ingredients actually are coming from china. i have a chapter in the book on vitamins. i became curious where do vitamins come from? most people never even think about this issue, and it turns out that they don't come from anything resembling a food, you know? vitamin c doesn't come from an orange, and vitamin a doesn't come from a carrot. they come from very, very strange things. and, actually, 15% of all vitamins come from china. they're manufactured in china in these enormous factories. and that's true of a lot of food ingredients, things like gums and starches and a lot of artificial sweeteners are made in china. which is not to say any of that's bad, but it's coming from halfway around the world in an area where there's not as much environmental regulation, um, there's not as much safety regulation for workers. and then, you're right, a lot of the multi-national food corporations now are going into those markets on the flipside, and a lot of their business if you look at, you know, if you're

a financial analyst type person and you look at their income statement, you'll see that a lot of the revenues, the growth in revenues for companies like kraft and general mills and tyson and all these companies is coming from overseas, and particularly developing markets like brazil, india, china are the big ones. so, you know, and fast food restaurant too. the company that owns taco bell is huge in china, although it's actually kfc is a bigger, bigger than taco bell in china. and so we're exporting this food over to other countries. and changing, changing their diet the way our diet changed starting about a hundred years ago. >> do you make suggestions in your book about, um, what can we do better? >> yeah. i think, um, to think about, you know, when we buy processed food to try and buy the stuff that, um, doesn't have the million

ingredients, to buy the less processed of the processed food, right? that's one sort of easy answer. and then, you know, the simple advice when you go to the grocery store, shop the perimeter. that's usually where most of the fresh food is. and just to think a little bit about easy solutions for trying to do a bit more cooking at home. i mean, the food industry has this whole kind of history and pattern of painting cooking as this slave labor, this arduous thing that you really shouldn't have to do. all you need to do is open up the microwave, and you've got your dinner. and it's really not that complicated to cook a meal at home. a lot of people are busy and don't have the time, but everyone has the time to, um, for simple, easy solutions for even just doing one meal at home a week additional. >> [inaudible] probably have time for one or

two more questions -- [inaudible] >> have you done any research on the different cooking methods, you know, between, you know, frying and baking and microwave? is there -- i've heard that microwave kind of destroys the nutrients and all that kind of stuff in the food? >> yeah. well, i mean, all cooking destroys a little bit of nutrients. of it's just the extent of how long you cook it and how high temperatures. that's one of the reasons that food processing can be so damaging to nutrition, because they really do use such high temperatures, higher than what you would use at home. i don't really know about microwaves. i'm not a big fan of microwaves, but there's not a lot of good science showing that these things are really horrible or any worse for nutrients than just regular, regular home cooking. so it's really the, um, the level of the heat, if you can cook at lower heat, it's always better for food in terms of nutrition, and for the length of time as well.

so thank you, thank you so much for coming, everyone, and thank you so much for your time and your questions. [applause] >> for more information visit the author's web site, melaniewarner.com. >> well, all of us here in the colorado river basin or watershed, and we're talking about somewhere between 35 and 40 million people now in the united states and mexico as well, they all depend, we all depend on the colorado river as our basic water source. we need it for everything. we need it for municipal use to drink, we need it for our houses, we need it for industry, we need it for mining, and most importantly and the biggest water user out here is still agriculture. we can't grow anything without it. it is considered to be the most litigated river in the world,

and that is probably very accurate. more lawsuits, compacts, laws created to regulate what is collectively known as the law of the river. there's probably 13-15 major laws that have spanned the whole 20th century, really, up until the present time that talks about who gets how much of its water and who can take it, um, how much every year, how to share it and our relationship with mexico and the water as well. >> this weekend booktv and american history tv tour the history and literary life of mesa, arizona, today at noon eastern on c-span2's booktv and sunday at 5 on american history tv on c-span3. >> you're watching booktv on c-span c-span2. he's a look at our -- here's a look at our prime time lineup tonight. starting at 7 eastern, the

crimes of joseph kony in central africa, their graisk novel is "army of god." and then jackie dunn and bernard -- [inaudible] present "rethinking money." at 10 p.m. eastern, neil irwin, author of "thal chemists," sits down with david wessel of "the wall street journal". and we conclude tonight's prime time programming at 11 eastern with sam roberts. he talks about the history of grand central station in new york. visit booktv.org for more on this weekend's television schedule. >> elliot abrams, who served on president george w. bush's national security council staff, provides an insider's take on the accomplishments and failures of the bush administration regarding the israeli/palestinian conflict. this is a little over an hour. >> good evening and welcome.

