There's no deep bench there, Mahmoud Abbas is, I think, the best leader of the Palestinians we could field.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
We need to see a Palestinian state.
The Fayyad cabinet may well be the best the Palestinians ever get. But whatever its good qualities, there is no democracy.
It's for the Palestinians to decide who will lead them.
At Camp David in 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat 94 percent of the West Bank; ten years later, Ehud Olmert offered Abbas 93.6 percent with a one-to-one land swap.
It is clear a Palestinian state is needed.
In my view, Arafat is the only Palestinian in the world that isn't willing to have an independent Palestinian state.
Look, the hard-line Jewish position is based, to this day, on the idea that the Palestinian Arabs somehow or other will either accept third-class status, or they will pick up and go away. Now, this isn't happening.
Let the Palestinians run their affairs: create a situation in which no Israeli soldier will have to maintain public order, whether in Gaza or the West Bank. Let's give it to the Palestinians, as long as there is security for us. No more occupying another people.
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.
I think that a strong Israel is the only Israel that will bring the Arabs to the peace table.
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