31 Shimon Peres Quotes

Shimon Peres quotes

1. There's a great deal of criticism about the United States, but there is one thing that nobody criticizes the United States. Nobody thinks the United States went to strike against Iraq in order to gain land or water or oil, nobody thinks America has any ambitions about real estate. As it happened in the 20th century, the American boys went to fight in two world wars, many of them lost their lives. The United States won the wars, won the land, but you gave back every piece of it. America didn't keep anything out of her victories for herself. You gave back Japan, an improved Japan, you gave Germany, an improved Germany, you've heard the Marshall Plan. And today, I do not believe there is any serious person on earth who thinks the United States, whether you agree or don't agree with this strike, has any egoistic or material purposes in the war against Iraq. The reason is, for this strike, that you cannot let the world run wild. And people who are coming from different corners of our life, attack and kill women and children and innocent people, just out of the blue. And I think the whole world is lucky that there is a United States that has the will and the power to handle the new danger that has arrived on the 21st century.

2. Until the Yom Kippur War, in 1973, until then Israel didn't have a chance but to fight for her life. We were attacked five times, outgunned, outnumbered, on a small piece of land, and our main challenge was to remain alive.

3. There isn't a single person in Israel who wants to destroy or harm Egypt. In contrast, there's a whole country that openly wants to destroy Israel, and that's Iran. That is the difference between ours and Egypt's security problems. Egypt is not threatened by anyone. Israel is threatened by the second circle. Israel has never been and will never be a danger to Egypt. [...] Israel is not threatening Iran, Iran is threatening Israel. The situation is not similar.

4. The borders will be based on 1967, with the required security modifications. If we take a certain percentage of the Palestinian land, we will compensate them with land. We will not rob their land. Sovereignty yes, but no one would threaten this Palestinian state, and therefore the Palestinians also agree that it can be demilitarized. When the threats on Israel would also cease, I hope that Israel could be demilitarized too.

5. We reject attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations. Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred. It is a tragedy what the Armenians went through but not a genocide [...] Israel should not determine a historical or philosophical position on the Armenian issue. If we have to determine a position, it should be done with great care not to distort the historical realities.

6. Optimists and pessimists die the same way. They just live differently. I prefer to live as an optimist.

7. Iran is a great problem, but not necessarily a great country. In fact, I think it is a very weak country.

8. The president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map.

9. If world is suspicious that Israel may detonate nuclear bomb and if the suspicion is a deterrent - that's good enough.

10. I will confine myself to reaffirming the Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the region.

11. Historic justice has been done by killing Saddam.

12. If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact - not to be solved, but to be coped with over time.

13. Television has made dictatorship impossible but democracy unbearable.

14. You can kill a thousand; you can bring an end to life; you cannot kill an idea.

15. With the religious you can hardly negotiate. They think they have supreme permission to kill people and go to war.

16. The Arabs began to understand that it is not poverty creating terror, but terror creating poverty. They are the victims of their own errors.

17. The court ignored the fact the right to live is a basic human right. The effectiveness of the tribunal is in its ability to rule against terror, and not only against those who fight it.

1. One of the most important branches of the Egyptian economy is tourism. No bikinis, no tourism. So they have to decide what to do.

2. One of the things the United States does well is building coalitions. What the U.S. knows is that if you don't have a coalition with you, you will have a coalition against you. I don't want to see China and Russia on the side of Iran more strongly than they are.

3. I don't think anybody who carries a rifle carries the future. Because I don't believe that you can really change the world by killing and shooting. You have the change it by creating and competing.

4. I thought all my life that optimists and pessimists pass away the same way, so why be a pessimist?

5. I call on the Iranian people: it is not too late to replace the corrupt regime and return to your glorious Persian heritage, a heritage of culture and values and not of bombs and missiles... How can a nation allow a regime to instill fear, take away the people's freedom and shock the young generation that seeks its way out of the dictatorial Iran.

6. In many ways, the media today makes dictatorship impossible. But it also makes democracy intolerable.

7. For many years the stakes were clear. There were the Arabs attacking us and us defending ourselves, so basically there were no real problems [between the United States and Israel]. Now there are many small cells, and each of them can destroy on their own. Some can arrive at New York and kill thousands of people.

8. It's a morality that keeps humans human.

9. When it becomes a bloody reality, we have to come together and look at what can be done to return to the order of peace, ... There is no alternative to it.

10. A politician and a government should be judged by one way only: on the record of what you do or did, not on what you say.

11. We are living in a world where image-making is important, so we ignore the facts.

12. The internet, Facebook and Twitter have created mass communications and social spaces that regimes cannot control.

13. We had a lot of support - don't give me "the world", just the televisions. In America we enjoy support,China is neutral, India is for, in Europe they're divided.

14. In every war, there are always elements of blindness.