Caught My Eye - Noteworthy Quotes

An occasional series of noteworthy quotes, started on April 18, 2004 and presented in reverse chronological order.

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Patrick Allitt: "American conservatism has always had a paradoxical element, entailing a defense of a revolutionary achievement." (The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009, p. 95)

Fouad Ajami: "the Arab world has terrible rulers and worse oppositionists" ("Autocracy and the Decline of the Arabs," The Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2009)

Rasool Nafisi, co-author of a study of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. "It is not a theocracy anymore [in Iran]. It is a regular military security government with a facade of a Shiite clerical system." (Quoted in Michael Slackman , "Hard-Line Force Extends Grip Over a Splintered Iran," July 21, 2009)

Kifah Radaydeh of the Palestinian organization Fatah: "What exactly do we [in Fatah] want? It has been said that we are negotiating for peace, but our goal has never been peace. Peace is a means; and the goal is Palestine. I do not negotiate in order to achieve peace." (Quoted in Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, "Fatah official: 'Our goal has never been peace. Peace is a means; the goal is Palestine'," Palestinian Media Watch, July 12, 2009)

Howard Schneider, reporter, discussing the prospect of the Palestinian Authority holding elections for its head: "Elections are scheduled for January. But some Palestinians say the vote will not be held until it is clear who will win. ("Abbas's Credibility Problem: U.S. Sees Bolstering Palestinian Leader as Key to Mideast Peace", May 27, 2009)

Robert D. Kaplan, journalist and book author: "With 150 million people—a population larger than Russia—crammed together at sea level, Bangladesh is vulnerable to the slightest climatic variation, never mind the changes caused by global warming. Simply because of its geography, tens of millions of people in Bangladesh could be inundated with salt water, necessitating the mother of all humanitarian relief efforts." ("The Revenge of Geography," Foreign Policy, May/June 2009, p. 103.)

David P. Goldman, financial analyst: "The declining demographics of the traditional American family raise a dismal possibility: Perhaps the world is poorer now because the present generation did not bother to rear a new generation. All else is bookkeeping and ultimately trivial. This unwelcome and unprecedented change underlies the present global economic crisis. We are grayer, and less fecund, and as a result we are poorer, and will get poorer still—no matter what economic policies we put in place." ("Demographics and Depression," First Things, May 2009.)

Rick Santorum, former U.S. senator: "Politics is downstream from culture." (Quoted in Bradley Vasoli, "Horowitz Joins Santorum, Pipes At Union League Event," April 15, 2009)

Neil Howe and Richard Jackson: "By 2015, for the first time ever, the majority of developed-world citizens will live in English-speaking countries." ("The World Won't Be Aging Gracefully. Just the Opposite," The Washington Post, January 4, 2009)

Stanley Johnson, father of Boris Johnson, the just-elected mayor of London, discussing why his son will succeed at his new job: "He knows his Greek, he knows his Latin; and if you can do Greek and Latin ... you can do virtually anything, certainly running a city like London." (Reuters, "Conservatives' London win shows taste for change," May 2, 2008)

Olivier Roy, French specialist on Islam: "If we refer to Islamism, that is Islam as a political ideology, it is something rather new, it goes back to the 1920's, and has given birth to a broad spectrum of political attitudes, from the Muslim brothers to the AK party in Turkey. The same way that Marxism gave birth to Walter Ulbricht and Willy Brandt." ("Muslim Radicals Are Perfectly 'Westernised'," Qantara.de, April 22, 2008)

Gideon Lichfield, journalist: "It is ironic that the fundamental disagreement between Jews and Palestinians today is not about whether there should be a Palestinian state; most Israeli Jews accepted that long ago. It is about whether there should be a Jewish one. ("How the other fifth lives," The Economist, April 3, 2008)

Hilary Clinton, U.S. senator and Democratic candidate for president: "As your president, you will not see me holding hands with the Saudis," a reference to President George W. Bush, was photographed holding the hand of Saudi King Abdullah during a visit to the Bush ranch in Texas. (Peter Jackson, "Clinton Disagrees With Ferraro on Obama," Associated Press, March 11, 2008)

Lee Smith, American writer: "If Washington is Hollywood for ugly people, then the Boston/New York axis is Washington for ugly ideas. Yes, ideas matter in Washington for there is a lot riding on them. The difference after all between the prestige intelligentsia and policymakers is that the former are very rarely held accountable for their words or deeds. You can predict, like this petition signed by academic Middle East experts, that Israel will ethnically cleanse the Palestinians during the Iraq war and you will not lose your job or your credibility. If you are a popular novelist like Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer you can reduce US post-9/11 strategy to the President's unresolved Oedipus complex or a Spaghetti Western teleplay, and no one will even laugh you out of a cocktail party. You can raise the roof for a 'million Mogadishus' and no Iraqi war vets or their mothers will camp out on your front lawn. You can report stories handed to you as part of a disinformation campaign managed by the pillars of a murderous police state and no one will ever shout, 'Seymour Hersh lied and Lebanese died'." ("The Many Follies of Samantha Power," Pajamas Media, March 11, 2008)

E. Benjamin Skinner, author of A Crime So Monstrous: "today there are more slaves than at any time in human history." ("A World Enslaved," Foreign Policy, March/April 2008)

Ehud Ya'ari, Israeli journalist: "the Palestinians are quietly abandoning the idea of 'two states for two peoples,' or, quite simply, … they are running away from statehood. … they would prefer to collapse collectively, bleeding, miserable and impoverished, into Israel's unwilling arms, rather than separate from us and stand on their own two feet." ("Another State," The Jerusalem Report, January 21, 2008)

Brendan Conway, discussing the emergence of exotic cuisines in the restaurants of suburban Washington, D.C., comes up with what he calls "the strange décor/authentic fare rule": "the stranger the wall hangings, the better the food." ("Adventures of a Strip Mall Gourmet," American Interest, January/February 2008)

"Bloodthirsty Liberal," responding to my calling for a ban on burqas and niqabs, addressing Muslim women: "You're in America, toots. Halter-tops, mini-skirts, and fuck-me pumps should be issued at the border." ("Women," August 3, 2007)

Bret Stephens, a Wall Street Journal editorial writer, referring to the Mearsheimer-Walt claim that criticism of their work confirms their thesis of the "Israel lobby" suppressing their free speech: "How does joining a debate become an effort to suppress it?" ("Anti-anti-Semitism defended," The New Republic Online, February 12, 2007)

Benjamin Balant: Neoconservatism "represents the culmination of the fitful love affair between America and its Jews." (In a review of Nathan Abrams, Commentary Magazine, 1945-1959, in The Weekly Standard, December 11, 2006)

Samer Tayesh, a Christian Palestinian who owns a café in Bir Zeit, West Bank, and supports Fatah: "We Palestinians are not civilized. That's why we chose Hamas. Today, I'm ashamed to say I'm a Palestinian. We don't even deserve a state." (Quoted in Isabel Kershner, "The Losing Battle," The Jerusalem Report, November 27, 2006)

"Spengler": "By Spengler's Universal Law of Gender Parity, the men and women of every place and every time deserve each other. A corollary to this universal law states that the battered Iranian whore is the alter ego of the swaggering Iranian jihadi." ("Jihadis and whores," November 21, 2006)

Ehud Ya'ari, Israeli journalist: "declarations about the inevitable demise of the Jewish state are back in fashion. More than 30 years after the Arab states and their army commanders came to the conclusion that they had no viable means of removing Israel from the map and stopped talking openly of their desire to annihilate it, the discourse in the Arab world is changing. Following the cue of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, the leaders of Hamas and Hizballah have broken out in spontaneous hoorahs about the Zionist clock ticking toward its final hour." ("The Muqawama Doctrine," The Jerusalem Report, November 13, 2006)

James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence: "Twenty-one Arab nations, plus Iran, have about the same population as the United States and Canada. Other than fossil fuels—mainly oil, of course—they export to the world less than Finland, a country of only 5 million people." (Interview with Georgette Gelbard, Congress Monthly, November-December 2006)

Kazmi, of the al-Khoei Foundation, London: "There has always been this triumphalism in Islam. There is an imperialistic arrogance to it. It is a theology of empire. But when you don't have an empire you have something that has gone seriously wrong." (Quoted in Heidi Kingstone, "Foreign Bodies," The Jerusalem Report, October 30, 2006, p. 24.)