i'm roger herring to, chairman of the new york historical society, and i'm pleased to welcome you here this evening. i think we're about to have a truly interesting evening, and a most revealing kind of program with an author who's put a lot of time into a particular area of study. in case you haven't noticed, there's a cottage industry out there populated by diplomats, journalists who write about their experiences in the middle east. this has been going on for 30 or 40 years. i think it's fair to say that most of those histories, most of those memoirs will be little noted, nor long remembered. but not all. tested by zion, the bush administration and the

israeli/palestinian con nick, authored by elliot abrams, our guest this evening, is sure to go down as the definitive history of this period. mr. abrams is educated at harvard college, harvard law school, london school of economics and served for eight years during the reagan administration as assistant secretary of state and eight years in the bush administration as the white house deputy adviser to the president and deputy national security adviser. elliot's book, "tested by zion," is worth reading, and i should note if you want to read it, it's worth buying for two important reasons. first, this is a presidential adviser or at the highest level with access to all of the players involved in the

israeli/palestinian conflict, and there are a lot. the book is filled with answers about really interesting questions that we all have thought about if we've been interested in this region. thinking about egypt/israel, the palestinians, syrians. the questions are manyfold, but many of the answers that you'll receive or you'll be able to get a better understanding of was how was it that george w. bush from texas came to the white house with so little experience in the middle east, became so intensely involved with israel and committed to the jewish state? how did it happen? how and why did george w. bush's choice for secretary of state,

colin powell, how did his views differ so sharply from the president's? almost from the very beginning. why was it that yasser arafat, who had been invited to the white house so many times, in fact, i think more than any other foreign dignitary during the clinton years, never set foot in the bush white house? how did bush and sharon develop such a trusting relationship? they had really never met. why did condoleezza rice's viewpoint change so abruptly between the first term and the second term of the administration? why and how did sharon decide it was in israel's interests to leave gaza?

and if that isn't enough, what is the real story behind the bombing of the syrian nuclear facility? given what's happened since, it's truly chilling to think that absent the israeli attack what might have been if syria had been a nuclear power today. the second big reason to read this book is for the uncommon light it sheds on the process of developing a foreign policy. how do all of these moving parts work together, and what are the best ways for them to work together? just think of it, the response to any issue confronting our nation has to survive this complex gauntlet including the white house, the state

department, the defense department, the justice department, probably others, and not to mention all the subgroups in each of these establishments that can be counted on to disagree with one another. so many different world views embedded in our government, and so many ways to fail. in essence, this book is sort of a primer for a president and how does he or she should think about organizing its foreign policy initiatives and what the role of the white house is versus the state department and the defense department. we're fortunate that elliot will be here. he is going to talk for about a half an hour, and then we'll have, hopefully, a robust question and answer period. and at about 7:30 we'll convene in the atrium for cocktails, and

i will mention once again you will have an opportunity there to purchase this remarkable book in our bookstore, and if you so choose, i'm sure elliot would be happy to autograph it for you. so with that, i thank you so much for coming, and let me introduce elliot abrams. [applause] >> thank you very much. first, let me thank you, roger, for that introduction and as well for your support of the work i'm doing at the council on foreign relations. there's one other person -- there are a lot of people i should mention, but i'll mention one other before i start and that's louis bateman, senior editor of cambridge university press, who got this type script and said, yes, we're going to publish this. [applause] so grateful to him.

i should add i know that there are many of you in this audience and if any audience who no longer read books on paper, and i will, actually, be happy to sign your kindle if you have it with you. [laughter] why did i write this book? roger has really given some of the explanation, or much of it. the story of bush administration policy as it changed over eight years -- and it did change -- the story of these events from 9/11, the death of arafat to the lebanon war, the fighting in gaza, these are important events, and i thought the stories need to be told, and no one else is going to tell them. president bush, vice president cheney, secretary rice have written their memoirs, and they

don't have much of this because they're covering the entire world and, in the case of the president and vice president, domestic policy as well. so i thought if i don't do it, no one is going to do it. and in addition, there are just too many good stories not to tell. they should not be lost to history. if you think of the personalities here -- bush, cheney, rice, powell, arafat, king of saudi arabia, king of bahrain, sharon, olmert -- these stories deserve to be told. ..

