Barack Obama Quotes

My wish is peace for Israel and for Israel's neighbors.

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.

I want Israel to live in peace with its neighbors and in peace with itself.

That's what I am standing up for - Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state living side-by-side in peace and security with its neighbors.

President George W. Bush is the first American president to call openly for two-states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.

If they told us that peace is the price of giving up on a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, my reply would be “Let's do without peace.”

The United States cannot want peace more than the Palestinians and the Israelis.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems to have been overshadowed by the upheavals in the region. I have followed events there for almost 40 years. I am convinced that what is needed for a solution is not only the willingness to negotiate in good faith but also to take into account the needs and sensibility of the negotiating partner. I, for one, just cannot believe that the value of settlements for Israel is bigger than the damage these settlements do as an obstacle to peace.

Israel exists; it has a right to exist in peace behind secure and defensible borders; and it has a right to demand of its neighbors that they recognize those facts. I have personally followed and supported Israel's heroic struggle for survival, ever since the founding of the State of Israel 34 years ago. In the pre-1967 borders Israel was barely 10 miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel's population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again.

The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war.

The people of Israel will have to be convinced that the Palestinians are ready for peace.

Palestinian and Israeli leaders finally recover the Road Map to Peace, only to discover that, while they were looking for it, the Lug Nuts of Mutual Interest came off the Front Left Wheel of Accommodation, causing the Sport Utility Vehicle of Progress to crash into the Ditch of Despair.

America that has done more to support Israel than any other country cannot be true to our own values if we allow a viable two-state solution to be destroyed before our own eyes.

Peace for us means the destruction of Israel.

I have long believed that Israel should seek to give up the so-called Occupied Territories in return for security, and that a Palestinian state should be established. I have felt that way all my life. I think it is unreasonable to ask the Israelis to do this in a context where there is no guarantee at all that suicide bombers will be controlled.

Of course, Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with anyone who is dedicated to its destruction. But while I know you have had differences with the Palestinian Authority, I believe that you do have a true partner in President Abbas.

Israel was seen as having demonstrated unmistakably it wanted peace, and the reason it wasn't available, achievable was because Arafat wouldn't accept it.

The Palestinians want a state, but they have to give peace in return. What they're trying to do in the United Nations is to get a state without giving Israel peace or giving Israel peace and security. And I think that's, that's wrong. That should not succeed. That should, that should fail.

I believe that peace with the Palestinians is most urgent - urgent than ever before. It is necessary. It is crucial. It is possible. A delay may worsen its chances. Israel and the Palestinians are, in my judgment, ripe today to restart the peace process.

I hope that France - and all of Europe - we would take an initiative for the year 2012 to be the year of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The security and the future of Jordan is hand-in-hand with the future of the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Because I know about the Holy Land, I've taught lessons about the Holy Land all my life, and - but you can't bring peace to Israel without giving the Palestinian also peace. And Lebanon and Jordan and Syria as well.

The Bush Administration's failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.

Israel deserves special treatment from the United States, both for historical reasons and because there can be no regional peace without a secure Israel.

I have no doubts, by the way, that Ariel Sharon really wants to move the peace process forward.