Arab Countries Quotes & Sayings

I don't hold America responsible for the largely oppressive governments in the 22 Arab countries. There are repressive Arab governments that are our allies and there are those that are our nominal enemies. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference to what extent we're involved in propping up those governments. — Lawrence Wright

The Arab and Islamic countries suffer from severe backwardness, and the Western world wants to make them even more backward. — Mohammed Mahdi Akef

The Arabs could have peace tomorrow if sufficient numbers of Palestinians were not content to be used as cannon fodder in fruitless assaults on Israel, even as the surrounding Arab powers distract the Arab masses with the red herring of Israel while retarding their countries with their repression and corruption. — Conrad Black

It is better for the Arab countries themselves to interfere out of their national, humanitarian, political and military duties and to do what is necessary to stop the bloodshed in Syria. — Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani

Everyone I knew, including my new friends in Jordan, expressed horror at the realities of the Holocaust. But they resented, as I was growing to, how Arabs were cast as the aggressors in the dispute between Israel and the Arab countries, when it was their land that had been seized to resolve a European political problem. — Queen Noor Of Jordan

I think there is a potential civic culture in Arab countries that can lead to democratic institutions and I think Iraq is probably the best place to put that proposition to the test Well, you're going to find a disproportionate number of Jews in any sort of intellectual undertaking. — Richard Perle

We are all damaged goods. We mourn when we are victims and rejoice at our enemies' misery. We pray for the victory of our fighters and the demise of the enemies. We don't do anything in between. No one talks to anyone. We just shoot or cry. By playing both parts we are winning the pity of the dumb Western countries and rich Arab leaders."
"What parts?" Mona asked.
"Victims and perpetrators. — Sam Wazan

Only the change on the international scene, the crisis in the gulf, and the strong, firm position of the United States against aggression between two Arab countries created realities that led to the Madrid Peace Conference. — Yitzhak Rabin

Egyptian comedy has a very, very old tradition. Our theater and our movies are just, like, amazing. And Egypt is kind of like the Hollywood of the Middle East. I mean, we had cinema maybe decades before the other Arab countries ever got independence. — Bassem Youssef

Recall that the United Nations commissioned Arab scholars and analysts to publish the Arab Human Development Report. What causes the backwardness, the scholars wondered, of 22 Arab states, covering nearly 300 million people? Their conclusion? Of all world regions, the Arab countries scored the lowest in freedom, media independence, civil liberties, political process and political rights. — Larry Elder

The Palestinians need more help from the Arab countries. Since 1967, the world has learned that there is not going to be real progress in the region until Palestine gets something back that they had. — Bruce Dern

The people in Arab countries are now speaking out and asking many questions about human rights, minorities, religion, democracy, "the other," and so on. — Hassan Blasim

Do not forget that the Arab countries, starting with Algeria and Egypt, are the ones that have paid the heaviest toll because of Islamic terror. — Omar Bongo

Iran has been calling for it for years, and the Arab countries support it. Everyone except the United States and Israel support it. The U.S. won't allow it because it means inspecting Israel's nuclear weapons. The U.S. has continued to block it, and in fact blocked it again just a couple of days ago; it just wasn't widely reported. Iran's nuclear program, as U.S. intelligence points out, is deterrent, and the bottom line is that the U.S. and Israel don't want Iran to have a deterrent. — Noam Chomsky

[Barack] Obama administration looking at taking a more aggressive stance and some of the Arab countries coming together. — Juan Williams

Manchester City are built on sand and I don't mean that because their owners are from the Arab countries. — Kevin Keegan

In thirty years Iraq too has gone from being among the most modern and secular of Arab countries -with women working, artists thriving, journalists writing- into a squalid playpen for a megalomaniac. — Fareed Zakaria

Eastern Muslim countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, are relative success stories, as they are not afflicted by the Arab heritage of retreat and humiliation at the hands of the French, Spanish, British, Turks, and Persians. — Conrad Black

During the Cold War, America took sides not only in disputes between Arab countries, but also in debates within them. — Stephen Kinzer