january 20, 2001. the old president gives over to the new president. whenever that happens, in the oval office they have tea and that is all they do. they exchange pleasantries. very often they hate each other. not january 20, 2001. because bill clinton had something he wanted to say and he said it ten times. don't cross that guy arafat. more pungent language than that. i trusted him, i tried. don't make the same mistake i made. you will be sorry if you do. i tell you that story because in a way, in answer to one of the charges made, the bush administration had no interest

in the middle east and the israeli/palestinian conflict until 2008. they waited until last minute. remember what had just happened. we were in the middle of the second intifada. people were being killed almost every day. terrorist attacks almost every day. and bill clinton had just told the president don't ever negotiate with this guy. so the notion that in the middle of the intifada and with the only negotiating putter and the palestinian side being yasser arafat what george bush should have done was to say let's go back to camp david. that notion is absurd. last act, january of 2009, fighting in gaza, operation task

lead. an end of that came in january when the new year--the u.n. security council resolution, saying both sides need to stop the violence. the israelis objected vociferously to that resolution because of the moral collaboration of the state of israel and hamas and they angrily demanded the president veto it. the problem is the resolution had been written by secretary rice, for mr. miller band of the u.k. and foreign minister khrushchev and they were in new york and put together this resolution. none of their heads of government actually at east said they liked the language. i had a couple conversations with national security adviser who assured me that if you voted

against, vetoed, that resolution, so would france and france voted yes. but he called it the revolt of the foreign ministers. what did the president do? they said to him the resolution, you can't end the administration on this subject. voting for a resolution that treats israel and the palestinian terrorist group hamas equally. they didn't want to repudiate the secretary of state. and the only time in eight years, everyone on the security

council resolution. which is in a certain way we never really hit the state department pursuing new and different policy. let me go back to the beginning. the intifada, inability to start the peace process and then comes 9/11. i don't really think the president had a middle east policy before 9/11. it was the same old same old, go out there, secretary powell would talk to people, he was in charge of foreign policy, president bush was domestic policy president, 9/11 and the president had to come up with an explanation for what happened. why did this happen? why did a group of men including

9 saudis come to killed thousands of americans? he received an immediate answer from the department of state, israel. they hate us because we are so supportive of israel. this is the answer i believe you could have gotten from the state department in any decade since 1948. the president didn't buy it. he didn't buy it because he understood we had plenty of information, the saudis were bitter about their government. he looked around for another explanation and ultimately this led him to the freedom agenda, the ideas that the problem was repressive nature of the societies from which the terrorists came. what to do about the

israeli/palestinian conflict? it took until june of 2002 to develop an answer and his answer was two states, peoples, jewish state and palestinian state, the palestinian state will be a decent, stable, peaceful, democratic, non corrupt government. that means yasser arafat has to go. if i say to you, you can't do that, he is a terrorist, doesn't sound like a big deal. was a very big deal. he was the single foreign leader who would visit the white house most in the clinton years, not tony blair. yasser arafat, 13 times. everyone understood that arafat was the peace. what bush said in his june of

2002 speech we are not dealing with arafat any more, that is not the path to peace. the path to peace comes, we can go down it when he is gone. he realized immediately the outrageous statements, after making that speech he went to the g h meeting whereas he put it he knew he was going to be the skunk in the garden party. it was a new policy. that speech, some of them involving the president, which doesn't happen very often. the president doesn't sit in meetings where people go line by line over speeches. he did for some of the meetings on that speech and ironically it was secretary powell who said you have to give a speech that

sets out your policy. then he saw the final draft, you don't have to give a speech that sets out your policy. absolutely against the beginning of that speech. in the interest of time high want to jump forward. that was june of 2002. the president goes back to the un general assembly, visits new york and none of you were able to get around what happened at all for a couple days. september of 2002 yasser arafat was still the head of the palestinian authority. we were smart enough to realize though we had said yasser arafat has got to go he was very likely to jump out and try to get a bear hug and release and shake. so colin powell was appointed,

