"I don't understand why the prime minister was
angered by the meeting near the Dead Sea...
Perhaps Sharon is scared that a terrible secret
would come out: that there is someone to talk
and something to talk about, and a significant
degree of goodwill on the part of the second
party, and that this is a time in which calm,
even relative calm can be achieved... We,
unlike him, are not afraid."

Leftwing grotesque Yossi Sarid on the Israeli Left's goodbye to sanity, the "Swiss initiative", which essentially reiterates everything Arafat has turned down already while allowing him to exacerbate and exploit Israel's political divisions. There is something uniquely galling about the spectacle of a defeated party, completely without political support from the population of a democratic country, so brazenly conducting their own foreign policy without bothering to consult the electorate. This is exactly the kind of arrogant meddling that got into this mess in the first place. The whole bunch ought to be ashamed of themselves.