Benjamin Netanyahu Quotes

I want to tell you that Israel is a democracy and every citizen is automatically registered to vote. There's a commitment in our declaration of independence, guaranteed under Israel's law, that all our citizens, Arab and Jews, alike, have the right to vote.

The Israelis wanted to sabotage the Palestinian - Palestinian reconciliation.

So I think we should stay focused on the real problem in the Middle East. It's not Israel. It's these dictatorships that are developing nuclear weapons with the specific goal of wiping Israel away.

Certainly the international community is putting a lot of pressure on Iran and making clear that its nuclear program must stop. If it stops with the sanctions, the combinations of sanctions, diplomacy, other pressures, I, as the prime minister of Israel, will be the happiest person in the world.

I unequivocally condemn the striking of the soldier from the Ethiopian community and those responsible will be brought to justice but nobody has the right to take the law into their own hands, immigrants from Ethiopia and their families are dear to us and Israel is making great efforts to ease their integration in society.

When it comes to Iran and ISIS, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy!

Israel has always been pro-American. Israel will always be pro-American.

Saving lives is more important than preserving the quality of life. Quality of life is always amenable to improvement. Death is permanent.

Israel is doing what any other country would do, and certainly the U.S. would do. If 80 percent of your population were under fire and you had 60 seconds or 90 seconds to get into bomb shelters, if terror tunnels were dug underneath your border in order to come in and explode your kindergartens and massacre your people and kidnap American citizens.

I am certain that I speak on behalf of my entire nation when I say: Today, we are all Americans. In grief, as in defiance.

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

Israel has no better friend than America. And America has no better friend than Israel. We stand together to defend democracy. We stand together to advance peace. We stand together to fight terrorism.

There is a structural difference between the way that Europe views Israel, and America views Israel. The European view is informed by the importance of colonialism in Europe's past. So for Europeans we are like Belgiums in the Congo, or the French in Alger, or the British in India. Strange interlopers in somebody else's land. But in fact, we [Israeli] have been here for 4,000 years. This is our ancestral homeland.

If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more ‎violence. If the Jews put ‎down their weapons ‎today, there would be no ‎more Israel'‎

Intelligence is a critical thing.

If the world powers are not prepared to insist that Iran change its behavior before a deal is signed, at the very least they should insist that Iran change its behavior before a deal expires.

I don't think you can rely on Iran. I don't think you can rely on other radicals like the Taliban. They dispatched Al Qaida to bomb New York and Washington. What were they thinking? Were they that stupid? They weren't stupid. There is an irrationality there, and there is madness in this method.

I don't want to govern the Palestinians. I don't want them as subjects of Israel or as citizens of Israel. I want them to have their own independent state but a demilitarized state.

History has shown us time and again that what is right is not what is popular.

Some will criticize me no matter what I do.

The Israeli government has proved over the past year its commitment to peace, both in words and deeds. By contrast, the Palestinians are posing preconditions for renewing the diplomatic process in a way they have not done over the course of 16 years.

In my office in Jerusalem, there's an ancient seal. It's a signet ring of a Jewish official from the time of the Bible. The seal was found right next to the Western Wall, and it dates back 2,700 years, to the time of King Hezekiah. Now, there's a name of the Jewish official inscribed on the ring in Hebrew. His name was Netanyahu.

We [Israel people] always blame Moses, that he was our greatest leader and one of the most gifted people in the world. He brought us the moral code and so on, belief in one God, but then he was a bad navigator. He brought us to the only part of the Middle East without any gas, without any oil.

If I have to reduce all of the laws of war into a single sentence, it is this. You divide the world into two, combatants and noncombatants. You can attack deliberately combatants, but not deliberately noncombatants. Israel acts that way. It attacks combatants and accidentally kills noncombatants. But in the case of the terrorists, it's the exact opposite. They deliberately attack combatants - noncombatants, civilians, deliberately.

I think that a strong Israel is the only Israel that will bring the Arabs to the peace table.

Our friendship will weather the current disagreement as well, to grow even stronger in the future.

My level of intervention in the press, trying to control stories, is zero. Subzero.

There’s no one in Israel who appreciates more than me the importance of American support for Israel.

Israelis do not need to be lectured about the importance of peace by foreign leaders.

I told John Kerry and General Allen, the Americans’ expert, ‘We live here, I live here, I know what we need to ensure the security of Israel’s people.’

I don't think that anyone should doubt Israel's determination to defend itself against terror and destruction.

If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.

I certainly will make sure that everybody understands that I'm the prime minister of all of Israel's citizens, and I really believe that. It's something that my actions have shown. It's not a question of fence-mending, it's a question of real belief, and it's there. I don't have to fabricate it.

Peace is purchased from strength. It's not purchased from weakness or unilateral retreats.

We don't point a pistol at our own forehead. That is not the way to conduct negotiations.

I will say that I think Israel enjoys strong bipartisan support in the United States. It's really above and beyond American politics.

I would say we want to stop the firing of rockets, for sure. But we also want to dismantle the terror - the tunnel - the terror tunnel networks that we have uncovered.

I think that anyone who moves to establish a Palestinian state and evacuate territory gives territory away to radical Islamist attacks against Israel.

You know, I'm just not going to get into American politics.

The Romans used to say that courage is not the only virtue, but it's the only one that makes the other virtues possible.

The right combination is between a free economy and social policy that addresses the needs of society and creates equal opportunity.

This is why, as a prime minister of Israel, I can promise you one more thing: Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But I know that Israel does not stand alone. I know that America stands with Israel.

Those in the international community that refuse to put red lines before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.

A legitimate democracy cannot act against a terror organization because it is using civilians as a human shield, and therefore it should absorb attacks on its own civilians.

Most of the approaches to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, have been directed at trying to resolve the most complex problems, like refugees and Jerusalem, which is akin to building the pyramid from the top down.

The application of military force, or the prospect of such application, inhibits terrorist violence.

And by the way, a piece of news, Israel is the one country in which everyone is pro-American, opposition and coalition alike. And I represent the entire people of Israel who say, 'Thank you, America.'' And we're friends of America, and we're the only reliable allies of America in the Middle East.

The real reason we haven't had peace is because of a persistent refusal of the Palestinians to recognize a Jewish state in any border.