Ehud Barak Quotes

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 delivered lectures, and I was also a consultant for international companies in finance, both private equity and big venture capital funds.

Since the Six-Day War, the whole world, which is the real arena of battle between us and the Palestinians, believes that Israel is right in regard to procedure, namely problems and disputes should be solved around the negotiating table.

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.

I don't do anything to impress anyone, quite successfully I can tell you.

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

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

I don't feel opportunistic ever, in anything.

There is a thin line between peace of the brave and peace of the hostage... between compromise - even calculated risk - and irresponsibility and capitulation.

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.

I'm such a failed politician that all of my rivals have disappeared, on both sides.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In Israel, generally speaking, politics is much more familiar than any other place. We all know each other.

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.

Iran poses the most serious long-term threat to regional stability.

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.

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.

We want peace, but not at any price.

If I were a Palestinian of the right age, I'd eventually join one of the terrorist organizations.

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.

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

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.