More Quotes
“Israel must preserve its independence in order to safeguard its essential interests. Yet in the same breath…Israel must have cooperation with as many countries as possible in our region and around the world… [as] sovereignty and security will never be assured only with high walls and military might. Today more than ever, this is a message of unparalleled importance.”
(President Reuven Rivlin speaking on Israel’s security strategy in response to a new report by the Institute for National Security Studies, 02/01/2017)
“Kerry’s parameters were a notable improvement over the passed resolution. Unlike the Security Council resolution, Kerry’s parameters explicitly acknowledged that Israel is expected to keep settlement blocs and Jewish neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem in any future peace deal, strongly called out Hamas for its violent intransigence, and stated flat out that settlements are not the core issue driving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” (Michael Koplow writing in Foreign Policy on outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry’s ‘parameters’ speech, 29/12/2016)
“I think part of the problem with the Kerry approach is that it’s an all-or-nothing approach. And the problem with an all-or-nothing approach is that it always produces nothing.” (Dennis Ross on US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech to the media following the US abstention of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, 28/12/2016)
“Some of Netanyahu’s outrage is well-founded. The entire international community rejects the settlement enterprise and always has — no surprises there. But much of that international community ought at least to demonstrate to the Jewish state some solidarity when it comes to Jerusalem… For all his fury at the perfidy of the international community, his sense of grievance and injustice, the question he must be asked is whether this is going to work…the inconvenient truth is that while 14 nations supported Resolution 2334, and the US chose not to oppose it, those 14 are not all enemies of Israel, far from it, and the United States certainly isn’t.”
(David Horovitz on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reaction to the UN Security Council resolution, writing in the Times of Israel, 27/12/16)
“You can announce the move [US embassy to Jerusalem] as an in-your-face rejection of all non-Israeli sovereign claims throughout the city. Or you can highlight the fact that the location is in pre-1967, ostensibly non-disputed Israeli West Jerusalem, and assert that its opening prejudges nothing in the disputed East. You can calibrate the announcement as the intended culmination of the peace negotiations you intend to convene.”
(David Horovitz on the speculation that President-elect Donald Trump will move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, 21/12/2016)
“They are very similar to us in their genocide and what happened to their people… They are forgotten and no one is doing anything. It’s our duty as Jews… to help people who are going through the same thing.”
(Israeli aid worker Rachel Weiss on IsraAID’s international relief effort to help Yazidi and Christian refugees)
