Isaac Herzog Quotes

We need to see a Palestinian state.

It is clear a Palestinian state is needed.

It simply cannot be disputed that for decades the Palestinian leadership was more interested in there not being a Jewish state than in there being a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu supports - and he truly does support - building a Palestinian state within Israel.

It's not good for Israel to have a Palestinian state in the heart of Israel.

I believe that if Israel were to put an end to the settlements in the West Bank tomorrow, as it did in Gaza, there would still be reluctance on the part of the Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish secular democracy.

And if we are honest we have to make a distinction between a democratic Israel that wants to live in peace and the terrorists who want Israel wiped out. The Israelis were told to give up land for peace; they gave up the land, but got no peace.

The U.S. should support the historic Gaza withdrawal as a first step toward a final settlement: a permanent Palestinian state in Gaza and nearly all of the West Bank.

I believe that the only alternative Israel has to save itself as a Jewish state - and let's be frank about that: the Jewish state is predicated on having a Jewish majority - the only way we can do that is by unilaterally withdrawing our border and withdrawing our settlements in the West Bank.

How do you negotiate a two state solution with the Palestinians when they do not believe that one of the states has the right to exist?

Most Israelis have a sense, 'We just don't want to live in the Middle East anymore. We don't want it to be the Middle East. Were going to just build a wall or operate unilaterally' - not try to even use force as used to be the case to convince Arabs to accept Israel by convincing them that Israel is here to stay and then negotiating.

The Palestinian issue is a national, political issue. It's not to be seen as an economic issue that would be solved or addressed by some economic approach that makes the living standard of the people under occupation better. The Palestinian people are fed up with talks that have been going on for years. We are looking for peace, but we are not looking for a new peace process. This process will fail.

The era of a Palestinian state is over.

I don't think the Palestinians are in this position they're in, divided with Hamas and the P.A., unwilling to allow - or recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The fact is that you literally, by definition, cannot have a Jewish state and a democratic state and have a whole bunch of Palestinians in it who are living under military rule while the rest of the country is living under civil rule, and they have different rights and different - it's just not a democracy.

We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.

If you want to be a Jewish state and you want to remain a democracy, you have to have a two-state solution.

Certainly, until there is justice for the Palestinians, there will never be any kind of stability in the Middle East.

There cannot be peace in the Middle East without giving Palestinians their full rights.

We do not build new Jewish communities in Samaria, Judea and Gaza. The United States has never accepted our building of communities or of the fence. Yet, I've managed to develop relations between Israel and the United States even though President Bush never supported settlements.

We're saying this to both countries: We want a two-state solution. We want a Jewish state of Israel and alongside a independent Palestinian state. Unilateral measures are not helping at all to bring about this cause, and we agree that we wish to cooperate very closely on this, because as we both say, time is of the essence.

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.

We don't have a state, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank. Gaza is under siege and the West Bank is occupied. What we have in the Gaza Strip is not a state, but rather a regime of an elected government. A Palestinian state will not be created at this time except in the territories of 1967.

There's no preventative measure between the Palestinians, between those terrorists to the state of Israel.

I think that peace will require two states, a Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state.