Ed Dwight Quotes
There's always a fine line that divides hostility from neutrality, and I don't want to pass that line.
Dwight, Ed. Soaring on the Wings of a Dream: The Untold Story of America's First Black Astronaut Candidate. Third Eye Press, 2009.
Magh Bahul Ekadashi
For years of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Palestinians would never negotiate with Israel over anything. Finally that barrier was broken and, the PLO became a negotiating party with Israel. However, the terrorist organization Hamas, had challenged the PLO for political control of the Palestinians and then took over the Gaza strip—part of the Palestinian territory. They then shot thousands of rockets into Israel, a clear act of war under international law. The Israelis then attacked the Hamas infrastructure and any building of facility where they had command or communications, meetings, trainings or stored weapons or ammunitions. The Gazans suffered many more casualties than the Israelis—about 20 to 1 ratio. Many other countries tried to broker a ceasefire which the Israelis agreed to but Hamas would not. The Israeli ambassador was asked on American television if Israel would be willing to negotiate on the larger issues of the conflict as they had negotiated with the PLO. This was his reply. The major problem was that the Hamas Charter had two clauses that made negotiations impossible. Hamas was committed to the destruction of Israel and would not agree that the Israel had a right to exist. Second, the Hamas charter called for the killing of Jews anywhere in the world—men, women and children. The Israelis asked what they would negotiate about given those two charter items and the Hamas terror history in killing as many Israelis as they could.
Edward Joseph (Ed) Dwight Jr. is an American sculptor, author, and former test pilot. He is the first African American to have entered the Air Force training program from which NASA selected astronauts. He was controversially not selected to officially join NASA.
