David Ben-Gurion Quotes

It simply cannot be disputed that for decades the Palestinian leadership was more interested in there not being a Jewish state than in there being a Palestinian state.

Jerusalem will always be the capital of Israel, even if someday a peace agreement were to be reached.

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home

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

Ask Bill Clinton about Yasir Arafat. Clinton and Barak did everything they could in 2000 at Camp David. Arafat walked away from it.

How do you negotiate a two state solution with the Palestinians when they do not believe that one of the states has the right to exist?

We have to rethink the two-state solution.

Palestinians want Israel to return back into boundaries, the width of which is 12 km., that can be cut into pieces within minutes.

For 50 years - that is, for most of my adult life - I worked tirelessly for the two-state solution in the face of countless frustrations, both on the part of the Israeli governments and the Palestinian Authority.

You need to have a secure Israel, which is very clear, and you need to have a Palestinian community that feels it can have hope.

We need to separate the two peoples: Israeli Arabs are part and parcel of Israel, and Palestinians should be separate, as part of a two-state solution.

I have reached a conclusion that when we have to make a choice between greater Israel or a Jewish democratic state - and we have to make this choice, it is inevitable - then my choice is a Jewish democratic country.

Most Israelis have a sense, 'We just don't want to live in the Middle East anymore. We don't want it to be the Middle East. Were going to just build a wall or operate unilaterally' - not try to even use force as used to be the case to convince Arabs to accept Israel by convincing them that Israel is here to stay and then negotiating.

No one was talking about a two-state solution until the '90s, then it became an acceptable solution.

The truth is that the dream of 'two states for two peoples,' born in the '90s, died in the noughties. The two-state solution, the popular and principled option for so long now, is neither practical nor possible.

We will never agree to give up Jerusalem, a united city under Israeli sovereignty, and only Israeli. We will not accept a terrorist Palestinian state, we will not accept an agreement based on the 67 lines.

President Abbas and myself, we are the ones who signed the Oslo agreement, so we really know each other, not just theoretically.

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

The Israelis object to an imposed settlement I don't know what they mean by an imposed settlement. It's quite obvious, without the all out support by the United States in money and weapons and so on the Israelis couldn't do what they've been doing. So we bear a very great share of the responsibility for the continuation of this...of this state of warfare.

The era of a Palestinian state is over.

I was born a Zionist, because I didn't have a choice about that. It was the ether of my family life, but I certainly broke with it as I asked more questions about it. And that doesn't mean I want to see the destruction of a people, it means I want to see a state structure that might embody more substantially the basic principles of democracy.

I have on numerous occasions, as you know, expressed my sympathy in the establishment of a National Home for the Jews in Palestine and, despite the set-backs caused by the disorders there during the last few years, I have been heartened by the progress which has been made and by the remarkable accomplishments of the Jewish settlers in that country.

If the conflict is about the size of Israel, then long and difficult negotiations can eventually resolve the problem. But if the conflict is about the existence of Israel, then serious negotiation is impossible.

In the long term, Israel's security rests on only one pillar: the Palestinians' acceptance of the country. It isn't the atom bomb that makes Israel secure.

There is a general sense of guarded optimism. There have been too many false dawns over the last 60 years. There have been more tears than smiles, but I sense there is a commitment from Abbas and Sharon, a new determination to make a reality of the goal of two states living side by side.