Sandy Berger Quotes
It's not by accident that this has not been resolved in 50 years, but I believe this is the best chance we will have for a long time for there to be a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Berger, Samuel R. White House Press Briefing. 10 July 2000, Washington, D.C.
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.
Samuel Richard "Sandy" Berger was a political consultant who served as the 19th United States National Security Advisor for President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. Before that he served as the Deputy National Security Advisor for the Clinton Administration from 1993 to 1997.
