Barack Obama

“ There are a lot of memories, there's a lot of history, there are a lot of grudges and bitterness and in some ways it reminds us of how lucky we are as Americans that ironically we don't have this kind of history. It's easier for us to forget and move on. It's much harder for people here who are seeing everyday the roots of their own people and the conflicts that go back generation after generation. ”

“ One of the points that I think all Israelis want to emphasize is how small and potentially vulnerable from the ground Israel is. And it's true that at certain points it's only about 20-30 minutes wide. When you are flying over it is almost impossible to distinguish between - at least for a layman - between Palestinian villages and Israeli villages. ”

“ It's created enormous hardship for them - there is high unemployment and the economy is not doing as well as it should.
Unfortunately the Palestinians, through Yasser Arafat, suffered from leadership that seemed to be more interested in the rhetoric of Israel's destruction and less interested in actually constructively creating a peaceful solution to the problem and focusing on delivery of services to the Palestinian people. ”