A very interesting interview with Ruthie Blum in the Jerusalem Post… a few excerpts:
Generally, Westerners prefer to ignore the ideological dimension and focus on pragmatic problem-solving. They seek the “root causes” of terrorism, as if they were material… Indeed, the essential weakness of Israel and the rest of the West is that we tend to think that every dispute can be settled through some kind of deal.
Another type of faulty reasoning is the assumption that our adversaries are decent people just like you and me… This approach is called “cognitive egocentrism.” It happens when you believe that everybody else is as reasonable as you are. For example, Condoleezza Rice once said that every Palestinian mother wanted to see her children going to university. Now, this might be true of Americans, but it’s not necessarily the aspiration of every Palestinian mother.