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The Foes Now Are Universal - Poverty, Famine, Religious Radicalization, Desertification, Drugs, Proliferation Of Nuclear Weapons, Ecological Devastation. They Threaten All Nations, Just As Science And Information Are The Potential Friends Of All Nations. Classical Diplomacy And Strategy Were Aimed At Identifying Enemies And Confronting Them. Now They Have To Identify Dangers, Global Or Local, And Tackle Them Before They Become Disasters.

-Shimon Peres

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The Foes Now Are

Shimon Peres

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The Foes Now Are Universal - Poverty, Famine, Religious Radicalization, Desertification, Drugs, Proliferation Of Nuclear Weapons, Ecological Devastation. They Threaten All Nations, Just As Science And Information Are The Potential Friends Of All Nations. Classical Diplomacy And Strategy Were Aimed At Identifying Enemies And Confronting Them. Now They Have To Identify Dangers, Global Or Local, And Tackle Them Before They Become Disasters.

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Bringing An End To The Conflict Between Israel And The Palestinians May Help The Young Arab Generation To Realise Their Aspirations. Israel Is More Than Willing To Offer Our Experience In Building A Modern Economy In Spite Of Limited Resources To The Whole Region.

Limited Resources

The Minute You Try To Threaten And Use Boycotts I Think It Is Outside The Democratic Perception.

Hamas Married The Iranians. It Was Their Choice. They Are The Same Family.

Look, We Have Existed For 4,000 Years - 2,000 Years In Diaspora, In Exile. Nobody In The Middle East Speaks Their Original Language But Israel. When We Started 64 Years Ago, We Were 650,000 People. So, You Know, We Are Maybe Swimming A Little Bit Against The Stream, But We Continue To Swim.

From My Earliest Youth, I Have Known That While One Is Obliged To Plan With Care The Stages Of One's Journey, One Is Entitled To Dream, And Keep Dreaming, Of Its Destination.

He Taught Me Literature, And He Actually Taught Me How To Read. He Was My Personal Mentor.

There Is In England A Saying That An Anti-semite Is Someone Who Hates The Jews More Than Is Necessary.

Optimists And Pessimists Die The Exact Same Death, But They Live Very Different Lives!

Positive Thinking

Most Of The Palestinians Don't Understand What They're Doing... Politically, People Can Say What They Want. The Problem Is Not Political, But Religious.

Democracy Wants To Win By Reason, Not By Arms Or By Any Other Material Damage, Because, Look, I Don't Have To Remind You That I Am Totally For Peace. It Is My Greatest Dream. It Was And Will Remain So.

The Foes Now Are Universal - Poverty, Famine, Religious Radicalization, Desertification, Drugs, Proliferation Of Nuclear Weapons, Ecological Devastation. They Threaten All Nations, Just As Science And Information Are The Potential Friends Of All Nations. Classical Diplomacy And Strategy Were Aimed At Identifying Enemies And Confronting Them. Now They Have To Identify Dangers, Global Or Local, And Tackle Them Before They Become Disasters.

Germany And Israel Should Dream Together For A Middle East In Which All The Countries Are Willing To Exchange The Dispute Of The Parents With Peace For Their Children.

Today, Israel Is Stronger Than Ever. Israel Has Defensive Tools Of Its Own - Those Developed In The Past And Those Developed Today And Those That Will Be Developed Tomorrow.

The History Of Israel Is Divided Into Two Parts. One, Under Attack That We Have Had To Defend Ourselves. When You Defend Yourself Your Thinking Is Totally Different From When You Want To Make Peace. So Under Attack You Behave Like If You Want A Hawk, When Peace Comes You Become A Dove.

Israel's Doors Are Open To Collaboration With Bulgaria.

Iran Is A Great Problem, But Not Necessarily A Great Country. In Fact, I Think It Is A Very Weak Country.

Television Has Made Dictatorship Impossible But Democracy Unbearable.

Any Assassination Is An Assassination. It's Cold, It's Terrible. I'm Against Any Capital Punishment. Only The Lord Has The Right To Take Away Life Because He's The Giver Of Life. And Assassination Stands Against Democracy, Against Civilization, Against A Civilized Life Of People. Alas, The Situation In Lebanon Is Very Chaotic And Many Innocent People Lost Their Lives Because They Have A State Within A State, An Army Within An Army And The Respect For Life Is Not High Enough.

I Will Confine Myself To Reaffirming The Israel Will Not Be The First Country To Introduce Nuclear Weapons To The Region.

I Think Peace Should Be Done Not Only Among Governments But Among People. It Was Impossible Before The Facebook.