football captain. and told if yasser arafat appears don't let him get -- we do not want that photo to undermine our policy. sure enough yasser arafat tried it, walking down the hallway from the general assembly to kofi annan's office and out comes yasser arafat to grab his photo and out comes powell leaning back against the wall. you will never find a photograph of george w. bush and yasser arafat. we thought we had a way forward. marginalize yasser arafat. create a decent palestinian government with which the israelis can negotiate. we had a road map to implement this policy. we forced arafat to create the post of prime minister and we fought we had something going ending june of 2003, we have

hosni mubarak, saudi arabia, king of the ukraine, jordan, president bush, good a story not to tell. if you google you will find a photo of those men overlooking the strait of tehran, hosni mubarak meeting their final statement. it is 120 degrees and none of them were sweating and the reason they are not sweating is we build a platform with this magnificent thing behind it and from down the edge of the cliff, down at the shore, air-conditioning condensers and piped cold air under the stage. on the stage is 68 degrees and underneath, 120 degrees. you will see these guys are sweating. that picture is from the following day, the king of

jordan's palace, this is where a boss --abbas says we want to end to violence. we thought we were off to the races. these 42 people who could negotiate. june of 2003, by labor day abbas has resigned, arafat won and we lost. we underestimated his bureaucratic ability to maneuver and pushed this man aside. it was in november, dead in the water, this great plan, negotiations will start and by labor day, arafat is back in the saddle. and now what? what do you have in mind?

and negotiating with syrians, to which he replied no, bunch of murderous. and in 2013, the assad regime, i'm going to pull settlements down. i am telling that story in part because another myth is the united states basically forced him to come out of gaza. the view was there was no future palestinian situation. and there were not going to be 7,000 jews in the middle of a million arabs. and the military viewpoint. and it was all so why is to get

out of the philadelphia strip. and separate gaza from the sinai and the old iranian arms. and in 2004-2005 backing sharon in his difficult political struggle to get approval from the withdrawal from gaza and still does. sharon was convinced that only he could do it. they can't do anything. and if i fail no one will try it. and president bush's view, people who were elected should do something. the goal was not reelection.

and john howard on australia and didn't like germany which was just appalling. he liked sharon. they had a good relationship and want to help them achieve this. it is not true they were internet friends. it was a barrier. there was a language barrier. he is the only person i ever met who speaks english better than he understands it. it was really true because actually he had a series of such formulas. talk about gaza or jerusalem, not much beyond that.

and very often, particularly convoluted sentences you would lose it. the chief of staff saying in hebrew, he would then walk and explain in hebrew what the president was getting that. sharon, by the way, in these conversations, there was one thing that happened -- don't kill yasser arafat. do not kill him. you have my word, let's shake on it. in the meeting they had in early 2005 after yasser arafat's

death, the president was asking about the post arafat palestinians, thank you for not killing us. sharon replied sometimes god helps. we fought after the withdrawal from gaza, june of 2003 the way forward, after the call from gaza there was a way forward, we said to the palestinians, show the world, show the israelis when a palestinian state will be like and it did not work out as successfully as we hoped. but we fought -- sharthought --

mind pulling back from the isolated settlement but keeping the jordan river, but as you recall, withdrawal from gaza is the end of 2005, and his second stroke went into the cola where he still finds himself. let me just step back. there was a great plan with sharon. sometimes god doesn't help. now what? i wondered the same thing. in terms no two israelis are defined the same way. let's concentrate settlements behind the fence in major walks.

great. comes to the white house, tells george bush he wants to do this himself, take it in his own hand and try to negotiate. we are now in the spring of 2006, try to negotiate. there is a small problem. to do you negotiate with? hamas has won a palestinian election. i discuss this in the book. wyatt and election? when arafat died they had an election because how do you choose a legitimate leader? have any election. very modern, very western. january of 2005, good election. sixty-five% of the vote, scheduled a parliamentary election june of 2006. not ready for an opponent in january. there was a huge fight over

whether hamas could run. we made clearly the wrong decision. where we came out was the terrorist group, where we came out is is a process to hand in their guns and participate in politics so let them run but they can't participate in government until they disarm. the problem is he thought they would lose. the participation in government was unimportant and guys sit in parliament but they won. why did they win? they ran a terrific campaign. i remember visiting the west bank before the election. all over the place. banners across streets built more, basically nowhere to be seen. the president thought it was a

