When there’s a status quo, usually what shakes everybody up is some sort of military confrontation, at which point we all come running and screaming to pick up the pieces.
ABDULLAH IIMr. President, prime ministers, let us have ambitions: ambitions to move beyond the violence and occupation, to the day when two states, Palestine and Israel, can live together side by side in peace and security.
More Abdullah II Quotes
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Earth’s dispossessed are vulnerable targets for extremists: those who teach that global justice is meaningless; that satisfaction can come only in violence, division, and intellectual isolation.
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Is Israel going to continue to be “Fortress Israel”? Or, as we all hope, become accepted into the neighborhood, which I believe is the only way we can move forward in harmony.
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The monarchy that I hand over to my son is not going to be the same one that I have inherited.
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When you get billions in aid and your weapons resupplied and your ammunition stock resupplied, you don’t learn the lesson that war is bad and nobody wins.
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Remember you don’t do anything in isolation.
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My view is when you use violence on your people, that never ends well.
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Today more than ever we need creative minds to address the issues of the age. And one of the most urgent is this: How can humanity know so much, achieve so much, and still fail so many people so badly?
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If you believe that the killing of innocent people is right, then you are not part of my future.
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If you have a government that is elected, they need to do the hard work — because if they don’t, they won’t be around the next time the ballot box is open.
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The stronger the middle class of a people is, the less you have to worry about one group coming in and exploiting the democratic process for its own ends.
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We have no right to dictate, through irresponsible action or narrow-mindedness, the future of our children, and our children’s children. There has been enough destruction, enough death, enough waste.
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When I talk to people in need, they tell me they want to hope; they are eager for opportunity; they are ready for better days. And I can tell you that every time their hopes are disappointed, all nations lose.
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I think it’s almost impossible for any expert to predict for the rapid changes we see in the Middle East. They are rapid and they will continue for quite a while.
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The security and the future of Jordan is hand-in-hand with the future of the Palestinians and the Israelis.
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All this needs to stop. And we pledge that Jordan will do its utmost to help achieve it.
ABDULLAH II