Richard Perle Quotes
A precondition for any solution to the Arab Israeli problem must be a recognition on the part of all parties on the legitimacy of all parties. That is, you cannot build a political agreement on the premise that a Jewish state in Palestine is illegitimate.
Richard Perle, Assistant Secretary of State (Republican), Debate with Noam Chomsky at Ohio State University, 1988
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
A major issue amongst Israeli’s is to how they should relate to those hostile Islamic nations in their area who claim they are at war with Israel or the Jewish People. This position in effect says that the oratory of those Islamic groups that claim that they are in a war—a holy war even—should be taken at their word and treated as a wartime enemy and Israel should actively attempt to kill and destroy them.
Hamas of one of the very few organizations whose very charter was opposed to all forms of diplomacy for the settlement of problems.
While it is true that there is a powerful minority of Palestinians and Palestinian organizations—Hamas & Hezbollah, for example whose official position is that there must be no compromise with Israel and Jews must be killed unless they convert to Islam, there are ultra-orthodox, religious, Jewish groups who believe that all the land in dispute was given to the Jews by God and there can be no compromise. The majority of Israelis believe that there is no Palestinian leadership who can stand up to the powerful minorities. The majority of Palestinians believe that the Israeli governments will never stand up to thieir powerful minorities. The Israeli Prime Minister was trying to signal the Palestinians, that if they compromise, the Israelis will also, but neither side has a lot of credibility when it comes to land, borders, and religious identity and that is especially true of this Israeli Prime Minister, who many Israelis (and many Americans) doubt that he will compromise on the land and borders with all the Israeli settlers already inhabiting enclaves of what is, by every law (International, Israeli, and traditional Arab—with the exception of God’s law of the Old Testament—which agrees that the Israelis or the Jewish People do not have title to or control over the lands outside of Israel proper.
The Palestinians were split between supporters of Hamas and Fatah. The former was a terrorist organization which refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist and whose charter called for the killing of all Jews. The latter, accepted the right of Israel to exist and was committed to peace and coexistence with the Jewish state. They had fought a civil war and Hamas controlled Gaza with well over 1 million people which they seized for force and killed of forced out Fatah Representatives. Fatah was the elected ruling party of the West Bank, the larger and more populous of the Palestinian territories. There was little chance of any peace given that split. However, Israel which had undergone over 7000 rockets fired upon them by Hamas, stated that they refused to negotiate with the Palestinians as long as the Hamas terrorists were a part of the control of the potential Palestinian state. They would only discuss a 2 state solution if Hamas agreed that they accepted the right of Israel to exist in their general territory as a Jewish State, Hamas would accept and follow previous agreements made with the Palestinians, and Hamas would give up terrorism and the objective of killing Jews. So either Hamas would have to change its policies or Israel would negotiate with an organization that claimed it would never accept the existence of that country as a Jewish state. Al-Masri thought that the agreement he had mediated, was a necessary first step and was constructive for all the parties.
Al-Ahram is the semi-official newspaper of the Egyptian Government.
Richard Norman Perle is an American political advisor who served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs under President Ronald Reagan. He began his political career as a senior staff member to Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the 1970s. He served on the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee from 1987 to 2004 where he served as chairman from 2001 to 2003 under the Bush Administration before resigning due to conflict of interests.
