Ariel Sharon Quotes
There is a famous saying: 'It's hard to be a Jew.' It's also hard to be a Palestinian. I know that.
Sharon, Ariel. Interview. Time, 2001.
Hamas of one of the very few organizations whose very charter was opposed to all forms of diplomacy for the settlement of problems.
He was arguing to reserve some states as Muslim states by designation. 7 years later he would insist on a separate homeland. India was partitioned and Pakistan and Bangladesh resulted but at a fearful cost of tens of millions of lives.
This special collection brought in the huge sum of 300,000 Guilders. The Protestants in Catholic Ireland were persecuted as were the Catholics in most Protestant dominated lands. The Vatican raised money and armies to strengthen the hand of Catholic states and to foment revolution in Protestant states. Some of the protestant churches used the same methods to “interfere in the internal affairs of other countries” however. The early Americans were well aware of this history of religious struggles to become the State Religion, and this was one of the reasons they wrote the First Amendment. Without it and the others in the Bill of Rights, there would have been no ratification of the Constitution.
Nigeria was about equally divided into Muslims who dominated the North and Christians and Animists who dominated the South. The former were intent on making Sharia—Islamic Law—the law of the nation and the latter were equally passionate to avoid it. Muslim protests got very violent including murdering innocent civilians; the Christians threatened to retaliate.
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.
Ariel Sharon was an Israeli general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006.
