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.
ABBA EBANIt [idolatry] nourishes mans ambition to domineer over his fellow man. Idolatry, therefore, is the source of all social and moral evil in the world.
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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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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Tragedy is not what men suffer but what they miss.
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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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Human beings act intelligently only after they have exhausted the alternatives
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Our intention to regard the closing of the Straits as a casus belli was communicated…to the foreign ministers of those states which had supported international navigation in the Straits in 1957 and thereafter.
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Science is not a sacred cow. Science is a horse. Don’t worship it. Feed it. [Addressing a group of prospective contributors to an Israeli scientific research program]
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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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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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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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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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Tragedy is the difference between what is and what could have been.
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A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually.
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It [idolatry] nourishes mans ambition to domineer over his fellow man. Idolatry, therefore, is the source of all social and moral evil in the world.
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His ignorance is encyclopedic.
ABBA EBAN