MOSHE ARENS

Big efforts should be made to integrate Israel's Arab citizens into the fabric of the Israeli society and the Israeli economy. That's really the key to any further progress to do with the Palestinians beyond Israel's borders.

What you have is have equal rights, you don't have equal obligations. Not all Arab citizens have the same obligation, namely defending the country. That's important and it needs to be corrected. Part of the integration is also taking it on themselves the burden, if you will, or the obligation to defend their country.

Terrorism and negotiations simply do not go together.

It is nonsense that territory is unimportant in the age of [nuclear] missiles. Just the opposite is true. Territory is more important than before…. Even for the large long-range missiles with large warheads, reducing the size of the target area is a mistake.

Never answer a hypothetical question.

Gaza is such a tremendous humanitarian problem, it's way beyond Israel's capability to do anything significant about. It's a world problem, but the world doesn't want to do anything about it. That the world has packed them like sardines in a tiny piece of territory run by a fanatic Islamic group, run by a fanatic group like Hamas. Unless the world decides it wants to tackle this problem, that they want to deal with refugees there, prepare to absorb some of the refugees.

How do you reconcile the lifestyle between the United States and Mexico? One is a very prosperous country, the other one is somewhat backwards. I mean, I don't want to denigrate them. And people want to go from Mexico into the US because it's much better there. Mexicans also have a grudge against the US. Most of the Western US was Mexican territory once, but they prefer to being in the US, not Mexico.

Well I haven't seen any free elections in the Arab world. They may be coming someday, except for in Israel. In Israel, Arabs have a chance to participate in free elections. Nowhere else really.

The United States does not have a very good record in the Middle East. I think they have the best of intentions but I think the problem is that it's very difficult from Washington, or from Iowa or Nebraska to understand what is happening in this crazy part of the world. In some cases US diplomacy has been somewhat naive.

Terrorism and negotiations simply do not go together.

It is nonsense that territory is unimportant in the age of [nuclear] missiles. Just the opposite is true. Territory is more important than before…. Even for the large long-range missiles with large warheads, reducing the size of the target area is a mistake.

Never answer a hypothetical question.

Well I haven't seen any free elections in the Arab world. They may be coming someday, except for in Israel. In Israel, Arabs have a chance to participate in free elections. Nowhere else really.

Big efforts should be made to integrate Israel's Arab citizens into the fabric of the Israeli society and the Israeli economy. That's really the key to any further progress to do with the Palestinians beyond Israel's borders.

What you have is have equal rights, you don't have equal obligations. Not all Arab citizens have the same obligation, namely defending the country. That's important and it needs to be corrected. Part of the integration is also taking it on themselves the burden, if you will, or the obligation to defend their country.

How do you reconcile the lifestyle between the United States and Mexico? One is a very prosperous country, the other one is somewhat backwards. I mean, I don't want to denigrate them. And people want to go from Mexico into the US because it's much better there. Mexicans also have a grudge against the US. Most of the Western US was Mexican territory once, but they prefer to being in the US, not Mexico.

The United States does not have a very good record in the Middle East. I think they have the best of intentions but I think the problem is that it's very difficult from Washington, or from Iowa or Nebraska to understand what is happening in this crazy part of the world. In some cases US diplomacy has been somewhat naive.

Gaza is such a tremendous humanitarian problem, it's way beyond Israel's capability to do anything significant about. It's a world problem, but the world doesn't want to do anything about it. That the world has packed them like sardines in a tiny piece of territory run by a fanatic Islamic group, run by a fanatic group like Hamas. Unless the world decides it wants to tackle this problem, that they want to deal with refugees there, prepare to absorb some of the refugees.