Benjamin Netanyahu > Quotes

“If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more ‎violence. If the Jews put ‎down their weapons ‎today, there would be no ‎more Israel'‎”
― Benjamin Netanyahu

“We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attacks on the twin towers and the pentagon and the American struggle in Iraq. These events swung American public opinion in our favor”
― Benjamin Netanyahu

“History has shown us time and again that what is right is not what is popular.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu

“If diplomacy has any chance to work, it must be coupled with a credible military threat.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu

“It doesn't matter if justice is on your side. You have to depict your position as just.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu

“Here were people who clearly wished Israel well, yet who did not know something so elementary as the fact that the Arab world is more than five hundred times the size of the Jewish state. They did not realize that the Israel they were incessantly hearing about and seeing every day on their television screens is all of forty miles wide (including the West Bank), and that if it were to give up the entire West Bank, it would be ten miles wide.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, A Durable Peace: Israel and its Place Among the Nations

“If there had been a Jewish state in the first half of the century, there would have been no Holocaust. And if there had not been a Jewish state after the Holocaust, there would have been no Jewish future. The State of Israel is not only the repository of the millennial Jewish hopes for redemption; it is also the one practical instrument for assuring Jewish survival.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, A Durable Peace: Israel and its Place Among the Nations

“No other country faces both constant threats to its existence and constant criticism for acting against such threats.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, A Durable Peace: Israel and its Place Among the Nations

“the art of politics and the idea of cohering interests.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, A Durable Peace: Israel and its Place Among the Nations

“… the Arab world is more than five hundred times the size of the Jewish state.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, A Durable Peace: Israel and its Place Among the Nations

“It is a mystery to me how otherwise perfectly intelligent people could fall into the trap of buying the bogus Palestinian narrative. They persisted on refusing to recognize that the real cause of the “Palestinian Problem” was… the Palestinians themselves! Their refusal to accept a Jewish state was the heart of the conflict.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“In our age, when history is often either unknown or disregarded, it is easy for Arabs to plant the view in the West that if only Israel had not come into being, the Arab relationship with the West would be harmonious. But in fact, the Arab world’s antagonism for the West raged for a thousand years before Israel was added to its list of enemies. The Arabs do not hate the West because of Israel; they hate Israel because of the West.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, A Durable Peace: Israel and its Place Among the Nations

“… for close to a century Arab society and Arab politics have been commandeered by an anti-Jewish obsession that has known no limits: It harnessed the Nazis, promoted the Final Solution, launched five wars against Israel, embarked on a campaign of global terrorism, strangled the world’s economy with oil blackmail, and now, in Iraq and elsewhere, is attempting to build nuclear bombs for the great Armageddon.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, A Durable Peace: Israel and its Place Among the Nations

“… if there had been an Israel earlier in this century, there surely would have been no Holocaust. There would have been a country willing to take the Jewish refugees when America, Britain, and the other nations refused. There would have been a country to press for their departure. And there would have been an army ready to fight for them.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, A Durable Peace: Israel and its Place Among the Nations

