David Baker Quotes
The Palestinian Authority refuses on an ongoing basis to take the necessary steps to prevent terrorists from getting into Israel.
Baker, David. Statement from the Israeli Prime Minister's Office. Qtd. in The Associated Press, 2002.
Hamas had, in a bloody armed coup, seized control of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority, and refusing to negotiate with the Israelis undermined the Palestinian hopes of peace talks with Israel. The PA could no longer speak for the Palestinians. Hamas a particularly aggressive terrorist organization whose charter called for the death of all Jews in the world, wanted to force the Palestinian Authority to join them in terrorist attacks on Israel. The Palestinians had renounced terrorism and violence. The Hamas fighters were planning to fire rockets at Israel from the West Bank and launching other terrorist attacks against Israel, hoping that Israel would retaliate against the Palestinian Authority by attacking the West Bank which had not been destroyed at all while Gaza had lost much of its infrastructure and 2,000 lives. The Palestinian Authority was not about to let themselves get sucked into a war that they could not possible win and was contrary to the policies of Prime Minister Abbas and his elected government.
At the time YaAlon was Rabin’s Chief of Intelligence.
In most religions, the clerics generally denounce violence especially where innocent people are involved as do many Islamic clerics throughout the world. However, a very large proportion of the Islamic Clergy not only condones violence but actually urges it and uses their interpretation of religious duty to motivate people in that direction. They tend to drown out the pacifistic Muslim clerics and in some cases they call for their death for heresy, thus intimidating many Islamic moderates.
David Nathaniel Baker Jr. was an American jazz composer, conductor, and musician from Indianapolis, as well as a professor of jazz studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Baker is best known as an educator and founder of the jazz studies program. From 1991 to 2012, he was conductor and musical and artistic director for the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. He has more than 65 recordings, 70 books, and 400 articles to his credit.
