Silvan Shalom Quotations

We believe that Iran is trying to buy time ... so it can develop a nuclear bomb,

We know what kind of role Syria is taking in letting terror organizations increase their activities, but unfortunately they're not doing anything to prevent it from stopping. More than that, they're encouraging all of this,

We reached an agreement with the Egyptians and the Palestinians that we will wait six more months before we consider the opening of the Rafah passage for two ways,

We are talking about an earthquake that has sent us back 50 years and will lead the entire region into chaos.

We regret that the summit that was planned ... will not take place tomorrow, but we hope that it will take place in the near future,

We made a huge breakthrough today..., ... This is the appropriate time for all the Muslim and Arab countries to reconsider their relations with Israel. We think it will be a very positive signal to Israeli and Palestinian public opinion that there are some fruits from this withdrawal from Gaza.

lay down in black-and-white that any organisation which calls for the destruction of Israel cannot participate in elections.

She's coming also to try and narrow the gap between Israel and the Palestinians and to help us strengthen our relations with the Arab and Muslim world.

Right now, even if I think that we have to go to a general election that will include the election ... for the Knesset, I think that we don't have enough time to do it.

I wish to particularly thank President Musharraf for his courage in promoting peace and moderation in our region and in general.

If we go forward and there will be an open passage from Rafah into Egypt and vice versa, we will need supervision of a third party. We will discuss as a possibility European Union involvement ... I'm much in favor of it,

If we had built this fence on the 1967 borders, it would have been a political fence. But on this route, it is a security fence.

I am certain that these relations, even if they are behind-the-scenes ties, will in the end thaw into public relations, with a much higher status than today.

I am trying very hard to improve relations with the Arab and the Muslim world,

I am sure this is best time for them and for us to move forward toward better relations, maybe full diplomatic relations,

I am sure that this meeting will be followed by more meetings in the future. We hope that finally it will lead to full diplomatic relations with Pakistan as we would like it with all Muslim and Arab countries.

I have already told (EU foreign policy chief) Javier Solana, if this model (of evacuating settlements) will work, and things will be calm and quiet, it will undoubtedly become a positive model for any future moves,

Furthermore, the result proves once again that Iran is heading toward more radicalism and extremism rather than toward reform and reconciliation.

I don't think its the real position of his party.

If we would want at a later time to permit the entry and exit from Rafah to Egypt, and smoothly, we would want a third party there. There is no doubt that the Europeans are very interested to be the third party,

If we are invited to negotiations, it would be wrong to say no. It would be for the good of nation if we were in the government.

He has failed to give us peace; he has failed to give us security,

Today I call on my Arab and Muslim colleagues to bring our contacts out into the light of day, so that our peoples may understand our shared desire to work with each other, to bring peace and prosperity to our region,

Today everything needs to be done to unite the ranks, ... It's crucial to try to keep everyone together.

The Palestinians will never, never implement their commitment to dismantle their infrastructure of terrorist organizations.

It could happen, ... But we need to see a timetable ? how we will start the peace process and how we will end.

I think this decision is a very grave decision, a dangerous decision, a poor decision.

It is not our goal to continue this activity. It can end immediately,

I think that this is the appropriate time for all the Muslim and Arab countries to reconsider their relations with Israel, ... I think that it will be a very positive signal to the Israeli public opinion and to the Palestinian public opinion that there are some fruits from this withdrawal from Gaza.

It is inconceivable that a movement such as Hamas, which has a very good chance of doing well or even winning, can participate in elections while calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.

I think there was a very major breakthrough today in the relations between us and Pakistan,

Pakistan as the second largest Muslim country after Indonesia has great weight. They themselves took a very brave step. We know they were under harsh attack, from the clergy and from others.

Starting from that moment, all the responsibility will devolve onto the Egyptians and also the multinational force, which is supposed to supervise,

We have the responsibility to protect our people and that's why we're building this fence. We've suffered from 19,000 terrorist attacks during the last three years.

The question is not if they are going to hold that bomb in 2009 or 2010 or 2011, the question is when they will have the full knowledge,

We would like to ease the life of the Palestinians. I prepared a new plan that we call a positive agenda.

We are close to a split and when the house is on fire, you have to do everything possible to extinguish the flames,

We will ease the life of Palestinians by giving them more industrial zones, more licenses to work in Israel and to stay overnight here.

We will continue to work so that it does not run in the elections,

We would like to see the Gaza model succeeds,

We would be very happy to stop the building of the fence or destroy it in the future if we reach any kind of agreement with them.

finally lead to a full diplomatic relationship with Pakistan as we would like to see with all Arab countries, but of course it needs to be done step by step.

While the Palestinians are not doing anything, we would like to implement our commitments,

We cannot go on like this. If the prime minister cannot get the support of his own party, there is no other choice than early elections,

We will not allow Hamas to take part in the elections.

We have decided to open a broad diplomatic offensive,

bring our contacts out into the light of day, so that our peoples may understand our shared desire to work with each other, to bring peace and prosperity to our region.

even now, we think that if Syria takes positive steps within the region, of course it will bring a new atmosphere and more peace and more quiet and stability.

