Eli Yishai Quotes

In November 2008, the day of the presidential election, Israeli military forces invaded Gaza and killed half a dozen Hamas militants. Well, that was followed by a missile exchange for a couple of weeks in both directions.

Each time there is a conflict between Israel and Gaza, accusations fly over who started it, each side blaming the other.

Gazans are normal people like me and you. Unfortunately, they are under the control of Hamas.

Where were the calls for a no-fly zone when Israel attacked Gaza

We're not getting involved in terms of sending ground forces into Libya. Let's be clear about that. And indeed the UN Resolution forbids that. It says no foreign occupation of any part of Libya.

We sit there because there is a war going on. But once we have peace we don’t want to be sitting on your Suez Canal.

The United States of America… cannot have a viable foreign policy if we are humiliated in Vietnam. We must not lose in Vietnam. It’s as cold as that. Right?... And they have not given us any way to avoid being humiliated. And since they have not, we must draw the sword, so the blockade is on.

We’re not going to need as many people to do peacekeeping as we needed to fight the war.

The violence that the Palestinians use on among themselves is worse than the violence used by Israel. What Hamas … is doing the Palestinians is worse than what Israel does.

We want a rocket-free country. That’s what we want.

Hamas has territorial ambitions on Israel. In fact, that’s putting it too mildly: it would like to replace Israel in its entirety with a Muslim Brotherhood-ruled state. Israel has no territorial ambitions on Hamas-ruled Gaza. To the contrary, Israel left it totally 13 years ago, with the hope of never having to return.

Israel won't be secure so long as Hamas is in power, and therefore, we need to come to a decision that we will break the will of Hamas to keep fighting.

Let us not forget: The Palestinians in Gaza are our permanent neighbors, and we are theirs.

Stopping all the violent and hostile actions means ending the smuggling of arms into the Gaza territory.

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

Gaza itself is subject to constant aerial surveillance by drones and is rife with informers and collaborators with Israel.

One way or another, Gaza's residents must live in peace with Israel.

There's no doubt that our hearts are with the residents of Gaza. We and the whole world are unable to get to a situation in which Gaza can be rehabilitated. There needs to be an international initiative with Israel's participation, in order to bring an end to the enmity against us.

Hamas has effectively kidnapped Gaza. Instead of turning it into the Singapore of the Middle East that was promised, they have turned it into a fortress of terror.

The new crimes that the US and Israel were committing in Gaza as 2009 opened do not fit easily into any standard category—except for the category of familiarity.

Israel demonstrated real hooliganism during the course of the recent operation, which I demanded.

Israelis must be encouraged to defeat the Palestinians.

If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force.

The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more.

It's not that I place less value on Palestinian lives, but that Chairman Arafat and his chums in Hamas do.