Author

I think about terrorism in terms of popcorn. You can't tell which kernels are popcorn and which are not, but you assume you'll always have some kernels that are going to pop.

From Ian Lustick

Do I trust Yasser Arafat? Of course not. Why should I? Why should anyone trust a politician, whether Shimon Peres, Ariel Sharon, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Benjamin Netanyahu, George W. Bush, or Yasser Arafat?

From Ian Lustick

Whether we agree with them or not, politicians aren't for trusting. They are for getting done what can be done to make really horrible problems into plain old lousy problems.

From Ian Lustick

What we have really now is a one-state outcome in which Israel is the one and only state between the Jordan River and the sea. It can do whatever it wants virtually throughout the area. But that's not the kind of a state that's going to be a basis for peace and stability in the region.

From Ian Lustick

The fact is that democracy anywhere in the world, including in the United States, is not something that comes easy. And yet, we are committed to it, and equality and democracy are the only ways in the long run that Jews will be safe in the Middle East.

From Ian Lustick

Most Israelis do want to keep Israel safe. The question is how do you do that.

From Ian Lustick

As long as Hamas needs the support it could conceivably get from the international community through the Palestinian Authority, it has an interest in playing nice with Fatah. And Fatah has an interest in playing nice with Hamas because it needs some source of legitimacy on the West Bank.

From Ian Lustick

The leadership of the Palestinian Authority is not held in high regard by most of the population of the West Bank. They're seen as living relatively high off the hog and certainly not accomplishing anything vis-a-vis the Israelis.

From Ian Lustick

There's still a role for the Association for Israel Studies. But not as the endpoint of scholarship and not as a fortress to defend Israel.

From Ian Lustick

The ability to calibrate risk doesn't happen rationally.

From Ian Lustick

Ian Lustick

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