Israel is much more effective when the Israelis are convinced that we are on the moral high ground: that we are acting not just out of might, but also out of right.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of moral integrity alongside power in leadership and decision-making.
Ehud Barak's quote underscores the belief that true effectiveness for Israel, or any nation, lies in the perception of moral righteousness as well as physical might. When a nation acts with conviction that its actions are morally justifiable, it gains not only internal unity but also international support, making its efforts more credible and legitimate in the eyes of others.
In practice
During a speech on national security, to emphasize the need for ethical grounding in military actions.
In Israel, there is a peace camp that can convene 200,000 people in central square of this city, on very short notice, and there is a major movement among academics, politicians, thinkers, and public leaders for peace, even at a painful price. On the Palestinian side, you can find them individually here and there, but there is no public movement.
If Israel does not find the way to disengage from the Palestinians, its future might resemble the experience of Belfast or Bosnia - two communities bleeding each other to death for generations.
There is a thin line between peace of the brave and peace of the hostage... between compromise - even calculated risk - and irresponsibility and capitulation.
As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel, it is going to be either non-Jewish or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.
I cannot penetrate the soul of Arafat. I cannot know in advance whether, behind all the masks, he's the kind of leader who can reach an agreement or whether he wants to be the Moses of the Palestinians, staying in front of the river and not crossing into the promised land.
To think that you can - as a Zionist, Jewish independent state at the end of the 20th century - rule over another people for generations without having any consequences - it's ridiculous.
Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.
Tis not, 'my country right or wrong'; tis, 'my country, that which is right to be kept right, that which is wrong to be set right'
At that point, Noriko finally breaks down and begins to cry sobbing into her hands as the floodgates open - this young woman who has suffered in silence for so long, this good woman who refuse to believe she's good, for only the good doubt their own goodness, which is what makes them good in the first place. The bad know they are good, but the good know nothing. They spend their lives forgiving others, but they can't forgive themselves.
And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.
If what the heart approves conforms to proper patterns, then even if one's desires are many, what harm would they be to good order?
A good traveller is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveller does not know where he came from.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.