Hassan Hanafi, professor of philosophy at the University of Cairo: The Koran "is a supermarket, where one takes what one wants and leaves what one doesn't want." (Alain Navarro, "Egypt professor compares Koran to supermarket," Middle East Online, October 2, 2006).

José Maria Aznar, former Spanish prime minister: He noted the nearly 800-year Moorish occupation of Spain that began in 711 with an invasion from North Africa and noted that Muslims had never apologized for this occupation but demand apologies whenever they feel offended by remarks by non-Muslims. "It's absurd." ("Muslims should apologize for occupying Spain for 800 years," EITB, September 24, 2006)

Efraim Karsh, historian at King's College, University of London: "the Islamic connection to the Palestinian problem is … not out of concern for a Palestinian right to national self-determination but as part of a holy war to prevent the loss of a part of the 'House of Islam' that Islamists inveigh against the Jewish state of Israel. In this respect, there is no difference between Palestine and other parts of the world conquered by the forces of Islam throughout history. To this very day, for example, Arabs and many Muslims unabashedly pine for the restoration of Spain, and look upon their expulsion from that country in 1492 as a grave historical injustice, as if they were Spain's rightful owners and not former colonial occupiers of a remote foreign land, thousands of miles from their ancestral homeland. Edward Said applauded Andalusia's colonialist legacy as 'the ideal that should be moving our efforts now,' while Osama bin Laden noted 'the tragedy of Andalusia' after the 9/11 attacks, and the perpetrators of the March 2004 Madrid bombings, in which hundreds of people were murdered, mentioned revenge for the loss of Spain as one of the atrocity's 'root causes.' Within this grand scheme, the struggle between Israel and the Palestinians is but a single element, and one whose supposed centrality looms far greater in Western than in Islamic eyes." ("Pan-Muslim Fiction," The New York Sun, August 29, 2006)

Annabel Crabb, journalist: "The difficulty faced by Britain's 1.6 million Muslims is that they do not want Islam to be identified directly with terrorism, as most view the actions of extremist terrorists as a corruption of Islam. But those who kill and maim do so in the name of Islam, and so those arrested are invariably Muslims. So Muslim leaders are the advocates who tend to plead loudest publicly for the civil rights of the detained. In turn, this reinforces a public view that the Muslim community gives comfort to terrorists." ("Britain's religious tensions gain a high profile," Sydney Morning Herald, August 19, 2006)

Rafi Ron, former chief security officer at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv: "if you look at the history of aviation security, there has never been a single case where an explosive device aimed at the aircraft was detected by a machine." ("Can Behavioral Profiling Help Screen for Terrorists?" National Public Radio, August 18, 2006)

Mumin Salih: "history will acknowledge the contributions made by the Americans, Europeans, Russians and other nations to [aviation]. History will also record the only contribution made by Muslims to aviation, which is to crash the planes and kill their passengers. Muslims happen to be the only group to perfect this art of crashing commercial planes to kill innocent, helpless civilians. Their list of achievements includes:

• "In 1967 they introduced to the world professional hijacking; a Palestinian group hijacked an Israeli Boeing 707 to Algeria.
• "In 1970 they introduced multiple plane hijacking when they hijacked, then exploded four commercial planes in a Jordanian desert.
• "In the 1980s they perfected the art of planting explosives in electronic devices such as cassette players. They successfully exploded a jumbo jet over Scotland killing hundreds of civilians.
• "In September 2001 humanity witnessed with disbelief how a group of dedicated Muslims hijacked four commercial planes and crashed them into buildings killing thousands of innocent civilians.
• "[In December 2001, they introduced the shoe bomb.]
• "In 2006 they introduced the use of liquid explosives

"As the world continues improving in aeroplane designs to give us even better, more reliable and safer aeroplanes, Muslims work in the other direction and continue their own destructive innovation." ("Muslims and Air Travel," islam-watch.org, August 11, 2006)

Ari Shavit.

Ari Shavit, Israeli journalist, looking back on the Israel-Hizbullah war that began on July 12: "There is no mistake Ehud Olmert did not make this past month. He went to war hastily, without properly gauging the outcome. He blindly followed the military without asking the necessary questions. He mistakenly gambled on air operations, was strangely late with the ground operation, and failed to implement the army's original plan, much more daring and sophisticated than that which was implemented. And after arrogantly and hastily bursting into war, Olmert managed it hesitantly, unfocused and limp. He neglected the home front and abandoned the residents of the north. He also failed shamefully on the diplomatic front." My view exactly. ("Olmert must go," Ha'aretz, August 11, 2006)

"WR," considers the prospect of airline travel under the new regime of "No bottles of water, no laptops, no handbags, no iPods or books. And nothing in your pockets either," and responds with this observation: "The terrorists have won purely by making plane flights equivalent to Sharia law. No music, reading, make-up - sounds a lot like Afghanistan under the Taliban." (Readers' responses to Rob Woodburn, "Crucial times for carry-on luggage," Sydney Morning Herald, August 11, 2006)

Jay Nordlinger, in a review of contemporary classical music composers: "Clarice Assad is a Brazilian composer, a member of the prominent family. Her father is Sergio, and her uncle is Odair, those guitar-playing Assads. As Assads go, you certainly want the Brazilian musicians over the Syrian dictators." ("A Monster & More," National Review, August 7, 2006)

Barry Rubin, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs: "With few exceptions - countable on your fingers - a Palestinian moderate in practice can usually be defined as someone who apologizes for terrorism in good English" ("Palestinian suicide strategy," The Jerusalem Post, July 11, 2006)

Caroline Glick, columnist: The government of Israel "lied last year when it said the [Israel Defense Forces were] in Gaza just to 'protect the settlers.' If anything, the Gaza settlers, by providing a friendly base of operations, protected the IDF." ("How Olmert justifies failure," The Jerusalem Post, July 7, 2006)

Roger Scruton, philosopher: "Female beauty is a powerful social force — more powerful than money, more powerful than physical strength or intellectual acumen. The Trojans were destroyed by the beauty of Helen, Dante redeemed by the beauty of Beatrice, post-war Britain restored by the beauty of the young Queen Elizabeth. Hence we are in awe of female beauty and reluctant to see it as a physical asset, or to allow it to be marketed for its financial worth. Beauty is a symbol of the ideal. It cannot be possessed or consumed, any more than a melody in music can be possessed or consumed by the listener. It is forever unassimilable, a mark of the inherent meaning and purposefulness of human life. In the presence of beauty, therefore, we are inclined to adore, to worship, to sacrifice. For this reason beauty is a powerful stimulus to marriage, and beautiful women who marry do a lasting service to their sex. They cease to be competitors, and at the same time set an example. All women can take hope from them, knowing that, in the light that shines from a face that is both beautiful and devoted, they too may exhibit some reflected glow." ("Old Profession, New Toleration," National Review, June 19, 2006)

Lee Smith: The "Arab habit of blaming everything on the United States, or Israel, or the West in general, strikes many observers as evidence of faulty logical processes, or an abdication of basic political responsibility. But it is also part of an unspoken ceasefire pact--a reminder among Arabs that they have agreed not to attack each other and will focus their energies on external enemies in order to keep the peace at home." ("Sects and Death in the Middle East," The Weekly Standard, June 26, 2006)

Jonathan S. Tobin: "the day when soccer hooliganism is rampant in the United States will be the moment when Jews will no longer be safe here." ("I Don't Care About the World Cup!" The Jewish Exponent, June 8, 2006)

Althia Collins, an Alexandria businesswoman who has helped create America's first Islamic sorority, Gamma Gamma Chi functions: "Partying is allowed in Islam, but it's how you party. You can have fun with girls and it doesn't have to include men." (Quoted in Julia Duin, "Women start 1^st Islamic sorority," The Washington Times, January 4, 2006)

Bernstein Journal: "Today, only about 15% of the energy that goes into the internal combustion enegine of the typical vehicle is used to propel it or power its accessories; the rest is wasted." ("The Transformative Potential of Hybrid Vehicles," Winter 2006)

Mary Habeck, author of "Knowing Thy Enemy."

