Nobody ever predicted, a week before President Sadat came to Jerusalem in 1977, that his arrival would be the beginning of a peace process that would end up in an - unhappy - Israeli-Egyptian peace. We have seen peace with Egypt. We have seen peace with Jordan. We have seen the handshake between Rabin and Arafat - things are possible.
Amos Oz
In many ways, I regard Sharon and Arafat as birds of a feather.
We have to remember that Arafat was the one that started with hijacking airplanes already in 1968.
Ariel Sharon
Arafat conducts terror; his strategy is the strategy of terror.
Arafat is the greatest obstacle to peace and stability in the Middle East.
Arafat is hosting, training, supporting, sponsoring terrorist organizations.
First of all, Arafat is wrong. Jerusalem is Israel's capital, will never be divided, and will remain the capital of the State of Israel, the capital of the Jewish people, for ever and ever.
Benjamin Netanyahu
Well, the right-wing policy with regard to Israel - the people who don't want to deal with Arafat, who don't want a Palestinian state - the whole sort of right-wing view is consistent with the view toward Iraq. It's the same policy and the same people.
Chris Matthews
Arafat was a barrier to peace.
Chuck Schumer
Israel was seen as having demonstrated unmistakably it wanted peace, and the reason it wasn't available, achievable was because Arafat wouldn't accept it.
Dennis Ross
Arafat's whole life has been governed by struggle and a cause. Everything he has done as leader of the Palestinians is to always leave his options open, never close a door.
I cannot penetrate the soul of Arafat. I cannot know in advance whether, behind all the masks, he's the kind of leader who can reach an agreement or whether he wants to be the Moses of the Palestinians, staying in front of the river and not crossing into the promised land.
Ehud Barak
I am the Israeli leader who met most with Arafat.
Yasser Arafat never wanted to make peace with Israel.
Ehud Olmert
Arafat is the greatest instigator of terror.
In the Bill Clinton years, the foreign leader who visited the White House most often was Yasser Arafat - 13 times.
Elliott Abrams
At Camp David in 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat 94 percent of the West Bank; ten years later, Ehud Olmert offered Abbas 93.6 percent with a one-to-one land swap.
Terrorism exploded after the Camp David talks broke down in 2000 because the Palestinians' leader at the time, Yasser Arafat, supported it.
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?
Ian Lustick
Arafat's departure has created an awesome opportunity.
Joe Biden
I remember when I was in the Middle East, Yasser Arafat used to go to Bahrain and Qatar on a Thursday and then go to Saudi Arabia and get his financial help on a Saturday.
There's a lot of egos in these countries, like the French, the Germans, et cetera, and so they keep funding and rehabilitating Yasser Arafat.
I do not support peace in the Middle East. And I do not support Arafat. He is a stupid, incompetent fool!
Arafat rejected the deal because, as a dictator who had directed all his energies toward strengthening the Palestinians hatred toward Israel, Arafat could not afford to make peace.
It is not surprising, then, that in the decade since Oslo began, Arafat used all the resources placed at his disposal to fan the flames of hatred against Israel.
The central premise behind Oslo was that if Arafat were given enough legitimacy, territory, weapons and money, he would use his power to fight terror and make peace with Israel.
Unfortunately, little attention was paid to how Arafat ruled. In fact, some saw the harsh and repressive nature of Arafat's regime as actually bolstering the prospects for peace.
In September 1993, President Clinton presided over a handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn - the climax of a 'day of awe,' as the press described it.
Khomeini was not a puppet like Arafat or Qaddafi or the many other dictators I met in the Islamic world. He was a sort of Pope, a sort of king - a real leader.
War is something Arafat sends others to do for him. That is, the poor souls who believe in him. This pompous incompetent caused the failure of the Camp David negotiations, Clinton's mediation.
Arafat contradicts himself every five minutes. He always plays the double-cross, lies even if you ask him what time it is.
Ask Bill Clinton about Yasir Arafat. Clinton and Barak did everything they could in 2000 at Camp David. Arafat walked away from it.
Right after the Six Day War, Arafat launched a series of guerrilla operations from East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Acting on a tip, Israeli soldiers stormed the house where he was based, minutes too late. They found his food still warm on the table.
Chairman Arafat has invited me several times to visit him in Ramallah and to see El Bireh again.
I have done 16 films with David Dhawan and I have tried to do every character differently, be it Sharafat Ali, Mutthu Swamy or Calender, because of my theatre experience.
In my view, Arafat is the only Palestinian in the world that isn't willing to have an independent Palestinian state.
This sympathy is not translated into force against the British government because it is not like the anti- apartheid movement which had a high profile here and Mandela is a more engaging figure than Yasser Arafat.
I enter negotiations with Chairman Arafat, the leader of the PLO, the representative of the Palestinian people, with the purpose to have coexistence between our two entities, Israel as a Jewish state and Palestinian state, entity, next to us, living in peace.
Arafat carried out what I consider to be atrocities.