vote against corruption. in retrospect it was fat and something else too. it was a vote for islam. it was an early sign of what we have now seen in other places in the region as well. we are now in 2006 and it was clear that there was going to be no negotiation. hamas has a majority in the palestinian parliament. this is not going to happen but maybe he can do some things on his own so there is no way, something the president liked very much. in 2007, coming back, how is my body doing, and the president would usually say two in that

case. why not go forward at this point? sometimes god doesn't help or simply made a wrong decision but the decision to go to war in summer of 2006, most israeli military people say to me they think in response to that sharon would have bombed lebanon for a few days but not had a war. that was the decision and he never recovered from it politically and never recovered from it in another way. he never recovered condoleezza rice's confidence. shea have a lot of confidence in prime minister sharon. they had a pretty good relationship. used to joke you could tell when

he achieves the joke, he used to call her doctor reiss, a generational thing except when he was angry, then you would call her madame secretary. he started ascensions madam secretary, this is bad. we are in a fight. she lost faith in the summer of 2006. she was trying to bring an end to the lemon on war. there was a terrible accident where the israelis bombed house, a lot of women and children were hiding, were killed. we were on live verge of getting an agreement to end the war, a huge achievement for her, the president of the united states, said we have to go home. she felt the israelis, these guys are not handling their affairs well and the defense

minister said had no confidence in me there and the chief of the ibf after lebanon, they were not prepared for that snow the cost of the lebanon war was felt in that way as well and relations between the state department and the government of israel were touching and tennis for the last two-1/2 years of the administration. we were trying to do and at less. i did not think this was y. s. and said so and on the fifth anniversary of the president's june of 2002 speech wanting to give a big speech about a big international conference and i managed to get that off of the

agenda in july. wasn't division as a brief victory. in july he announced a big conference, at the naval academy and announced it would take a year to get the final status agreement. we didn't succeed vagina for thought we had a chance. i did not think and i don't think now that president abbas will sign anything. the pressure on him and hamas within the palestinian population are such that he is not a hero leader and i thought the israelis and palestinians would fall apart before getting to an agreement. i keep telling the president this is not going to happen. and he would say, the things

there's a chance. sadly there never was really a serious chance just as bearishness serious chance today for the negotiation of final status agreement. i want to stop at this point for questions. i think the lessons a couple lessons are worth mentioning. we learned what bill clinton learned. you get a lot more flexibility out of the israelis when their confidence of their security one we are hugging them rather than distancing ourselves from them. the israeli-palestinian conflict we saw, you can see a lot more today is not the central issue in the middle east and should

not be treated as such and one final lesson which i think we also learned, it is the mistake to concentrate on the negotiating path and negotiating process, white house lawn, handshakes rather than the reality on the ground among palestinians and israelis. there is no substitute for basing what you are doing on the reality. tony blair said in a conversation i had with him the diplomatic activities are based on what is happening on the ground. what is happening on the ground is not going to be based on the diplomatic path and too often we concentrated, we are doing it again and the diplomacy rather than what i might call palestinian reality. i want to close with this story.

i missed prime minister sharon, a wonderful person to work with. i mentioned the trip to rome to see him. it was a secret trip to. i went under my own name but sneaked into his hotel and it was for dinner and file thought this guy is head of government. official visit. the best italian meal i ever had in my life. i tried to impress him with how great their cuisine is so we go to the dining room of his suite and out comes some israeli security guy with a platter full of cold cuts. sharon was a very good either. conversation came later. so immediately bite into it with

the big 4 can knife and cut the piece of meat nearest to him which is round and pink. what else, that has got to be ham. so i said prime minister, what do you think that is? he briefly stopped chewing and said sometimes it is best not to ask. for right now it is better to escalate turn it over to you. thank you very much. [applause] we are going to ask people to come to the microphone. we don't have floating microphones. please start here.