Mary R. Habeck, Johns Hopkins University: "The consistent need to find explanations other than religious ones for the attacks says, in fact, more about the West than it does about the jihadis. Western scholars have generally failed to take religion seriously. Secularists, whether liberals or socialists, grant true explanatory power to political, social or economic factors but discount the plain sense of religious statements made by the jihadis themselves. To see why jihadis declared war on the United States and tried to kill as many Americans as possible, we must be willing to listen to their own explanations. To do otherwise is to impose a Western interpretation on the extremists, in effect to listen to ourselves rather than to them." (Knowing the Enemy, Yale University Press, 2006.)

An Israeli security official: "No country in the world would allow interference in its sovereignty to the extent that the American representatives are asking of us." (Quoted in Yedi'ot Aharonot, cited in Steven Erlanger, "No Buses Roll from Gaza to West Bank, Despite Deal," The New York Times, December 31, 2005)

Mark Steyn, columnist, referring to the war on terror: "in a conflict that's already lasted longer than America's participation in World War II, Hollywood still can't bring itself to make a film in which America's heroes whump America's enemies." ("DreamJerks," National Review, December 31, 2005)

Bart J. Spruyt, head of the Edmund Burke Stichting, a Dutch think tank: "What if Turkey Islamicizes Europe rather than E.U. membership westernizing Turkey?" ("Read Pamuk's Novels," The Weekly Standard, December 19, 2005)

Yacine, a young French Muslim, recalling a hostile encounter with the police: "The police beat us. They called us 'dirty Arabs.' They said, 'Go back to your country.' We yelled back, 'Dirty French'." (Elaine Sciolino, "Immigrants' Dreams Mix With Fury in a Gray Place Near Paris," The New York Times, December 13, 2005)

Paul Johnson, historian: "the likelihood is that the current effervescent Islamic faith will subside in the next half-century, probably sooner than later." ("In These Times," National Review, December 19, 2005)

Alain Finkielkraut, French intellectual: "When an Arab torches a school, it's rebellion. When a white guy does it, it's fascism." (Lauren Elkin, "Comments by French Jewish thinker on recent Muslim riots stirring the pot," JTA, November 30, 2005)

The Economist: "Israel is third only to America and Canada in the number of companies listed on NASDAQ, and the country attracts twice the number of venture-capital (VC) investments as the whole of Europe, according to Ed Mlavsky, a veteran of the Israeli technology industry." ("Israel: Punching above its weight," November 14, 2005)

Mustapha Akkad, a Syrian-born Hollywood producer, complained in 1998: "in Hollywood, Muslims are only terrorists" (Quoted in Laurie Goodstein, "Hollywood Now Plays Cowboys and Arabs," The New York Times, November 1, 1998). Today, at a hotel in Amman, Jordan, he and his daughter Rina, 33, were killed by Muslim terrorists. (November 9, 2005)

Hirsh Goodman, Israeli journalist: "There is no responsible Palestinian leadership that could deliver a newspaper on time in the morning, much less a peace agreement that would stand the test of time." ("What Israel Has to Do," The Jerusalem Report, October 17, 2005)

Anatole Kaletsky, British columnist: "After this week's creation of a German government in which Angela Merkel will not even control the Finance and Foreign ministries, all three of the great European nations that have dominated the Continent's history for 2,000 years — Germany, France and Italy — are effectively leaderless. … The power vacuum now covering the whole of continental Europe is almost unprecedented, at least since the disastrous period between the two world wars. … something precious will be lost if the people of Germany, France and Italy choose the path of a slow, comfortable national decline, rather than revitalisation. What will be lost, of course, is the global dominance of the European civilisation that these three great nations largely created. As a democrat one has to acknowledge that the ageing electorates of Germany, France and Italy are entitled to vote for political paralysis, economic decline and global irrelevance. But the inevitable eclipse of European civilisation by a brash, materialistic American or Chinese culture will be a tragedy of epic proportions." ("The people of Europe have voted for paralysis – and perhaps obliteration," The Times (London), October 13, 2005)

Stephen H. Balch, president of the National Association of Scholars: "'Diversity' is, of course, the great mantra of contemporary American higher education. Indeed, it's probably the single most common term-of-art in American higher education today. When I googled the word 'diversity' on Penn State's search engine, it came up with about 31,600 citations. This compares, by way of illustration, to only about 17,000 hits for the word 'scholarship,' 4,800 hits for the word 'truth,' 2,450 for 'liberty,' and 1,550 for the word 'civilization'." ("Political Commitments of American Higher Education: The Case of Pennsylvania," Academic Questions, Fall 2005, p. 27)

Saud al-Faisal, foreign minister of Saudi Arabia: "We fought a war together to keep Iran out of Iraq after Iraq was driven out of Kuwait. Now we are handing the whole country over to Iran without reason." His chronology is inexplicably off (the Kuwait war followed the Iran-Iraq war) but the point about handing Iraq over to Iran is correct. (Robert Gibbons, "Saudi says U.S. policy handing Iraq over to Iran," Reuters, September 21, 2005)

Doug Saunders reviews the changes in Islamist suicide terrorism in the four years after 9/11: "Across Europe, and possibly in North America, the new Mohamed Attas are coming not from immigrant enclaves, not from people raised in Muslim countries where religious extremism is part of the political culture. They are native-born citizens of their host countries, fluent in its language and culture, usually from families that are neither impoverished nor religious. As the popularity of radical Islam has declined dramatically in Muslim countries—not a single international terrorist figure has emerged from Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine in the past four years—it is becoming a fully European force in France, Britain, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, forged in the bland concrete housing projects that ring the cities of Europe. 'It's not the ones from religious families who are turning into jihadists,' said Rosa Tandjaoui, the daughter of Algerian and Tunisian parents who owns a bookstore here in the 19^th district [of Paris] and whose children attend the same schools as the French suicide bombers. 'It's people from families like mine—secular, patriotic French, educated. I worry about my son a lot—I hope he doesn't become religious, and I will never let him go to prayers by himself. I've seen what happens to them'." ("Radical Islam sows its seed in Europe's fertile soil," The Globe and Mail, September 10. 2005)

Simon Henderson and Soner Cagaptay: "Israeli officials now consider New Delhi and Ankara their country's second most important diplomatic outposts after Washington." ("Engaging Israel: The Significance of the Istanbul Meeting between Israel and Pakistan," Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Sept. 2, 2005)

