Arthur L. Herman Quotes

At that time the Israelis had been rebuffed after offing several major peace proposals and most were convinced that the Palestinians were so fractionated that no one would dare sign a peace even giving Palestinians their own state and sharing Jerusalem as the capital. So they just organized around security needs and walling Israel off from terrorist attacks while maintaining the occupation until something radially changes amongst the Palestinians. The Palestinians and the other Arabs did not want to negotiate either as they felt so weak that they believed they could never get decent terms, and they hoped for some military or terrorist victories where the Israelis would make large concessions to a strong opponent. At the same time there were a few ultra-orthodox Jews who did not want a peace and wanted to do what conquering nations had done throughout history—annex more conquered territory. There were a number of Arab groups, in addition to some Palestinians who did not want a peace at all, as for them there was no satisfactory solution so long as there was a Jewish state in their midst. See {632822} for more on the Israeli attitude then.

This was one of the most accurate foreign policy assessments ever made. The next year the first Arab-Israeli war began when the state of Israel came into being. See {624566} for another accurate prediction.

With this statement, Sadat did what no Arab had ever dared to do—offer to negotiate with Israel. It led to the great peace breakthrough which produced the Arab-Israeli peace.

His balanced judgment and concern for American Casualties changed during the Iraq War over a decade later where he insisted on taking steady American casualties even after Saddam had been deposed and American troops were in the middle of a sectarian civil war.

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem is the base on which the Great Jewish Temple was erected. The temple was destroyed by the Romans. Hundreds of years later the Muslims built a mosque which the Prophet Muhammud himself is believed to have transported to. One side of the Temple Mount is the Wailing Wall, the holiest place on Earth for Orthodox Jews. When the Arabs controlled Jerusalem, they would not allow any Jews to pray at the Wailing Wall. When the Israelis gained control of the holy city they were more reasonable. They ceded day to day control of the Temple Mount—the top and the Mosque—to the Muslims and since then Jews have prayed at the side of the Mount and Muslims on the top. However there has been some friction about the archeology of the interior of the Mount itself. And some Muslims resent the fact that Israel controls the security and access to one of their holiest Mosques, and that in the event of some transgression in the Mount, Israeli civil law controls and not Islamic religious law—Sharia. Some permanent agreement will have to be made if there is to be an overall peace.

At that time the Israelis had been rebuffed after offing several major peace proposals and most were convinced that the Palestinians were so fractionated that no one would dare sign a peace even giving Palestinians their own state and sharing Jerusalem as the capital. So they just organized around security needs and walling Israel off from terrorist attacks while maintaining the occupation until something radially changes amongst the Palestinians. At that time there was little point to most Israelis to debating terms of a peace treaty as the odds of ever getting one in the next couple of years were about the same as their going to Mars.

The Hamas leadership of the Gaza strip had fired thousands of rockets into Israel which their charter states should be eliminated. The Israelis after many being hit by more than a thousand rockets, used their military to attack (via the air) the Hamas leadership. However, Hamas had stored their rockets and their armaments in or very near civilian facilities including hospitals, schools, mosques and even UN humanitarian facilities. The Hamas leaders thereby made civilian facilities legitimate military targets under the Rules of War of the Geneva and Hague Conventions. So the Gaza leadership, instead of their military protecting their own civilians, used the civilians to protect the military and their weapons in the midst of war. The Secretary General also was referring to the Hamas leadership who had rejected at that point 5 different cease fires that had been proposed by the Egyptians, Americans, The Arab League and others. Israeli accepted them all.