“TO ACHIEVE THE peace between Israel and Arab states we had overcome many obstacles, none more enduring than the obsessive belief in the centrality of the Palestinian issue and the need to achieve a Palestinian-Israeli peace before any other peace could be made. John Kerry, like so many others, had held that belief, and he expressed it in December 2016 during a conference in Washington attended by many of my political opponents, invited especially from Israel to hear it: There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world. I want to make that very clear to all of you. I’ve heard several prominent politicians in Israel sometimes saying “Well, the Arab world is in a different place now, we just have to reach out to them and we can work some things with the Arab world and we’ll deal with the Palestinians.” No, no, no and no… There will be no advance and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace. Everyone needs to understand that. That is a hard reality. When Kerry finished delivering his remarks, he received thunderous applause. It was only by breaking out of this flawed way of thinking, however, that true progress was made. In its first seventy-two years, Israel made peace with two Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan. In the span of four months, Israel had made peace with four more. By building Israel’s power and challenging Iran, we had made Israel an attractive ally to our Arab neighbors. By bypassing the Palestinians, we could now achieve four diplomatic breakthroughs and sign four historic agreements. This was truly a New Middle East, one built on real strength and no false illusions.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“The cascading terrorist attacks emanating from PLO-controlled areas did not cease for a moment. This blunted the effect on public opinion of the White House signing ceremony of the Oslo Accords, in which Rabin was clearly seen uncomfortably shaking Arafat’s hand. Equally, Palestinian terrorism cast a dark shadow over the august ceremony in Sweden, where Rabin, Arafat and Peres were given the Nobel Peace Prize. The Peace Prize was greatly devalued when, after Oslo, the arch-jihadist recipient of the prize, Arafat, steadfastly continued to foster terrorism. In my long tenure as prime minister I could never be tempted with a Nobel Prize to do things that I thought would endanger Israel. Posterity is a better judge of historic achievement than politically correct committees meeting in Scandinavia.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“I tried to speak my mind, speak my heart, and above all speak plainly. I avoided jargon assiduously. In addition to The Elements of Style, Peter Lubin had also given me Stanislav Andreski’s hilarious book, Social Science as Sorcery, and after I read his indictment of “pretentious nebulous verbosity,” I could never look a “paradigm” in the eye or garble a sentence with “parameters” and other such imprecise patter again. If I occasionally used one of these expressions, I now offer a belated apology. Throughout my public career I fought a resolute war against jargon used by government officials—with only partial success. I could usually control what came out of my mouth and out of my office, but generally not much more than that.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“Har Homa was in the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem drawn right after the Six-Day War. Israel never accepted any formal limitation on building neighborhoods within these boundaries, including under the Oslo Accords. Nonetheless, the decision to build Har Homa was met with severe Palestinian and international censure. Arafat demanded that I rescind the authorization. I did not. As usual, loud protests ensued. The British foreign minister, Jack Straw, visiting Israel, literally joined hands with the Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini in a Palestinian march condemning the Har Homa project. He was supposed to have dinner with me that evening. I promptly canceled it. For me, I said, that was the last straw. The protests eventually died down; the Palestinian southern thrust into Jerusalem was blunted. Today Har Homa has forty thousand residents, a small city within a city.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“Soviet Jews would be released because the Soviet empire was in tatters. That was certainly my view, one that I had developed over the previous decade through telling conversations. In 1979, at the first Jonathan Institute conference in Jerusalem, I had spoken with the great Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. “Benjamin,” he had said, “please understand, the Soviet regime is desperate. Everything is rotten inside. Nothing works. It’s one big rotten core held together by the façade of invincibility provided by nuclear ICBMs parading in Red Square.” He predicted that within a decade the Soviet Union as we knew it would collapse. He was right on the”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“Often described as a transactional president, Trump would approach an issue by asking, “Why do we need this?” invariably followed by, “What do we get for this?” Often this attitude got to the heart of many absurdities and iniquities, but sometimes it overlooked basic truths. “Why do we need NATO?” a question that puts into doubt a critical foundation of the free world’s security, is entirely different from “Why are the NATO partners not paying their fair share?” a legitimate Trump question that had long waited to be asked. Trump’s insistence on reciprocity in trade was also well overdue. Why should some countries be allowed to insist on free trade for themselves while closing off their markets to American goods and services?”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“We broke into tears. Our world collapsed. Yoni was an ardent scout leader and class president. Iddo and I would have to leave our classmates again. Our second journey to America had none of the excitement of our first visit. We knew America, we”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“Though Hamas was aware that we had been building a subterranean wall equipped with sensors around the Gaza perimeter, its effectiveness at blocking the terror tunnels shocked them. The underground route through which they planned to penetrate Israel was gone.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“For three years I have been imploring you, Jews of Poland, the crown of world Jewry, appealing to you, warning you unceasingly that the catastrophe is nigh. My hair has turned white and I have grown old these years, for my heart is bleeding that you, dear brothers and sisters, do not see the volcano which will soon begin to spew forth its fires of destruction. I see a horrible vision. Time is growing short for you to be spared. I know you cannot see it, for you are troubled and confused by everyday concerns…. Listen to my words at this, the twelfth hour. For God’s sake: let everyone save himself, so long as there is time to do so, for time is running short.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“This unusual television moment received much international attention, as did another CNN interview in which I displayed a large map of the Middle East. I “walked” through the Arab countries from Morocco to the Indian Ocean with the open palms of my hands. Then I covered Israel with my thumb.10 For many used to seeing the map of Israel alone on a full screen, a great Israeli Goliath “oppressing” the small Palestinian David, this demonstration came as a shock. It was Israel that was David. This was the best way I could think of to convey that the Arab world was hundreds of times the size of Israel. These interviews may have been seen by some unlikely viewers. When visiting Japan that year, singer Perry Como was asked by the Japanese government how to improve Japan’s image in the United States. He suggested they hire my services.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“As Hamas’s rocket stockpiles dwindled, it reduced the number of rockets launched nightly but increased the range to Tel Aviv and beyond. Several of my conversations with Obama were interrupted by sirens. “Sorry, Barack,” I’d say. “I’m afraid we’ll have to resume our conversation in a few minutes.” With the rest of the staff I had forty-five seconds to go into underground shelters, returning after getting the all-clear sign. These live interruptions strengthened my argument for taking increasingly powerful actions against Hamas. And so we did. The IAF destroyed more and more enemy targets. Hamas panicked and became careless. Our intelligence identified the locations of their commanders. We targeted them and delivered painful blows to their hierarchy. Hamas then shifted their command posts to high-rises, believing they would be immune to our strikes. Using a technique called “knock on roof,” the air force fired nonlethal warning shots on the roofs of the buildings. Along with phone calls to the building occupants, these warnings enabled them to leave the premises unharmed. The IDF flattened several high-rise buildings with no civilian casualties. The sight of these collapsing towers sent Hamas a powerful message of demoralization and fear. This was literally “you can climb but you can’t hide.” Desperation was seeping through Hamas ranks. Arguments began to flare between Mashal in Qatar and the ground command in Gaza, which was suffering the brunt of our attacks. Eventually they caved. In the talks with Egypt they rescinded all their demands and agreed to an unconditional cease-fire that went into effect on August 26, 2014. After fifty days, Protective Edge was over. Sixty-seven IDF soldiers, five Israeli civilians, including one child, and a Thai civilian working in Israel lost their lives in the war. There were 4,564 rockets and mortars fired at Israel from Gaza, nearly all from civilian neighborhoods. The Iron Dome system intercepted 86 percent of them.4 The IDF killed 2,125 Gazans,5 roughly two-thirds of whom were members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian terrorist groups. A third were civilians who were often used by the terrorists as human shields. Colonel Richard Kemp, the commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said that “the IDF took measures to limit civilian casualties never taken by any Western army in similar situations.” At least twenty-three Palestinian civilians were executed by Hamas over false accusations of colluding with Israel. In reality many had simply criticized the devastation of Gaza brought about by Hamas’s aggression against Israel.6 Hamas leaders emerged from their bunkers. Surveying the rubble, they predictably declared victory. This is what all dictatorships do. They are not accountable to the facts or to their people. Less predictably, Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas admitted that Hamas was severely weakened and achieved none of its demands.7 With the”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“In war, setbacks often divide; successes usually unite. Guardian of the Walls—thwarting the terror tunnel network and the naval and aerial capabilities that Hamas built over many years—was our most successful operation against Hamas to date. Cumulatively, the best indicator of the success of our operations was that in the five years after Protective Edge in 2014 up to the end of 2019, the population in the Israeli communities adjacent to Gaza grew by 15 percent, compared to 9 percent in the rest of the country.3 That robust growth continued after Guardian of the Walls. Yet during that operation, in addition to Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets on our cities, we faced another ominous threat. Israel has several cities with mixed Jewish and Arab populations. Normally they coexist peacefully and harmoniously. Now, in the midst of the fighting, groups of radicalized Israeli Arabs attacked their Jewish neighbors with automatic weapons, murdering them in apartment buildings and in the streets. The shooters, often an amalgam of Islamic radicals and criminal elements, were using illegal weapons rampant in Arab communities. This lawlessness was a festering sore for decades.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“flaw”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“I told Eagleburger that Prime Minister Begin would never agree to this. The inherent problem in our conflict with the Arabs wasn’t the absence of a Palestinian state, but the presence of a Jewish one, I said. The persistent Arab refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own is what had been driving this conflict since the beginning of the twentieth century. Not only did the Reagan Plan not address this critical issue. By putting the onus of the continuation of the conflict on Israel, it encouraged the Palestinians and other Arabs to continue to reject the very idea of a Jewish state, thus pushing the possibility of an enduring peace ever further away.”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“As the diplomats are fond of saying when they have little else to say, the importance of the Madrid Conference was the fact that it convened. If anyone expected that sitting around a common table with all the world to see would temper the proceedings, they were soon proven wrong. As expected, everyone played to the gallery, their gallery. The speeches were largely wooden and flat. The conference concluded with a decision to continue bilateral talks between the delegations in Washington, some of which I later attended. They didn’t get very far either. During”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story