George Will, American columnist: "Major League Baseball managers often say in spring training that they are just two players away from a World Series. Unfortunately, the two players are Ruth and Gehrig. Likewise, Iraq is just four statesmen away from sturdy constitutionalism. All they need is a George Washington, a charismatic figure to unify the nation; a James Madison, a genius of constitutional architecture; an Alexander Hamilton, who can create from whole cloth a functioning economy; and a John Marshall, a jurist who knows how to change a constitution from words on parchment into a breathing, functioning document. Most of all, of course, they need the astonishingly rich social soil of America in the second half of the 18th century from which Washington, Madison, Hamilton and Marshall sprang. All of which is to say that Iraq may not be close to constitutional democracy just yet." ("The Doctrine of Preemption," Imprimis, September 2005)

"Spengler," columnist: "Secular Europe and radical Islam … represent two sides of the same coin: both have rejected the secular order, the latter through open battle, and the former through fatal resignation. … In the absence of religion human society sinks into depressive torpor. Secular society therefore is an oxymoron, for the death of religion leads quickly enough to the death of society itself." ("Death by secularism: Some statistical evidence," Asia Times, August 1, 2005)

Tom Gross, British journalist, commenting on the police having executed Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian electrician, on July 22 as they pursued the London bombers: "Had Israeli police shot dead an innocent foreigner on one of its buses or trains, confirming the kill with a barrage of bullets at close range in a mistaken effort to thwart a bombing, the UN would probably have been sitting in emergency session by late afternoon to unanimously denounce the Jewish state. By evening, 12 hours had passed since the shooting, but the BBC still hadn't interviewed a grieving family, no one had called for British universities to be boycotted, Chelsea and Arsenal soccer clubs hadn't been ordered to play their matches in Cyprus, and The Guardian hadn't yet called British policy against its Pakistani population 'genocide.' As for London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who is in overall control of transport in the city, including the train where the man was shot, and who strongly defended the shoot-to-kill policy as a legitimate way to prevent suicide bombings, he was not yet facing war crimes charges – as Livingstone himself has demanded Israeli political leaders should be." ("From London to Jerusalem," The Jerusalem Post, July 24, 2005)

Fatemah al Katib, a student from Lebanon, about being a Muslim in London post 7/7: "We feel different when we walk the streets now. When you sit down on a train, people move away." (Patrick Barkham, "'The main thing we feel is fear, 24/7'," The Guardian, July 23, 2005)

Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism: "Islam is like Communism and sex. Only people who've done it really know about it." (Sherrie Gossett, "NY group linked to Bin Laden," Insight Magazine, July 18, 2005)

Spanish attitudes to Al-Qaeda: "Inmates at a Spanish prison yesterday beat up a suspected al-Qaeda cell leader being held on charges that he helped plot the September 11 attacks, an official said. Imad Yarkas, 42, a Syrian-born Spaniard, was attacked at a jail in the eastern city of Castellón. He was sent to hospital." (David Sharrock, "Victim's father 'helped bomber flee'," The Times (London), July 16, 2005)

Fazel, 19, British-born Muslim who refused to give his last name, interviewed at a mosque in Leeds: He denounced Prime Minister Tony Blair saying that suicide bombers were inspired by an evil ideology, stating that "The evil programs on TV, the music, the literature, the magazines ... are all responsible for the terrorist attacks. … Until they get rid of Eminem and Marilyn Manson, they can't get rid of our preachers." (Scheherezade Faramarzi, "One Young Man's Concern on Extremism," The Associated Press, July 17, 2005)

Scene from London: "'We're here to show our sympathy and also to show Muslims in support of the British people. We don't want to be marginalized,' said Amal Saffour, an 18-year-old Briton of Syrian ancestry, who was attending a weekend vigil for the dead. 'We are the British people,' Soha Sobhy, 22, corrected her friend. Both young women wore Muslim head scarves." (Ellen Knickmeyer, "A Multinational List of Missing in London," The Washington Post, July 12, 2005)

Walter Laqueur, author of A History of Terrorism: "the war against terrorism will not be won in our time in any case. Terrorism is the contemporary form of violent conflict, as major wars have become too costly and conflict won't disappear from the face of the earth in the foreseeable future." ("The Danger That Lies in Our Midst," The Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2005)

James Bennett: "Time has not forgotten Damascus, but it seems to have remembered it only on special occasions—the invention of the tail fin, for example, or of the Soviet-style apartment block or, more recently, the rediscovery of the latte." ("The Enigma of Damascus," The New York Times Magazine, July 10, 2005)

Muhammad bin 'Abd Al-Latif Aal Al-Sheikh, Saudi columnist and member of the Wahhab family: "Putting an end to terrorism is only possible by putting an end to the ideology that plants it in our society." (Al-Jazira, July 10, 2005, quoted in MEMRI.)

Ihsanic Intelligence: "Suicide bombing in the name of Islam has occurred in more than 20 countries: Lebanon (1981), Kuwait (1983), Argentina (1992), Panama, Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories (1994), Pakistan, Croatia (1995), Saudi Arabia (1996), Tanzania, Kenya (1998), Yemen, Chechnya (2000), USA, Kashmir, Afghanistan (2001), Tunisia, Indonesia, Algeria (2002), Morocco, Russia, India, Iraq, Turkey (2003), Uzbekistan and Spain (2004) - and possibly United Kingdom (2005)." ("Landmark Islamic Ruling Unequivocally Condemns Suicide Bombings," July 10, 2005)

Bruce Thornton, historian: "The slaughter in London is another grisly wake-up call that likely will go as unheeded as earlier ones. Already the standard narrative is being trotted out: evildoers created by what the New York Times predictably called the "root causes of terrorism": autocracy, or economic stagnation, or Palestinian suffering, or globalization's dislocations, or Western historical sins, or the war in Iraq (the cause will depend on the political prejudices of the pundit) have "hijacked" Islam and distorted its peaceful message. And now they are using Islam to justify murder in order to further their own ambitions or dysfunctional psychic needs. Given this explanation, so the story goes, we must be careful not to demonize all Muslims and assure them that we respect their religion and culture. The tale is then wrapped up with fierce threats against the terrorists and protestations of admiration for Islam." ("Jihad Is Knocking: Another Episode in the War between Christendom and Islam," July 9, 2005)

Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani, interim Friday Prayer Leader of Tehran: "Al-Qaeda is the illegitimate child of the United States and Israel. … the United States is Al-Qaeda's father and Israel is the mother." ("IRI Prominent cleric calls Al-Qaeda 'US-Israeli illegitimate child'." July 8, 2005)

Ian Munro talks to four unnamed immigrant Muslims in Melbourne, Australia who have been under police scrutiny but not charged: "They are here, they say, because in their Muslim countries of origin it is even more difficult to pursue their brand of Islam than it is in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. Compared with some Muslim countries 'it is better. Doesn't mean they let us do everything.' Until Sharia law, as applied by the Taliban during its rule in Afghanistan, is adopted somewhere in the world, Melbourne is as good as it gets for them." ("Keeping the faith," The Age, July 2, 2005)

Efraim Inbar, Israeli analyst: "Since the beginning of the Oslo process in 1993 many [Palestinian-Israeli] summits have been held, with identical dynamics. Again and again, exasperated Israelis have demanded that the Palestinians meet their obligations, particularly in combating terror, in order to be able to proceed with the peace process. The Palestinians, in turn, have told their interlocutors that the Palestinian Authority (PA) was too weak to confront Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The Palestinians have always demanded Israeli concessions to be able to show the people that the PA can deliver, thereby gaining strength to put their house in order. The Israelis have usually responded with a few gestures of debatable significance, which have been invariably termed by the PA as insufficient, thereby enabling the latter to ignore its security obligations." ("The test ahead," www.bitterlemons.org, June 27, 2005)

Christopher Swann: "Americans save as little as 40 cents for every $100 of disposable income." ("Low savings rate leaves Americans vulnerable," Financial Times, June 23, 2005)

Scott McClellan, White House spokesman: "This is a very hopeful period in the Middle East." ("Press Briefing," June 22, 2005) This statement caught my eye because I have rarely been less hopeful about the Middle East.

