Ovadia Yosef Quotes

They [Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz] will never give peace a chance because they are saying the moment they are elected, the first thing they will do is to rip up the agreement that allowed $150 billion of Iranian money to be returned to them. They don't want this agreement and that will surely lead to war.

I have never agreed with President Bush's argument regarding the axis of evil. Unfortunately, fundamentalists in Iran have used this as an excuse to brand us as allies of Mr. Bush.

The peace movement didn't stop the Iraq but I think that Blair would not be able to go along and support an Iranian war.

I think it is essential that America does not stumble into a stupid war with Iran.

It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region.

I still think, despite everything, that the US is very unlikely to attack Iran. It could be a huge catastrophe; nobody knows what the consequences would be. I imagine that only an administration that's really desperate would resort to that.

The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel. That's a threat, a serious threat. It's a threat to world peace; it's a threat, in essence, to a strong alliance. I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally, Israel.

With the same firmness with which I say that Iran represents a danger I tell Israel that you cannot and must not think of launching a pre-emptive attack because it would set the whole Middle East and the whole world on fire for who knows how many decades.

I don't know what our capabilities are. If I were there, I think it would be nutty to do that. The only country on Earth more containable than Iran is Iraq. And we've certainly made a mistake there. We could have continued Saddam.

France is, and must always remain, England’s greatest danger.

Any state surrounded by enemies will seek strategic depth.

If Americans are entitled to hit Iraq unilaterally, then why isn't Russia entitled to the same with respect to Georgia? Why is China not entitled to the same with respect to some other neighboring country which, according to Chinese views, may be supporting insurrection in Tibet or Shenyang? Why, say, India is not entitled to hit Pakistan, which openly supports terrorists in Kashmir and which has nuclear weapons, and which has a very fragile domestic situation under which fundamentalists any day can come to power

Everything in the Middle East is connected to everything else

In order to function, the United States needs an enemy.

Israel's interest is all I care about.

It is still worth talking to Iran to see if there is a way through and to prevent the huge rivalry between Saudi and Iran turning into another version of the Iran-Iraq war. That is what all countries that have influence have to be thinking about.

There isn't a doubt that Iran constitutes the single most important single-country strategic challenge to the United States and to the kind of Middle East that we want to see.

I believe that Trump is a danger. I believe that he wants to tighten and build up his relationship to Russia for whatever reasons.

Clearly, the Iranians are well aware that Teheran would be turned into a field of glass and sand if they ever stepped toward open war with Israel or Saudi Arabia.

There's been a significant amount of Israelis who are joining my party because they think that Israel has to have a tough stance in this crazy environment called the Middle East.

Israel must be wiped off the map.

I think Iran deal is on life support, I'll put it that way, but I'm not here to declare one way or the other where it will go. But I do believe it's on life support. I know the president-elect does not like the Iran deal, thinks it's really, really bad. And that's sort of the starting point on that discussion.

The one thing that you can say about the new Cabinet Donald Trump is putting together. That seems to be one of the coherent themes. They're very, very skeptical about Iran.

I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.

Any jackass can talk about bombing Iran.