Pakistan

"As settlements grew (there are now almost a half million Israelis living in settlements in these occupied lands), not only did Palestinians lose ancestral lands and agricultural areas, they also lost freedom of movement, their way of life, and their hope for the future."

"The Founding Fathers saw popular voting as endangering property ownership. Democracy was viewed by most the same way Washington viewed the “scum” who started the Revolution around Boston. It took about two hundred years of gradual changes for America to become anything that seriously could be called democratic. Even now, what sensible person would call it anything but a rough work still in progress."

"Will democracy take hold in modern Muslim societies? The next few months are poignant with agonizing fear and great hope, and the answer hinges on whether Malaysians and Turks will succumb to the intimidation of the power hungry or show the maturity and courage worthy of free and principled people."

"If Obama surrenders to his advisers and to the Satan whispering in his ear, he may gain votes from the other camp but lose his credibility, and not only in his own camp. The public may decide, instinctively, that "he hasn't got it". That, after all, he is not the leader one can trust."

"ONCE UPON a time, the Israelis were absorbed both by football games and the political game. There was a profound emotional involvement in both. Now only football remains, a game played by transparent rules. What one sees is what is there. One can watch it without revulsion, while politics arouses general contempt and abhorrence."

"A CEASEFIRE is not peace (salaam), and not even an armistice or truce (hudnah). It is no more than an agreement between combatants to stop shooting for some time."

"...Sarkozy called on Israel to stop settlement in the West Bank and said, “There cannot be peace without an immediate and complete halt to settlement. There cannot be peace without recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of two states and the guarantee of free access to the holy places for all religions.”

"Given that we are supposedly a nation of believers, it might be better if we prayed for guidance from immaterial forces before letting hysterical crackpots push us into supporting material action of ever more murderous intolerance and stupidity."