What I'm working is for peace on ground between Israelis and Palestinians through business, through economy, through quality of life.
In his final year in office, Clinton decided that his contribution to Middle East peace would lie not in the removal of Saddam Hussein but in a grand attempt to resolve the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. With this, he missed his last chance to deal forcefully with the man he was publicly committed to overthrowing.
I wrote that President Bush is passing on to President-elect Obama two wars and an economic debacle. I call it a depression. And he is arming Israel against the Palestinians in every way in Gaza.
The fight against terror cannot stop as long as terrorism itself is not stopped, but the path of war must change: it must lead directly to terrorists and not be waged on the backs of three million Palestinians.
If there is ever to be an end to the conflict, the Palestinians must recognize the Jewish people's right to a homeland and the existence of an independent Jewish state in the homeland of the Jewish people.
In addition to removing our democratically elected government, Israel wants to sow dissent among Palestinians by claiming that there is a serious leadership rivalry among us. I am compelled to dispel this notion definitively.
Peace should provide security. It should be durable. I'm ready to go far in making painful concessions. But there is one thing I will never make any concessions on and that's the security of the Israeli citizens and the very existence of the state of Israel. The Palestinians are losing time.
The Israelis should understand that it is in their long-term interest to have a democratic Egypt as a neighbor, and that it is prudent to acknowledge the legitimate interests of the Palestinians and to grant them their own state.
When a deeply sympathetic American president asks for concessions and compromises and appears able to cajole some from the Palestinians, which was the Clinton/Rabin and Bush/Sharon combination, Israel must respond.
Hamas does not represent the national aspirations of the Palestinians. It represents extreme Islamic ideas, which they share with Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria.
The western mantra is that Israel seeks negotiations without preconditions, while the Palestinians refuse. The opposite is more accurate.
Israel will not and should not leave until it is clear that the West Bank can be policed by Palestinians and that the region will not be a source of terrorism against Israel, as Gaza and South Lebanon became when Israel left there.
Jordan is the only Arab state that has provided citizenship to Palestinian refugees and integrated them. But something has to be done about the Palestinians living in refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon.
The missile that downed the Malaysian plane, they say, is a Russian-made missile. But the weapons that are used in the barbarism in the barbaric act against the Palestinians were made by the West, and nobody is blaming them. Nobody talks about it; not even the U.N. Security Council can pass a resolution against Israel!
And when I'd be reporting in Israel, Palestinians would say, the Jews they're not like us, and the Jews would say the same things about the Palestinians, they don't want what we want. And I never bought it as a reporter and I don't buy it as a novelist. I think, you know, the sound of somebody crying for their lost child sounds the same.
Hamas is really a problem for the Palestinians and for Egypt more than Israel.
Maintaining control indefinitely over millions of Palestinians will inevitably lead to a demographic nightmare and cannot be sustained if Israel is to remain true to its founding principles.
Tens of thousands have been killed or wounded by the Israeli army since 1967. During 2006, the number of Palestinians killed reached 650. Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, more than 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel - about 40% of the male population.
There's no deep bench there, Mahmoud Abbas is, I think, the best leader of the Palestinians we could field.
I think the U.S. leaders should do more to support our Israeli allies and the Palestinians to find peace.
My idea for peace in the Middle East is to go back to the 1966 line, but to build even more houses for the Palestinians, who are a poor people.
The Israeli government has proved over the past year its commitment to peace, both in words and deeds. By contrast, the Palestinians are posing preconditions for renewing the diplomatic process in a way they have not done over the course of 16 years.