Brent Smith, criminal justice professor at the University of Arkansas: "Traditionally terrorists commit a large number of preparatory offenses," he said, explaining they often have to buy weapons, forge documents and secure funding through illegal transfers. Those offenses often have set penalties and are far easier to prove for prosecutors than attempting to convince a judge or jury that someone intended to complete a terrorist act. "Prosecutors over the years have found raising political motive in trials can be a fairly risky strategy in prosecuting people." (Quoted in Andrew Adams, "FBI's new approach: Minor charges now stop terrorism later," Lodi News-Sentinel, June 18, 2005)

George Weigel, author of The Cube and the Cathedral -- Europe, America, and Politics Without God: "by 2050, 60 percent of Italians will not know from personal experience what a brother, a sister, an aunt, an uncle, or a cousin is." (Quoted in Ed Thomas, "Theologian Suggests U.S. Learn from Europe's Shift Toward Secularism," June 15, 2005)

Robert J. Samuelson, Washington Post columnist: "Ever since 1498, after Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and opened trade to the Far East, Europe has shaped global history, for good and ill. It settled North and South America, invented modern science, led the Industrial Revolution, oversaw the slave trade, created huge colonial empires, and unleashed the world's two most destructive wars. This pivotal Europe is now vanishing. … Europe is history's has-been." ("The End of Europe," June 15, 2005)

Daniel Johnson, in his weekly London Letter: "thinking Europeans are much more alarmed by the real prospect of a Muslim Europe by the end of the century than the politicians, whose time horizons hardly extend beyond the next parliament." ("Blair Finds (Relative) Haven of Sanity in America," The New York Sun, June 7, 2005)

Marian Wilkinson, summarizing Provisions on the Rules of Jihad, a jihad manual written by Bilal Khazal of Sydney, Australia: "Among the assassination techniques used by Western intelligence, the book says, are letter bombs, snipers, car bombs and 'cake throwing,' which it adds, 'is well known in the West.' Jihadists are warned to be alert to couples pretending to be joking before attacking the target with cakes. 'This could lead to his eyes, nose and mouth being plugged and [the victim] loses the ability to breathe. Few would suspect the fatal consequences'." ("Jihad text gave rules for killers, court told," Sydney Morning Herald, June 10, 2005)

Evan Kohlmann, author of Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe: Contrary to what many Americans think, the French are not soft on terrorism. "I would say that if I was a terrorist suspect, that is the system I would least like to be held under. You have much more civil rights in [the United States] as an accused terrorist than you could ever hope to have in France." (Quoted in Mark Houser, "Captured terror suspects face tough time in France," May 29, 2005)

David Sapsted, writing about a false terror alarm at the French entrance to the cross-Channel tunnel: "It was an easy mistake to make. The security scanner had detected traces of explosives on a coach stopped at the entrance to Eurotunnel terminal near Calais. French police were acutely aware that the tunnel represented a prestige target for international terrorism. The dilemma facing them was: were the 48 women sitting quietly on the coach terrorists? It took them an hour and a thorough search by sniffer dogs to decide that the ladies, members of the Suffolk West Federation of the Women's Institute, were not. The suspicious party was returning from a trip to Paris last weekend. Although the coach driver tried to persuade the officers of their innocence, the French were taking no chances. Ultimately, it was thought the police equipment may have confused nail varnish remover for explosives." ("WI party is cleared in nail varnish terror alert," The Daily Telegraph, May 28, 2005)

Walter E. Furr III, the assistant U.S. attorney trying the case of Sami Al-Arian and his co-defendants: "At one time, you had 40 percent of the board of directors of PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] here in Tampa[, Florida]." (Elaine Silvestrini and Michael Fechter, "Al-Arian, Co-Defendants Called Jihad 'Communications Center'," The Tampa Tribune, May 27, 2005)

Theodore Kim, writing about Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban, 52, a truck driver arrested in March 2005 and accused of wanting to sell intelligence to Saddam Hussein's regime. U.S. District Judge John D. Tinder found Shaaban a "flight risk" who poses a danger to the community at large, and therefore is keeping jailed until his scheduled June 27 trial. "The pronouncement was a blow to Shaaban, who has asserted repeatedly in interviews and written correspondence with the Indianapolis Star that he stands wrongly accused. He claims the real culprit is his identical twin. The two, Shaaban alleges, were separated in Lebanon after birth. The Star has been unable to independently verify his assertions. … After Tinder began his decision, Shaaban launched into a five-minute outburst avowing his innocence. When Shaaban was finished, Tinder calmly continued to finish announcing his decision. In addition to the detention matter, Tinder denied Shaaban's request to have an interpreter at trial, saying that Shaaban's understanding of the English language is more than adequate." ("Accused spy will remain jailed," The Indianapolis Star, May 26, 2005)

Nahid Siamdoust: "There's at least one place in Iran where citizens dare speak their minds. It is referred to as Weblogistan, and in this rapidly expanding virtual terrain, there are an estimated 100,000 active Iranian blogs, so that Persian now ties with French as the second most used language in the blogosphere." ("Blogwatch," Time, May 9, 2005)

Joseph Epstein, replying to his own question, why academics are often unhappy: "Universities attract people who are good at school. Being good at school takes a real enough but very small talent. As the philosopher Robert Nozick once pointed out, all those A's earned through their young lives encourage such people to persist in school: to stick around, get more A's and more degrees, sign on for teaching jobs. When young, the life ahead seems glorious. They imagine themselves inspiring the young, writing important books, living out their days in cultivated leisure.

"But something, inevitably, goes awry, something disagreeable turns up in the punch bowl. Usually by the time they turn 40, they discover the students aren't sufficiently appreciative; the books don't get written; the teaching begins to feel repetitive; the collegiality is seldom anywhere near what one hoped for it; there isn't any good use for the leisure. Meanwhile, people who got lots of B's in school seem to be driving around in Mercedes, buying million-dollar apartments, enjoying freedom and prosperity in a manner that strikes the former good students, now professors, as not only unseemly but of a kind a just society surely would never permit." ("Civilization and Its Malcontents: Or, why are academics so unhappy?" The Weekly Standard, May 9, 2005)

Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. secretary of defense, responding to the idea that the Bush administration was manipulated by its sub-Cabinet-level Jewish officials. "I suppose the implication of that is that the President and the Vice-President and myself and Colin Powell just fell off a turnip truck to take these jobs." (Quoted in Jeffrey Goldberg, "A Little Learning," The New Yorker, May 9, 2005)

Hugh Pope: "A Citigroup Inc. unit now operates what is effectively the world's largest Islamic bank." ("Islamic Banking Grows, With All Sorts of Rules," The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2005)

The Associated Press reports from Cairo that "Two veiled women shot at a tour bus, and a man the brother of one shooter and the fiance of the second blew himself up as he leapt off a bridge during a police chase Saturday [April 30]. All three attackers died and nine people, four of them foreigners, were wounded." (Lee Keath, "2 Attacks in Egypt Leave 3 Dead, 9 Hurt," May. 1, 2005)

Joseph Bottum: "Does anyone doubt that Western Europe is tumbling downward? It cannot summon the will to reproduce itself. It has aborted and contracepted its birthrate down toward demographic disaster: perhaps 1.4 children per couple across the western end of the continent, when simple replacement requires a rate around 2.1. It can discover neither how to absorb nor how to halt the waves of Islamic immigrants swamping its cities, and it has proved supine in the face of those immigrants' anti-Semitism, anti-Christianism, and even anti-Europeanism.

