David Levy Quotes

I spend every day up at the United Nations where I have to interact with 192 other countries. I know how well the United States is viewed.

Foreign policy is like human relations, only people know less about each other.

My father was a Foreign Service officer, a diplomat and an Arabist who spent virtually all his career in the Near East, as it was called in the State Department. So I spent most of my childhood among the Israelis and the Arabs of Palestine, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

When I was in college, I became interested in various aspects of foreign policy and international relations. Even as a kid, I was interested in what I call, loosely speaking, forbidden knowledge.

And Israel, being a tiny, small country, of course has interest to strengthen - we have interest to strengthen our relations with other countries, mostly countries that were hostile for many, many years.

You do not build a foreign policy based on one man.

I should have sent him somewhere as an ambassador. The world’s a big place.

All really civilized communities should have effective arbitration treaties among themselves. I believe that these treaties can cover almost all questions liable to arise between such nations

You will never hear me denigrating other countries.

We do not worry about how a sovereign country keeps its relations with others.

Whatever has a tendency to promote the civil intercourse of nations by an exchange of benefits is a subject as worthy of philosophy as of politics.

You are here to step into the shoes of UN ambassadors - to draft resolutions, to plot strategy, to negotiate with your allies as well as your adversaries. Your goal may be to resolve a conflict, to cope with a natural disaster or to bring nations together on an issue like climate change. You may be playing a role, but you are also preparing for life. You are acting as global citizens.

The statesmen still say that we should not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations and yet it is not possible any longer not to interfere, even when we do not mean to do so.

The world of high-stakes international diplomacy can be rough and tumble, but it's more often than not a procession of suits and summits, protocol sessions and photo ops.

Well, I think the United States first of all has to recognize the world for what it is.

The Finnish way of dealing with Russia, whatever the situation, is that we will be very decisive to show what we don't like, where the red line is.

Now there is a cultural change under way in the Foreign Service.

In international relations, in foreign policy, a great deal has to do with historical circumstances, a great deal has to do with the sense and perception of people.

The answer dictates what the policy should be in our relationships with every country in the world.

The whole notion of an embassy is like 'The Other.' That's what makes Washington interesting.

The diplomatic representatives of the United States of America to other nations are almost entirely Jews.

When the ambassadors of other foreign countries come to Japan to make treaties, they can be told that such and such a treaty has been made with the ambassador of the United States, and they will rest satisfied with this.

The United States has got to adopt a policy of befriending and creating allies around the world.

Ambassadors are, by definition, foreign bodies.

Our policy is to deepen the relations with all the countries in the world - monarchies, kingdoms, large powers - we want to respect all differences and have our relationships based on mutual respect.