The President Of Iran Should Remember That Iran Can Also Be Wiped Off The Map.

Nothing Had Excited Me-the Huge Cars, The Entourages, The Bodyguards, The Policeman Jumping To Attention, All Meant Nothing To Me ... Till I Came To The Old Man's Office. (on Becoming Prime Minister)

Now, I Learned Soon Enough, That Among The Three, Two Don't Trust The Third One - The Third One Is The Government. Both Industry And Unions Feel The Government Is A Talking Organization And A Spending Organization.

We Have To Take Care About Nature As Much As Nature Is Taking Care About Us. Nature Is Very Kind With Us. And If You Want To Enjoy The Gifts Of Nature And The Promises Of Nature, We Have To Defer To Nature And Its Needs, Its Rules, Its Norms.

I Believe That Peace With The Palestinians Is Most Urgent - Urgent Than Ever Before. It Is Necessary. It Is Crucial. It Is Possible. A Delay May Worsen Its Chances. Israel And The Palestinians Are, In My Judgment, Ripe Today To Restart The Peace Process.

My Heart Goes Out To The Brave Citizens Of Syria, Who Each Day Risk And Even Sacrifice Their Lives To Achieve Freedom From A Murderous Regime. We In Israel Welcome The Historic Struggle To Forge Democratic, Peace-loving Governments In Our Region.

I Worked With A Group Of People Who Argued Day And Night - Professors, Officials, The Minister Of Finance - But There Were Decisions That I Had To Make.

You Know Who Is Against Democracy In The Middle East? The Husbands. They Got Used To Their Way Of Life. Now, The Traditional Way Of Life Must Change. Everybody Must Change. If You Don't Give Equal Rights To Women, You Can't Progress.

Governments Are Based On Power, Companies Are Based On Goodwill, Which Allows Them To Invest In The Future.

I Think I Was A Good Student, Because I Jumped Over A School. My Main Interest Was Basically History And Literature. Sports Were Basically Basketball And Swimming At A Pool. I Was So Happy.

We Checked Carefully The International Law - What Does A Nation Do When Terrorists Are Using Civilians To Defend Their Life, As A Shelter. And They Say You Do Not Have A Choice.

The Problem Of The Middle East Is Poverty More Than Politics.

I Am Leaving The Office But Am Not Leaving The Battle For Peace.

In Many Ways, The Media Today Makes Dictatorship Impossible. But It Also Makes Democracy Intolerable.

In The Middle East, The Conflict Today Is A Matter Of Generations And Not Of Cultures.

We Are The Only Country Who Is An Ally Of The United States That Never Asked For American Soldiers.

They Thought That I Was A Man With Reasonable Judgment, So I Was Never Under Pressure From My Parents; I Could Do Whatever I Wanted. I Never Had A Negative Word From Them, Nothing Whatsoever.

You Don't Make Peace With Friends. You Make It With Very Unsavory Enemies.

The United States Is The Only Power In History That Became Great By Giving And Not By Taking. I Think The Crisis Was When The United States Had More Money Than Ideas. Money Doesn't Produce Money. Ideas Produce Money.

I Joined The Army As A Private. I Was Offered A Rank At That Time, But I Refused. I Preferred To Remain A Private. First Of All, I Wasn't Taken By Ranks, And Before I Knew It, They Put Me In The Most Sensitive Positions Anyway.

When You Have Two Alternatives, The First Thing You Have To Do Is To Look For The Third That You Didn't Think About, That Doesn't Exist.

Later On, There Were Some Problems With Our Navy, So He Made Me The Head Of The Navy - All Things That I Hardly Knew Anything About. I Was Basically An Ignorant Young Man.

We Should Use Our Imagination More Than Our Memory.

I Cannot Go To Elections With An Open Stomach. If You Want To Negotiate We Have To Conclude It Before The Elections. I Cannot Just Start The Negotiations [with Palestinians] Saying We Are Ready To Do This And That And Not Having Any Reply.

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Israel Is Moving From The Realm Of Poetry To The Realm Of Prose.

What Is Wrong With The Iranians In Addition To The Nuclear Bomb? This Is The Only Country On Earth In The 21st Century That Has Renewed Imperialistic Ambitions. They Really Want To Become The Hegemon Of The Middle East In An Age That Gave Up Imperialism.

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The Older Generation Had Greater Respect For Land Than Science. But We Live In An Age When Science, More Than Soil, Has Become The Provider Of Growth And Abundance. Living Just On The Land Creates Loneliness In An Age Of Globality.

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In Any Democratic Country You Have More Than One View.

