Benjamin Netanyahu Quotes

A return to the 1967 lines and the abandonment of the settlements near Jerusalem would be such a psychological trauma for Israel as to endanger its survival.

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

I think history will judge him very harshly for not having seized the opportunity in the year 2000 to embrace the offer that was very courageously made by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barack, which involved the Israelis agreeing to 90 per cent of what the Palestinians had wanted.

The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.

In the long term, Israel's security rests on only one pillar: the Palestinians' acceptance of the country. It isn't the atom bomb that makes Israel secure.

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.

Both during the elections and as Prime Minister, I have repeatedly and publicly said that I support the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel.

The United States cannot want peace more than the Palestinians and the Israelis.

The future of Israel has been a key bipartisan concern for generations of Americans, and it is almost axiomatic that if the Palestinians have no viable future, neither does Israel.

We must stay focused on the bilateral negotiations between the Palestinians and us.

There is no consensus in Israel regarding the two-state formula. We will not, under any circumstances, allow the establishment of a neighboring state that will be a genuine threat on our existence.

The people of Israel will have to be convinced that the Palestinians are ready for peace.

America that has done more to support Israel than any other country cannot be true to our own values if we allow a viable two-state solution to be destroyed before our own eyes.

I have long believed that Israel should seek to give up the so-called Occupied Territories in return for security, and that a Palestinian state should be established. I have felt that way all my life. I think it is unreasonable to ask the Israelis to do this in a context where there is no guarantee at all that suicide bombers will be controlled.

That's what I am standing up for - Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state living side-by-side in peace and security with its neighbors.

The central premise behind Oslo was that if Arafat were given enough legitimacy, territory, weapons and money, he would use his power to fight terror and make peace with Israel.

The only way to security for Israel and a humane life for Palestinians in their own land is political. No matter where the fault for past negotiating failures lies, there is no other path.

I feel that we don't have the luxury of asking whether or not the Palestinians and Israelis can achieve peace. I think we have to just ask the question of when and how.

When a deeply sympathetic American president asks for concessions and compromises and appears able to cajole some from the Palestinians, which was the Clinton/Rabin and Bush/Sharon combination, Israel must respond.

I enter negotiations with Chairman Arafat, the leader of the PLO, the representative of the Palestinian people, with the purpose to have coexistence between our two entities, Israel as a Jewish state and Palestinian state, entity, next to us, living in peace.

President George W. Bush is the first American president to call openly for two-states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.

We expect President Bush to implement his own vision of a two-state solution, the birth of the Palestinian State and the ending of the occupation that started in 1967.

If they told us that peace is the price of giving up on a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, my reply would be “Let's do without peace.”

Yasser Arafat never wanted to make peace with Israel.

Toward the Palestinians, Israel can only give. But when dealing with the entire Arab world, Israel can get a lot.