"Meanwhile, Western Europe's economies are soft, its unemployment rates are shocking, and its emerging continent-wide government is elitist and antidemocratic. Its people are hedonists and materialists, its soccer clubs are nativist militias in waiting, its churches are empty, and—well, that's the problem Joseph Ratzinger faces, isn't it? The newly elected Pope Benedict XVI has just inherited the world's greatest pulpit, but, on his home continent at least, there's hardly anyone in the pews to listen. …

"Given the increasing percentage of cardinals from Africa and the Americas, Benedict XVI is probably Europe's last pope for a good, long while. He may even be Europe's last chance." ("The Last European Pope?" The Weekly Standard, May 2, 2005)

Electoral banners supporting Husni Mubarak, president of Egypt: "Yes to Mubarak the Leader! No to Every Cowardly Egyptian Agent of America!" The article goes on to explain that "The 'agent of America' attack is aimed at Ayman Nour, the lawyer who represents Bab al-Shariya in Parliament and so far the only mainstream candidate to announce an intention to challenge Mr. Mubarak." (Neil MacFarquhar, "Egyptian Campaigns in Limbo, Awaiting Election Rules," The New York Times, April 24, 2005)

Joseph Ratzinger, German cardinal [and subsequently Pope Benedict XVI]: "The rebirth of Islam is due in part to the new material richness acquired by Muslim countries, but mainly to the knowledge that it is able to offer a valid spiritual foundation for the life of its people, a foundation that seems to have escaped from the hands of old Europe. [By contrast, Europe] appears to be at the start of its decline and fall." (from an essay, "Europe" in Without Roots, published by Mondadori in 2004, quoted in Ian Fisher, "Issue for Cardinals: Islam as Rival or Partner in Talks," The New York Times, April 12, 2005)

Roy Hattersley, a Labour politician in Great Britain: "It was the Muslim vote – increased by an influx of families from Kashmir, the Punjab and other parts of Birmingham – which expanded my [electoral] majority from barely 1,200 to more than 12,000." ("I took the Muslim vote for granted - but that has all changed," The Guardian, April 8, 2005)

Aaron Lerner, Israeli analyst: "Israel Television Channel Two News reported this evening that Israel is preparing for the rocket attacks that are expected to hit Ashkelon after Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip." ("Israel preparing Ashkelon for post-disengagement rocket attacks," IMRA, the Independent Media Review & Analysis, April 5, 2004)

Theodore Dalrymple: "As the history of the twentieth century demonstrates perhaps better than any other, impossible goals have had at least as great an effect on human existence as more limited and possible ones." ("The Roads to Serfdom," City Journal, Spring 2005). Something to ponder when considering the impact of radical Islam.

Max Boot, columnist: Professors "are beneficiaries of the most ironclad protection for mountebanks, incompetents and sluggards ever devised. It's called tenure." ("When Tenure Jumps the Track," Los Angeles Times, March 17, 2005)

Ammar Abdulhamid, Syrian dissident: "The Syrian president is not Michael Corleone but his [hapless] brother Fredo." (Quoted in "Syrian hackers outsurf the Mukhabarat," The Jerusalem Post, March 17, 2005)

Iran Press News: Today, on the celebration of the Iranian New Year's Festival of Fire, in one area of Tehran, "people took to setting the French flag on fire while chanting: 'Europe is finished and so are their Mullahs.'" ("French Flag Set on Fire During Festival of Fire in Tehran," March 16, 2005)

Muhammad Ahmed, an Iraqi Kurd recently returned to his hometown of Kirkuk, surveying the disaster there: "All our problems are because of this damned oil." (Quoted in Edward Wong, "Iraq," The New York Times, March 14, 2005)

M. I. H. Farooqi, general secretary, Urdu Scientific Society: According to various studies, "Christian society is the most advanced society of the world with regard to education, health and economic wealth whereas Muslim society is the most backward on these counts." ("Status of Muslim Societies around the World," March 12, 2005)

Mohammed T. Al-Rasheed, Saudi columnist: "Bravo Iraq! For history, Jan. 30, 2005, is one magnificent day for Iraq and the Arab nation. Regardless of who won and who lost, the day should be a permanent fixture on the Arab calendar forever. I don't want to talk politics; I simply want to celebrate history. In spite of everything, the Iraqis voted. They did so with a passion and a seriousness that gives the lie to the cliché that Arabs are not ready for democracy. One myth down, a thousand to go. Everyone says that this is the first free elections in Iraq for fifty years. That is another lie. There has never been one single free election in the long history of the Arabs ever. This is the first one.

"It took the Americans to conduct it and force it down the throats of dictators, terrorists, exploding deranged humans, and odds as big as the distance between the USA and the Middle East. … On Sunday America vindicated itself to all doubters, including me. They delivered on the promise of an election, so I am sure they will deliver on the promise of withdrawal. … "Perhaps in the coming weeks we will take issue with America again. But for today, I am celebrating by having a McDonald's. I hate fast food, but for this day I will make an exception." ("A Magnificent Day for Iraq, Arab News, Feb. 3, 2005)

Victor Davis Hanson: "Imagine a world in which there was no United States during the last 15 years. Iraq, Iran, and Libya would now have nukes. Afghanistan would remain a seventh-century Islamic terrorist haven sending out the minions of Zarqawi and Bin Laden worldwide. The lieutenants of Noriega, Milosevic, Mullah Omar, Saddam, and Moammar Khaddafi would no doubt be adjudicating human rights at the United Nations. The Ortega Brothers and Fidel Castro, not democracy, would be the exemplars of Latin America. Bosnia and Kosovo would be national graveyards like Pol Pot's Cambodia. Add in Kurdistan as well - the periodic laboratory for Saddam's latest varieties of gas. Saddam himself, of course, would have statues throughout the Gulf attesting to his control of half the world's oil reservoirs." ("The Disenchanted American," National Review Online, January 9, 2005)

Josef Joffe: "Imagine that Israel never existed. Would the economic malaise and political repression that drive angry young men to become suicide bombers vanish? Would the Palestinians have an independent state? Would the United States, freed of its burdensome ally, suddenly find itself beloved throughout the Muslim world? Wishful thinking. Far from creating tensions, Israel actually contains more antagonisms than it causes." ("A World Without Israel," Foreign Policy, January/February 2005)

Natan Sharansky, ex-Soviet dissident and Israeli politician, describing his November 2004 meeting with George W. Bush: "I told the President, 'You don't look like a politician. You look like a real dissident, because politicians always look at what polls say, but you believe in democracy and freedom… Even when your colleagues in Europe tell you that democracy is impossible, you go ahead with it. You are a real dissident'." ("Peace Will Only Come after Freedom and Democracy," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2005)

George Jonas, columnist: "Attempts to spread Western values around the world haven't been entirely unsuccessful [but] … in the realm of values, the balance of trade hasn't favoured the West. … We haven't exported tolerance nearly as often as we've imported intolerance. We haven't strengthened individual liberties in other regions nearly as much as we've reduced them at home. Today, we're less free to speak, associate, do business, choose pastimes or lifestyles than we were 50 ago (except in matters having to do with promiscuity or sexual preference)." ("Exporting freedom, importing intolerance," National Post, Dec. 27, 2004)

David Kershner, Los Angeles, in a letter to the editor: "Since when did it become the civil-rights lobby's mandate to preclude me and my loved ones from having every precaution taken to ensure our safety? … My suggestion is that the civil libertarians license their own airline, where no security check is required, no identification needed, and the pilot and airline are absolved from legal responsibility for any catastrophe resulting from a terrorist incident (understanding that the plane will be shot down if it deviates unannounced from its pre-determined flight path). The rest of us will provide fingerprints, driver's licenses and any other proof to lessen the risk of being blown to bits." ("Civil Liberties Zealots Need Their Own Airline," The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 13, 2004)

