We would like to ease the life of the Palestinians. I prepared a new plan that we call a positive agenda.

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.

By focusing once and for all on helping the Palestinians build a free society I have no doubt that an historic compromise between Israelis and Palestinians can be reached and that peace can prevail.

I'm on the board of directors for Peace Now which works tirelessly between the Palestinians and the Israelis to create peace in the Middle East and we've never been closer.

The Arabs could have peace tomorrow if sufficient numbers of Palestinians were not content to be used as cannon fodder in fruitless assaults on Israel even as the surrounding Arab powers distract the Arab masses with the red herring of Israel while retarding their countries with their repression and corruption.

Peace should provide security. It should be durable. I'm ready to go far in making painful concessions. But there is one thing I will never make any concessions on and that's the security of the Israeli citizens and the very existence of the state of Israel. The Palestinians are losing time.

Like all Israelis I yearn for peace. I see the utmost importance in taking all possible steps that will lead to a solution of the conflict with the Palestinians.

You can set up whatever negotiations or structure you want but until the Palestinians are willing to accept the fact as the majority of Israelis do that there should be two states between the Jordan and the Mediterranean we won't have peace.

Success is not assured but America is resolute: this is the best chance for peace we are likely to see for some years to come - and we are acting to help Israelis and Palestinians seize this chance.

I believe that peace with the Palestinians is most urgent - urgent than ever before. It is necessary. It is crucial. It is possible. A delay may worsen its chances. Israel and the Palestinians are in my judgment ripe today to restart the peace process.

Most of the approaches to peace between Israel and the Palestinians have been directed at trying to resolve the most complex problems like refugees and Jerusalem which is akin to building the pyramid from the top down.

You know I think I think the Palestinians are trying to get away without negotiating. They're trying to get a state to continue the conflict with Israel rather than to end it. They're trying to basically detour around peace negotiations by going to the U.N. and have the automatic majority in the U.N. General Assembly give them give them a state.

The Palestinians want a state but they have to give peace in return. What they're trying to do in the United Nations is to get a state without giving Israel peace or giving Israel peace and security. And I think that's that's wrong. That should not succeed. That should that should fail.

On balance my life has been a constant stream of blessings rather than disappointments and failures and tragedies. I wish I had been re-elected. I think I could have kept our country at peace. I think I could have consolidated what we achieved at Camp David with a treaty between Israel and the Palestinians.

I have written about the dispossessed immigrants the condition of women who do not enjoy the same legal rights as men the Palestinians who are deprived of their land and condemned to exile.

In addition to removing our democratically elected government Israel wants to sow dissent among Palestinians by claiming that there is a serious leadership rivalry among us. I am compelled to dispel this notion definitively.

I told the President I told Rahm Emanuel and others in the administration that I thought the policy they took to try to bring about negotiations is counter-productive because when you give the Palestinians hope that the United States will do its negotiating for them they are not going to sit down and talk.

The subject matter is very tricky. It's about the Munich massacre and what Mossad did afterwards with the assassination squads. I think it's a turning point in history especially for the Palestinians.

The Israeli government has proved over the past year its commitment to peace both in words and deeds. By contrast the Palestinians are posing preconditions for renewing the diplomatic process in a way they have not done over the course of 16 years.

Blowing up buses will not induce the Israelis to move forward and neither will the killing of Palestinians or the demolition of their homes and their future. All this needs to stop. And we pledge that Jordan will do its utmost to help achieve it.

The security and the future of Jordan is hand-in-hand with the future of the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Peace with the Palestinians will open ports of peace all around the Mediterranean. The duty of leaders is to pursue freedom ceaselessly even in the face of hostility in the face of doubt and disappointment. Just imagine what could be.

When I said a few weeks ago that our people would eat cooking oil and olives if necessary I didn't mean that there really would be only oil and olives. What I meant was that our people have the necessary patience to endure the current difficult situation. Palestinians would rather do without certain food items than their national rights.

The Bush Administration's failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.