"It is up to the believers of any religion to pick from their holy texts the passages they want to act upon. Once I saw a Nazi book composed entirely of quotations from the Talmud – hundreds of them. I was certain that they were all false and was shocked to the core when a friendly rabbi assured me that they were all authentic, only taken out of context."

"At a time of international support for the Arab Spring and its core message of democratic freedoms, the Israeli actions are one more example of why its decades-long occupation is not only violating Palestinian rights but also eroding the values of what the world still believes is the "Middle East's only democracy."

"Base opponents in Okinawa work with others in Korea, Guam, and Hawaii, and with former residents of Diego Garcia, as well as others around the world. An international conference called "Dialogue Under Occupation" was held in Okinawa last summer. In fact, people are working extremely hard in cities around the world to shut down or prevent the construction of giant military bases that we in the United States pay for and are endangered by but have very little awareness of."

"Joined together, public opinion and the reality on the ground are creating conditions that preclude the two-state possibility. And, there is no reason to believe that these will be reversed in the foreseeable future. That is leaving many analysts to conclude that, if the two-state solution is not already impossible, it is only a matter of time before it is a thing of the past."

"Discussing options like these is where we should be. Yet we--Israel, the Palestinians and the international community--are not seriously engaging in any sort of reevaluation process of the kind envisaged here. Virtually everyone seems to understand that Oslo has reached the end of the road, yet no one is doing anything about it. That, and not the abstract discussion of whether a two-state solution is still feasible, is the real problem."

"Somalia is inundated with arms and ammunitions, and anyone with money can buy them to kill and maim the innocent such as women, children, elderly and minorities with impunity. Let there be no mistake, using force to annex these regions is a loose/loose proposition. It will only contribute to more deaths and destruction that could end the relative peace long enjoyed by the people of the north."

"One's character is forged amid this agon of excess and restraint e.g., of discerning the difference between the habitual excesses of consumer addiction and the callings of one's character; life lessons that are arrested by the shallow compulsions and time-sucking demands of the current neoliberal order."

"Killing Osama bin Laden is President Obama's proudest claim, and he uses it in the final words of the State of the Union to bash "politics."  Some of the killers may have been Republicans and others Democrats, he tells us, but they were united in murder.  Yet, if the money were cleaned out of politics, if we had a decent communications system, if good candidates could get on ballots and into debates, if votes were publicly counted on paper at each polling place, if -- in other words -- politics were what we imagine it aspiring to be, then why would we elect people who bash it?  And if we wanted someone who intended to unite with Republicans, why wouldn't we elect a Republican? And if we weren't paralyzed by fear and lies, why wouldn't we want alleged criminals brought to our country and put on trial? After all, we've got a lot of courts and we aren't using them for our own leading criminals."