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.
ABDULLAH IIOnes that will provide in return the priceless gifts of hope, security and freedom for our children and our children’s?
More Abdullah II Quotes
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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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All this needs to stop. And we pledge that Jordan will do its utmost to help achieve it.
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Political development should start at the grassroots.
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If everybody is happy, then something is wrong with the democratic process.
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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.
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I don’t think the Middle East could afford another war.
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Historic changes and challenges. Breakthroughs in human knowledge and opportunity. And yet, for vast numbers across the globe, the daily realities have not altered.
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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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I hope that none of the countries in the Middle East are planning anything but the peaceful utilization of nuclear energy.
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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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Each country its cost analysis is going to be different. So what we are you seeing in Syria, for example, is different than what’s going on in Jordan. The maps are being rewritten.
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When we try to push the envelope, there are certain sectors of society that say this is a Zionist plot to sort of destabilize our country, or this is an American agenda.
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What keeps me up at night is poverty and unemployment.
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And no matter what’s happening in the Middle East – the Arab Spring, et cetera, the economic challenges, high rates of unemployment – the emotional, critical issue is always the Israeli-Palestinian one.
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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. … There is a tendency by a lot of officials to hide behind the king.
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I’m just very wary that once you start military operations in any country, it’s very difficult to predict what the outcome is.
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And it’s about time that officials take their responsibility and are responsible in front of the people. Because today, if you’re appointed by the king, they don’t feel that they’re responsible for the people.
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I’m not the type of person that is forced.
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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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The global system they hope to create is one of new walls and new isolation, and radically smaller horizons. It is an anti-democratic, anti-economic-growth, and anti-progress agenda.
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Remember you don’t do anything in isolation.
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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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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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The Arab World is writing a new future; the pen is in our own hands.
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I personally believe that any country that has a nuclear program should conform to international regulations and should have international regulatory bodies that check to make sure that any nuclear program moves in the right direction.
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Our response has been, “Well, let’s then make an effort to get the Israelis and the Palestinians to sit around the table.” That hasn’t happened. So we only have ourselves to blame for this crisis.
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