Steps toward a rapprochement between Israel and the Arab states create a process that turns economics into the moving force that shapes the regional relations instead of nationalist interests that were dominant in the past.
I have been interested in the 12th century since my 20s when it was very fashionable to say of anybody with whom you disagreed, which was basically anybody over the age of 30, "One of the great minds of the 12th century", and one day I thought, "I don't know anything about the 12 century." So I started buying books, reading about it, and I discovered it was a period of great flowering, it was a Renaissance before what we think is the Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance of the 16th century.
You don't make friends with friends. You have got to make friends with your enemies.
We have to recognize that there is a Palestinian entity, that the PLO and the Palestinian Authority has to run their life.
Although it is true that Hizballah is organized, inspired, financed, and armed by Iran, its main bases in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley are under Syrian military control.
It is not worth the paper it is written on unless it is backed by the kind of force that will make the other side consider the penalties too heavy to break the agreement.
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.
Lebanon is a Syrian protectorate. The Lebanese dare not do anything without the approval of Damascus.
I am 73 years old. I was born in Jerusalem. I'm the first prime minister of Israel to be born here. I am the only former general to become a prime minister.
I'm trying to learn the lessons of the past, but not to make speeches about the past.
Israel has an important principle: It is only Israel that is responsible for our security.
In fighting terror, you cannot let it interfere with the normal life of civilians in Israel.
President Sadat of Egypt made a historic breakthrough in 1977 when he put an end to war and convinced both Egyptians and Israelis that he was ready to make peace. He broke down the walls of suspicion and prejudice.
In the Jewish tradition, there is at the same time Jerusalem in the heavens and Jerusalem on the ground. Jerusalem is a living city, but also the heart, the soul of the Jewish people and the state of Israel.
Let the Palestinians run their affairs: create a situation in which no Israeli soldier will have to maintain public order, whether in Gaza or the West Bank. Let's give it to the Palestinians, as long as there is security for us. No more occupying another people.
I don't believe that in the name of the holiness of the city you have to put barbed wires, machine gun nests, mine pins and everything of that, in the name of the holiness of Jerusalem.
Only the change on the international scene, the crisis in the gulf, and the strong, firm position of the United States against aggression between two Arab countries created realities that led to the Madrid Peace Conference.
I would like Israel to be a Jewish state, and therefore not to annex over 2 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Israel, which will make Israel a bi-national state.
I don't want to be the policeman of Lebanon. It's not the business of Israel. Israel was not created to serve as a policeman of the region.
I believe that in the long run, separation between Israel and the Palestinians is the best solution for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