>> philosophic question. you talk about the palestinian conflict. 75% of palestine is jordan. 25% is israel. do you ever see jordan accepting responsibility of doing anything as far as getting land to any of the palestinians? >> yes. i suggest it at the very end of the book. if you had a palestinian state it would be a small, tiny, not very prosperous states. it would naturally have a relationship to the kingdom of jordan. you would travel through the airport, your trade would be with jordan. the economic link of the trade agreement and union, common currency would be natural. wouldn't political links developed as well particularly

when they need security and law-and-order, the jordanian army is a good army? i will quote a palestinian friend of mine who said remembers this, there must be an independent palestinian state at least for 15 minutes. what he meant was there is a principal for them, to independence. exercising that right successfully is quite a different story. >> i am a professor -- i have a question. dimension someone is in your dock fifth, many israelis like myself believe the doctrine of

islam, there can be no possibility for any reconciliation because what we need is reconciliation. we need real reconciliation so if you think given the doctrine of islam including the hamas document, in the palestinian complement, basically says the jewish people have religion and do not deserve their own country do you think this is remotely possible? >> we should separate the arabs from islam. you see in more modern governments winning elections in indonesia, bangladesh, that recently happened in the middle east. depends on what you mean by

peace and what you mean by reconciliation. if we have a real peace that after centuries of war, germany and france have, i don't see that happening this. it will take centuries it seems to me. the absence of war, even if there are rivalries and bad feelings, the critical fang, is really strengthened american strength, it is obvious to the arabs, a great friend of the israelis or israel is the united states all the you have to say right now, canada build larger army. see if they come to believe the american commitment to israel that israel is actually there

forever they will adjust. 2002, the saudi and crown prince peace plan in which he pretty much offers peace with israel in terms that are unacceptable but the end result is a kind of peace and this is in a period of tremendous american strength. real reconciliation, i don't know about that but peace between states, among states, i can see that. we are back to that. >> i am helen freedman and what i noticed in your talk was the

human element is the roadmap the saudis presented involves the european union, the united nations, the u.s. no israel. expulsion talking about sharon's plan and the support for it, what about all those people from their homes who are still living in caravans, still without jobs, destroyed synagogues, destroy communities, destroy schools? today we have president obama talking about timetable for withdrawal of judea and samaria. that is not 10,000 people. that is 200,000 or whatever the number is if they leave them in place. it seems to me the comment at the end of your talk about one

of the fellows said you are looking at this on a diplomatic level, not the cumin level. the people involved are the ones who count and i don't understand this compulsion on the part of the united states to make the plans for israel as a sovereign nation. [applause] >> the compulsion is a very interesting phenomenon. every secretary of state picks up this infection immediately upon entering the building. it just happened to john kerry who seems to do the same thing. i agree the timetables are nonsensical. the road that had a timetable for a palestinian state in 2005. no point in setting out a timetable because it won't

happen. it is too complicated to say this will happen next year and the year after that sphere. sharon made a huge mistake and he knew it by the end but i go into this in the book. it is obvious what he should have said. as the general and prime minister to pull the settlements out, what he should have said was 7,000 people are heroes of this state and you have made incredible sacrifice and taken incredible risk for the state but i now have to ask before another side, may be a greater sacrifice. instead with the sharon government communicated was

fanatics in gaza need to go. the sooner they get out the better. they're not our kind of people. that was communicated because a lot of people around sharon were fair the secular people who viewed settlers quite negatively. from a political point of view, what he never corrected, to the very end, the human element is there in two senses. the history of the george bush administration and the obama administration both tell you the foreign policy of the united states is made by the president pretty much period, end sentence. variation and complicated many things to do but fundamentally, the policy is made by the

president's. that is the most important human element. it is not made by fast bureaucracies and most presidents are smart enough and strong enough to make sure that doesn't happen. this is certainly the story of, i would argue, colin powell and george bush's first term where the state department became irrelevant, worth following president blind, they were marginalized. it is also true after all that israel is a democracy. what we were doing in 2004-2005 when we were helping sharon, we recognized we need a majority. representing the people of israel. we will do what we can to lend to the prestige of the president

but we need that, people are going to be with you to take these steps. i don't think we neglected the human element in this and i have to say to give you an example of what i mean, when the mitchell report came out in 2001 and said natural growth, it was sharon to sedulous that is absurd and i reject it. no one can have babies? what does that mean? natural growth? what are you telling me? i have soldiers, try to marry and have a family and settled down. you want to settle down not too far from parents who live in the settlement but because no settlement expansion including natural growth they can't live

near their parents, i reject that. i got to move to the next. >> haven't had the opportunity to read yet but i have a question about your opinion about how you think colonialism shaped the current israeli-palestinian conflict. >> looking at my watch because that is a big question. shaped in the current structure begins with the palestinian mandate that the british have setting the borders and also in the sense that at least for the israelis, it relies a good deal

on some british traditions and british law. but the most significant effect or contribution was the separation which way is the foundation for a jewish state and accept the activities of the zionist and creation of that state. it is truth, i will stop with this, such a large question, it is true that there are very few natural countries in that region, there's turkey and iran, but most of the other borders are drawn by the colonial powers and whether those borders are sensible and will remain is a very good question.