Women in the Arab world have a rich history in their active participation in political change from the Algeria revolution against the French occupation to the most recent revolution in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya among other countries. The question is not their participation. Their question is the incorporation of women's voices fully in the new definitions of the countries where change has happened. — Zainab Salbi

We have to work sincerely and responsibly to thwart any attempt to divide the Arab nation into small groups, with which foreign countries would deal separately. This would eventually be in the interests of Zionism, which stands behind such policies, formulating the relevant theories and promoting distorted information to world politicians, especially in the West, in order to make them adopt an approach which is harmful to the Arab nation and is even against the legitimate interests of their own countries. — Saddam Hussein

In many countries in the Middle East - and this is changing in the wake of the Arab Spring - but for a long time, censorship of books and film was a very big deal. There were books you couldn't buy; things with political content would be censored, but there were some genres of books and film that the censors just didn't understand. — G. Willow Wilson

We have more difficult circumstances than most of the Arab countries but in spite of that Syria is stable. Why? Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue. — Bashar Al-Assad

The mere fact of holding elections, Americans already knew, was not sufficient to guarantee people's rights. That truth - that an election per se is less important than the architecture within which it takes place - played out in the painful struggles that took place in Arab Spring countries after their revolutions. — Sarah Chayes

However, the resources at our people's disposal are very few and we require assistance from the neighboring Arab countries, and for weapons in order to fight the enemy. — Ahmed Yassin

You in Lebanon, your power is no match to Israel. Israel, militarily, is more powerful than you and maybe it is more powerful than all the Arab countries, or most of them. — Bashar Al-Assad

I've been many times to Dubai and the U.A.E., and I have friends that live there. It would be exciting to stage world heavyweight championship fights in the Arab world. It's something Muhammad Ali achieved when he fought in Zaire or the Philippines. It's absolutely exciting to fight in countries where you have never fought. — Wladimir Klitschko

There is something very consistent about governance in the Arab world. Among the Arab countries today in which there is a modicum of internal stability, each is controlled by an Arafat-type figure - an anti-democratic strongman who is able to crush all challenges to his authority. Likewise, among those Arab countries that aren't ruled by a despot, the political dynamic is also consistent: In Lebanon, Iraq, and now Gaza, sectarian violence is the dominant form of political expression. — Michael Totten

There are many democracies in our Arab and Islamic countries, but unfortunately, they are all false democracies. — Yusuf Al-Qaradawi

It is worth recalling that Britain, over several centuries, waged a war against homosexuality - in the name of religion, social order, decency, etc. - that certainly equalled, and in its scale probably outstripped, anything that happens in Arab countries today. — Brian Whitaker

Some people say that the West has a cruel history. These people also may see the achievements of Western countries - in terms of the economy, education, health, and social achievements - as a result of exploitation of poorer countries, including Arab countries. Western nations get rich by using resources such as Arab oil. Meanwhile, the countries supplying them raw materials remain poor. Due to such injustices, jealousies are created. — Dalai Lama

The fact is, that with the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, hundreds of thousands of Jews fled Arab countries, almost all of whom left behind all their property for which compensation was never paid. — Meir Kahane

I don't want to involve myself in the various arguments about why Israel was created ... I want to deal with the situation at hand which is the ongoing killing on both sides ... It's true that there's also much oppression of Palestinians in Arab countries, where Palestinians aren't allowed to vote or own property and are treated as second class citizens and pawns in the fight against Israel. But I'm not going to spend my time on this since there is isn't a whole lot I can do about it. — Michael Moore

I think this is really a defining moment for the Arab world. The problem is, it is all going to be about blood, sweat and tears. In certain countries it may be just sweat, and in some countries sweat and tears, and in some countries, as you can see, a lot of blood. I think initial instability is something that we are all extremely nervous of. — Abdallah II Of Jordan

If people in the Arab world knew what was happening in this place, the hatred against the U.S. would be heavily watered, and the accusation that the U.S. is helping and working together with dictators in our countries would be cemented. — Mohamedou Ould Slahi

