I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender.
ABBA EBANNobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its ‘right to exist.’ Israel’s right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved.
More Abba Eban Quotes
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Consensus is what many people say in chorus but do not believe as individuals.
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You can’t achieve anything without getting in someone’s way. You can’t be detached and effective.
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Playing the game I have learned the meaning of humility. It has given me an understanding of futility of the human effort.
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His ignorance is encyclopedic.
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Human beings act intelligently only after they have exhausted the alternatives
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Israel is not an aviary.
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One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all.
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Better to be disliked than pitied.
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A nation writes its history in the image of its ideal.
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A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually.
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A statesman who keeps his ear permanently glued to the ground will have neither elegance of posture nor flexibility of movement.
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The Jews are the living embodiment of the minority, the constant reminder of what duties societies owe their minorities, whoever they might be.
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If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.
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Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its ‘right to exist.’ Israel’s right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved.
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Lest Arab governments be tempted out of sheer routine to rush into impulsive rejection, let me suggest that tragedy is not what men suffer but what they miss.
ABBA EBAN