Quotes from Elliott Abrams

I don't think a Palestinian state is going to be created at a conference table; it will be created on the ground in the West Bank, and some day, a peace conference will ratify that which has been built on the ground.

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.

We use American influence with Israel not to promote economic growth in the West Bank, but to try and impede Jewish - never Arab - construction in the capital city.

Israel will not and should not leave until it is clear that the West Bank can be policed by Palestinians and that the region will not be a source of terrorism against Israel, as Gaza and South Lebanon became when Israel left there.

The raids on Freedom House, the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute, the Adenauer Foundation, and other groups helping Egyptians move toward respect for democratic politics and human rights were of a piece with the practices of Hosni Mubarak - only bolder and more repressive.

You are not practicing Judaism if you celebrate Christmas.

The Sandinistas are dedicated Communists, and if they are going to make a compromise with democracy, it's going to be under pressure.

When the policy is controversial, you have to go out and defend it.

Elections matter, but how much they matter depends entirely on how free, open and fair they are.

Scandinavia is boring. People living there apparently have little to do. And as European history teaches, when there is nothing much to do, you may as well amuse yourself by attacking the Jews.

Evangelicals too often fall short in their actual teachings about Judaism.

What does 'politicizing intelligence' mean? Using intel, or more often, partial intel, to produce an effect in line with White House policies rather than giving a full picture of a particular situation.

When you work in the White House you talk to the White House staff all day, so you're talking to the guy who handles the congressional liaison and the guy who's handling domestic politics and the guy who's handling the American economy and so forth.

In the Bill Clinton years, the foreign leader who visited the White House most often was Yasser Arafat - 13 times.

The Obama administration appears to regard intelligence leaks and briefings more or less like briefings by the Democratic National Committee or White House flack Jay Carney. You use any information at hand, classified or not, and you spin it any way you like, fairly or not.

In Kuwait there is already a real, elected parliament with genuine power, but the prime minister is always a member of the ruling al-Sabah family. That must end.

There is no way around the contradictions and dangers inherent in Israel's decision to free over 1,000 prisoners in order to liberate Gilad Shalit.

In public, an admission of technological inadequacy would be too embarrassing.

I don't see kids with Palm Pilots. They are not common on college campuses, except among professors. Gen Xers don't need them. They are a phenomenon of the 50-something who can't remember if his broker's number ends in 1137 or 3317.

Olmert made a proposal on the governing of Jerusalem that I do not believe his cabinet or the Knesset would have accepted.

For the entire first term, Obama and his people blamed Bush for everything - which is another way of saying they felt Bush and the Bush years were the inescapable reference point for everything they were themselves doing.

I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders - leaders not compromised by terror.

A Palestinian state will never be created by terror.

President Bush was disgusted by the Assad regime's oppression of the Syrian people as well as its support for terrorism, interference in Lebanon, and encouragement of jihadist attacks on Americans in Iraq.