Ian Lustick Quotes

"For the U.S., as the largest player in the global environment, unintended consequences are magnified."

"From a social networking point of view, Pakistan is not very far away."

"The disappearance of Israel as a Zionist project, through war, cultural exhaustion or demographic momentum, is... plausible... Many Israelis see the demise of the country as not just possible, but probable."

"My academic specialization is Arab-Israel relations."

"Americans should be wary of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt but not scared of them."

"Democracies domesticate religious groups to become political players. That's how it works."

"If you put too much pressure on the Palestinian Authority, it will collapse - it will disappear - and Israel will have to formally re-occupy the West Bank and assume responsibility for the Palestinians there. The United States doesn't want that. Israel doesn't really want that."

"There's a good lesson for policymakers: It's not the presence of the U.S. that is a problem for many people in the Arab region; it's the type of presence we bring."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"The ability to calibrate risk doesn't happen rationally."

"There is some big thing about the world that produced all these people willing to kill themselves just to hurt us. On 9/11 we learned we're part of that world, in the same completely crazy, drastic and arbitrary ways it hits other countries."

"Strong Islamist trends make a fundamentalist Palestine more likely than a small state under a secular government."

"Israeli governments cling to the two-state notion because it seems to reflect the sentiments of the Jewish Israeli majority, and it shields the country from international opprobrium even as it camouflages relentless efforts to expand Israel's territory into the West Bank."

"Peacemaking and democratic state-building require blood and magic."