Elliott Abrams Quotes
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I grew up in Queens, in New York City, in a middle class Jewish family. My mother was a public school teacher, my father was a lawyer. They were Democrats - kind of middle-of-the-road democrats.
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There is no way around the contradictions and dangers inherent in Israel's decision to free over 1,000 prisoners in order to liberate Gilad Shalit.
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Israel's flexibility is dependent on its sense of security.
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Today's status symbol is the Palm Pilot; tomorrow's is not having one, because you have a whole staff keeping track of you. It's like a winter coat in Washington: The ultimate status symbol isn't cashmere, it's no coat at all on the snowiest day of the year - because that means you have a car and driver waiting for you, so why do you need a coat?
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On taking office in 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama put Israeli settlements at the center of U.S. policy in the Middle East.
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There isn't any way for the people of Nicaragua to find out what's going on in Nicaragua.
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When you work in the White House you talk to the White House staff all day, so you're talking to the guy who handles the congressional liaison and the guy who's handling domestic politics and the guy who's handling the American economy and so forth.
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It seems clear to me that the Obama Administration has no human rights policy. That is, while in some inchoate sense they would like respect for human rights to grow around the world, as all Americans would, they have no actual policy to achieve that goal - and they subordinate it to all their other policy goals.
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First impressions matter. Experts say we size up new people in somewhere between 30 seconds and two minutes.
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While all Alawites fear vengeance against their entire community should Assad fall, there are varying degrees of loyalty to the Assads.
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Al Qaeda's message that violence, terrorism and extremism are the only answer for Arabs seeking dignity and hope is being rejected each day in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and throughout the Arab lands.
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Pessimism is rife in Israel.
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Like all forms of collective security, multilateral sanctions require a unanimity rarely achieved in international politics.
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Persecution of Christians is growing around the world, and Congress needs to pay more attention to it.
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When freedom of the press is threatened, the United States should be leading efforts to protect it.
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While Argentina, Brazil, and Chile - what in textbooks used to be called the ABC countries - seem settled into democratic politics and free market economics, the Andean countries are in disarray.
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There are examples of fraternal dictatorships, or one, anyway: the passing of power from Fidel to Raul Castro.
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The way for the Palestinians to get a state is to go ahead and build it.
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The ransoming of captives has been practiced by Jews for many centuries and has been regarded as a greater obligation than charity for the poor.
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The story of the Jews in the Bible is replete with incidents of their ingratitude to God for His gifts to them: incidents that just as repeatedly merit and receive punishment.
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Iran exports about 2.2 million barrels a day.
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Two presidents pursued human rights policies that were serious and effective, Reagan and George W. Bush. They understood that American support for human rights activists is a moral imperative for us and also makes the world safer for us.
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The United States should help strengthen nongovernmental humanitarian agencies working in Sudan so that they can handle an increased flow of aid.
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America was not founded to improve health care or housing; it was founded for freedom.
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It’s unlikely to change – there’s nothing in King Salman’s past as governor of Riyadh for about forty years that suggests that he was particularly a reformer, not on the role of women, not on democratic development. There’s been a rumor in the last couple of days that he said to someone in an e-mail that he’s in favor of a constitutional monarchy, but I would be surprised if the level of repression started to go down … I think the kind of thing that we would view as significant reforms is unlikely.
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Oil policy, policy toward the United States, policy toward Iran, Bahrain, Yemen, very unlikely, I think, to see significant change. These policies were the policies that had a wide family consensus. The question I think would be if the king becomes sick, whether you have weak Saudi leadership in the Arab world and the Middle East rather than strong Saudi leadership, but I think the fundamental policies will continue, the ones we’re familiar with under King Abdullah.
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Obamas foreign policy is strangely self-centered, focused on himself and the United States rather than on the conduct and needs of the nations the United States allies with, engages with, or must confront.
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The Obama administration rarely demonstrated the ability to shift gears and change policy in its first year. Even in the face of historic events such as the continuing demonstrations against Iran's regime, it stuck devotedly to prior plans.
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At the United Nations, a lynch mob for Israel is always just a moment away.
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I never said I had no idea about most of the things you said I said I had no idea about.
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