Jane Harman Quotes
There's no deep bench there, Mahmoud Abbas is, I think, the best leader of the Palestinians we could field.
Harman, Jane. Interview by Wolf Blitzer. Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, CNN, 14 Aug. 2005.
In the complicated and arcane Middle East, substantial majorities of Israelis and Palestinians both favored a two state solution, thus creating a Palestinian State out of the West Bank and Gaza. However, the Hamas terrorist organization won the majority of seats in the Parliament and formed the “government” of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas opposed Israel’s right to exist at all, as that position as well as virulent Anti-Semitic threats to all Jews in the world. Many called for Hamas to change their charter and crease their opposition to the right of Israel to exist. The President of the Palestinian authority called for new elections but Hamas refused. Thus Blair and other diplomats the world over were in a very difficult situation.
He was instrumental in setting up the Camp David peace meeting between Sedat and Begin.
Jane Margaret Lakes Harman is the former U.S. Representative for California's 36th congressional district, serving from 1993 to 1999, and from 2001 to 2011; she is a member of the Democratic Party. Harman was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and the Homeland Security Committee's intelligence subcommittee. When Democrats held the House majority, she was in line to chair the House intelligence committee but was denied the post by then-Speaker Pelosi. Resigning from Congress in February 2011, Harman became President and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She succeeded former Congressman Lee H. Hamilton and is the first woman to lead the organization.
