"Realizing that events are caused [by something] is not part of Arab political thinking – even though it is an essential element of modern political thinking the world over... Our papers are full of talk about Israel's 'hegemony of the Right' and the Israeli citizen's bias in favor of 'extremist' parties – as the recent elections have shown. But they do not seek the cause of all this."

"This [the electorate that brought Sharon to power] is the same Israeli public that gave the Labor Party an overwhelming victory in 1992, when it had not been in power for 15 years, and gave them power of attorney to walk the path of peace. This is the very same public that brought Labor Party leader [Barak] to power and gave Labor 26 seats, brought Likud down to an all-time low of 19 seats, and gave the left-wing Meretz movement 10 seats [sic] ..."

"Why has the picture changed so that this same public voted for Sharon in early 2001's direct prime-ministerial elections and then, in the recent elections, voted Likud in even larger numbers, doubling their seats? [This happened] even though Sharon's term saw the highest number of Israeli casualties and a serious recession. Why did it happen? Have they [the Israelis] suddenly gone mad? This is a question many flee from facing."

"In 2001 and 2003, it was because of the policies of the Palestinian extremists and because the moderates in the Palestinian leadership wavered regarding curbing them in time... Had we declared a period of calm six weeks prior to the premiership elections in 2001, Sharon would not have come to power at all. This was in fact proposed at the time, but those who wavered failed to exploit that historic moment. The Palestinian extremists, with Hamas in the vanguard, escalated their operations to prevent Barak from returning to power, because his return would possibly have brought a political settlement based on mutual concessions – something they vehemently opposed. In objective terms, the [Palestinian and Israeli] extremists are allies. What they did was to push Israeli society to extremism, which suited their fanciful and destructive plan... The question that should be thoroughly explored is why the Palestinian leadership has allowed them to do this, as every day it further diminishes the chance of stopping them?"

"My opinion was and remains that that we should have declared a period of calm as of December 17, 2000, on the day following Clinton's initiative, and have announced our firm acceptance of that initiative. Today we yearn for a road map that offers much less than that."