I started digging and found that Israel signed a peace treaty with the United Arab Emirates after the country had diversified their economy, instead of being solely oil-based. This diversification had brought about modernization. I realized that if you land the price of oil, countries will diversify their economies and as a result, modernize. — Shai Agassi

History was a trash bag of random coincidences torn open in a wind. Surely, Watt with his steam engine, Faraday with his electric motor, and Edison with his incandescent light bulb did not have it as their goal to contribute to a fuel shortage some day that would place their countries at the mercy of Arab oil. — Joseph Heller

We do not know which irresponsible Israeli prime minister will take office and decide to use nuclear weapons in the struggle against neighboring Arab countries. What has already been exposed about the weapons Israel is holding can destroy the region and kill millions. — Mordechai Vanunu

In most Arab countries, it is still taboo for a woman to live alone and honour killings are still sanctioned. It is estimated that in Jordan, approximately 20 women are murdered by their own relatives every year. Most — Harvey Tripp

There is always the risk that a conflagration in the Middle East becomes larger and more dangerous. In this scenario, we discover that the Arab Spring was merely the prelude to a deeper and much farther-reaching upheaval in the region that has greater impact on countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia. — Ian Bremmer

The United Nations research states that men with the longest life expectancy are from Japan, followed by Switzerland. I am rather surprised at this result as since time immemorial we have been doing the Karva Chauth fast to make sure our men have long lives, and the results should have definitely shown by now. I scan the list, confident that in this chart of life expectancy, the Indian man must definitely be in the top 5. Nope! There are 146 countries above us where the men have longer lifespans, and the biggest blow is that even with four wives who don't fast for them, the Arab men outlive our good old Indian dudes. — Twinkle Khanna

Countries with lots of unmarried young men are the most vulnerable to sudden upheavals - this is what fueled the Arab Spring. — Tyler Cowen

What Israel wants is peace with - and the acknowledgment of - all the Arab countries. — Elliott Abrams

Between 1980 and 2000 the number of patents registered in Israel was 7652 compared with 367 for all the Arab countries combined. In 2008 alone is really inventors applied to register 9591 new patents. The equivalent figure for Iran was 50 and for all majority Muslim countries in the world with 5657. — Niall Ferguson

What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq ... They target and kill journalists ... uh, from other countries, particularly Arab countries like Al -, like Arab news services like Al-Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios with impunity ... — Linda Foley

I am familiar with what goes on in the Arab countries, and I'm sad to say that most of us want to annihilate Israel. We want to kill all the Israelis ... Do you know what they used to say in the mosques in Egypt? "We want to go to the White House and turn it into the Islamic House ... " We call upon the Arab countries to stop teaching hatred to the Arab children. — Nonie Darwish

Iraq is not going to starve to death because of the absence of assistance from Arab countries. — Jalal Talabani

No Arab country produces graduates who can compete with their East Asian counterparts; the only Muslim country whose graduates meet world standards is Turkey. University graduates throughout the Arab world have miserable prospects. "The average unemployment rate for the age group 15-24 years in the Group of Arab Countries reaches to 30%, compared with an average rate of world 14.4%," according to the Arab Labor Organization. "Problem [sic] of high unemployment rates among the educated graduates from universities and colleges, which reaches to 26.8% in Morocco and 19.3% in Algeria, 17.7 % in Jordan. It was noted that 94% of the unemployed in the Arab Republic of Egypt are in the age group 15-29 years, reflecting a lack of consistency of education plans to the needs of the Labor market."9 — David Goldman

We see people in the Middle East begin to have dreams of new Ottoman Empire where everyone will be subjected to some of what we've seen happen in those countries where we helped bring about an Arab Spring that's turned into a Winter Nightmare. — Louie Gohmert

I believe democracy will succeed in Tunisia, but I also believe that it will succeed in the other Arab Spring countries. — Rashid Al-Ghannushi