Muhammad Shahrour, a Syrian writer on Islam: "When you take the political Islam, you see only killing, assassination, poisoning, intrigue, conspiracy and civil war, but Islam as a message is very human, sensible and just." (Neil MacFarquhar, "Muslim Scholars Increasingly Debate Unholy War," The New York Times, Dec. 10, 2004)

Stephen H. Balch, president of the National Association of Scholars: "Our colleges have become less marketplaces of ideas than churches in which you have to be a true believer to get a seat in the pews. We've drifted to a secular version of 19^th-century denominational colleges, in which the university's mission is to crusade against sin and make the country a morally better place." (Quoted in John Tierney, "Republicans Outnumbered In Academia, Studies Find," The New York Times, Nov, 18, 2004)

Jonathan S. Tobin: With the death of Yasir Arafat, "the policy wonks at the State Department, the Council on Foreign Relations and the 'Middle East experts' at major American newspapers (The New York Times' Thomas L. Friedman, The Philadelphia Inquirer's Trudy Rubin, etc.) are commemorating Arafat's passing in the way they have reacted to virtually every piece of news that comes out of the region: calling for more U.S. pressure on Israel to revive the peace process." ("Conventional Wisdom Rides Again: Arafat is buried, but the usual foolish policies rise from the dead," Jewish Exponent, Nov. 18, 2004)

Max Boot: Colin Powell "traveled less than any secretary of State in 30 years. It was not entirely a coincidence that the U.S. image in the world sank to new lows while Powell busied himself at Foggy Bottom. Telephone calls and meetings with foreign ministers in New York and Washington are fine, but they're not enough to win the battle for hearts and minds. We need a secretary of State who travels incessantly to explain and defend American policies. In the age of satellite television, no nation can afford to have striped-pants diplomats whose activities are limited to cocktail parties. The model should be Oprah Winfrey, not Dean Acheson." ("Dearth of a Salesman," Los Angeles Times, Nov. 18, 2004)

Simon Henderson: "A new seven-star hotel is nearing completion in Abu Dhabi, only the second such rated hotel in the world; the other is in Dubai." ("The UAE after Sheikh Zayed: Tensions between Tribe and State," PolicyWatch, Nov. 12, 2004)

Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security: "the U.S. finds itself in the position of financially supporting both itself and its enemies in the 'War on Terror.' … Every time an American goes to a gas station, he is sending money to America's enemies." ("Ending America's Dependence on Middle East Oil," Middle East Forum Wire, Oct. 27, 2004)

Institute on Religion and Democracy report on U.S. liberal Protestant church activities: "for every one criticism [by the churches] of any other nation in the world, one criticism would also be made of the United States and one would be made of Israel." (Erik R. Nelson and Alan F.H. Wisdom, Human Rights Advocacy in the Mainline Protestant Churches (2000-2003) Sept. 27, 2004)

James at outsidethebelway.com, responding to the unmasking of Dan Rather's use of false documents on CBS: "Individually, any of the major press outlets have a big advantage over any blog in covering the news. They've got more resources, more access, more manpower, and so forth. But, collectively, the blogosphere simply overwhelms the MSM [mainstream media]. We've got thousands of law professors, former military officers, political scientists, historians, and so forth looking at things through the lenses of our vast combined experience. There's simply no way a traditional media outlet could be expected to compete." ("60 Minutes Bush National Guard Docs Forged?" Sept. 9, 2004) This goes far to explain the James O'Shea quote below, at Aug. 24, 2004.

A news item in the Jerusalem Post: "Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was left home alone Tuesday when his entourage, including a large Secret Service security dispatch, left his residence for the Knesset without him. Sharon's Shin Bet guards had assumed the Prime Minister was present in one of the cars of the motorcade. Sharon, who had stopped off at his Jerusalem residence on Balfour Street on his way from his Sycamore Ranch home, was left behind with a small group of personal bodyguards. Not before the convoy reached the Knesset was the omission noticed." ("Secret Service forgets PM at home," Sept. 2, 2004)

James O'Shea, managing editor of the Chicago Tribune: "There are too many places for people to get information." (Quoted in Joe Strupp, "Editors Grapple With How to Cover Swift Boat Controversy," Editor & Publisher, Aug. 24, 2004)

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge: "Most Americans do not realise how extraordinary their brand of conservatism is. The American left — unions, academics, public-sector workers — have their equivalents overseas; but [its young, activist conservatives], Focus on the Family, the angry taxpayers and the militant gun-owners are distinctly American. ("America's revolution," The Sunday Times (London), Aug. 22, 2004)

Edward Bernard Glick: "Events in both Israel and Iraq prove that the winning-hearts-and-minds approach to ending wars and insurrections has the same success rate as getting rain by praying for it. If it were indeed the key to victory, armies would have exchanged their weapons for public relations kits ages ago." ("Crush or be crushed," The Jerusalem Post, Aug. 3, 2004)

Christopher Caldwell: "There are few societies in which the veil and the cocktail dress coexist for long. One usually drives the other out." ("The Turkey Paradox," The Weekly Standard, July 26, 2004)

Mark Steyn, columnist, on John Kerry: "His default position is the conventional wisdom of the Massachusetts Left: on foreign policy, foreigners know best; on trade, the labour unions know best; on government, bureaucrats know best; on defence, graying ponytailed nuclear-freeze reflex anti-militarists know best; on the wine list, he knows best." (The Daily Telegraph, "He was complacent, arrogant and humourless. How they loved him," Aug. 1, 2004)

Alex Saleh, an Arab-American attorney from Michigan who says he was a conservative Republican before the 2000 presidential election, but "after four years of Bush, I now consider myself a very liberal Democrat." (Alex Barker, "Arab-Americans turn against the president," July 16, 2004)

James Bennet: "Private investment has all but vanished [from the Palestinian Authority]. But donors stepped in, doubling their contributions, to a billion dollars a year, an amount equal to one-third the Palestinian gross national product last year of $3.1 billion. That works out to roughly $310 a person, more aid per capita than any country has received since World War II" – or, more aid per capita ever. ("A People Adrift: In Chaos, Palestinians Struggle for a Way Out," July 15, 2004)

Nick Eberstadt, the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute: "Perhaps the biggest [demographic] surprise, given received notions about the Arab/Muslim expanse, is the recent spread of sub-replacement fertility to parts of the Arab and the Muslim world. Algeria, Tunisia, and Lebanon are now sub-replacement countries, as is Turkey. And there is the remarkable case of Iran, with a current TFR of under 1.9, which is lower than the United States'. Between 1986 and 2000, the country's TFR plummeted from well over 6 to just over 2. If modernization and Westernization are the handmaidens of sustained fertility decline, as is often supposed by students of demography, both terms are apparently being given a rather new meaning." ("Four Surprises in Global Demography," Foreign Policy Research Institute, July 2004)

Ronald Reagan: "My theory of the Cold War is that we win and they lose." (Quoted in Peter Robinson, "'Morning Again in America'," The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2004)

Mohsen al-Awaji, a Saudi lawyer who says he has abandoned his extremist past and considers himself a moderate Muslim, has an original plan for dealing with Saudi terrorists: if they do not want to lay down arms, the authorities should instruct them that "there are lots of occupied territories that require resistance," such as Afghanistan, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority and Chechnya. "If someone decides to go, we wish him luck. He's going to die anyway, so let him die there while achieving something, not die here and kill innocents with him." Aren't we glad al-Awaji is a moderate? (Donna Abu-Nasr, "Terror Wave Persists in Saudi Arabia," Associated Press, June 1, 2004)

