same city, we're in the same building, for God's sake, the U.N. Let's just sit down and begin to talk peace.

Don't be fooled. The battle between Iran and ISIS doesn't turn Iran into a friend of America.

I'm not naturally manipulative.

I'm not consumed with political machinations.

The US-Israel partnership transcends politics and it always will

Hamas is ISIS, and ISIS is Hamas. They're branches of the same tree. People who wantonly rocket our cities and want to conduct mass killings. And when they can, they murder children, teenagers, shoot them in the head. Throw people from the sixth floor, their own people. ... They're the enemies of peace, they're the enemies of Israel, they're the enemies of all civilized countries. And I believe they're the enemies of the Palestinians themselves.

Leaders must see reality as it is, not as it ought to be.

The prime minister of Israel is welcome to speak in the United States, obviously. But we don't want to see this turned into some great political football

The only peace that can endure is a peace that can be defended,

If there is a birthrate demographic problem, and there is, it is with the non-White races Israeli Arabs who are American will remain Israeli citizens.

I told John Kerry and General Allen, the Americans’ expert, ‘We live here, I live here, I know what we need to ensure the security of Israel’s people.’

But ... the days that the Jewish people remain passive in the face of genocidal enemies — those days are over.

I don't want a one-state solution. I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution. But for that, circumstances have to change.

Our friendship will weather the current disagreement as well, to grow even stronger in the future.

If the world powers are not prepared to insist that Iran change its behavior before a deal is signed, they should at the very least be prepared to insist that Iran changes its behavior before the deal expires.

I unequivocally condemn the striking of the soldier from the Ethiopian community and those responsible will be brought to justice but nobody has the right to take the law into their own hands, immigrants from Ethiopia and their families are dear to us and Israel is making great efforts to ease their integration in society.

Anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state, anyone who is going to evacuate territories today, is simply giving a base for attacks to radical Islam.

...but I know that Israel does not stand alone. I know that America stands with Israel.

We will respond with a heavy hand to the brutal murder of Jews who came to pray and were killed by lowly murderers.

The idea of imposing peace from the outside doesn't work.

[S]aving lives is more important than preserving the quality of life. Quality of life is always amenable to improvement. Death is permanent.

While Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to the 1967 lines.

I think that anyone who moves to establish a Palestinian state and evacuate territory gives territory away to radical Islamist attacks against Israel.

If the Palestinians do their part, we shall do our part and we shall have an agreement.

If there is willingness on the Palestinian side to reach an agreement, it is possible. We are conducting the negotiations with goodwill.

In the frameworks of a peace agreement, a government under my leadership would agree to make real territorial concessions but will not compromise our security borders. We want there to be less friction. We want to remove outposts to help the Palestinian population. We will not reoccupy the Palestinian population.

We have reached the moment of truth today, ... There is a way to achieve peace and security, but a unilateral withdrawal under fire and with nothing in return is certainly not the way.

lead to a real peace, a lasting peace, not a minute-long peace.

So, I think that has to be resolved when we have a real political partner, and I think we will,

If they do it, I cannot tell you how much time we would take, ... The faster they do it, the faster we will redeploy.

I am calling on all those who grasp the danger: gather strength and do the right thing. I don't know if the entire move can be stopped, but it still might be stopped in its initial stages.

He has created a precedent that will lead to the division of Jerusalem. My starting (my campaign) here is not coincidental because Jerusalem is in danger.

It is, in fact, the failure of the Palestinian Authority and of Mr. Arafat to keep the pledge that he gave my predecessor, Mr. Rabin, and that is we give them territory, they give us a pledge to fight terrorism,

I will not lose, despite massive brainwashing by the press and its attempt at demoralization,

Our goal is to be effective, and the only way to be effective is to work with the Israeli government.

Like us, the United States wants the talks resumed, ... I don't know if Syria wants it. We are looking for a solution in words.

Time is running out ... We have to act responsibly in a united front.

You know, I said in the U.N., I said to President Abbas, 'Look, we're in the same city, we're in the same building, for God's sake, the U.N. Let's just sit down and begin to talk peace.'

We aren't ready to accept that murderous acts will be part of our daily lives every few weeks and months ...

We are not susceptible to pressure. We will do what is right,

We lost by a very few votes. There is a very large camp that went against the flow, against the wind, against the pressure, against the leadership and against the temptations,

We expect not really words of consolation from the Palestinian Authority and from its leader. What we expect is action. We expect action to apprehend these terrorists and their leaders. We expect action to collect the explosives and weapons that are there in the field and can be collected.

disagreements around the dinner table in a family.

The time has come to build here and I will build here.

The supreme asset is our security, those things that are sacred to us, like Jerusalem.

process that ignores reality and proceeds blindly, creating a base for Islamic terror that will threaten the state.

The ones who really understand what I am saying are the terrorists, and they are cheering because we are letting them set up an independent terrorist base (in Gaza),

One cannot go on with business as usual after such a massacre,

The moment of truth has come. I cannot sanction a decision which threatens state security,

This is disputed land, not Palestinian, or we claim public ownership.

This government was elected to advance the peace process and achieve real peace, peace with reciprocity,

It's a complete fabrication to link this to any harm to any Islamic sites,

It's time you stop running away from the voters. These are the voters who elected you, who sent you. Stand before them. Present your policies, defend your policies, like I have presented my policies here and let them decide and respect their decision.

The U.S. has a stronger military than Israel, but, but don't short-change Israel, either. Don't short-change them.

In his speech Sharon has finally clarified that he is turning to the Left and will continue to make concessions.

In the past, I proved my ability to conduct forceful negotiations with the Palestinians. I laid down a principle which is known to you all -- the principle of reciprocity. They give, they get. If they don't give, they won't get.

I come out of these meetings with renewed confidence in our ability to progress on that road.

I don't see a collapse of America's involvement.

I cannot be part of this irresponsible move that divides the people and harms Israel's security and will in the future pose a danger for the wholeness of Jerusalem, ... A unilateral withdrawal without anything in return is not the way.

For them to threaten us ... to cancel the (economic) conference is like a man who cuts off his nose to spite his face,

The disengagement plan will be implemented as planned,

The Lebanese government certainly has the military capability to deploy in the south and to take the necessary steps,