Top 105 Quotes & Sayings by Ehud Barak - Page 2

Benjamin Netanyahu seems to avoid any initiative.

When you launch a surgical operation, you must already be well deployed to follow it through with larger forces. That complicates matters: you need to be ready for a full-fledged campaign on the operational level and have the diplomatic backing lined up as well.

I am confident the Obama administration will work professionally with any Israeli government.

I tend not to believe radical Muslim movements.

The Palestinian Authority cannot hold the stick at both ends: to incite violence, to participate in it, and to tell the world how - what kind of underdog they are.

When an army doesn't want to fight, you don't need much experience to win.

I believe President Obama means everything he says about sticking to the unprecedented backing of Israel and keeping all options on the table against Tehran, as well as countering its adventures in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq.

There is a perception across the Middle East that America is weakened. I believe the perception is wrong. The United States remains the world's mightiest military, economic and diplomatic power by far, with reach and abilities beyond rival.

Once Iraq becomes a nuclear power, the very decision to go to war against it would become a totally different ball game.

With the globalization, it's difficult for governments to impose decisions on private companies.

Israel's secret services are allowed to profile.

Leadership can change its mind; leadership can open its eye. Leadership can even be replaced.

It's the role of a government to defend its soldiers and its citizens.

I don't think that the Iranians, even if they got the bomb, they're going to drop it immediately on some neighbor. They fully understand what might follow. They're radical, but not total mishuginas.

I respect General Halutz very much so.

Saddam Hussein has set an example of defiance, especially against the first President Bush, that other Arab leaders cannot and should not emulate; the example leads only to empty gestures and developmental stagnation, both of which the Arab nations have had enough of already.

We are living in an open world. There is a freedom of speech and, clearly, freedom of speculation.

Iran sees India, China, Pakistan and, allegedly, Israel around them with nuclear weapons.

Russians in top positions always told me, 'We don't want to deal with our allies the way that the Americans dealt with Mubarak,' which is a very live example in the minds of many.

A strong, responsible Israel can become a stabilizer in such a turbulent region.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the destruction of an Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad in 1981. This action delayed an Iraqi bomb by at least 15 years. The whole world condemned Israel - only to realize later how farsighted it had been.

ISIS has never fought a real battle.

As prime minister, I was the Israeli leader who walked the greatest distance in his offers to the Palestinians.

I know Fiat plans to start manufacturing cars in Iran. This is wrong.

The aim of the Palestinian terror is not just to kill Israelis but also to break the will of Israeli society in order to dictate a political solution. Israel should never yield to this terror campaign.

If you establish a right unity government, you create an effective platform to make... decisions because you have wider support of your own party.

Unfortunately, you cannot let your neck be kind of cut as a gesture for your neighbor, even if it's a good neighbor.

Geopolitics needs not just rhetoric, not just certain instincts, not just political skillful manipulation; it needs vision and what the Germans call erdung - you have to be connected to the ground always. You cannot float on your wishful thinking and hope that some miracles will become reality.

For three years now, probably more, there is a clear common interest developed between Israel and the leading Sunni moderate entities. The Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan. And the common interest is to block radical Muslim terror, to counter the Iranian hegemonic and nuclear intentions, and to join hands in a huge infrastructure project from water, energy, transportation, whatever, in the whole Middle East.

Israel is surrounded by a raging sea, parts of which are not willing to accept us as a partner with equal rights among the nations. The reality we live in presents us with profound challenges, the need to effectively use all of our resources, and the need to prepare for any development, near or far. The IDF will protect the security and the future of the state. The IDF will provide the response when the order is given.

Politics is not about schmoozing, it's about boxing. And you have to enter the arena; you have to come close enough that your face would ready the face of the other guy; and the price is that he can reach your face.

But at the end of the day, when the military command looks up, it sees us — the minister of defense and the prime minister. When we look up, we see nothing but the sky above us.

We are talking about a major change in reality that has to come about, ... We are not idiots. If it turns out that this situation where there is no partner (in peace) remains the same, then we will know what to do.

I remember my days as a graduate student at Stanford, within any leading university, a very active Israeli support, for Israel, Jews fighting for the cause of Israel. Now you find Israelis, former Israelis, and Arabs, and Jews, fighting for the Palestinian cause. We are somehow losing the moral high ground, and I keep telling our people it's great to deal with propaganda, to activate many ways, to deploy PR firms all around the world.

The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more.

I compare the Middle East to a big condominium, we called shared residence? Well, you have many families that you don't like; some of them are bad families. But, unlike in a condominium, you are doomed to be with your neighbors; a person cannot choose his parents, and a nation cannot choose its neighbors, they were both there. One of them which happened to be quite problematic, short of perfect, called the Palestinians. So we have problems with them.

Until the wolf shall lay with lamb, we'd better be the wolves.

If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force.

I can tell you I also smoked cigars 10 years before, and the watch, which is a Patek Philippe - it was my former wife who bought it for me as a gift when I completed my military service. What is all of this about anyway? I'm no wealthier than Bibi Netanyahu or Arik Sharon. I don't feel that I'm more hedonistic than Ehud Olmert, or Yitzhak Rabin or Shimon Peres.

The Left is acting like a young child, saying 'I want peace'... A child says 'I want candy right away,' an adult takes all of the factors into account and understands who he's dealing with.

But I should tell you honestly that this administration under President Obama is doing in regard to our security more than anything that I can remember in the past.

The Arab leaders, they don't have a love affair with the Palestinians or the Palestinian leadership, but the publics have, and they cannot feel safe in their own chairs if they accept Israel, the mistress, so to speak, to acknowledge her as a main, the Unter den Linden, the main road, as long as we are not moving forward with the Palestinians.

At this place, Jews have prayed throughout the generations, and it is fitting that the message of brotherhood should go out from here.

I want to study, to write to live and have a good time.

The Israel legendary foreign minister, Abba Eban, used to say that the Palestinians had never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.