Yaaser Arafat

Cox & Forkum: May 2003 Archives: "The Middle East is seething with its own difficulties: moderate Islam versus fundamentalism, tribal factions, religious splits and economic underdevelopment. Removing Israel would solve none of these. But the presence of Israel in the Arab/Muslim world has come to symbolise in some obsessive way all their fundamental failures and shortcomings. It is like a person with both a serious disease and a speck of dirt in his eye. His heart disease might kill him but as long as that speck of sand is under his contact lens, it is all he can think about.' "