George W. Bush Quotes

I am ready to compromise, but there is one thing I won't compromise on: the safety of the Israeli people.

There is still work to be done, but that remains a crucial lesson, you cannot bring peace and security to people just by signing an agreement. In fact, most peace agreements don't last.

It is not important what the other side says or means. What is important are the military capabilities of the other side.

On the whole our armed services have been doing pretty well in the way of keeping us defended, but I hope our State Department will remember that it is really the department of achieving peace.

The Government chose to give peace a chance. The Government chose to do something to achieve it.

Political progress will only take place if sufficient security exists.

I have in the past declared that in order to achieve a real, just and durable peace, I would be willing to make painful compromises. But we cannot make any compromise on the security of our citizens and their right to live without the threat of terrorism and violence.

There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel.

Israel desperately needs peace if it is to come anywhere close to being the 'light unto nations' of Jewish dreams.

Disarmament or limitation of armaments, which depends on the progress made on security, also contributes to the maintenance of peace.

Like all Israelis, I yearn for peace. I see the utmost importance in taking all possible steps that will lead to a solution of the conflict with the Palestinians.

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.

Though public pronouncements of Israeli officials emphasize peace and mutuality, unilateralism actually drives Israeli actions.

The dividing line for Yisrael Beiteinu is who supports terror and who fights terror.

Prime Minister Sharon, Prime Minister Abbas, I urge you today to end the designs of those who seek destruction, annihilation and occupation, and I urge you to have the will and the courage to begin to realize our dreams of peace, prosperity and coexistence.

The popular, and one may say naive, idea is that peace can be secured by disarmament and that disarmament must therefore precede the attainment of absolute security and lasting peace.

The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.

That feeds anger, and I mean when we went and at last thank heavens got towards peace in Northern Ireland we went for justice within Northern Ireland as well as using security well, as well as a political settlement, but surely that is the lesson.

If there will be a serious Palestinian prime minister who makes a 100 percent effort to end terrorism, then we can have peace. Each side has to take steps. If terror continues, there will not be an independent Palestinian state. Israel will not accept it, if terror continues.

Some pacifists have carried the sound idea of the prime importance of security too far, to the point of declaring that any consideration of disarmament is superfluous and pointless as long as eternal peace has not been attained.

The change began in Somalia, where we discovered that we were involved in an operation where there was no peace, so there was no more a peacekeeping operation because there was no peace.

We have the responsibility to protect our people and that's why we're building this fence. We've suffered from 19,000 terrorist attacks during the last three years.

From 1836, down to last year, there is no proof of the Government having any confidence in the duration of peace, or possessing increased security against war.

The Right said, "If we only annex the West Bank, we'll be safe and sound." The Left said, "If we only hand over the West Bank, we'll have peace". The Right said, "Our dead died because of the Left's delusions", while the Left said, "Our dead died because of the Right's fantasies." Rather than face a tragic reality imposed on us from without, we chose to create a simplistic narrative of Right against Left.

Reform is not like pushing a button…. If you don’t have peace, you have to spend most of your money on the army and security issues. All of these factors won’t make reform fast. It will definitely be slow. We are living under tension … you can’t have reform under tension.