Daniel Barenboim Quotes

America has to stand by our allies. I think the tension that existed between Israel and the United States was very unfortunate.

If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.

For four hundred years the foreign policy of England has to oppose the strongest, most aggressive, most dominating Power on the Continent …

There is nothing in common between the United States and Saudi Arabia except Israel.

For the first time in the history of relations between people, a precedent has been created by which a great State [Germany], as a result of moral pressure alone, takes it upon itself to pay compensation to the victims [the Jews] of the government that preceded it [Nazi Germany].

I don't think that everything is a zero-sum game in which, when the president of the United States says something, that means that he is pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli, or vice versa.

Israel is part of the free world led by the United States, no matter what.

My academic specialization is Arab-Israel relations.

I don't think he should make foreign policy on the basis of peak,but I don't think it can be overstated that Israel has been an embattled democracy that has enjoyed the bipartisan and overwhelming support of Americans. It has been a moral force.

In the United States, Iran is nothing but a whipping-boy. Few Americans have any real use for Iran. Most of us, what we know and remember about Iran are things like the hostage crisis in 1980, or they think about the Iranian attacks in Lebanon, or on the Khobar Towers. So you don't get a whole lot of political mileage in the United States by going out and advocating better relations with the Iranians.

The Bush administration has apparently approved a plan to oust Saddam Hussein. I think that's President Bush's Father's Day gift to his Dad.

I think in theory, the United States finds it much easier to deal with situations where there is a leading country. You can go to the leaders of that country and say, for example, to India, "There are all these problems in Bangladesh, we really have to do something about it, what do you suggest we can do to work out a common policy?" But when you don't have the equivalent of India, you have to go capital to capital trying to put together a coalition, which is extraordinarily difficult, especially in the Arab world, because of the historic rivalries and branches of Islam.

I don't think you can solve what's going on in Iraq unless you can deal effectively with the region and you can't deal effectively with the region if you start with the premise that you can't talk to people who disagree with you.

I know Donald Trump. I know him very well. And I think his attitude, his support for Israel is clear.

I believe that Israel is one of our most important friends in the world.

We did not think that [Egyptian President] Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to Sinai on May 14 would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.

I also think regime change in Syria is a bad idea. And that's an ongoing question. It's one of the things I like about Donald Trump, one of the reasons I endorsed him is he thinks regime change is a mistake. But John Bolton thinks completely the opposite. They are diametric opposites.

Israel deserves America's friendship in reality - not just in rhetoric.

I want to try to become friends with Russia.

Donald Trump didn't even understand, right, that [Vladimir] Putin was playing him. So, in Putin's mind, I have no doubt that Putin thinks that he's an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation, although Putin would never say that.

Right now, Russia's future should be wedded to Europe. Why they see NATO as a threat is beyond me. Clearly, NATO is not a threat.

Foreign policy is a little bit like a guy who goes to Las Vegas. If you win too much, then you eventually bet the mortgage. You start to think you are infallible.

It's not a matter of rejection (of Israel's existence). Israel is here, present by power.

Poland is smaller than France or Germany, for example. What would a common foreign policy look like? Would the trip I took to Kiev last week require a detour through Brussels in the future? Would it require approval from Brussels? While the West, for its part, doesn't think twice about other countries when it comes to its projects?

Maybe because I'm from New Jersey, I just have this kind of plain language hangup. But I would make very clear - I would not talk to Vladimir Putin. In fact, I would talk to Vladimir Putin a lot. But I'd say to him, "Listen, Mr. President, there's a no-fly zone in Syria; you fly in, it applies to you." And yes, we would shoot down the planes of Russian pilots if in fact they were stupid enough to think that this president was the same feckless weakling that the president we have in the Oval Office is right now.