Peace Conferences Quotes
The Oslo Accords that Perez was signing when he made this quotation were the first written agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. He and Yasser Arafat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this accomplishment which was a revolution. However, it petered out as the Palestinians resorted to more terrorism and the Israeli voters turned to the right and by Perez’s death in 2016, there had not been any progress toward peace or a two state solution.
During the Seminole War, Ross, as a very respected Cherokee Chief and leader, had been asked to persuade some if the Seminole Chief’s to come to a conference to discuss and negotiate a settlement to the conflict. Ross was successful . Seminole Chief Micanopy, twelve other chieftains, and a number of Seminole warriors accompanied the Cherokee deputation to the headquarters of the United States Army at Fort Mellon, where they were to discuss the matter. When they arrived General Thomas Jesup arrested the Seminoles instead of negotiating. Ross, a very educated man who was literate in English, o the Secretary of War. Jesup in retrospect was one of the disgraces in the history of the U. S. Army was admired, not for his fighting or his lack of ethics, but for his management and logistics as the Quartermaster General. For more quotations showing Jesup’s character, see quotations 643611 and 643612.
In a private capacity he attended and participated in the WWI Paris Peace Conference as an advisor to “subject people”. As he was an advocate for colonial subject people, he was very unpopular with most of the delegates to the conference. He, however, was very critical of their narrow-mindedness, their racism, and narrowness of view based on the short term interests of their countries.
Describing T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia):
This quotation illustrates the fact that at that time, individual citizens could legally conduct their own foreign policy in the name of the United States. Further, while a century later, wealthy Americans might pressure Presidents on policy issues by threatening to finance opponents or fund PACs to run ads against the administration’s positions, at that time they threatened to actually operate their own foreign policy. The President did not send a delegation on Ford’s ship, but Ford did. The Ford peace initiative collapsed in a fiasco. The great industrialist was way out of his expertise. Later, Congress passed laws prohibiting Americans from conducting their own diplomatic initiatives.