In May 2012 - a year after the Arab awakening erupted - the United States made two financial commitments to the Arab world that each began with the numbers 1 and 3. The U.S. gave Egypt's military regime $1.3 billion worth of tanks and fighter jets. It also gave Lebanese public school students a $13.5 million merit-based college scholarship program, putting 117 Lebanese kids through local American-style colleges that promote tolerance, gender and social equality, and critical thinking. Having visited both countries at that time, I noted in a column that the $13.5 million in full scholarships bought the Lebanese more capacity and America more friendship and stability than the $1.3 billion in tanks and fighter jets ever would. So how about we stop being stupid? — Thomas L. Friedman

It is a relatively small number of people who want to impose their will by the use of terror on the rest of civilization, who have got a program. It's not blind violence. It's with a purpose. They want to destroy the state of Israel. They want every westerner out of the Arab countries, Middle East and elsewhere. — John Reid

You can go to Japan, China, all the European, African, Arab, and South American countries, and man, they know me. I can't name a nation where they don't know me. — Muhammad Ali

We have to cease the migration of Arab potential to the west; they should be respected in their own countries. — Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum

So much of the United State's political relationship with Israel is based on culture. Israel is the only Westernized culture in the region and the Middle Eastern countries bordering Israel are Arab, which is a totally different society. Even though Israel doesn't exactly feel like the United States, by comparison to its neighbors it's very Western. — Jill Soloway

Slavery has been outlawed in most arab countries for years now but there are villages in jordan made up entirely of descendants of runaway Saudi slaves. Abdulrahman knows he might be free, but hes still an arab. No one ever wants to be the arab - its too old and too tragic, too mysterious and too exasperating, and too lonely for anyone but an actual arab to put up with for very long. Essentially, its an image problem. Ask anyone, Persian, Turks, even Lebanese and Egyptians - none of them want to be the arab. They say things like, well, really we're indo-russian-asian european- chaldeans, so in the end the only one who gets to be the arab is the same little old bedouin with his goats and his sheep and his poetry about his goats and his sheep, because he doesnt know that he's the arab, and what he doesnt know wont hurt him. — Diana Abu-Jaber

From seaport to seaport, papers accumulate on the captain's desk. "Paperwork has become the bane of this job," he says. "If a ship doesn't have a good copying machine, it isn't seaworthy. The more ports, the more papers. South American paperwork is worse than the paperwork anywhere else in the world but the Arab countries and Indonesia." Deliberately, he allows the pile on his desk to rise until a deep roll on a Pacific swell throws it to the deck and scatters it from bulkhead to bulkhead. This he interprets as a signal that the time has come to do paperwork. The paper carpet may be an inch deep, but he leaves it where it fell. Bending over, he picks up one sheet. He deals with it: makes an entry, writes a letter - does whatever it requires him to do. Then he bends over and picks up another sheet. This goes on for a few days until, literally, he has cleared his deck. The — John McPhee

The UN should arrange, as US forces leave, for an international group of peacekeepers and negotiators from the Arab countries to bring together Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, and work out a solution for self-governance that would give all three groups a share in political power. Simultaneously, the UN should arrange for shipments of food and medicine, from the United States and other countries, as well as engineers to help rebuild the country. — Howard Zinn

The issue of Palestine has been there since more than 60 years. But more important since 1967 when the war was, ended in the defeat of some Arab countries. — Al-Waleed Bin Talal

The Arab countries in the Middle East have for decades demonized Israel, to Western leadership, which for reasons not entirely clear, listen to them politely. The Bush Administration, for example, was infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood years before Obama began mainstreaming them and allowing them to have positions of influence within the White House. — Manfred Gerstenfeld

There are Arab countries providing arms I don't know who they are, nobody comes and tells you 'we are providing arms', but what I say is providing arms and ammunition started with certain countries, I'll name them: Russia and Iran to Syria, so it's normal the other side will seek help ... The last resolution adopted less than three weeks ago said all assistance [to the opposition fighters], all assistance including military, it was added. — Nabil Elaraby

Almost every peace process that has gone on between the Arab side and Israel, the United States has been somewhat isolated because most of the countries in the world, what they really want is to accept the Arab peace plan or so-called peace plan, which in its present form would lead to the destruction of Israel. — Henry A. Kissinger