“Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile, and persecution, and the fresh memory of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they are.”

—  Barack Obama

2011, UN speech to General Assembly (September 2011)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Nov. 25, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel’s citizens have been killed by rocke…" by Barack Obama?
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama 1158
44th President of the United States of America 1961

Related quotes

Abdul Rahman Arif photo

“The existance of Israel is an error which we must put right. This is our opportunity to wipe out the disgrace which is Israel which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear- to wipe Israel off the map.”

Abdul Rahman Arif (1916–2007) President and Prime Minister of Iraq

Radio broadcast, 1 June 1967, as quoted in Michael Scott-Bauman (1998) Conflict in the Middle East: Israel and the Arabs.

Carl I. Hagen photo
Ariel Sharon photo

“Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.”

Ariel Sharon (1928–2014) prime minister of Israel and Israeli general

2000s
Source: "Clashes mar Mid-East inquiry," at news.bbc.co.uk, March 25, 2001 ( online) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1241371.stm

Shimon Peres photo
Benjamín Netanyahu photo

“Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people, which honors the individual rights of all its citizens, I repeat this is our state. The Jewish state. Lately, there are people who are trying to destabilize this and therefore destabilize the foundations of our existence and our rights, so today we have made a law in stone. This is our country. This is our language. This is our anthem and this is our flag. Long live the state of Israel.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

About the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, as quoted in Israel's Parliament Has Passed a Controversial Jewish Nation Bill http://time.com/5342702/israel-jewish-nation-state-bill/ (July 19, 2018) by Ilan Ben Zion, The Times.
2010s, 2018

Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa photo

“You (Israel) do have a peace agreement with Egypt. You do have a peace agreement with Jordan, and some kind of understandings with the Palestinians. But this is not the limit of the scope of where you belong. Israel is a country in the Middle East. Israel is part of this heritage of this whole region historically. So the Jewish people have a place amongst us. So communication needs to be a prerequisite for solving all the dispute. We should talk.”

Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa (1960) Bahraini politician

Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa (2019) cited in: " Bahrain foreign minister: Palestinians made a mistake by boycotting peace conference https://www.axios.com/bahrain-peace-conference-foreign-minister-israel-palestine-8e6f5901-9053-4da8-9690-208a132b7de1.html" in Axios, 27 June 2019.

Andrew Scheer photo

“Canada's Conservatives have been, and always will be, a strong voice for Israel and the Canadian Jewish community,
Israel is one of Canada's strongest allies and a beacon of pluralism and democratic principles in a turbulent part of the world,
Canada’s Conservatives recognize the obvious fact that Israel, like every other sovereign nation, has a right to determine where its capital is located.”

Andrew Scheer (1979) 35th Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons and MP for Regina—Qu'Appelle

26 February 2018 report from CTV News https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/conservatives-pledge-to-recognize-jerusalem-as-israel-s-capital-if-elected-in-2019-1.3819527

Barack Obama photo
Dennis Ross photo

Related topics