Israel is very sorry about the decision that was taken by the government of New Zealand, but we believe that if we will work one with each other, as we used to work in the past, we will overcome the last difficulties,

Israel is a democracy; everyone can say what they would like to. But they are a very very small minority in Israeli public opinion.

I very much hope that those same good relations with the governments of the Arab world will lead to contacts with the people themselves.

This government will not march or walk in two tracks in the same time in parallel. I mean terror by day and negotiation by night. If these terrorist contacts will continue, I think that we won't be able to continue at the same time with the peace process.

This is an earthquake which has taken us back 50 years and will lead to an upheaval.

This is a country of all its citizens, and the economy also belongs to all Israelis. Anyone who fails to understand that, anyone who tries to defend their own little patch of territory, will soon find out that there is nothing to defend,

a barbaric act by people who have no respect for holy sites.

According to our people, security and intelligence, they are very, very close. It may be only six months before they will have that full knowledge.

Abu Mazen has to wake up and he has to take the correct strategic decision and start collecting illegal weapons and dismantling the terror organizations,

It's not that we're going to separate our people into two parts. We would like the Palestinians to live there and we will live here.

It is very, very important to stop them, and the sooner the better,

It's easy to call for a unilateral withdrawal when you don't consider what will happen the next day among the northern border communities.

doesn't make it easier because there is no leader now in the Labor Party that can deal with us.

not to give the Palestinians the opportunity to try to arrange a big party next week in the United Nations.

The message cannot be one of silence and restraint after such a terrible attack, ... The terror organizations must know that we will continue to hunt them everywhere, all the time.

The fence is moveable. We moved a fence that we had with Egypt after we signed the peace treaty with them. We moved the fence with Jordan and Lebanon.

I hope the summit will indeed by successful and take place before very long, ... We must do everything so the peace process can be renewed.

In Gaza, there are 22,000 employees paid by the Palestinian Authority, fully armed, working for the security forces of the Palestinian Authority.

If the Palestinians will find a new channel that they can achieve their demands, they will have no incentive to resume the negotiations with us.

If Palestinian attacks from Gaza continue after our withdrawal, Israel's response will be very harsh, very painful, ... This is not a threat. It is a statement.

In this situation, of course I can't vote for this agreement. I will see what they (Palestinians) will do in the near future,

I hope Pakistan won't be the last stop.

formulate a unified and stern policy toward Iran. We must insure that more than Western countries will not become hostages of the Iranian radicalism. We call upon the U.N. Security Council to take the matter into its own hands.

I don't want to go into specific details, but who is going to check the luggage of those who will get in and out? Still we are negotiating these specific issues with the European Union,

The iron wall ... Relations are growing at a rate never seen before.

These are optimistic times in the Middle East. The iron wall that has defined Israel's relations with most of the Arab and Muslim world for generations is coming down,

This is a historic move because it could lead other Muslim, Arab countries to understand that this is the right time to do this and to move their ties with us from darkness to light, ... After the Gaza pullout, the time is ripe also in the eyes of the public and it is also easier at the moment to do this than it was in the past.

The Egyptians didn't exactly succeed in stopping the transfer of weapons,

The Egyptian president is expected to arrive. We think he will probably come at the time of the marking of the decade since Rabin's murder. But we want the visit to have also bilateral implications,

The foreign minister of China believed after his visit to Tehran that the Iranians are serious about they are planning to move this development or those efforts only in order to develop, let's say, nuclear energy, ... We know the truth. I think most of the world knows the truth.

The security fence is reversible. Human lives are irreversible.

We believe that we should come to an agreement with the Palestinians. But we need two to tango.

Cease-fire is important, but it can last only for a very, very, very short time.

I'd like to ask you: what you would prefer us to do? I'd like to ask my colleagues, would any other country act differently? I think the answer is very clear. No one would act differently.

In 1988, King Hussein of Jordan said that it doesn't take any connection any more to those territories, and he would like to split from those territories. So according to the international law, it doesn't belong to anyone.

It's not a democracy here, it's the Middle East.

Most of the international community, most of the countries around the world, don't want any side, any party to take unilateral steps. They would like that all of us to stick to the road map.

No one can compare us to the apartheid regime. It's not like in South Africa between the blacks and the whites who belong to the same nation, or in Berlin where you find parents living on the eastern side and their children in the western side.

The Palestinians are not willing to do anything, they're not willing to make the strategic decision to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorist organizations.

Suicide bombers caused us more than 50 percent of our casualties. The fence works. There is a decline in the number of those terrorist attacks against Israelis.

There's no preventative measure between the Palestinians, between those terrorists to the state of Israel.

We have been in the territories since 1967. In 2002, we had sometimes three or four suicide attacks every day. We came to the conclusion that it can't continue like that.

We are not going to damage our safety and our security. We're not going to give those extremists the privilege to come so freely to Israel in order to carry out more attacks against us and kill us one day after another.

There is no taboo after this assassination and no one of the Palestinian leaders has immunity anymore, ... It shows once again the necessity to collect the illegal weapons and to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorist organizations.

In my view, Arafat is the only Palestinian in the world that isn't willing to have an independent Palestinian state.