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[hamas] Lives On Their Rifles And Bombs.

If World Is Suspicious That Israel May Detonate Nuclear Bomb And If The Suspicion Is A Deterrent - That's Good Enough.

Governments Have Budgets But No Money, Companies Have Money But No Budgets.

We Asked The Workers To Give Up 25 Percent Of Their Salaries. Imagine! We Asked The Industrialists To Freeze All Costs, No Matter What The Inflation Is.

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Israel Was Born Under The British Mandate. We Learned From The British What Democracy Means, And How It Behaves In A Time Of Danger, War And Terror. We Thank Britain For Introducing Freedom And Respect Of Human Rights Both In Normal And Demanding Circumstances.

Our Problem Is Not To Submit To The Differences But To Overcome Them.

You're As Young As Your Dreams, Not As Old As Your Calendar

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Israel Welcomes The Wind Of Change, And Sees A Window Of Opportunity. Democratic And Science-based Economies By Nature Desire Peace. Israel Does Not Want To Be An Island Of Affluence In An Ocean Of Poverty. Improvements In Our Neighbours' Lives Mean Improvements To The Neighbourhood In Which We Live.

He Was The Editor Of Our Paper. He Created The Publishing House In Hebrew. He Was - I Wouldn't Say The "guru" - But Really He Was Our Teacher And A Most Respected Man. I Wrote For The Paper Of The Youth Movement.

Publishing House

We Have To Be Reasonable People.

It's A Morality That Keeps Humans Human.

President Abbas And Myself, We Are The Ones Who Signed The Oslo Agreement, So We Really Know Each Other, Not Just Theoretically.

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Young Generation

And In England There Has Always Been Something Deeply Pro-arab, Of Course, Not Among All Englishmen, And Anti-israeli, In The Establishment. They Abstained In The 1947 Un Partition Resolution... They Maintained An Arms Embargo Against Us In The 1950s... They Always Worked Against Us. They Think The Arabs Are The Underdogs.

Polls Are Like Perfume-nice To Smell, Dangerous To Swallow.

I Was Learning, As I Did In The Ministry Of Defense. I Never Knew, But I Always Learned.

What Should Be The Future Of Israel? Is The Land The Most Important Choice, And For That Reason To Keep The Whole Of The Land At Any Cost, Or To Have A Partition And Build The Jewish State On Part Of The Land? And The Other Part?

Important Choices

I Am A President Who Also Gives Pardons. Usually My Considerations Are Humane.

I Have A Brother Younger Than Me. My Mother Was A Librarian, So From Her, I Got The Taste To Read.

If A Problem Has No Solution, It May Not Be A Problem, But A Fact - Not To Be Solved, But To Be Coped With Over Time.

I Think Today You Can Move Ahead Working With Global Companies More Than With National Governments.

Without Freedom You Cannot Have Real Peace.

I Call On The Iranian People: It Is Not Too Late To Replace The Corrupt Regime And Return To Your Glorious Persian Heritage, A Heritage Of Culture And Values And Not Of Bombs And Missiles... How Can A Nation Allow A Regime To Instill Fear, Take Away The People's Freedom And Shock The Young Generation That Seeks Its Way Out Of The Dictatorial Iran.

Young Generation

To Find A Cause That's Larger Than Yourself And Then To Give Your Life To It.

The Holocaust Is A Great Warning To Us All. We Shall Never Forget Our Sisters And Brothers. We Have To Ensure It Is Not Repeated And To Ensure We Never Go Back To The Days When Humans Behaved As Beasts. Forgetfulness Is A Menace, We Must Remember.

Historic Justice Has Been Done By Killing Saddam.

I Don't Know What Is Stronger Or What Is Weaker.the Whole Language Of Strength And Weaknesses Is Irrelevant,because When You Use Arms You Do Not Use Ballots, And Public Opinion Is Unimportant, And They Shoot At Their Opponents.

We Had A Lot Of Support - Don't Give Me "the World", Just The Televisions. In America We Enjoy Support,china Is Neutral, India Is For, In Europe They're Divided.

In Every War, There Are Always Elements Of Blindness.

In The Past, Most Wars Were Motivated By The Idea Of Nationhood. Today, However, Wars Are Incited Above All Using Religion As An Excuse.

When It Becomes A Bloody Reality, We Have To Come Together And Look At What Can Be Done To Return To The Order Of Peace, ... There Is No Alternative To It.

And This Would Normalize The Existence Of The Israeli And The Jew: A Majority Of Jews In The Land Of Israel And A Majority Of Israelis Among The Jewish People.

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