we see it there in syria. >> i am curious about the title. it is not tested by the middle east but "tested by zion". how did you come to it. this >> a didn't want the subtitle to be the title. i thought was too broad. i wanted something that was two or three words but cambridge has a policy which is the title, catchy or not catchy, has to tell you something about what it is about. it and have a title like a test, hard don imus, the negotiations. it had to be related somehow. my wife and i went through a bunch of names, wrote the mall down, tried them out on our kids, e-mail back and forth for a while and picked the winner

which is how we got to that. reasonable title in this sense for every president this region and this conflict is a test. why do americans feel compelled to resolve this? is a mistake to feel we can resolve it but given we are global power of the notion that we should help parties stop fighting each other and come to better -- is reasonable. we don't only do in this conflict. >> seems to me our experience with gaza there is a lesson to be learned. any reason to believe the creation of a palestinian state would be anything other than another arab terrorist state? >> here is the problem.

what are the options? a one state solution. gaza was back to egypt, the west bank and jordan. egyptian are not asking for gaza. they don't want gaza. they could have had gaza. they are aware of what is going on in gaza. even the muslim brotherhood is scared of what is going on in gaza and is doing a better job than hosniarak ever did. so the idea of giving these territories back, two state solution, that is to say for israel to say we do not wish to governments in -- millions of palestinians. we want them to govern themselves in a peaceful

democratic state. which is has not been created yet. problem is precisely that when you are confronted with that fact. a peaceful democratic palestinian state doesn't exist yet, what do you do? do you say we have to wait? or let's go forward any way? i was a critic of the clinton administration policy which wanted to create a palestinian state and give it to yasser arafat concentrating on its borders rather than what was in it. what was done nature of the state? george bush in that 2002 speech didn't do that. he said what is inside the state is more important than the border. the reason i am opposed to timetables is precisely this. what he said in the timetable you are saying doesn't really matter, just create the state and hope for the best.

most every government in the world has that policy and i hope it never becomes u.s. policy of. >> i would like to ask a question about withdrawal from gaza. if i recall, i may be wrong about that. yasser arafat died after was announced the israelis were withdrawn and sharon i recall correctly did not coordinate that withdrawal with his successor. he said we are out of here. in hindsight do you think that was a mistake? do you see the consequences of that today, what are the lessons we might draw from that? >> it is remarkable or noteworthy and i discuss this a

little in the book in november of 2004 we don't change the policy, nor does sharon change the policy. start from scratch, arafat is dead. let's think about what new ways we can approach the palestinians. sharon didn't do that which is kind of interesting. i think the reason was sharon wanted to move forward and felt he lost momentum, no one would never move on anything ever. how long would it take for the palestinians fight to get legitimate leadership? so we didn't change the policy. i think it was domestic not to coordinate with the palestinian authority. if it was so obvious why didn't they do it? the answer to that is it is

really controversial with much opposition, ultimately broke apart, sharon dissolved the party. one of the ways he sold it was i am not doing this as a favor to the palestinians. i am not doing this as a favor to the americans. i concluded it is right for israel. i am not even talking to the palestinians about it. i am not coordinating. i am not helping. which actually was an effective political message but came at a great price which was he didn't coordinate, they didn't coordinate. one price we paid was this looks like a hamas picture. instead it looked like why the israelis getting out of gaza? because we are shooting at them. they can't take it anymore.

