Jack Anderson Quotes
Any leader can be a hero in victory; only Arafat could project himself as the hero of a catastrophe.
Jack Anderson, Syndicated Columnist, Quoted in The Bedside Book of Celebrity Gossip, Crown, 1984
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
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.
The Arab culture, like most desert cultures, maintains a degree of hospitality that is much greater than that of most other cultures. Even enemies are granted hospitality. This sometimes confuses Western diplomats who might interpret the friendly hospitality as institutional friendship but it often is nothing more than the gracious hospitality that is expected in Arab society.
Jack Northman Anderson was an American newspaper columnist, syndicated by United Features Syndicate, considered one of the fathers of modern investigative journalism. Anderson won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his investigation on secret American policy decision-making between the United States and Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. In addition to his newspaper career, Anderson also had a national radio show on the Mutual Broadcasting System, acted as Washington bureau chief of Parade magazine, and was a commentator on ABC-TV's Good Morning America for nine years.
