We do not have and never have had the authority to force people to leave their homes.

According to Caroline Glick, deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, the Palestinian Authority in the last decade has received more money per capita, in constant dollars, than did Western Europe under the Marshall Plan.

The only authority we had was to interview. Everybody made recommendations from different panels, and the city manager picked who he felt were the top three.

Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.

First and foremost, we are cooperating with the Palestinian National Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas rather than the government. Our general policy of cooperation with the PA would not change. We will judge the future government by its deeds. We hope that the policy chosen by Abbas will be continued.

It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.