just like south lebanon. that became led ginormous or the truth whi reason why hamas won the election. if they coordinated the palestinians they would do a lot better. i don't know about that. the corruption and incompetence of many pieces of the palestinian authority is such that i am not sure they would have been able to cover in gaza effectively. one other thing which is important. at this point, 2005 sharon is almost getting out of gaza, we were being assured by the

egyptian this, we will take care of gaza. the late intelligence chief, nothing to worry about. i need more men in gaza i will put more men in gaza. egypt guarantees security, safety and security and gaza. i think historically you could see we placed a lot more weight on that, hosni mubarak is in a prison hospital. his government is gone ending june of 2007 that took over gaza. that wasn't supposed to happen. >> at the risk of being incredibly naive i would like to pose two facts. i think they are facts. and ask you a question based on them. biblical fact number one, the

jews did not kick the arabs out of the middle east. king saul david solomon ruled their 3,000 years ago. jumping ahead un resolution 242 give israel the right to exist. palestinians and other countries, entities who want to join the un, this is a fact of the u.n. policy. why don't these two and all the arguments in between carry more weight in resolving this whole issue? perhaps incredibly naive. >> hatred of jews.

we make a mistake if we refuse to say that, to acknowledge it, to eat the demise the degree to which in the muslim world, in europe one of the reasons people don't accept this outcome is they don't like -- they don't want to accept the jewish state's. this has it been demonized since the day it was created. that is a factor. tend to downplay it because it is impolite to mention that. that is first. second, if you go back to the history of this, there was the view at the beginning, we don't need to accept this. everybody accepts mine. that is not the case here.

you have that resolution. state of israel is declared, united states recognize, then harry truman, arab states tried to to kill it in the cradle. the state is not secure. in 1949 or 1950 as we saw in 56-67-73, in some of those cases you could say things are too close for comfort and in some of those cases you could say only outside intervention saved the state. it may have been check weapons at one point. americans at another point. but i think for opponents of the state of israel and for people who hated its greatest ally, a less, during the cold war and now, there was no acceptance of

the notion that the state of israel is a permanent factor in the world, continuing belief that it was a colonialist imposition and that it could be turned around. this is the hamas you. it may take awhile, a day, 65 years, another 65 years, references to the crusades. the difference is for so many people did is still not done. that is why -- time is up to a level end with this. that is why i think you cannot possibly ever exaggerate the importance to israel of the closest possible, most visible ties with the united states. this is a country surrounded by enemies with hundreds of millions of people around the world who wish to eliminate the

country. the israel--the iranians want to whip more quickly. others are willing to do it more slowly but they do not accept the permanence of the state. very few states in the world news permanence is debated and one of the things that changes the argument is one world's greatest power firmly, repeatedly, in words and in action says this will never happen. in his fantastic speech in 2008 president bush said at one point your country is seven million people but when you are fighting terror, count it as three hundred seven million people. because the united states is with the. that is the rhetoric they really need to combat this terrible threat that only if a in the entire world really face.

thank you. [applause] >> you are watching booktv, 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2. here are some programs to look out for this weekend. at 3:45 eastern, blood children, paul marshall and the in the shade discuss the persecution of christians around world and at 7:00 we begin our programming with jim hamilton, army of god describes the crimes of joseph casone and his resistance army in central africa. tomorrow live with amy goodman for three hours of "in depth". submit your questions to twitter@booktv, facebook, or e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. watch these programs and more all weekend on booktv and for a complete schedule visit booktv.org. >> here's a look at upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country.

booktv is live from the eleventh annual annapolis book festival on april 13th. we bring you live coverage of other panels discussing topics ranging from the war in afghanistan, slavery and women's issues. check our web site at booktv.org for a full schedule the events. on april 20th and 20 first booktv will be by from the los angeles times festival of books on the campus of the anniversary of southern california covering two days of what bothered discussions and interviews. check booktv.org for updates on live coverage. also montgomery, alabama will host the eighth annual alabama book festival. the event features 40 vendors and exhibitors of children at education larry and 45 authors and poets presentations scheduled. on april 21st, of the international day of the book, the festival will highlight 100 local authors, live music and open mike sessions. please let us know about book festivals in your arianna and we will be happy to add them to our

list. post them to our wall at facebook.com/booktv or e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. >> here's a look at least headlines from the publishing industry this past week. author and former u.s. house of representatives historian robbers remedy died on march 28th at the age of 91. was a recipient of the national book award in 1984 for his three volume biography of andrew jackson. he also wrote the first history of the house of representatives in 2002. he made several appearances on booktv and the can discuss his book online at booktv.org. square books and oxford, mississippi is named publishers weekly bookstore of the year for 2013. the book store founded in 1979 host of their presentations, live radio talk shows, and follows the annual oxford conference on the books. this award will b