Larry Bird, a basketball star, commenting on the spectacular performance in a championship game in 1986 by his arch-rival Michael Jordan, right after Bird's team beat Jackson's: "That was God disguised as Michael Jordan." (Michael Mandelbaum, The Meaning of Sports, New York: PublicAffairs, 2004, p. 268)

Daniel Johnson of The Daily Telegraph, reflecting on his neighbor, the notorious Islamist Abu Hamza al-Masri, finally being arrested by the British police: "The fact that he has remained at liberty is a testimony to the almost impossibly high standards of proof required by our courts before they will incarcerate even a man who is alleged to have declared war on everything Britain has ever stood for." ("Living next door to Abu Hamza," May 28, 2004)

Specialist Jennifer Marie Bencze, a U.S. soldier in Iraq: "Our mission is to rebuild this country, but the thing is, the bad guys won't let us do. At the same time we've got engineers rebuilding schools, fixing roads, doing all the humanitarian projects, we've got infantry fighting the bad guys. So the mission is really confused." (Edward Wong, "Divided Mission in Iraq Tempers Views of G.I.'s," The New York Times, May 17, 2004)

Thomas Donnelly, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute: "of the more than 2.5 million personnel nominally under arms in Europe, at most 3 percent are deployable. Roughly 85 percent of U.S. forces are deployable—and sustainable—at any moment." ("Learning to Live without Europe," May 2004)

Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, the commander of the First Marine Division, addressing his troops after they left Fallujah without any fighting: "We did not come here to fight these people, we came here to free them." (John Kifner, "The Marines Enter Falluja, With Peace Their Aim," New York Times, May 11, 2004)

Film star Fernando Poe Jr., a high-school dropout turned movie idol of the poor, a man of 64 who has never held public office, is the chosen candidate of Imelda Marcos and her cronies from an era when the Philippines was more a private fiefdom than a country. Says Marcos about him: "You can trust him because not only has he the heart but the soul as well. If a man has soul then that's all that matters." (Michael Sheridan, "Al-Qaeda threat casts shadow over Philippine election," Sunday Times (London), May 9, 2004)

In an article on the tensions in Hamtramck, Mich., as large numbers of immigrants arrive and retain their customs, Bob Golen, 68, asks: "Why are you in the United States of America if you don't want to become an American?" (Stephanie Simon "Muslim Call to Prayer Stirs a Midwest Town," Los Angeles Times, May 6, 2004)

Ibrahim Moiz, a friend of Army Capt. James Yee, the chaplain who was arrested on spy charges but then released: "You can't be a true American and a Muslim at once." (Geneive Abdo and E.A. Torriero, "Spy charges dropped, but fear remains," Chicago Tribune, May 3, 2004)

Did I read this right? As part of a diplomatic offensive to shore up its reputation for concern for the Palestinians, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice "last week called some Arab countries that were behind in making payments to shore up the Palestinian Authority." (Glenn Kessler, "Gamble on Sharon Goes Awry for Bush," Washington Post, May 3, 2004)

Phillip Longman: "Today, the average woman in the world bears half as many children as did her counterpart in 1972." ("The Global Baby Bust," Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004.)

"In its propaganda war Israel has spread many lies particularly using Palestinian children, and it is amazing how gullible some Western media are when it comes to Israel over and over again. … their latest invention is that Palestinians are using their children to carry explosives and commit suicide bombings." (Ali Kazak, "Palestinian children and Jewish state," Khaleej Times, April 27, 2004)

"Lt. Col. Ayed Al-Luqmani, commander of the [Saudi] Passports Department's patrol officers, … said that it was very important to have women officers in order to make sure that those in women's clothes are indeed women." (Mahmoud Ahmad, "Terrorists Take to Abayas to Escape Dragnet," Arab News, April 26, 2004)

Abdelaziz Raikhan, a maintenance man for the Saudi security forces, surveying the damage – abandoned shops, blasted apartment buildings, twisted cars, chunks of rubble – from the suicide bombing of a police headquarters that killed at least 5 people and wounded 148 on April 21: "They're mentally ill. … There's not one American in this entire area. Not one! What kind of jihad is this?" (Megan K. Stack, "Jihad Hits Home in Saudi Arabia," Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2004)

According to "one gentleman playing backgammon at a coffee shop in Old Cairo": "The difference between the Arabs and the rest of the world is that we don't go around randomly killing innocent people." (Yasmine El-Rashidi, "Scent of despair," Al-Ahram, April 22, 2004)

Tom Wolfe: "Very little of what [Sigmund] Freud had to say has survived the scientific scrutiny of the past half-century. In hindsight, we can see that he was a brilliant philosopher of the old school who happened to live in an age in which only science was accepted as gospel truth. So by night he led his philosophical speculations in through the back door of his clinic, and in the morning he marched them out the front door as scientific findings." ("McLuhan's New World," The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 2004)

Khaled Abu Toameh: "Following the missile strike [by which Israeli forces killed Abdel Aziz Rantisi], Hamas spokesmen were too busy issuing threats to avenge the killing of than to discuss the issue of who would succeed him as Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip." ("Funeral of slain Hamas chief Rantisi sets out in Gaza," The Jerusalem Post, April 18, 2004)

Dick Polman: "They just can't let it go. The front-line soldiers of Florida politics remain so fixated on the 2000 postelection imbroglio that they're starting to sound like those Northern Ireland Catholics and Protestants who still haven't gotten over the 1690 Battle of the Boyne." ("Fla. parties, stung by '00, obsess over next time," The Philadelphia Inquirer. April 18, 2004)

George Will: "The United States government is not a speed reader, but after 37 years of reading U.N. Resolution 242, the government finally read it accurately on Wednesday. The government saw what is not there—the missing definite article, 'the.'" ("Mapping Survival," The Washington Post, April 18, 2004)

Jeff Gedmin, Aspen Institute Berlin: "Imagine a world where waiters and sales clerks behave like tenured professors." (American Spectator, November 2003)

Wretchard: "In the halcyon days of the Cold War Soviet boomers would cruise the American coast with hundreds of nuclear weapons unmolested by the US Navy. Now a single Al Qaeda tramp freighter bound for New York carrying a uranium fission weapon would be ruthlessly attacked." ("The Three Conjectures, Belmont Club, September 19, 2003)

Hugh Fitzgerald: "The most memorable utterances of American presidents have almost always included recognizable Biblical phrases. … This source of rhetorical strength was on display this past February when the Columbia shuttle blew up. Had it not been an American but a French shuttle that had blown up, and were Jacques Chirac having to give such a speech, he might well have used the fact that there were seven astronauts, and evoked an image of the Pleiades first named in pagan antiquity. The American President, at a solemn national ceremony that began and ended with Biblical Hebrew, did things differently. He took his text from Isaiah 40:26, which led to a seamless transition from mingled wonder and awe at the heavenly hosts brought forth by the Creator, to consolation for the earthly loss of the crew: 'In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing." The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth, yet we can pray that all are safely home.' The Pleiades would have been brittle, classical, and cold as the night sky. The invocation of Isaiah, and the Bible, was exactly right. It commanded belief - even from the non-believer." ("Annals of Christian Zionism: De Witt Talmage," Outpost, the publication of American Friends for a Safe Israel, March 2003)

Robert Conquest: "Everyone is a reactionary about subjects he understands." (Quoted in Andrew Brown, "Scourge and Poet," The Guardian, February 15, 2003)

Saul Bellow, author: "There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book." (Quoted in Granville Hicks, The Living Novel: A Symposium, New York: Macmillan, 1957)

Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States: "At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher." ("Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois," January 27, 1838)

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