Robert Strauss Quotes

You know, I said in the U.N., I said to President Abbas, 'Look, we're in the same city, we're in the same building, for God's sake, the U.N. Let's just sit down and begin to talk peace.'

I am willing to go anywhere. Israel will be surprised to hear that I am willing to go to the Knesset itself and negotiate with them.

Yasser Arafat was the epitome of gracious Arab hospitality. I must have had 1000 meals with him. The problem was that he could never translate that hospitality to negotiations.

We have had enough of meetings for meetings’ sake in the Middle East.

America has wearied of Middle East War.

There is no such thing as a happy compromise. Israelis and Palestinians cannot become one happy family because they are not one, not happy and not family either. They are two unhappy families who must divide a small house into even smaller apartments. The first step, is to sign peace with clenched teeth, and after signing the contract, start working slowly on a gradual emotional de-escalation on both sides.

President Trump also mentioned that under the right conditions, he is willing to engage in dialogue with North Korea.

This president's committed to taking steps to move the Middle East peace process forward, to bringing the two parties to the table to negotiate a lasting peace. That is the only way that a two-state solution can be achieved that provides the security that Israel deserves and needs and the sovereignty that the Palestinian people seek.

We appreciate the efforts of the United States, of the president, of the secretary of state, and we are ready to find any form of talks, but we have to overcome the differences between Syria and Israel to reach peace.

I did more than anyone else in persuading the U.S. to get rid of Saddam.

We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement.

We always have hoped that American diplomacy deploys itself in dialogue and persuasion rather than by ultimatums. That is the path we want in international relations.

It was in our power to cause the Arab governments to renounce the policy of strength toward Israel by turning it into a demonstration of weakness.

You have to show Israel that it's not going to be forced to do things it doesn't want to do and can't do.

And we ought to work our diplomacy first and I think it's a reason it's going to respond increasingly to our diplomacy particularly with the president's direct involvement in the peace process, and I think that's extraordinarily important.

When I was elected President nobody asked me to negotiate between Israel and Egypt. It was not even a question raised in my campaign. But I felt that one of the reasons that I was elected President was to try to bring peace to the Holy Land.

I come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and the freedom fighter's gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.

My diplomatic position will not consist of going and kneeling down in front of George Bush.

Everyone assumes America must play the leading role in crafting some settlement or compromise between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But Jefferson, Madison, and Washington explicitly warned against involving ourselves in foreign conflicts.

On balance, my life has been a constant stream of blessings rather than disappointments and failures and tragedies. I wish I had been re-elected. I think I could have kept our country at peace. I think I could have consolidated what we achieved at Camp David with a treaty between Israel and the Palestinians.

I don't think that anybody should be ruling in or ruling out anything while we are conducting diplomacy.

There is not going to be a peace process unless there is talks involving Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas, and I think everyone knows that.

Treaties of peace, made after war, are entrusted to individuals to negotiate and carry out.

They put aside the talk of peace and instead acted for peace.

It is time to drop the negative attitudes towards Israel, and relations with it. The basic value of the peace accord between Egypt and Israel lies in the fact that it expunges the term 'prohibition' or 'taboo,' which was created in the past by Arab policies towards Israel, and which turned relations with Israel into an abomination that could not be allowed.