“Arafat himself sometimes spoke even more candidly. On January 30, 1996, he said in a closed meeting to forty Arab diplomats in Stockholm’s Grand Hotel, “We intend to destroy Israel and to establish a pure Palestinian state…. We will make the life of the Jews miserable and take everything from them…. I don’t need any Jews.”12 In a radio address on the Voice of Palestine on November 11, 1995, he said, “The struggle will continue until all of Palestine is liberated.” Lest anyone had doubts that by “all of Palestine” he meant not only Judea and Samaria and Gaza but all of Israel, he had proclaimed two months earlier, on September 7, 1995, “O Gaza, your sons are returning. O Lod, O Haifa, O Jerusalem, you are returning, you are returning,” in Arabic to a Palestinian audience. True to his deceptive character, he was careful not to mention places like Haifa and Lod, which were well within pre-1967 Israel and ostensibly not in the PLO’s plan for a state, when he spoke before Western audiences. On September 13, 1993, the day he signed the Oslo Accords, Arafat used more oblique language in explaining to a Palestinian audience that the agreement was nothing more than the PLO’s “Phased Plan.” This plan, calling for the destruction of Israel in stages, had been adopted by the PLO in 1964 and was well familiar to Palestinians. The unchanging and thinly disguised PLO strategy of destroying Israel in stages completely contradicted Oslo’s ostensible message of peace and reconciliation. So did the post-Oslo flood of official Palestinian exhortations dehumanizing Jews as pigs and teaching schoolchildren to glorify Palestinian suicide bombers. As usual, little of this entered the international discourse or caused governments to rethink the much-vaunted Oslo Accords. There was supposedly a honeymoon between the PLO and Israel under Prime Minister Rabin; Arafat and Rabin were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East.” It was inconceivable that the prizewinning Arafat could be swindling the entire world. Of course, anybody with a sober view of the facts could see that this was precisely what was happening. But what Yoni had written years earlier about some in Israel was now true of many in the international community: “They want to believe, so they believe. They want not to see, so they distort.”13”
― Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi: My Story